Q&A: J’accuse! This arts and culture group thinks Ottawa is failing Quebec’s anglophones

According to the most recent census, nearly one in every five Quebecers regularly speaks English at home — but Kirwan Cox worries those people soon will not be able to watch English-language television shows produced in la belle province. Cox is the executive director of the Quebec English-language Production Council, an advocacy organization fighting for increased anglophone production in the predominantly-French province. In an interview with The Wire Report, Cox spoke about his group’s recent report showcasing a precipitous decline in English-language production over the past three decades, as well as why he’s worried about the complete erasure of anglophone production in his home province. Can we start with the main takeaways from this report? What do you want people to know? The key piece of information in the report is that, 25 years ago, English-language production in Montreal was about 26 per cent of all English-language production in Canada. Now, it’s five per cent. We have been suffering as a result of all kinds of federal and Quebec decisions that have ignored us, so now we are paying the price of those policy decisions. The federal government has a responsibility to support French-language production outside of Quebec and English-language production in Quebec. They’ve been supporting French-language production reasonably well because the federal government requires the Canada Media Fund to spend at least 10 per cent of the French envelope on official language minority production outside Quebec. There is no equivalent minimum percentage for us, and we’ve complained about that to the Commissioner of Official Languages, and we’re still waiting for a decision. What do you think caused that decline? Can you point to specific policy decisions? Could it be the product of market forces? The decline started with television regulations introduced through CRTC decision 1999-97, which hurt production across the country. In 2010, they reversed it but, by then, a lot of English-language production had left Montreal and gone to Toronto. On the other side, we’ve been more-or-less ignored by the Quebec government. We have a lower tax credit than French-language production, and the Quebec government tends to ignore us. Meanwhile, the federal government has not taken the steps needed to overcome decisions made over the past 25 years that have disadvantaged us. We’ve seen some turnover in the heritage portfolio under Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.). Currently, Marc Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs, Que.) is the minister responsible for culture. Do you see any movement in the right direction? We’re obviously hoping the federal government will take steps, but the reason we filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages is the heritage department has not undertaken anything significant, and they’ve not indicated to us that they will. In Quebec, do you worry that a Parti Québécois victory in this year’s provincial election would make your fight more difficult? Sure, but not just in terms of the Parti Québécois, because the CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec) has not been supportive of us at all. Even the Quebec Liberal Party, when they were in power, were not terribly supportive. What would you say to someone who said that Quebecers have access to loads of English-language content from the rest of Canada and across the globe? What I would say is, like everybody, we want our stories told. English-language stories in Quebec are different from English-language stories in Toronto, Vancouver, or Los Angeles. We want our stories told and the Canadian government has said that our stories are important. What’s the worst-case scenario? Are you worried about the complete erasure of English-language content in Quebec? Yes. We’re at five per cent of total English-language production in Canada. We’re losing our sovereignty and, if we continue to lose our cultural sovereignty, we’re not going to have Canadian content in Canada, and that’s going to hurt us. Is there anything else you’d like to emphasize from your report? We’re fighting back and we have tools. We have the Commissioner of Official Languages, for example, who can investigate our complaints. So, we’re trying to take advantage of these tools to maintain English-language production in Quebec, which, as you can tell from the statistics, is in some danger. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. dlegree@thewirereport.ca

Q&A: J’accuse! This arts and culture group thinks Ottawa is failing Quebec’s anglophones

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By Davis Legree
|June 26, 2026

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Q&A: J’accuse! This arts and culture group thinks Ottawa is failing Quebec’s anglophones

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By Davis Legree
|June 26, 2026