QUESTION PERIOD — Canadian Heritage
Performance Objectives
June 4, 2019
Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I read the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s plan for 2019-20 with great interest. It reveals that that minister’s performance targets for culture are lower than they were in 2015-16, the last year of the Conservative government. The indicators for number of jobs in the cultural sector, number of Canadian television productions, number of Canadian theatrical feature films produced, number of Canadian-authored books published, number of non-daily newspapers in Canada producing Canadian content, and number of in-person visits to cultural heritage have all gone down since the Trudeau government was elected.
How would you explain the Trudeau government’s failure on culture?
The honourable senator will know that this chamber has had the occasion to vote now on four consistent budgets which have brought additional funding to the cultural sector. There have also been cultural sector reviews. The whole notion of the digital government, which supports cultural and other objectives of the Canadian economy, is well known. In fact, the cultural penetration has expanded and commitments are being made to go even further. So I would put the record of this government to the previous government in positive comparison, but ultimately, senator, it will be for the Canadian people to decide in the coming months.
Speaking of the digital sector, last week, 129 countries approved the OECD’s road map for resolving the tax challenges arising from digitalisation of the economy. Three options have been proposed in order to find a common approach to the taxation of web giants. These options will be examined later this month at the G20 meeting in Japan.
What is Canada’s preferred option? Do we agree with the American government, which believes that the agreement should be extended to all companies operating abroad, with the British government, which thinks that the agreement should be limited to the web giants, or with the Indian government, which is taking a middle-ground position?
Again, I thank the honourable senator for his question. He will know that a question not dissimilar to this was asked of the Minister of Finance when he was here. The minister indicated that his government was still studying this matter and he would be making a decision in the upcoming weeks and months.
