Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's unanimous.

Now we'll move to recommendation 2.

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

We have already had a discussion of it. I'm just putting the final wording that had been brought forward, which is that we support the work.

I'd like to call the question. Yes, we've just discussed it. We've been discussing it for the last 15 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have discussed recommendation 2. To my understanding, there's been a recommendation, a change of a word, that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage support the work of the Canadian Television Fund. That's what we have right now.

One short one, Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Can I get clarification as to how this is going to be written up? Are we just putting the highlighted portion into a report or are we including the text that follows it as well, where the last sentence includes “that the committee heard no reason to believe the allegations of Shaw and Vidéotron that the CTF is poorly structured or operated”? Are we including that? If so, I would implore the committee members to make some changes, because that's factually incorrect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's just the recommendation.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So no supplementary will be included in that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's just the recommendation, which is a non-recommendation.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I call the question.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Next is recommendation 3, as recorded in the draft report:The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage urges the CRTC to amend the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations to stipulate that BDUs must make monthly, rather than annual, contributions to the Canadian Television Fund.

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

I'm just curious. How is that different from what was in the...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's not, it's the same. It's the same.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Can we strike that, then, and just have the original report?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

We will consent to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Should we strike that one? It's already there.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, are you striking it here because it's already in the report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's already in the report.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

All right. Just for the record, Mr. von Finckenstein did say he intends to change the regulations. He was here at our last meeting. So I think that's good news. One little bit of good news here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay, next is recommendation 4: The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage urges the CRTC to amend the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations to set out clear financial penalties to BDUs that fail to abide by the monthly payment schedule.

Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I don't know if somebody has the information that I'm going to need, but it wasn't testified to. Purely for clarification, my understanding was that if any of the BDUs don't fulfill what is regulated or what's in legislation, their licence gets pulled. Is that correct or is that not correct? If that is not correct, is it financial penalties first and then their licences being pulled? What are we suggesting here? Are we suggesting they only pay a penalty and never get their licence pulled?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

This has come out with a few other issues with the CRTC, when they had the Shaw decision, and what steps you can take in terms of going against players who are not abiding by their licences. They don't have too many tools. At the end of the day, this recommendation will go to the CRTC, and they will decide what they are going to do with it.

Are we going to tell Shaw we're going to pull their licence when they have tens of thousands of cable viewers across Canada who are going to ask what's going on? This was to give the CRTC a suggestion for some more tools they could apply, because pulling a licence would be a substantial step to have to take. It's the same as pulling a licence of a radio station that's not playing ball. The question had been raised in the past: should the CRTC have a few more tools at its discretion, such as financial penalties and other penalties, to deal with players who are not living up to the terms of their licences? So this was a suggestion to give to the CRTC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Great.

Mr. Warkentin, please, and then Mr. Abbott.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I would like additional clarification, if it is possible. I don't know if the analysts have any information with regard to the current penalties for not fulfilling the law. Do you have that?

[Marion Ménard, Committee Researcher]

No, we'd need to research it.