Common Front against Ottawa

Marc-André Lemieux

Tuesday, 5 December 2017 21:58

UPDATE
Tuesday, 5 December 2017 21:58

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Massive mobilization against Ottawa from Quebec. Artists, producers, broadcasters and business people unite to decry the policy of the federal in the face of the giant aliens of the web, such as Netflix, Amazon and Google.

In an advertisement located on pages 52 and 53 of the Journal, the collective involving more than one hundred members denounced the guidelines of the government of Justin Trudeau, which weakens the culture in quebec and canada by allowing Netflix and company ” to escape the taxes that all businesses must take “.

“It is necessary to correct this injustice which penalizes our businesses, our artists, our artisans and our workers,” one can read in a short text surrounded by many signatures.

Of Mitsou Alexandre Taillefer

Among the personalities from the cultural community to have ratified this message, note, Martin Matte, Guylaine Tremblay, Mitsou Gélinas, Patrick Huard, Louis Morissette, Karine Vanasse, Jean-Philippe Dion, Denys Arcand, Charles Lafortune, Denise Filiatrault, Yan England, Stéphane Laporte and Fabienne Larouche.

In the case of broadcasters, TVA, Bell Media, V, Télé-Québec, Cogeco and TV5 are part of the membership. On the side of business people, include Alexandre Taillefer (XPND Capital), Pierre Karl Péladeau (Quebecor) and Peter Simons (La Maison Simons).

SOCAN, the CSN, the FTQ and evenko are also part of the batch.

The pressure mounts

This climb to the barricades occurs after several months of sharp criticism of the quebec cultural milieu against Ottawa. Unveiled in September, the cultural policy of Mélanie Joly, minister for Heritage, has been the target of many attacks. His refusal to tax Netflix has been sharply denounced, since it creates an inequity for services of its kind in the country, as Club illico and HERE Tou.tv Extra.

Even the government of Philippe Couillard has criticized this exemption. In October, the minister of Finance of Quebec, Carlos Leitao, said it was ready to impose QST on the giant of the streaming.

In the last few weeks, stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds have asked the federal government to reconsider its position, history as Netflix, but also Google, Amazon, Facebook and other Apple be subject to the same rules as all other companies in quebec and canada in the field of taxation.