Lisée says PQ would have backed Kanata play
QUEBEC A Parti Québécois government would have acted to ensure the production of the controversial play Kanata went ahead, leader Jean-François Lisée said on Tuesday.
And if the party is elected on Oct. 1 it may revisit the issue, Lisée added.
“On Oct. 3, we might meet with Robert Lepage,” he said, adding that a PQ government would attempt to find another privatesector producer to put on the play but wouldn’t rule out government support for the production.
Kanata, a co-production between Quebec playwright and director Robert Lepage and the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris, was cancelled in July. The play, which looked at Indigenous history in Canada, was criticized because it lacked input from members of Indigenous communities and did not feature Indigenous actors.
The cancellation came less than a month after another Lepage production, SLAV, was cancelled. It was based around slave songs, but featured a mostly white cast.
“There is a tension between the legitimate will of minorities that are under-represented to have their full place under the sun and this kind of new censorship that wants to push back on artistic freedom,” Lisée said.
“Recent Quebec history is a fight for artistic freedom against the church. That’s one of the great successes of the Quiet Revolution, that we gained freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of art,” he said. “That’s a great, great asset to Quebec. We must defend it. It is true that creators from minorities and First Nations are under-represented; it is an injustice. We have to be robust in making sure that they emerge and take their full place in the sun.”
Lisée’s cultural policy also includes a plan to protect small bookstores by limiting discounts on new books by large chains. Under the plan, discounts would be capped at 10 per cent for the first nine months after a book is released. There would be no restrictions on the price set by publishers.
The idea, which has been called for by a number of groups in Quebec’s publishing industry, was floated in 2013 when the PQ was last in power, but a bill was never introduced. The plan would be evaluated after three years to see if it was having the desired effect.
The cultural platform also includes promises to give elementary school students a book every year and to give secondary students a $50 credit they could spend at cultural organizations, businesses and events.
Lisée said he wants to give children a “taste for Quebec culture.”
The PQ would also like large internet platforms like Netflix and iTunes to put francophone and Quebec-created content, in both French and English, on the webpages that users in Quebec arrive at by default.
“We know that when people see francophone and Quebec productions they consume more,” he said.
Lisée said he would attempt to convince large internet platforms of the merits of highlighting Quebec-created and French-language content, but if a deal couldn’t be reach, a PQ government could introduce a bill to force them.
Later in the day, Lisée took aim at François Legault’s claim he could save $800 million by reducing the number of data centres and the cost of purchasing government supplies. “It’s completely magical thinking,” Lisée said.
While putting the province’s computer systems in order could lead to savings in the long term, Lisée said, in the short term, that would require investments.