March 22, 2025
Last week MediaPolicy published a new interview with Globe and Mail culture columnist and reviewer Kate Taylor.
The veteran reporter has lead a double life as a Canadian arts journalist and novelist, which arguably makes her especially qualified to comment on Canadian content.
***
Culture & Identity minister Steven Guilbeault – Photo credit Canadian Press
We have a new Liberal Minister of Heritage (rebranded “Culture and Identity”) and it’s a familiar face: Steven Guilbeault who served in the role from 2019 to 2021.
During that first tour of duty he tabled the first version of the Online Streaming Act, Bill C-10.
He also instigated two big public consultations. The first was on the regulation of online harms which invited comment on an edgy, German-inspired model of content take-downs and appeals (later junked and reprised in Bill C-63 with platform self regulation of “awful but lawful” posts on social media and steeper penalties for criminal hate posts). The second initiative, completed under his successor Pablo Rodriguez, was what became the Online News Act, Bill C-18.
That Liberal menu of Internet regulation continues to get high support in public polling.
News of Guilbeault’s appointment provoked the twitter ire of his nemesis, law professor Michael Geist. One of the criticisms was that Guilbeault “delivered the original [Online Streaming Act] with disastrous, inaccurate communications.”
That’s harsh, if partly true. In May 2021 Guilbeault did mangle two English-language national interviews three days apart on CBC and CTV, the latter an old-school grilling from Evan Solomon who recently got the nod as a star candidate for the Carney Liberals.
But people forget that Guilbeault followed up those interviews one week later with a very strong performance at the Heritage Committee. In English and French.
Whatever the case, it’s not clear if Guilbeault is just keeping the chair warm in Culture and Identity because the uber-competent Pascale St-Onge is retiring from politics and perhaps if the Liberals are re-elected we’ll see yet another MP from the island of Montréal in the role (following Melanie Joly, Rodriguez, Guilbeault, Rodriguez, St.-Onge and Guilbeault).
But the Culture and Identity file has only one priority in the coming session of Parliament: the CBC. More precisely, the English-language CBC. That will take a Minister with smarts but mostly great instincts. It will take a Minister from the rest of Canada.
***
51st state? Here’s two thumbs up for two Canadians, journalists Scott Roxborough and Etan Vlessing of the Hollywood Reporter. They’ve put together a new list of the greatest 51 Canadian flicks of all time. Check your seen-it score, make your watch list.
***
If you would like regular notifications of future posts from MediaPolicy.ca you can follow this site by signing up under the Follow button in the bottom right corner of the home page;
or sign up for a free subscription to MediaPolicy.ca on Substack;
or follow @howardalaw on X or Howard Law on LinkedIn.
I can be reached by e-mail at howard.law@bell.net.
This blog post is copyrighted by Howard Law, all rights reserved. 2025.
MediaPolicy.ca 
Dear Howard,
The list of 51 greatest Canadian films is really great, and reminds us how hard it is to see Canadian films in the 51st state.
However, it is a weak list the further back you go. I can’t believe they missed some great older films like the late Don Shebib’s “Goin’ Down the Road” (which my partner production managed) and the late Allan King’s “A Married Couple”.
It shows that 51 doesn’t do us justice.
As for CBC, I think Poilievre is going to forget to mention his “defunding CBC” promise during the election. I bet even Albertans will wonder if that is a good way of maintaining our independence from our friends down south.
Sovereignty for the second biggest (and increasingly accessible as the Arctic warms) country in the world is going to be expensive. And we won’t be able to pay for icebreakers in the Arctic by defunding our communications system along the 49th parallel.
Thanks, Kirwan
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember as a young kid watching Goin’ Down the Road. It came out after Easy Rider, I think, and I thought it was a Canadian response.
LikeLike
Dear Howard,
I first met Dob Shebib in 1968, i think. I was a McGill student doing an article for the student newspaper about Canadian cinema. Don was then doing a movie he had begun in 1967 (after attending film school in L.A.). It was call The Maritimers, and later became Goin Down the Road.
When he started Goin Down the Road, he knew nothing about Easy Rider, and I never recall he mentioned Easy Rider as a motivation. Being an independent Canadian filmmaker, it took him years to scrounge the money. Eventually, the newly organized Canadian Film Development Corp (now Telefilm) helped him out. I forget the budget- something like a hundred thousand or so which, in today’s dollars, would still be incredibly cheap at $900,000.
This film usually makes the top ten Canadian films of all time for good reason.
Best, Kirwan
>
LikeLike