Welcome to our final closing session of communication and cultural policy in the age of the Platform.
Thank you so much for being here.
I'm going to just introduce the two chairs of the session. Tamara Shepherd is an associate professor at the Department of communication media and film at the University of Calgary.
She studies, the feminist political economy of digital culture, looking at policy labor and literacy
in social media, mobile technologies, and digital games. She's also on the editorial board
of social media and society and she's been published in many prestigious journal publications.
Dana Cramer is a masters of arts candidate in the department of communication media and film at the University of Calgary
and her masters work explores the political economy of Internet protocols and I think we
heard some of that presented earlier in the conference and it was truly fascinating work.
I'll pass the table over to the two of you to kind of tell us what this session is all about.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Great Thank you so much for the intro Sarah and thanks to everybody for coming to this final session I know it's Friday afternoon for
Everyone so you know I appreciate that, so what this session is is hopefully a kind of informal discussion and somewhat of a debrief on the conference
Because our next step for those of us involved in conference organizing and planning is to try to
Take what we heard throughout this week of really engaging and inspiring presentations and
condense them into the form of a policy white paper that will contain specific concrete recommendations
For various regulatory agencies that are implicated in this question of how to reenvision cultural policy for this age of platforms.
So before we start, I wanted to just acknowledge that we are coming to you Dana and I from Calgary.
Which is also known by its blackfoot name of Mohkinstsis on the traditional territories of the people
of treaty seven in southern Alberta and Calgary is also home to the Métis nation of Alberta region 3.
So, as I said, you know this spirit of this session is really a collaborative one I don't want to spend too much time talking and I have a series of
sort of orienting questions and perhaps we can jump off from some of the things that were just said in the
really stellar keynote panel that just happened, which gave us lots of food for thought in this regard as well.
So again, there's a few key themes we've picked out from listening to everyone this week and we'd like to solicit
your input specifically on how to translate some of this stuff into policy recommendations
Whether those recommendations have come from your own research or things you've heard during the conference that somebody else mentioned and
You thought like oh wow that actually would be a really great proposal to put forward, so that's the sort of thing we're trying to gather today in this discussion.
Alright, so without further ado, I will start with the first sort of overarching theme which is coincidentally, also the theme of the Conference, which is around platform regulation and
That implicit or explicit to many of the discussions around, how do we deal with platforms has been Bill C-10 and you know, which is very much still up for grabs.
One of the bill's apparent aims among many is to try to deal with this issue of disinformation and hateful speech as Edward Greenspon discussed in his keynote but also to reenvision
Cultural policy in relation to the disruptive impact of platforms. So what can we say about bill C-10 what have you heard this week
That would or should impact the way that this bill in particular is envisioning platform regulation from a Canadian perspective
and anyone is welcome to jump in either in the chat or just there's not that many people here, so you can feel free to unmute yourself and just go for it.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Still digesting I expect, a lot of information this week.
Maybe what I will offer and it may not speak directly to this question around Bill C-10 but certainly the two panels, that I was responsible for
Facilitating the focus invariably ended up on what is the impact at the level
of the creative worker or of the person, the persons that that are involved
In cultural work and communications work, and so, not just from a
user perspective, but also from a kind of a producer perspective and so thinking about using that as a way to think about.
How will the requirements of the bill actually impact for each of those segments, whether that's the specific audiences through to
Individual creators through to copyright holders through to etc seemed to be very important, and as a good way for people to
kind of get a grasp of, and when I say people I include politicians in that, to get a grasp of what the impact of what they're working on might be.
That's a starting point.
The, one of the other elements that came up.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Again, you know thinking about not so much enshrined in legislation, but
what happens at the regulatory level or what happens at the operationalization level.
What is the role of advisory groups or community oriented third parties or academics and what are the potentials.
that some of the work that's been described this week really demonstrates and pulling out some of the lessons I think that so many people have offered
around what worked, at least the panel, and I will say that panel when they were talking about you know the 10, 20 years ago, which is the time
when I was in this business, there's been huge improvement and there is a huge amount of room for improvement on both those levels so.
Yeah.
DANA CRAMER: Thank you very much for your comments Dr. Luka, as a follow up, may I ask with regards to bill C-10 and this labor that you're identifying.
Are there recommendations based off of the panels you saw this week in both chairing and well in attending of how
that labor can be recognized by our policymakers in the act or subsequent funding models.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: What do you mean by recognized.
I suppose, ways of encouraging further participation and
recognizing who is participating as well, which groups are coming forward, in the
keynote panel for example, we saw high levels of participation by traditionally marginalized groups
who have consistently been left out of the conversation, and so in
talks of recognition of how can we ensure that those people, those individuals whose labor is being provided
of how that can help transform how we have conversations about these policy making processes for the communications and cultural industries.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah, I think it's really difficult to enshrine it in legislation, I think, where it can, although some principles can be established in legislation.
What, where I think it really comes to rest is at the regulatory level or at the operationalization level right, so that means
You know recommending, making recommendations around compensation for expert time
and expert time, including lived experience, particularly of marginalized groups.
Also, I think those structures like advisory tables or town hall consultations again recognizing that time is labor and particularly
The lived experience element I think is really hard and really important to find a way to recognize and provide some gesture
in that direction, recognizing also that a lived experience that is generations deep can never be properly compensated right.
But yeah finding, sort of establishing some of those pathways. There's I would say
you know, based on the experience that I've seen of communities I've worked with or colleagues that I've worked with.
Even just making sure that safe spaces are created for feedback to be provided and for people not to be harassed when they are providing feedback is also crucial.
And providing resources for example if it's a live, if it's a regulatory issue and there has to be a live presentation
then paying for experts to come and again, including experts that are coming from lived experience if the table is not going to move around the country.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Great, thank you so much ME. Those are all really yes important points, I see Mariane has a hand up so please feel free.
MARIANE BOURCHEIX-LAPORTE: Yes, thank you.
I have a question, so I'll admit right off the bat to not have read the bill C-10 proposal so my knowledge of it is somewhat limited but
I'm curious how it interacts with the existing free trade agreements that Canada has
signed and renewed and in the last few years, and particularly if the definition of the cultural industries.
That is quite old in the cultural exemption clauses or various manifestations of that clause.
and specifically the old technology that that is referred to in that definition
does not, to my knowledge, necessarily account for platforms so I'm just wondering
You know how do we reconcile those
Those areas of legislative of the law and of policy and to what degree, are we limited in the structural changes that can be done on a policy level.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Yes, this.
I don't have an answer, such an important question and actually it was kind of like one of my follow up questions which is kind of about
The need to create a comprehensive suite of legislation and policy around platforms from all different angles, like you know.
This came up several times throughout the conference right, are we talking about cultural policy, are we
talking about telecom policy, are we talking about copyright policy, are we talking about trade policy, as you mentioned right like.
This platform, the influence of platforms and the ways that platforms operate on a global scale invite the need for you know countries
at the federal level and other levels to deal with, like all of these things simultaneously and the way that law gets made obviously doesn't happen that way so.
Yeah, this is obviously, yeah a really important challenge that we need to highlight and keep in mind, thank you that's really good.
Oh ok, I see in the chat David Dubinski can speak to the trade policy issue, so if you'd like to chime in.
DAVID DUBINSKI: Yes, thank you.
I should say I was a trade policy official with the department of Canadian heritage for a few years and had experience
working on the exemption and it's a very interesting question about the coverage of the new platforms and the definition of the
cultural industries and the cultural exemption in the trade agreements. The short answer is that the definition is technologically neutral so on the face of it
Any way of distributing broadcasting programming through any technology is nominally legalistically covered by the exemption but it's
Many people know but it's not discussed enough the exemption comes with a right to retaliate. So even if it's covered by the definition
The Americans if they aren't happy with what we're asking their
companies to do could retaliate.
against us under the agreement, so this is really the elephant in the room over the whole discussion of what we've been talking about for the last few days.
To what extent do we actually have the policy
Space internationally to do anything that the Americans would disapprove of.
On the good side, it looks like in the United States there's a lot of interest in cracking down on big tech on what they're doing on the social media side.
But on the broadcasting side it's not clear that the Americans would like a precedent of countries asking American companies like Disney and Netflix
To make large contributions to national cultural projects in other countries in the
Trans Pacific partnership, the American, this is under the Obama Administration, pushed for a specific
sort of reduction of our exemption by saying they did not want any measures, forcing their
companies making contributions to national projects so it's something that we have to be aware of.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Thank you that's great really.
It's complicated how these things all fit. So Tanner had a point to add.
TANNER MIRRLEES: Thanks so much, I mean following up on the questions around Bill C-10 and the way that a lot of people on Twitter, at least, are speaking to that.
TANNER MIRRLEES: I'm noticing that there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of concern about social media content being you know construed as a program.
And I think while that's reasonable to some extent, there are instances where much sort of social media content does, I think, constitute a program so.
If we were to look for example at a YouTube channel, you know with a with a YouTube influencer that's producing a
video that's on a regular schedule drawing from codes and conventions of TV broadcast or radio broadcast formats.
That is more like a program than a telecommunications information flow and so i'm just sort of thinking like is there a way to think through sort of C-10
Without sort of just saying this is inappropriate because social media content is not programed while at the same time being cognizant of instances when my Facebook post isn't a program.
You know how do we choose those distinctions, you know because these are different platforms with often different functions with different tools and services.
And I'm noticing right now the big division you know is sort of between those saying telecom policy versus broadcast policy.
My colleague Dwayne Winseck, for example, saying we should look at telecom policy and broadcasting policies inappropriate.
But that's only if you sort of you know presume that there aren't programs that are being produced and exhibited
on social media platforms and you know, the Canadian cultural industries historically comprise like three sectors right production sector, distribution, exhibition.
The, you know broadcasting act was for broadcasters and the production sector highly subsidized and
protected was for producing the stories and the content that the distributors exhibitors would bring to market or audience and so
there's something about YouTube that it is very much like a broadcaster and so I'm just sort of curious like how do we
get our heads around like what is a program and what is not a program and do we have a way to do that.
And I'd really be interested in everyone's thoughts on that in addition to ME's as well, given the work.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Okay, thank you Tanner, maybe we'll take ME's comment and then just move forward on to the next theme.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great thanks, I just wanted to quickly follow up and throw kind of another piece in it
and you know this was kind of discussed at some length in the music panel around
Around retention of copyright by creators and the kind of really
troubled relationship of creators with copyright and I mean the way that our Copyright Act is functioning
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Is is really shaping all of the platforms that we're operating on and we're not
We don't, you know we haven't traditionally spent a lot of time and energy thinking about it as a system issue rather than
Because of the way it's constructed as a kind of list of items that need to be compensated in particular ways or that need to be addressed
in particular ways, and I think this kind of comes back to the observations that David was just making and Tanner were just making about
You know, we have to be looking at all the registers, we also have to be looking at all the stakeholders all at the same time, where
For example, one of the reasons why the cultural exemption is a bit tricky is because Canada's
media industry is so dependent on service to the US right like there's a really big big economic impact of saying no we're not going to take on board
The American values, etc, when we're delivering them right at the production level at the post production level and in other ways.
I'll leave it there, but I think you know, one of the things that's so interesting to me about thinking about platform is it doesn't stand in for ecosystem
but it does provide us with a kind of a place where we can look at all of those different registers all at the same time.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Great Thank you. Yes.
It's very comprehensive, on that point, the next sort of theme I wanted to raise that again is something that obviously comes up when you discuss
Cultural policy at all is this notion of a public interest and the public interest imperative of cultural policy which we heard about on several
panels and keynotes and clearly there are multiple publics to be considering and perhaps these are even further fragmented by the platform landscape that built as it is on algorithmic filtering.
But we heard on several panels that there's still room for more universal ideals within cultural policy.
Whether these are supports for artists as sort of along the lines of some of the things ME just said or these are more around accessibility or discoverability for audiences.
So I wanted to ask your thoughts about how public institutions in this country can perhaps recenter this concept of the public interest through policy initiatives.
TANNER MIRRLEES: Well, I might just jump in with a few thoughts I mean, I think that the historical distinction
between sort of the Canadian cultural and broadcasting framework and that of the United States is always emphasized
public interest and social responsibility over things like markets and capitalism and consumers first, now
With the establishment of cultural industries policy going back to the late 60s and early 70s, I think Canada
has drifted more toward a much more you know international market global approach while still trying to retain
A public interest framework, so we have these competing values of economy, culture and then the social good or it's some you know social justice as well.
And so I think that sort of that concept of the public interest is very much up for grabs and I think that we'd want to sort of like
As researchers, as scholars, as advocates play a role and trying to define that based upon our own normative framework, you know, whatever that bait may entail.
So I wouldn't be the first to try to say what that might involve but
That becomes a very much of a political question you know what is the public interest, who defines it and what values should be attached to this category public interest.
Coming out of the political tradition I do, I'd be very happy to sort of add things like egalitarianism and social justice and every sort of democratic socialist precept one can imagine.
But I'm not sure if the policymakers or regulators would be entirely satisfied with that nor necessarily the owners of the industries in Canada, but we could try.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: I love that you say we could try.
I think we should try it. I think we tried the other way for 50 years let's try this way.
I have a lot to say about public interest and public good, but there are a lot of other people in you know in this group who also have really good things to say about it so.
Maybe what I'll just offer up is that.
And it relates back to the bill C-10, bill C-10 really kind of
asks us to think about public interest in an oblique way, and maybe thinking about being more
Specific, not specific more committed.
To the public interest in bill C-10 might be helpful right and particularly given that it's drawing on the legacy of the broadcast act
which is very much about the public interest throughout the system and also the telecoms act which is not although
You can get arguments on all the sides right so.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: There is section 7.
Yes.
Yes and, so I think you know there's something to be said about that, but also recognizing and I
think this is one of the things that when we think about what does legislation do versus what does regulation do versus what does operationalization do
Is kind of like, how do you embed or enshrine in a piece of legislation that it needs to think about all of the other factors and other pieces of legislation.
And then, who has regulatory control over that kind of work, and then on top of that, who is being left out and I mean that in two ways, one is
That there's a whole wide swath of commercial approaches that are left out because they're meant to kind of work with the market kind of thing and then there's a whole broad
grouping of lots of different
people and organizations and modes of operating that get left out on the, kind of on the flip side.
Which is that there are people who are, as Dana was saying, traditionally marginalized or who are kind of operating on the fringes of whatever the mainstream areas are.
And how do we recenter them and use something like outlier theory to really center those concerns
From the point of view of, for example, accessibility design right, who are we talking about including here that in such a way that everybody else remains included.
But what we're doing is we're fixing issues of the past, as well as creating a pathway to the future right, not just apologizing.
But also putting some resources in hand, which I think is what, for example, the indigenous screen office or the black screen office are really good indicators of.
DANA CRAMER: Doctor Gasoi, you had your physical hand up.
LOWELL GASOI: My physical hand went up yeah.
yeah
Maybe just to speak about, I really appreciate what
ME and some of the other folks around have been saying about you know this difference between or this constructed difference, this seeming
difference right between kind of policy legislation and then, the thing with operation.
One of the things that I think I heard a bit in
That I spoke about, and some of the stuff that i've been researching and also here in some of the panels
is to try to think about the stitching together of particularly at the sort of institutional level.
There was some discussion, towards the end of
the, ME your pedal on sort of arts policy.
Between the kind of the stitching together of
The Canada Council and the media fund, for instance.
In shared projects and shared
And I want to try to take this a little bit wider to say that I think one of the things that we get concerned about here
Obviously, the differences between telecom policy and broadcast policy are significant and they're important and teasing those things apart, has a lot of value.
So does synthesizing them, and I think we tend to forget the other side of that equation, which is that when it gets down to the level of the creator.
Of how it is that we can access these
structures, if you will, that are kind of built up by these policies. Policy build things right, it makes institutions and it makes texts and funding documents
and regulations and all kinds of things like that. Accessing those things often takes place through sort of an institutional
lens, if you will, an institutional place and it's getting access to those processes
That
When they're stitched together in different, with different organizations, if you will, different corporations, media fund, Canada Council
heritage itself, various different ways in which creators access funding markets, etc.
Those are the kinds of things where I think that a lens of synthesis can actually be often more helpful
than trying to tease out constantly sort of separate and bring apart various elements of
Of the kind of policy regulation, if you will, or silos you know if you want. Sorry that
got a bit rambly but, to me it's, there's an ecosystem issue here that I think sometimes we can miss
Because
We want to react to the current legislative, you know I mean the first question coming up, you know okay well let's talk about C-10.
For sure, of course, we have to talk about C-10, it's important it's present it's there.
But C-10 comes out of a process that is flawed.
And the flawed process is because there are voices that are missing, and there are institutions that are not being involved
In these kinds of questions.
So you know, I wonder if we can do what we can to address those kinds of things and then to everything that Tanner said about you know social responsibility.
Anyway, there you go. Those are my thoughts.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Well, and the other thing about these policy silos that you mentioned and you're talking about them with respect to
creators and you know, are they able to access, you know support or whatever.
It also has an impact on advocacy groups, as we heard throughout the conference as well, in terms of their resources are already very limited.
And they now have to deal with like multiple consultations, opportunities to intervene going on at the same time in you know related but distinct
processes at different levels of government or different agencies or departments, so you know there's also this kind of question of like the multiplication of these different sort of like policy domains.
which, I mean it's again with the new proposal of having a data commissioner it's like we already have an office of the privacy commissioner, so okay
we're going to have like another space in which advocates who are working with like bare minimum resources
now have to deal with that and, like that has its own processes procedures
timelines etc so certainly like there's an impact on the advocacy ecosystem as well, which I think is key so.
LOWELL GASOI: And each one of them has their own, pardon me
Tamara, you're absolutely right, each one of them also has their own language right so like how the heck you know, are the theater people that I tend to think about
many of whom are constantly moving back and forth between the culture industry and the stage or nonprofit you know, etc.
supposed to constantly sort of learn these new languages right, about how am I going to interact with the CMF how am I going to interact
with Telefilm, how am I going to interact with the Council and then with broadcast regulators and
Constant yeah multiplication of languages and needs for more access yeah, thank you.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Yeah totally.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Okay, Sarah and then David.
SARA BANNERMAN: Yeah, just in speaking about this idea of the public interest, and maybe this is an obvious point based on everything that people are saying, but
I think the funding for a variety of public interest groups, I mean how has the you know black screen office been missing all these years from all of these discussions.
There are so many empty spaces for groups that are not being represented in these policy discussions
properly or that are struggling with those resources, and so I think to kind of claim a public policy lens
I think we also have to be able to recognize when people are missing and groups are missing from the discussion and be able to actively kind of
work towards you know, including while inclusion I guess
is an important part because so many times, you know the public interest lens or the universalizing lens is actually just missing people out.
And it's not equitable, it's actually another form of dominance so I think we need to work harder to find solutions about that, including funding.
DANA CRAMER: Thank you so much, and Dr. Dubinski you had something you'd like to say.
DAVID DUBINSKI: Yes, slightly different take, I've learned so much this week about what we need and can
do more to get non mainstream producers and directors and creators into the system.
But I would think that another thing that needs attention
If we're talking about public interest is the interest of the public at large, and it seems to me
You know the cardinal principle of cultural policy for decades has been to ensure
In the context of the domination by foreign and American content that Canadians have access to Canadian culture, and we hope a greater diversity of
types of Canadian culture, but the CRTC regularly reports every two years in its analysis of data, you know the very, very small audiences
that in English Canada especially, that the film and television programming gets in Canada and
it seems to me that the public interest
would need to pay attention to the fact, what can we do with our various instruments, telefilm, media fund
all of the supports and subsidies for the production industry CBC can we do better at
Producing content that expresses a narrative sovereignty as Jesse Wente said, that more people are drawn to and watch.
Much content that is meaningful to their lives, meaningful to Canadian public life, meaningful to understanding
the Canadian experience in all its diversity, so it just seems to me that this has been a historic
kind of failing of our cultural policy model of not getting results that
Adds a kind of narrative sovereignty again to the output that we have and giant question, how do we do that.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Great Thank you and that actually nicely segues into the final sort of
theme I wanted to raise, which is around equity and sovereignty, and you know, several of the keynotes were oriented around these themes, as you know, Jesse Wente
his talk revolved around this concept of narrative sovereignty and how it can be encouraged and supported and how it's beneficial
To Canadian cultural production, and then we also heard a lot about equity this morning, or I guess was morning for us but
At noon, 3 for Eastern time people, we heard from Joan Jenkinson about you know the equity work that still needs to be done around black
Canadian producers and we heard from Sharon McGowan and Susan Brinton as well about the continued gender divides in media production so
How then do we connect some of these discussions around you know the ways that policy legislation
need to perhaps be reformed to this explicit need for greater equity
sovereignty in the case of indigenous nations in this sphere, when we have platforms, this is
again you know part of this US cultural imperialism piece, where we have platforms coming in from elsewhere.
MARIANE BOURCHEIX-LAPORTE: Maybe I'll jump in here, this is a question that i'm grappling with, I think that you know, there are, and we have to recognize
A white settler society in Canada, that has benefited from the cultural policies
that have been developed, we have to recognize that the version of Canadian sovereignty that has been advocated
For decades, and in various policy iterations, competes with other versions of sovereignties and has contributed to the ongoing colonial process so
I think we need to rethink completely our understanding of cultural sovereignty in
Canada from the white settler perspective and really question whether or not it should continue.
And if so, in you know in what, how, but some of the foundational foundational principles of our policy, I think, has to be rethought.
And we just have to ask ourselves, like is it even pertinent to still produce Canadian content, you know with the understanding
that Canadian content has a very real history of oppression of various groups within the country.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah I agree and I think it relates to this question that David brought up just now around the notion of the public at large, as and
And really kind of questioning the homogeneity of that kind of a concept and finding ways to think more
specifically about who we're talking about and what content is for and who needs to have kind of control over in
in that kind of narrative sovereignty, since that Jesse Wente is so good at talking about right and that
In thinking about, I mean we're already in the
In the kind of media system
we're already splintered by federal policies provincial territorial policies and then funding policies
versus content development policies, and those are only at kind of the production, distribution level.
Yeah exactly Daniel.
That the notion of CanCon, how
it's a tough one right if we throw it out, what happens if we don't throw it out, is there a way to recoup it right so.
And I, but committing to principles of equity and sovereignty, I think, really suggest that
Then we need to, it's all about the power dynamics right and power dynamics turn into resources, and so, if that's the case then
Then where the resources are placed is where there will be power right, and I think this is why the importance
of setting up those screen offices is so crucial, and the work that WIFT has done for 50 years and with varying impact.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Etc. Anyway, I'll stop there, I think that there are things to be done, but
TANNER MIRRLEES: I would, I think that's a really thoughtful point Mary and especially, I mean recognizing the implication of
TANNER MIRRLEES: Canadian cultural sovereignty as a rhetoric as a discourse in the history of white settler colonialism and
TANNER MIRRLEES: Capitalism even today, while at the same time saying like within the actual research or advocacy community
What role sort of can folks play in redefining the terms of cultural sovereignty and then articulating
within that a space for sort of the EDID sort of positions that I think we
We want to support so, is it sort of like throwing out the cultural sovereignty concept because of its historical implication within forms of exploitation and oppression
or trying to reserve it and rearticulate to that concept values and principles that we in the present might see as better
or different, and I still even look at like the unamended broadcasting act of 91' I mean if you look at US broadcasting policy they don't say things like
Like it's sort of like I think there's a long way to go just to even realize those principles and clauses like that, for example, right.
When we're speaking about EDID and such too in terms of just representation.
The other sort of point I wanted to make about EDI is sort of thinking about the whole sort of American piece, and the role of Hollywood and the NPA as a lobby group, and so on.
I've been reading a lot sort of the Hollywood diversity report that's released each year by researchers out at, I think it's Annenberg.
And you know it's you know UCLA, for example, and actually I'll just type it sort of in the box here.
Because their strategy is basically like not a cultural policy approach they're basically making a market or a business case for
Diverse equitable representation on screen and off screen so there's a different approache as Canadian and
American even when it comes to thinking about what are the conditions of possibility for greater access.
Greater sort of on screen representation, behind screen representation and the US kind of scholars are making
like a purely business case which is very different than cultural policy communities in Canada and elsewhere do.
So they basically say that you know Hollywood's global, the world's a diverse place, if we produce more sort of
films and TV products that represent the diversity of the world, then you know we're going to sell more products and it's a purely economic
rationalization set apart from public interest ideals and social justice ideals that I think we
share, so I just wanted to put that out there, as well as another complication because I don't know how to think through that argument right now.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: From a purely like cynical perspective, I feel like the business case is one that
TAMARA SHEPHERD: In my experience, anyway, doing stuff at CRTC more around telecoms but anyway
the business case argument is often a lot more resonant with the regulators
than any kind of one about social benefit or anything else really so there is perhaps maybe a cynical
way in which this framing it might be useful to like get other values in the door.
You know, in the first place so anyway thanks for sharing that Tanner, so I note the time here, we have five minutes left and then I just
It can be a free for all of anyone who would like to say anything you think we really should be including in this white paper, there's a lot
To go through, but if there's any sort of final thoughts on
You know, things that we definitely should be including whether those are within or outside of the scope of the things I just brought up now those three themes I just discussed.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Maybe I'll just tag onto one of the things that Tanner was saying, and that you just said Tamara, and I think it's one of those, this is you know speaks to the work that
I've been trying to do with the Department of Canadian heritage over the last couple of years around impact assessment and really building
A very flexible and open way of thinking about impact assessment so that economic and financial measures are not the only measures, but that we're also looking at
creative and cultural as an aesthetic as the core business of
Of the work that gets done in the sector, or as part of the core business that gets the work and then also looking at social and physical elements and
and looking at ways in which knowledge sharing and sense making play huge roles in all sides of this, the whole broader industry.
Because that really centers all of the participants and the organizations that are involved, as well as the
as well as the specific roles like creator or copyright holder etc, and aims to rebalance
The priority given to economic and financial and one of the things that I think you know is worth reflecting on is
What are the lessons that came out of covid that the responses and I know a number of people
in their panels talked about this, but what are the responses that really showed us how quickly we could move down another road.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Thanks any other final words.
TANNER MIRRLEES: How to counter far right hate disinformation about the entire Canadian cultural policy apparatus to begin with, I mean the
TANNER MIRRLEES: I follow the far right and hate groups and they're just going wild about the Department of heritage, the CRTC these are big enemies like
TANNER MIRRLEES: The propaganda is vicious and hateful and links with a whole bunch of islamophobic and anti-semitic and anti black
conspiracy theories, it's not nice when you start following the right wing trolls in response to the CRTC and department of heritage.
DANA CRAMER: Thank you, I think we have another point from a physically raised hand.
SHARON MCGOWAN: That's just me sorry Sharon here, I just wanted to mention something about the economic arguments because we've been going through that
Through the different right and left wing governments we've had it here in BC and in the industry and as
Somebody who's tried to raise money for films on subjects that the mainstream didn't really want to deal with, even if they were
economically beneficial, the economic argument doesn't seem to work against ingrained prejudice.
You know and I have endless examples of pitching a film that like especially I pitched a queer film in a genre that was a proven box office
success and being turned down over and over and over again, even though the economic argument was incredibly solid, the entrenched biases were just completely
impenetrable and we've seen that again and again with the case with women's films too, because they tend to do films about women and by women
tend to do better at the box office, but that hasn't had any real weight so I'm just, a word of caution there from my background.
TAMARA SHEPHERD: Yes, that is something, actually it reminds me of in feminist political economy, Eileen Meehan's work around television, you know, has
been showing this since the 80s so yes, totally Sharon to your point. Alright so now it's 1:50 and our session is officially over.
But I really want to thank you, I really enjoyed this whole week in fact was just wonderful and really great to go straight from a year of
really difficult online teaching to dive into fun stuff again and have my head be expanded again through this discussion of
So many interesting developments going on and everyone's doing such important and amazing work that was great so thank you so much for contributing to this session and
Thank you Dana for helping me run it and I will now turn the floor over to Sara Bannerman for some final comments and thanks.
SARA BANNERMAN: Thanks Tamara and thanks for running and Dana for running this session, I just want to
give a few thank yous before I invite Darlene LaForme to help us to close the conference.
I want to first of all thank Darlene for the opening session and the closing
that she's doing, I want to also thank the funders of this conference, the Socrates project
funded through the generous donation of Chancellor Emeritus Lynton Red Wilson.
The faculty of humanities, the social sciences and humanities research council, the center for networked media and performance, and the networked imagination laboratory at McMaster
The University of Calgary's faculty of the arts, the department of communication studies and multimedia, the indigenous studies program, the school of the arts, and the department of political science.
I want to thank Chancellor Santee Smith for helping us also to open the conference, the dean of humanities, and the faculty of humanities as a whole.
The staff who've been so helpful with this conference, Cassandra Weiman, Lorraine Bell, and Margie Lamb.
All of the panel chairs, program committee members, and abstract reviewers who helped with this conference, including Monique Manatch
Paula Gardner, Leslie Regan Shade, Dwayne Winseck, Christina Baade, Philip Savage, Faiza Hirji, Mary Elizabeth Luka, Peter Cockett, Adrianne Xavier, Selina Mudavanhu
Monica Henderson, Fenwick McKelvey, Jonathan Paquette, Fizza Kulvi, Dana Cramer.
I also want to thank the key organizers and supporters of the conference keynote speakers and plenary panels, who had such an important influence on
The conference, including Chelsea Gabel, Grace Pollock, Monique Manatch, Sharon McGowan, and Rina Fraticelli.
I also want to thank Jonathan Paquette at the University of Ottawa who facilitated a conference, two years ago, or
With a group at the University of Ottawa and who helped facilitate this as a kind of an outgrowth of that conference that was held at the University of Ottawa.
A number of research assistants have been very important in the conference Emmanuel Appiah, Liana Shaw, Megan Barnard, Dana Cramer,
Leandra Greenfield, Amy Huang, Fizza Kulvi, Maia Lee-Thomas, Manveetha Muddaluru, Erica Rzepecki
Charnjot Shokar, and Clementine Oberst, some of whom who have been busy in the sidelines throughout the conference, and I want to thank them for their hard work.
I'd also like to thank our wonderful keynote speakers Jesse Wente, Sharon McGowan, Susan Brinton, Edward Greenspon, and Joan Jenkinson for their wonderful talks
That just brought so much to this conference and I'd also like to thank my co-organizers David Ogborn and Tamara Shepherd
for putting up with me for two years through this whole thing and for all of the hard work that they've been doing for all that time as well.
Now I'd like to introduce Darlene LaForme from the Cayuga nation Turtle Clan. She lives in the Mississauga of the credit first nation with her husband
with children and grandchildren living nearby, she works in graphic arts and indigenous social work and it's such a
a wonderful thing to have you here with us today Darlene, thank you for again you're groundedness, the support you offer to all around you
For all of your positivity and wisdom and I want to thank you for coming to help us close out this session
and to capture all of the learnings that we can take away from the sessions, so thank you so much and I'll turn this over to you.
I would like to say I know all the work that goes into when you're meeting with different groups of people and
how much input can be put in to try to consider everybody's options on what you're working on can be a big thing.
So it's really good, so when you all can come together and share your ideas to make what you're doing even better and more inclusive of all the people that are around you.
And what I want to do is, I would like to close out and now that you are all going to go back into your lives and go back into your whatever else you have to do.
When we started, I said to lay aside all your worries and now you can choose to pick up those worries and maybe now you'll handle them in a different way, with all the ideas that you've got.
and take that with you and be mindful of by going out and being conscientious of saying everything that you see that
is provided for us as peoples on the lands, the air, the heavens, the skies, everything is provided for us and it's there
so that it can benefit us but it's all interconnected
so understanding the interconnectedness of everything that you do and everything that's all there makes for
More sharing and stuff for yourself, but I want to close out with what's called the traveling song so i'll try not to
Beat too loud because I was trying, I was in my office trying to check out the sound and that was really deep so.
Way hey ya hey ya hey oh
So I hope that you all go and continue in your sharing and you maintain your
Safety for your family and all your friends, and it was good that everyone could meet virtually
and this is the age of where we have to do it and even if it makes your work even more important because yous are all into the digital age so
Yawa for all you doing
So yous all have a good weekend and take care of yourselves, find some time for your own self-care too.
Alright, yous all have a good day.
SARA BANNERMAN: Thank you so much Darlene.
SARA BANNERMAN: and thank you to all the participants and everybody who's here for taking part.
SARA BANNERMAN: Have a great weekend.