The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE) is pleased to see several recommendations in the Standing Committee on Finance’s report ahead of the 2026 budget. They align with the requests set out in the submission it made during the federal pre-budget consultations last May.

The CDCE thanks the Committee’s Chair, MP Karina Gould (Liberal Party); its Vice-Chairs, MPs Jean-Denis Garon (Bloc Québécois) and Jasraj Hallan (Conservative Party); and all Committee members for their work.

Among the approximately 15 recommendations concerning arts, culture and the media, several reflect positions the CDCE developed in consultation with its members. The Coalition brings together more than 50 organizations representing over 350,000 creators and 3,000 cultural enterprises across Canada. In particular, it welcomes the recommendations to:

• Introduce an artist’s resale right, as provided for in the 2025 budget, so that visual artists receive a share of the resale price of their works;
• Protect works used to train artificial intelligence by requiring authorization from rights holders, remuneration and transparency about the sources of training data, while rejecting a new copyright exception for text and data mining;
• Modernize the private copying regime to reflect technological change and continue remunerating creators;
• Maintain and strengthen the Online Streaming Act, including by imposing meaningful Canadian content spending and exhibition obligations on platforms;
• Reaffirm and strengthen the cultural exemption during the review of the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) and in other international agreements, so that it fully protects cultural policies, including those concerning digital platforms and artificial intelligence. This recommendation also calls for artists and the cultural sector to be represented in consultation mechanisms;
• Defend the Online Streaming Act during the renegotiation of CUSMA to preserve Canada’s cultural sovereignty.

The CDCE calls on Prime Minister Mark Carney and the ministers concerned to act on these recommendations as they prepare the 2026 budget: Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages; Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions; Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario; Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Internal Trade and Minister responsible for Canada–U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy; and François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue.

Finally, the Coalition is nevertheless disappointed that its two requests for the book sector were not included: renewing the increase in funding for the Canada Book Fund and amending the Copyright Act to clarify fair dealing for educational purposes.