Quebec music groups urge offline push for local artists

More than 30 Quebec music organizations, including SOCAN and the Francos de Montréal, called on the Quebec government on Oct. 19, 2026, to promote local music in schools, shops, hotels and public spaces, saying streaming policy alone has not helped Quebec artists reach Quebec listeners.

The open letter follows a study by the province’s French-language commissioner, published Oct. 13, that found national-language artists, meaning French-language artists in Quebec, account for 12 per cent of listening in Quebec, the lowest share among the markets it examined.

The study, L’exception québécoise, compared Quebec, Canada and 24 European countries, according to the Commissaire à la langue française. National-language artists took 45 per cent of listening in France, 47 per cent in Italy and 34 per cent in Finland. Only 2 per cent of the top 10 artists listened to in Quebec sing in French, and 22 per cent of rap listening in Quebec is in French, the lowest of the countries studied.

The letter, published Oct. 19 by Sors-tu? and titled “For the future of our music, we must now go further” in English translation, cites a different measure: 7.1 per cent of listening on streaming platforms in Quebec in 2025 went to Quebec performers. The Canadian Press, reporting in French, put the commissioner’s range for Quebec at 6 to 12 per cent.

The signatories say current measures have not reversed the decline. “Nous sommes arrivés à un cul-de-sac,” the letter says, which translates as “We have reached a dead end.” It also says “our audiences don’t live in the computer chips of big tech companies’ algorithms,” in the wording reported by Billboard Canada.

The groups ask Quebec City to make boosting demand for local music a priority and to invest more in what they call offline discoverability. They want Quebec music heard in schools, shops, restaurants, hotels, tourist sites, public and institutional spaces, concert halls, festivals and government-supported projects.

They also want the Ministry of Culture and Communications to work with the ministries of Education, Immigration, Tourism, Economy, and Health and Social Services. The letter says Quebec has “many levers within its jurisdiction that can be further mobilized,” the wording Billboard Canada reported. It names no dollar amount and no deadline.

Commissioner Benoît Dubreuil said Quebec is “a market of moderate size and historically not well integrated with the rest of the francophonie,” in the commissioner’s release, translated from French. His recommendations include regulating algorithms better and increasing the presence of French-language music in public spaces and schools. The groups said the findings show the urgency of acting, the Canadian Press reported.

Other signatories listed in the letter include the Quebec music council (Conseil québécois de la musique), the Canadian Music Centre in Quebec, the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, the École nationale de la chanson and the Festival international de la chanson de Granby. Reports differ on the count: Billboard Canada said more than 30, the Canadian Press said 34, and the letter itself lists 33.

Billboard Canada said Quebec streaming grew by 3 per cent in 2025, according to the province’s culture observatory, and that Spotify listed francophone music among its top genres on the platform that year. The groups’ argument is that those gains have not lifted Quebec artists’ share of local listening.

For Canadian artists and rights holders, the debate sits beside federal streaming rules that remain unsettled. Ottawa ordered the CRTC to review its streamer spending rules, Global News reported, so the provincial push is one of the few levers in play. SOCAN, which will honour Drake and Jessie Reyez at its awards on Oct. 26, is among the signatories, and the Juno submission window closes Nov. 5.

None of the reports reviewed included a response from the Quebec government, and no date has been set for one. The groups asked for the reflection on discovery and listening opportunities to be held in consultation with the music sector.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.

Via Billboard Canada and La Presse Canadienne (as published by Le Canada Français). Primary sources: the open letter and the Commissaire à la langue française release of Oct. 13, 2026.