Pablo Rodriquez has integrated beautifully into the Quebec political world, and is widely recognized as a great organizer in all regions. That would make his decision to leave even tougher for Prime Minister Trudeau as there is no lieutenant heir apparent waiting in the wings.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 12, 2024.

OTTAWA—Pablo Rodriguez is considering a run at the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party.

When the news broke last week, he neither confirmed nor denied but his response made it fairly obvious that he will be going.

“As minister of transport and Quebec lieutenant in Justin Trudeau’s government, I am proud to work hard for the good of all Quebecers and all Canadians. I am sincerely touched by the many requests I have received to return to where it all began for me,” was the comment he offered up after Radio Canada ran a story saying he was considering the move.

The Quebec Liberal Party leadership will be held in Quebec City on June 14 of next year.

Denis Coderre, former federal Liberal cabinet minister and former Montreal mayor, is currently the only candidate in the race.

By the sounds of Rodriguez’ statement, he will be joining Coderre in the near future.

Rodriquez began his political career as a member of the Quebec Liberal Party’s youth commission in the 1990s.

As the son of an immigrant who studied in Sherbrooke, Que., Rodriquez has a reputation as a great political organizer. He is also seen as more of a team player than Coderre.

Rodriquez has maintained good relationships with members in both the provincial and federal parties, which is not always the case.

The last provincial Liberal premier was Jean Charest, who was obviously not a federal Liberal. In many instances, there has been huge antipathy between the two organizations.

Someone who could bring them together would be seen as an attractive political alternative.

Rodriguez has been struggling to establish his political footprint at Transport Canada, a department notorious for boring its ministers to death with operational minutiae and very little in the way of public profile.

Rodriguez has found some success in his attempt to stem the tide of Canadian car thefts, with stolen vehicles exiting through the port of Montreal. By spearheading a national anti-theft strategy, he has managed to command some media attention.

But he misses his former portfolio in Canadian Heritage, where the length and breadth of cultural issues were perfect for a minister whose mother tongue was neither English nor French.

Rodriquez has integrated beautifully into the Quebec political world, and is widely recognized as a great organizer in all regions.

That would make his decision to leave even tougher for Prime Minister Trudeau as there is no lieutenant heir apparent waiting in the wings.

Other current Quebec ministers are either short on experience or not very political.

And the one thing a lieutenant needs is political antennae, especially in the leadup to what is likely to be a very tough campaign for the federal Liberals next year.

It is the second time in as many weeks that Trudeau is receiving what could turn out to be bad news from his ministers.

The decision of Seamus O’Regan to retire from politics was announced on July 18.

O’Regan said he was stepping down for family reasons, but everyone knows re-election in his riding of St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, N.L., would be tough.

The relatively new riding includes about 95 per cent of the former St. John’s West, which has been largely dominated by Conservatives. The most notable Tory was John Crosbie who held the seat for 16 years.

O’Regan has been victorious in his riding since 2015, but that could change. If current polling continues, his riding is highly likely to go Tory.

As a personal friend of the prime minister, who even served in his wedding party, O’Regan’s decision to leave is pretty clearly based on a keen reading of the tea leaves.

O’Regan was a broadcaster before entering politics. He, more than most, understands that it is only a rising tide that lifts all boats. The current Liberal tide does not appear to be rising.

If the party’s polling numbers don’t improve, more Liberals can be expected to ponder on their own futures after spending time in their constituencies.

They are no doubt getting an earful from disgruntled voters.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez’s potential departure would leave a huge gap in the Liberal electoral machine in Quebec.

Quebec is the one region that has spurned the political advances of Pierre Poilievre and will likely continue to support a native son in the next election.

But races will be tight, and the party needs good on-the-ground support to recruit candidates and organizers.

Rodriguez was key to that structure. His leave taking could create an unfillable political hole.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Google leadership told a parliamentary committee that the government’s attempt to monetize internet news content for local support would not work. They said the same thing in Australia and, according to the government there, the move has provided almost $200-million in payments to news providers since the bill passed in 2021.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 27, 2023.

OTTAWA—Google’s Canadian muzzle may not work.

The company says it is cutting off service to four per cent of the population on a temporary basis.

But rest assured, the four per cent will be those who feel it most.

Canadian Heritage is on the hit list.

That direct line of fire suggest this is an attempt to convince Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to drop legislation which will require internet giants like Google to compensate Canadian news outlets for populating their sites with stories by Canadian journalists. Google says it is limiting access to news content to assess possible responses to the bill.

Google says the legislation doesn’t work, and is obviously doing everything in its power to stop it.

That temporary blockage on Canadian Heritage information and other key providers coincides with second reading of Bill C-18 in the Senate.

It is the last stand for an internet behemoth that has no interest in paying for the news content consumed through its portals.

But similar legislation has been in place in Australia since 2021 and appears to be having the desired effect.

Our Bill C-18 is modelled on the Australian law, which has been effective in stemming the cash hemorrhage facing many Aussie news outlets.

In Canada, newspapers are dropping like flies. And it isn’t just the printed word that is suffering.

Just last week, Quebec television network TVA announced layoffs of more than 200 people. A couple of weeks earlier, The Vancouver Sun wielded a similar axe to its editorial staff.

Google leadership told a parliamentary committee that the government’s attempt to monetize internet news content for local support would not work.

But they said the same thing in Australia, threatening to pull Google out of the country altogether before the legislation was finalized.

In the end, Google complied with the requirement to sign commercial remuneration deals with the news outlets that populate their sites.

According to the Australian government, the move has provided almost $200-million in payments to news providers since the bill passed in 2021.

As the Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications undertakes second reading of the our version of the bill, the usual suspects are lining up in opposition. University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist is calling Bill C-18 an attack on freedom of expression for all Canadians in one column, published Nov. 1, 2022 and headlined “Why Bill C-18’s mandated payment for links is a threat to freedom of expression in Canada.” Geist claims that seeking payment for some news retransmission is the basis for this threat. His argument runs counter to the fact that for more than a century, Canadians have paid, in some form or another, for access to news.

Whether it’s included in the cost of a television cable package, or financed by an annual newspaper subscription, access to content created by journalists has been financed the consumers of that content.

Geist and other “freedom of expression” proponents know that the internet is not exactly free, either.

Providers like Facebook and Google are currently charging for advertising to monetize their information offerings. Their advertising totals $9.7-billion a year, representing more than 80 per cent of online ad revenues.

So, Geist’s free speech claim doesn’t really hold water. Every consumer of online news is subject to the influence of those paid advertisements. Hardly free at all.

The irony is that the news outlets whose stories are populating the internet are not paid a penny as a share of that whopping annual total of almost $10-billion in advertising revenue.

Conservatives are opposing the legislation, partly because they say the CBC will receive remuneration as an outcome.

But they are not speaking too loudly because they agree that local news outlets in Canada are in real trouble and need some help to survive.

Bill C-18 is not going to solve all the problems facing the Canadian news-gathering ecosystem.

Most internet-surfing young Canadians have never even bothered to subscribe to any made-in-Canada news service. Their news reach is global and much of what populates their feeds could loosely be called infotainment, not information.

The goings-on of Hollywood are much more interesting than the trajectory of a Canadian bill to save local newsgathering.

Government is also tackling the tricky issue of how to deal with fake news, and deliberate foreign interference in Canadian public policy decisions, including elections.

Last summer, Rodriguez and Justice Minister David Lametti set up an advisory roundtable on how to tackle internet disinformation and fraud.

Recent reports have alleged Chinese interference in the 2021 Canadian election.

Russian internet news influence in the last American election has been well-documented.

Internet information transmission is here to stay.

But it is time to pay the piper.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Time to move on from COVID.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 24, 2022.

The return of Parliament should provide a much-anticipated channel-changer from the constant barrage of COVID news that still saturates the airwaves.

Most people I know have simply tuned out to the daily update of hospitalization and infection information from every part of the country.

They are also taking the medical advice with a grain of salt. Travel advisories emanating from Ottawa are being discounted even by federal government service providers. Last year, the majority of snowbirds heeded the government’s advice to stay home and refrained from travelling because of the danger of contracting COVID.

This year, those same people have decided to ignore the repeated warnings and are heading to warmer climes to avoid the bitterly cold Canadian winters.

Even the federal government pensioners’ payment website has a general proviso that the travel prohibitions emanating from Ottawa have no affect on their insurance policies or plans.

Likewise, the travel industry is starting to fight back publicly.

Last week, the major airlines and Canada’s largest airport joined to urge the government to end the redundant random PCR testing that faces some travellers upon their return to Canada. They pointed out that the infection rate on planes hovers around two per cent and every single passenger has already undergone a PCR test to get on a plane so it makes no sense to undergo a second test on landing when tests are so scarce and the local infection rate stands at 20 per cent.

Infected residents cannot access tests because of a shortage while travellers are double-tested in an effort to discourage their movement.

The opening of the House of Commons will focus public attention on issues other than the pandemic, with inflation rearing its ugly head just in time for the return.

Statistics Canada inflation numbers published last week painted a grim picture with calculations showing the highest levels of inflation in three decades.

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole immediately tweeted out the negative results, claiming the Liberals are showing zero leadership on tackling the cost-of-living crisis.

O’Toole did not provide any specific suggestions himself, nor did he walk back his finance critic’s claim three days earlier that the cost-of-living figures were “vastly underestimated” in the methodology applied by Statistics Canada to the role played by inflation in the Consumer Price Index data.

Poilievre is great on grabbing the headlines, but the claim that Statistics Canada is cooking the books does not resonate well when his leader is about to launch a national campaign based on the very numbers the critic is questioning.

The chance for the Conservatives to make their mark on the inflation issue should not be muddied because their critic questions the veracity of Statistics Canada.

That kind of dog-whistle politics may serve Tories well in their fundraising endeavours, but it does little to prove to Canadians that they are really ready to govern the country.

To be that government-in-waiting they need to consider the big picture. Just like inflation could be a looming issue in this parliament, the Tories will want to make an example out of cultural policy when the government reintroduces legislation to amend the Broadcasting Act.

But by taking a hard line against new rules that put streaming services like Netflix on a more level playing field with traditional broadcasters, the Conservatives risk being viewed as a marginalized fringe party.

The Liberal legislation that passed a previous House of Commons vote was supported by the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois so the Tories’ support is not required for passage.

The new minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, has also been in the portfolio before and has the kind of political savvy that will make him a real champion for the legislation.

He will not get sucked down the rabbit hole of responding to social media influencers who think their blogs are the equivalent of major streaming services.

If the Tories have any hope of forming the government, they have to be able to broaden their reach in Quebec. And by fighting against C-10, they simply manage to reinforce their image as a right-wing, anti-culture party that really does not care about Canadian content, on traditional media or via the internet.

They have a small rump of ten members of parliament in Quebec. Perhaps those members will be able to convince their colleagues that a more moderated approach to broadcasting amendments will serve their long-term political agenda.

The return of the House will be a welcome channel changer. Time to move on from COVID.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Artists who are out on the streets once again because of COVID lockdowns are lobbying furiously for a return to a full Canadian Emergency Response Benefit for their sector.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 6, 2022.

OTTAWA—Musical blockbuster Come From Away has already been seen by a million Canadians.

But if you missed the Canadian performance in Toronto, you won’t be able to see it in this country again.

The story of how the people of Newfoundland opened their hearts to passengers stranded by the downing of the World Trade Centre is reverberating around the world.

It is the most successful Canadian musical ever produced and has prompted a domestic theatre renaissance that has already spawned more live theatre offerings for the globe.

The numbers published by David Mirvish when he announced the shuttering over the Christmas week were indeed impressive.

The press release cited box office sales of $115-million, including over $15-million in HST.

Mirvish estimated the economic impact on the Toronto economy at $920-million.

Mirvish pointed a finger directly at government, “in other parts of the world, the government has stepped up to support the commercial theatre sector by offering a financial safety net for the sector to reopen and play during the pandemic, thus protecting the tens of thousands of good jobs the sector creates. That is the case in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia—where productions of Come From Away continue.”

But in Canada there is no such government support.

Mirvish’s holiday announcement provoked shock waves in Canada’s artistic community.

New Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has been working feverishly to find a solution to the dilemma.

And artists who are out on the streets once again because of COVID lockdowns are lobbying furiously for a return to a full Canadian Emergency Response Benefit for their sector.

With all the theatres shuttered, it is impossible for the thousands of people who depend on live performance for their livelihoods to even feed their families.

Canada Council for the Arts CEO Simon Brault has emerged as a champion for those artists.

He has been working with unions representing the arts community trying to figure out the best solutions for support in these trying times.

But the question begs. If the city of Toronto garners almost a billion dollars in economic benefits from live performances, why are the arts treated like an afterthought in Canada’s COVID business support model?

For some reason, if you are manufacturing autos or pumping oil, your jobs are worth the full attention of governments.

If you are artists, bringing joy, perspective and global reach to the Canadian story, you are left picking up the scraps.

And it was always thus.

For some bizarre reason, commercial success in cultural industries has generally disqualified creators from government support.

There are government incentives and subsidies for book publishers, media content creators and community not-for-profit operations. But live commercial productions are generally left to their own devices as they are profit-making enterprises. However, governments help lots of industries in the name of economic development. Why exclude the cultural industries?

On the Hill, there is much discussion about how to turn this around. Not much is happening at Queens’s Park either even though the provincial capital is by far the largest beneficiary of commercial entertainment investment.

Some are discussing possible tax credits, which kickstarted a robust growth in Canadian film opportunities back in the nineties.

The tax credit introduced then has been replicated around the world, and it has been one of the best models for media content creation on the globe.

That credit was introduced by the Department of Finance, in tandem with Heritage, which begs the question. Where is Toronto-based Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in this picture?

The cut to the CERB may have made some debt hawks on Bay Street happy. But it has devastated the creative sector, who continue to lobby for direct support for unemployed artists locked out of their places of employment by pandemic fiats.

Where, too, is the Department of Industry in this quest for solutions?

Francois-Philippe Champagne’s ministerial title is minister of innovation, science and industry. Surely the world of entertainment is built on innovation.

Before Come From Away, there was no real hope of developing a domestic theatre industry equivalent to London’s west end or Broadway.

But this magical story got Canada’s foot in the door for the creation of a whole new innovative industry, live theatre that actually makes money and entertains.

The brains behind innovation in Canada need to get together and find a solution to this gaping hole in public policy. All hands need to be on deck, including the prime minister’s office.

Come From Away should not have Gone Away.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps

First published in The Hill Times on August 20, 2018.

OTTAWA—Most Canadians know little and care less about the tools that support cultural investment in the country. They do know what they like.

Newfoundland artist Mary Pratt, who passed away last week, found beauty and depth in the simplest of objects. A bowl of fruit, a crate of eggs, grapes in a colander are just some of the subjects she immortalized during her career as one of Canada’s most prolific and renowned women artists. The subjects she chose to immortalize are drawn from daily life, and many are not unique to her province or country.

But she is distinctly Canadian. This summer, the National Gallery of Canada is featuring “Impressionist Treasures”, an exhibition from the Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen and its exquisite collection of French impressionists. The appeal of the artists, from Monet to Manet, from Pissarro to Sisley, is universal, just like Mary Pratt’s inspirational interpretation of everyday life.

But according to new rules surrounding art donations, Pratt’s work may be worth supporting but Monet’s may not. Government financial rules governing art policy are complicated but hugely important. They are probably the most crucial tools in expanding Canadians’ access to public art.

Government-secured insurance underwrites travelling exhibitions across the country. Tax incentives ensure that world-renowned oeuvres d’art by famous artists can be experienced by ordinary citizens in galleries across the country. But after a recent Federal Court ruling clipped the wings of the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, the scope of that financial toolkit has been drastically reduced. As a result of the ruling, Canadians who wish to donate valuable foreign paintings to Canadian galleries may no longer get tax credits for doing so.

According to a Globe and Mail report last week, several major Canadian galleries have suspended discussions with potential philanthropists as a direct result of the ruling’s impact. The board was forced into this new tax interpretation even though the federal government is appealing the decision.

Over the decades, the board has exercised an important role in keeping important Canadian treasures in the country and in encouraging private donors to give their art over to public institutions. The courts ruled the Export Review Board went too far when it attempted to block a Canadian from selling a privately-owned, foreign-made painting to someone outside of the country. The Federal Court’s ruling that only Canadian-made paintings could be barred from export had the knock-on effect of altering the board’s tax credit policy, limiting it to only donations of Canadian-made works.

While it is certainly valid to question the refusal of an export permit for a painting that has no Canadian connection, the collateral damage in donation denials will be huge.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in rare and important artworks have found their way into the public domain because of the little known work of the board. Back in 2003, the Toronto-based Tannenbaum family decided to honour their matriarch’s hometown with a multi-million donation of more than 200 European paintings to the Hamilton Art Gallery.

Hamilton beat out the Louvre in Paris and the Art Gallery of Ontario, which were also trying to acquire the collection. In 2010, the Tannebaums followed with the donation of their African collection, and the paintings provided the catalyst for a major reconstruction project at the gallery in their honour.

Neither collection would likely have been tax creditable under the recently-revised rules currently being applied to foreign art donations. The wide-ranging negative impact on the Canadian art scene is enormous if this decision is not reversed, and quickly.

New Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez should clarify the government’s intention on this issue. If necessary, the minister should update the 41-year-old legislation which governs the board and its operations. At the very least, a regulatory amendment should permit the board to support European, African, and Asian artworks that have intrinsic value as well. They, too, should be eligible for tax credits.

As we celebrate the prolific life’s work of Mary Pratt, we should also recognize that Pissarro, Monet and the impressionists also speak to our collective being. Images that capture truth in life are universal.

Canadians find inspiration and solace in creativity from around the world. The artist’s brush has no national boundary. Nor should we.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps

First published in The Hill Times on July 23, 2018.

OTTAWA—Barack Obama is not the only one who says men are getting on his nerves.

Men in positions of power who don’t seem to understand when they have crossed the line are getting on my nerves.

Just last week, Pablo Rodriguez replaced Mélanie Joly as minister of Canadian Heritage. One man replaced one woman in a cabinet change. Joly did not lose her job, she was shuffled into a different portfolio.

In addition, five newbies were added to the roster, including two women and three men.

So why does a seasoned journalist write that a “parade of men” had been “called on to clean up the messes others could not.”

Others is code for women, as there are no transgendered members of the cabinet yet.

Why would The Globe and Mail carry a blazing headline that reads “Trudeau deviates from the diversity script.”

Talk about misleading sexist claptrap.

In a featured opinion piece garnering coveted top billing across from the daily editorial section, journalist Konrad Yakabuski called the decision to replace Joly by Pablo Rodriguez a blow to “the sisterhood.”

Does Yakabuski really think a parity cabinet with women in senior portfolios including foreign affairs, justice, environment, and health is a downgrade to women?

Or is he amongst those scribes still smarting over the quip that shut down journalistic criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s original commitment to equality almost three years ago?

“Because it’s 2015” was an answer that silenced the initial vocal backlash to the prime minister’s gender equal cabinet.

The Yakabuski narrative, that men have been brought in to clean up women’s messes, featured by the Globe, promotes the notion that somehow the “weaker sex” is simply not up to the job.

But the facts do not bear out this opinion piece. In the last few months, much of Canada’s heavy lifting, on the trickiest economic file facing the government, has been done by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. She has had to navigate the murky waters of Washington, staring down a dictatorial wannabee and accomplishing it with a rapier tongue and the aplomb of a diplomat.

Likewise, the trickiest federal-provincial files, the move to legalize marijuana and fight climate change, have been stickhandled by two very capable ministers, in justice and environment, who also happen to be women.

Yakabuski claimed Trudeau “deviates from his own script, which we noted because he drew attention to diversity in his first cabinet.”

But then he offers absolutely not one shred of evidence to back up his claim. On the contrary, cabinet positions are still split equally among women and men, and the prime minister is continuing a trend which has changed the face of Canadian politics forever.

Any new prime minister who tries to ignore the established equity principle will do so at their peril.

The notion that somehow women need to be cleaned up after needs to be exposed for what it is, the ranting of an out-of-touch scribe who simply does not get it.

On the same editorial page where Yakabuski makes his claim, there are two other opinion pieces, one written by a man, the other by a woman.

On the opposite page, in letters to the editor, there are seven letters submitted by men and one submitted by a woman. Not surprisingly, the editorial page editor also happens to be a man. The first five names on the Globe masthead are all men, from the deputy editor to the executive editor to the managing editor.

On the front page that same day, every single political story from Ontario, Ottawa, and Washington was written by men; five of them and not a single contribution from a woman.

It is not surprising that a misleading narrative on diversity would pass muster with this male-dominated editorial team.

Parity may be good for politics, but it is not a media priority. Instead, journalists are still not-so-subtly promoting the notion that the men in cabinet are stepping in to save us from incompetence.

When Trudeau made world news by insisting on parity in his first round of cabinet choices, the biggest pushback actually came from the media.

The good news is that the majority of his ministerial choices have been sound. With a few exceptions, most ministers have been able to move forward on an activist government agenda. His female roster is strong, capable and in charge of their files.

If anything, the balance of cabinet excellence is tipped in favour of women. They are obviously getting on someone’s nerves.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.