OTTAWA-Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s first appearance at the annual Canadian Media Producers Association Prime Time national conference in the capital last Thursday was short – lasting 17 minutes – and sweet, based on the effusive reception that greeted the Argentinian-born, guitar-playing Liberal cabinet minister.
“What I’ve noticed in the past few months since your appointment [last July] is what I’ve been calling Rodriguez-mania,” the CMPA’s affable president and CEO, Reynolds Mastin, said of his special guest prior to beginning a friendly question-and-answer session with Rodriguez. “You just effortlessly relate to people, and people open up to you and have confidence in you. It’s a great political skill and a great human skill – and I think that’s largely why you’re in the role you are in today.”
Rodriguez – displaying a distinguished and relaxed look with his salt-and-pepper hair and beard, and tieless three-piece dark suit – modestly shrugged at the praise heaped on him by Mastin – the CMPA’s former chief negotiator and chief legal officer – who smoothly and skillfully sought to ensure that the heritage minister knew that he was on stage before a friendly crowd holding some high expectations. (The two are pictured in a screen cap from the CMPA’s webcast of the minister’s appearance.)
Prime Time delegates are keen to have and keep a key ally in Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and Rodriguez was portrayed as someone who will both support the production of Canadian programming and protect the rights of its creators.
(Ed note: To be honest, industry types had grown rather tired of former Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s years of repeating the same mixed messages and were relieved a new face was brought in last summer. However, Rodriguez hasn’t said very much publicly on broadcasting and production since his appointment.)
In introducing the Mastin-Rodriguez cozy fireside chat, CMPA board chair Scott Garvie even credited the minister with unveiling Canada’s first creative export strategy just a month after he was sworn into cabinet. It was in fact Rodriguez’s predecessor who announced that five-year, $125-million federal investment less than a month before she was shuffled out of the heritage portfolio.
Rodriguez returned the love with feel-good comments to the audience.
When asked by Mastin asked him to identify opportunities he saw amid the “turbulent period of disruption” facing the industry, the minister said the government’s role is to “support what you do because you’re the ones that know how to do it best through productions – you make us laugh, dream, cry sometime” through investments in the CBC, Telefilm, the Canada Media Fund, and the like.
Lest no one forget, Rodriguez added in both French and English, that the Trudeau government ensured a cultural exemption remain in place with the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement last year. “The Prime Minister was very clear,” he said. “If we don’t have that in the treaty we don’t sign it, and that was a message he conveyed to the Americans.”
On the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review, for which Rodriguez is responsible for the Broadcasting Act portion, the minister said the government would “definitely” introduce legislation “as soon as possible” after receiving recommendations from the expert panel reviewing the legislation, assuming the Liberals are still in power when the panel files its final report next January.
“We will have to make sure that anybody that participates in the system has to contribute to the system. No free passes.” – Pablo Rodriguez
“In between there’s a thing called an election,” Rodriguez deadpanned – “and hopefully we will come back, but it’s up to voters to decide. But we take this extremely seriously.”
“We will have to make sure that anybody that participates in the system has to contribute to the system. No free passes.”
Amid the smiles and laughter came an on-stage wink from Mastin and Rodriguez to Stéphane Cardin, Netflix’s director of public policy for Canada, who earlier in the day found himself on the defensive from fellow panelists – particularly CBC president Catherine Tait, who likened the streaming giant’s now global reach to the colonialism of the British and French empires.
But Rodriguez’s above statement provided more than a hint that Netflix and other major online streaming services, such as Amazon Prime, could be required to at least collect sales tax from Canadian subscribers (as is the case in Quebec and Saskatchewan) and contribute to the Canada Media Fund to finance original productions.
Does Rodriguez watch Netflix content? He was not asked. Mastin, however, wanted to know about the minister’s viewing habits.
“I’ve been watching, with my family. Schitt’s Creek on CBC – and also a lot of stuff in French,” said Rodriguez before taking his final bow and heading to the airport to fly to New York where on Friday he addressed the United Nations General Assembly for the launch of the International Year of Indigenous Languages.
For a man whose lawyer-politician father played Molière on stage (in French in Argentina) and who represents the federal Quebec riding of Honoré-Mercier in the House of Commons, Rodriguez demonstrated an artistic flair for entertaining a crowd and a political discipline for sticking to a tight script.
It was a tour de force for the heritage minister who left his audience wanting more.
