Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2007

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

The bottom line is that courts hold public hearings. The CRTC is not a court; it's a quasi-judicial body, so it isn't even a judicial body. The argument that there are people who may not want to testify because of conflicts, whistle-blowing, or whatever, is a valid one. There are ways to deal with that; there always have been. But if we get a report coming out of hearings, and no one knows what went on in those hearings, that report could reflect whatever the report chooses to reflect and not what that group heard.

I think we should—and we have the power in this committee—require them to hold public hearings. I have a recommendation to that extent that is a little stronger than the last recommendation, which Mr. Angus made, requiring that they hold public hearings, and at their discretion, when necessary, they can have in camera hearings on special occasions to facilitate special witnesses.

We need to be able to talk about this in public. We need to be able to know what witnesses were called, what the witnesses said, and whether the report reflects what was heard. We can't have quiet hearings. In this day and age, it's not even accountable.

So I would like to be stronger than what this report has basically said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

As a clarification, the recommendations coming forth now are not an afterthought or an attempt to take over Mr. von Finckenstein's work. For the record, we were the first point of contact on this issue. It was the heritage committee that stepped in, called for witnesses, said that we would study this, and issued a report. This is something that we must complete.

Part of issuing a report is coming forward with recommendations, regardless of whether Mr. von Finckenstein has his own process in place. I don't believe you can usurp the work that we began here, because people are looking to us to come forward with clear recommendations.

What I suggest is that we seem to have a general sense of the narrative, and the question is on the recommendations. Should we vote to go forward and look at the recommendations, yes or no? If we vote to go forward with the recommendations, we can start to go through them point by point and find out whether or not there's agreement or changes. Perhaps that's a better way to spend the other hour and a half of our time this morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Fast, and then Mr. Kotto.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I have two points, Mr. Chair.

First of all, to address Ms. Fry's point, she refers to the fact that judicial proceedings typically are in public, and that's true. In fact, the reason they're in public is that judicial proceedings are perhaps the most penal in nature, usually, and in fact the higher you go in terms of something being of a quasi-judicial or strictly judicial process, you're going to make that public.

But I remind her that even within judicial processes there is such a thing as a voir dire, which is closed to the public, which is done privately. And the lower on the scale you go, right down to a task force, it's less serious in the sense that because the decisions aren't of a penal nature typically, you wouldn't require that it necessarily be a public hearing.

Let me finish. You had your say.

I'm suggesting to you that the task force that Mr. von Finckenstein is going to be undertaking is something where he can informally discuss the concerns of the industry, including those of Quebecor and Shaw, to determine what the real issues are here. We never had an opportunity at this table to actually go into the underlying issues and the details of those issues that were causing Shaw and Quebecor to take the action they did.

My suggestion is this. We already have a commitment from Mr. von Finckenstein to undertake a review by way of a task force where there are going to be broad consultations within the industry. He's committed that he will be making that report public and will submit that to this committee, so we will have an opportunity to have additional information upon which to make recommendations.

The process we've completed has simply addressed a crisis of funding that took place--which has resolved itself, at least on a temporary basis. But at the same time, the reasons that gave rise to that problem of funding haven't been dealt with exhaustively at this table, and presumably that's the whole purpose of Mr. von Finckenstein's task force.

I find it amazing that we would even suggest moving forward with far-reaching recommendations when we don't have that basic information available. Why would we not wait until Mr. von Finckenstein reports? That is the appropriate process. If the intention of this whole process that we've completed was to make recommendations as to the various issues underlying the funding crisis, then we would have had to have a much broader consultation. We would have had to spend much more time on the issue.

Again, I go back. The task force is charged with doing that. I'm absolutely confident that Mr. von Finckenstein is going to come forward with a task force report that's going to provide us with the kind of information, statistics, data that we require to make recommendations that are actually going to be effective.

I've just had a quick look at the various recommendations Mr. Angus has made, and I'm looking forward to receiving those from the other opposition parties, but it's highly unlikely that the government side is going to support most of these, simply because they're of a political nature. They're highly charged. They appear to make recommendations in the absence of supporting evidence. So that's my concern.

I want to make sure that if we're going to make recommendations as a committee, those recommendations are based on fact, that they're based on solid data, that they're actually going to move the industry forward, that they will inform the minister appropriately.

First of all, I have an opportunity here. I'm not going to vote against it just for the sake of voting against it. I want to justify why I believe the process that's being suggested here is inappropriate. We'll have a chance to debate the recommendations, I'm sure, given the fact that the government is a minority at this table. But at the same time, if we believe that the purpose of this committee is to be constructive, to move forward in a constructive manner, to work collaboratively, I'm not sure we're equipped yet to make the kinds of recommendations that I see Mr. Angus bringing forward here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

I'm going to take about three more responses here, because we're in debate right now and we're going nowhere. We will then take a vote on Mr. Angus's motions.

One thing that I, as the chair, have noticed throughout the consultations is that we haven't had all the parties that contribute to the Canadian Television Fund before us. Are we going to make those same mistakes that have been made before? We haven't had any satellite people here as witnesses. Have we had a full contingent of witnesses? I'd just put that to people's minds, just to think. It's as the cable people said when they were here. There were a lot of recommendations made ten years ago or so, and they weren't even at the table. So are we going to do that same thing again? Let's just think a bit about that.

Mr. Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I understand what you are saying, Mr. Chairman, but I do want to clarify a couple of things.

Mr. Abbott was critical of the fact that this issue is being politicized. But I would remind people that we are not the ones who politicized things here in committee. However, I do not intend to impute motives; we'll have plenty of time outside these walls to elaborate on matters.

Also, I think that, as members of this Committee, we should be taking a holistic approach to all the issues we examine. In that sense, you were right to mention that we have not heard from all the industry players. I should also point out that since March 1, 2006, Telefilm Canada has been in charge of managing applications to the Canadian Television Fund, although we have not had them appear before the Committee.

That brings me back to what Ms. Fry said about public hearings. Because it is removed from politics, the CRTC may feel it has every right to hold hearings behind closed doors. However, if Telefilm were to take part, given that it is responsible for processing applications, it would be more inclined to be accountable to us, or ensure the exercise is somewhat more transparent.

I, too, am having a lot of trouble understanding why this work has to be carried out behind closed doors. We have been following this issue very closely and we know that all the details with respect to Shaw's and Videotron's actions are public. Those details have already come out. So, what is going to be resolved in private meetings? Unless the idea is to develop a new configuration or paradigm for the Canadian Television Fund.

In that regard, my concern is that we will lose control and that when this exercise is over and done with, we won't know much more than we did before. So, I share Ms. Fry's concerns in that respect.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Ms. Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To come back to what I was saying earlier, the report is well prepared in terms of format, because it has an introduction, a development, a conclusion, and the correct terms have been used. But that doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with the substance. I believe the CRTC's decision to set up a task force that will be meeting with witnesses behind closed doors upstages us as a Committee.

We mustn't forget that Mr. Shaw came before this Committee and said that when he sat down over there, he has already received assurances that his comments had been heard. He went back to making his annual payments. He considered the idea of continuing to pay because he had received assurances that things would change. Those were his own words. That means that Mr. Finckenstein had already met with him, as he told us, and that there may have been an agreement between Shaw Communications and the CRTC.

Personally, I am very embarrassed at the idea of holding meetings behind closed doors. I actually came back to that point when I questioned Mr. Finckenstein, saying that I felt uncomfortable with the idea of these private meetings. If the Committee had held hearings, they would have been public. If only for that reason, we should continue to hear from witnesses and discuss this issue.

Finally, I received Mr. Angus's recommendations this morning. I have not read them. It isn't his fault, but they had to be translated. However, I do think that we should come back to the recommendations later, so that we have an opportunity to read them and look over them properly beforehand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Ms. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

I wanted to thank Mr. Fast for explaining to me so clearly the difference between a judicial and quasi-judicial body and parliamentary committees. I had no idea.

I want to say, Mr. Chair, that page 7 of the report relates to what I'm speaking to. We have listened to witnesses, we have come up with this report, and extending on that, obviously the CRTC has launched the task force. A task force by nature, generally speaking, is a public body with public hearings. The argument that I continue to make is that when you have hearings in private and then a public report, no one knows whether that report reflects what was heard at the hearings. We are trusting completely that the body would do exactly that.

I confess to being skeptical. I read clearly here about Vidéotron on page 6, and we heard what Vidéotron said when they were present here at the last meeting of this committee, that no matter what they do right now—which for me is “let's keep everybody happy”, let's tread water, let's just put the band-aid on—their ultimate goal is to create a $109 million fund over three years for Canadian production as a replacement for its contribution to the CTF. The witness from Vidéotron was very clear that this was his ultimate goal. Over three years: that buys them three years to keep everybody happy and keep this quiet.

If this report speaks to issues relating to the Canadian Television Fund, it is completely within the jurisdiction of the report to speak to not only the short-term but the long-term stability of this fund. I think both of those things and the recommendation that I made relate directly to this report and to the CRTC task force that follows and builds on it. I believe it is important for accountability reasons.

The CRTC exists because Parliament has written it into existence; therefore, it has a duty to report to Parliament and to listen to what Parliament asks it to do. I am saying that we are speaking today about accountability. Accountability is not only whether you spend money; accountability is whether in fact you are doing the job you are supposed to do in an appropriate manner. I think it is entirely within our right to suggest that the CRTC should be accountable to Canadians at the end of the day, so that its work is clearly and openly done.

Where there are problems, the CRTC will have the ability to make decisions about listening to in camera hearings, but there must be public hearings. This is important to all Canadians. This is a public issue. It has to do with the future of Canadian production and Canadian programming, and I think it requires that we do what we must do now: we set in place the structures now that will require that we have a sustainable and permanent way of continuing with Canadian programming in this country. I think it's even more important now, when we know about new media and all of the other challenges that are facing Canadian production.

So I repeat that the recommendation I made will be brought forward on Thursday to be discussed and voted on. You have to give 48 hours' notice, and I did this yesterday.

Mr. Chair, I reiterate what I said notwithstanding Mr. Fast's detailed explanation about how things work around here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'll go to Mr. Abbott and then Mr. Angus.

Then I'm going to read exactly what the motion was that came down before, and then we can go on. We're spinning our wheels here. Don't get me wrong; there have been a lot of good things said. But if we're going to make progress on this, we have to go forward.

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Part of the problem we have here is the fact that we are having a discussion in a vacuum of fact. What I'm thinking of, for example, on recommendation 1 is that I believe there was testimony both by Vidéotron and by Shaw Communications. The testimony verbatim would be of value to me, and perhaps even to the opposition, to be able to read into the record, because without having come prepared with the testimony of all the people who came before us, we are all, every one of us, working in a vacuum of being able to put it on the table.

I completely accept the assertions that have been made by my friends on the other side of the table when they said Mr. Shaw said this, or Mr. Péladeau said that, or whatever the case may be. I accept that you did that in absolute good faith. You did not in any way, and certainly without any intention, torque it. But I don't know if your recitation of what they said was actually precise, and without that precision, how can we have a discussion?

The second part of the problem is that I'm really wondering why, because it appears as though we are choosing to go down this particular road to do something different with the report than that which was presented to us on Friday.... I don't know really why we're in camera at this particular point. What is the value of our being in camera? All of us are restricted to come out of this meeting and say—and in good faith I will tell you what I will say—that unfortunately the committee at this point has been unable to come to a consensus on a report and the discussions are continuing, period, full stop, end of statement. That's all that we can say.

The fact is that there are some other things that I would like to be able to say, which I am constrained from saying as a result of this being in camera. What is the value of our continuing with this meeting in camera? I understand that it is in camera and it will remain in camera. That's fine, until we decide otherwise. I'm just saying, what is the value of us continuing in camera?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you. To clarify, because I am feeling that we are starting to walk the clock down here, the issue that was brought before us was the crisis precipitated by Shaw and Vidéotron. At that time, when we stepped in, there was no discussion about our looking at the governance structure of the CTF, the role of the CTF, Telefilm, and so on. There are a lot of aspects to this file, but we focused on the crisis that was at hand.

So you will see out of these recommendations that they're strictly focused on the evidence we heard. There are no recommendations on changing the governance structure. Mr. Shaw raised questions about who sat around the board. I don't feel myself in any position to make recommendations on that, because we didn't hear enough evidence. If at the end of the day the CRTC comes forward with recommendations on changing the governance structure and the composition of the table, well, they will have perhaps a greater degree of expertise if they were choosing to study that. What we studied was the issue of the suspension of payments and what happened, and how that should not happen again. What we studied was the issue of whether Vidéotron or Shaw can change the funding arrangement so that they might want to move their funding elsewhere. We had heard clearly that this was problematic, so for the CTF, as it stands now, this is coming forward as a recommendation.

Then the final area of recommendations is the role of a closed-door process at the CRTC, which I think is highly unusual. I don't feel that it's my job to condemn the CRTC for that, but to remind—and this is in the recommendation—that the CTF remains a child of the heritage department and so it has to somehow come back for public hearings, and we want to make sure that happens.

So that's strictly the focus of the recommendations. There's no vacuum here. This is based on the exact issues that we were faced with, and so now it is incumbent upon us to come forward with this.

So I would suggest we look at the recommendations. We have all studied, we have all listened to the evidence, and we are in a position to decide whether these recommendations are what the committee wants or what the majority of the committee would like to come forward with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

First I will read the motion that was put forward by Mr. Angus on February 1. It is moved:

That due to the ongoing uncertainty of the future of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) as precipitated by recent announcements from Shaw Communications Inc. and Vidéotron Ltée that they will no longer live up to the terms of their licence by withholding contributions to the fund, this committee will investigate the impacts of the CTF’s potential elimination on the health of Canada's domestic television production and make recommendations to the House of Commons based on our findings.

That's the motion. Maybe sometimes I don't look into things quite as deeply as everyone else, but when I look at this, I think the main thrust is the withholding of funds by Shaw and Vidéotron. I thought it was the task of this committee at that time to make sure they were restored to their monthly payments.

When I looked at all the extra recommendations here, I thought we had a simple task and that our experts had come across with a good response. I think there was only one recommendation from this committee, to make sure the monthly payments continued, that they were put into legislation. That's what I understood our committee was looking into.

Maybe we should have put off our study on public broadcasting until the next session and continued with CTF. If we're going to come out with a whole list of suggestions...we did not have enough witnesses here. Everyone has not been looked at to do that.

I just look at the recommendation that was put forward. It seems to answer the question we were given. The more recommendations you make, the more.... You might think that it corners people or stops them from doing things, but it gives them more of an out.

It goes back to where all our laws came from. There were 10 of them. Now we have so many it doesn't matter what those 10 laws might have been way back when. You can get around the situation by looking at 10(a), (b), (c), (d), (e). It will get you around number 10.

I don't know why we have to make this so complicated, but that's fine. I have spoken as chair and we will now go forward.

Do we want to look at Mr. Angus' motions?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We can look at them one by one. I don't think we've had enough time to study them all. We can decide on how we can do that. Maybe this will be all the study we're going to put into them.

The first recommendation is:

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage strongly condemns the actions taken by Shaw Communications Inc. and Vidéotron Ltée to withhold their monthly payments to the CTF, which precipitated a crisis in the television industry and took unnecessary time and effort from all parties involved, including the industry, the CRTC, the Department of Heritage, the CTF, and this committee; and further that it urges the Minister of Heritage to do the same.

Do you want to speak on the motion, Mr. Angus?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I think it's fairly straightforward. In their public actions they have insulted the public of Canadian television. After coming out of the minister's meeting when the minister hadn't spoken, they said it was dead, done, and gone. The actions of both Vidéotron and Shaw were outrageous and they should be condemned. It's simple.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Go ahead, Chris.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

This recommendation, for the most part, is commentary. The only recommendation is that the minister condemn Vidéotron and Shaw. I think we had the opportunity to question the minister. If the minister, number one, wanted to condemn them, she would have had the opportunity to do that any number of times. She actually made it very clear that she was going to speak with them with an intention to be conciliatory, so I think she's passed judgment on this. It's in the testimony. I don't think making the recommendation at this point is beneficial, because the only recommendation here is that we urge the minister to condemn Vidéotron and Shaw, and she's made it clear that she's not going to do that because she thinks it's important that we work together with them rather than condemn them.

So I think we're counterproductive in doing this. I think we're getting into the political on this recommendation.

I know, Charlie, that what you're hoping to do is to make a strong statement, and I think we can do that maybe in the commentary. We can say that witnesses had issues. Obviously they felt that it was a crisis situation. I don't think we need to put it into a recommendation. I think we can put it in the commentary. And as far as telling the minister to condemn these companies goes, I think it's irresponsible of this committee. I'll assure you of what her response will be, because she testified as to what her response would be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I concur with my colleague Mr. Warkentin. Typically condemnation takes place when there has been an action of moral reprehensibility. We do that in the criminal law, in our sentencing structures. It's not something we do when someone has stayed completely within the law.

The testimony is clear. From all the witnesses we've heard from, there's a general consensus that the circulars that were issued, which supposedly required monthly payments by Shaw and Vidéotron, were not legally binding. They were imposed on those parties without a legal force behind them. It's quite another issue to discuss the annual payments, because those are required by regulation. But to suggest that we're now going to condemn these two entities...because they have stayed completely within the law, they've brought an issue forward that apparently hasn't been addressed for anywhere from five to ten years, testimony showed. This problem has been percolating for a long time. You can't blame these two entities for having now been forced into the position where they have to get a little tougher to make sure that we, as a committee, and the minister understand that there was a problem.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

It's like going on strike.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

It's a long-standing problem.

Secondly, I also want us to focus in on what we are trying to achieve here. We've all paid lip service to the fact that we want to solve this problem. We want to solve the underlying problems of the CTF: how it's funded, how the money is allocated, what technologies might be served through this funding. This is all evidence that came out during these hearings.

We want to bring Vidéotron and Shaw to the table. We want to bring the industry to the table. Mr. Finckenstein wants to now work through a task force to bring resolution to all these issues. Not only are we, in this recommendation, as a committee, making a statement of condemnation, we're asking the minister now to go public and say she condemns these two companies for having stayed within the law.

What are we going to achieve by doing that? We're simply going to alienate the members of the industry who have raised concerns but who have actually come back to the table, have restored their monthly funding--which they weren't required to do legally--and now we're going to stick a stick in their eye and say we're condemning them publicly just to embarrass them even more, to shame them into doing this.

Do you think that's going to be conducive to moving forward and trying to resolve these issues? I think not.