Thank you.

I would just like to add to Andrew's opening statement. It is in fact fairly ironic to see that Entertainment One, which merged three Quebec and Ontario film companies, controls 90% of public money, in addition to being a tax shelter. That company evades taxes. It is controlled by stockholders on the London Stock Exchange.

We are currently outside the control of Netflix, which has no specifications, does not pay taxes, has no obligations, does not reinvest its profits and prevents legal companies—which do pay their taxes—such as Super Écran from buying films because Netflix requires exclusivity.

Two types of companies are currently controlling our industry. In practice, they are tax shelters. That's a figure of speech.

I'm sorry to have to assign you reading.

The brief first provides a snapshot of the current situation. The landscape of film distribution, screening and broadcasting in Quebec has changed considerably over the past few years. The consolidation of major distribution companies—which we just talked about—through various mergers or acquisitions, as well as major technological changes, have sharply accelerated this phenomenon, which leaves less and less room for independent films.

Independent films represent Canada around the world. Xavier Dolan did not start with Mommy. He started with J'ai tué ma mère, which was a resounding success at the Cannes Festival in 2009. Without J'ai tué ma mère, there would have been no Mommy. Independent cinema, which the members of the Regroupement des distributeurs indépendants de films du Québec represent, is the cinema that represents Quebec and Canada around the world, now and in the years to come.

I could talk about a film that was just selected for a major festival, but since we are not allowed to discuss it, I cannot mention it before the first week of June. You will hear about it. It's an independent film, a first feature, funded by SODEC and Telefilm Canada. That is what we represent—films that promote Quebec and Canada around the world.

We do have some solutions, which we previously proposed to the Government of Quebec. We are now addressing you, since you represent the federal government. When it comes to federal jurisdiction, we would like a tax system to be implemented to fund the film industry and provide ways to support the capitalization of independent distributors with a 1% tax on the revenues of various telecommunications operators, through whom a growing part of the film offering goes—Internet service providers, cable companies and mobile operators.

Most telecommunications operators actually provide the three services separately or together. A portion of that amount of money must be set aside for capitalization funds for independent distributors. That fund would directly benefit the entire Quebec and Canadian film industry: better funding of advances to producers, better funding of marketing activities for theatrical releases—

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