Canadian Heritage Committee on May 1st, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Madame Bourgeois.

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

Good day, Mr. Chairman, Mr. East.

We visited Vancouver last March and met with Mr. Carl Bessai from the Citizen's Coalition for the Protection of Canadian Films. Do you know him?

[Ted East]

Yes, I do.

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

He more or less says the same things you do. He was furious when he met with us. He was flabbergasted CBC wasn't a key driver in promoting Canadian film.

Do you deal in any way with this citizen's coalition?

[Ted East]

No, we don't. We are aware of them and we're certainly aware of some of the positions they've taken and some of the statements they've made. I think on this point we would be in agreement, and on other issues we're not in agreement.

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

I was wondering if someone from your organization or from the coalition had perhaps thought of creating an alliance in order to give you a stronger voice. Have you ever discussed developing an alliance in order to get more recognition and support for Canadian productions?

[Ted East]

No. In order to create an alliance, I believe you'd have to have a commonality of views and interests. I believe one of the things they've proposed is screen quotas, to ensure that Canadian films are on screens, which is not something we advocate at all, as we don't think it would work. What's happened in Quebec has indicated that when you make films people actually want to see, you don't need screen quotas to get access to screen. So there are a number of issues where we're not in agreement.

But in terms of working with them and lobbying when the time comes for the CBC's CRTC review, we would certainly.... We work with the CFTPA all the time to create common ground on certain issues, and it would certainly be welcome if they shared the same views as us on this issue.

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

And yet, both of your organizations advocate on behalf of the Canadian film industry. Both of your organizations want to see more opportunities and want Canadian productions to be front and centre. Mr. Bessai told us that the citizen's coalition had decided to take on the cable companies and their unwavering focus on American productions.

Despite the differences you point out, the fact remains that promoting Canadian culture is something you have in common.

[Ted East]

Yes, definitely, the promotion of Canadian culture and a commitment to feature films in the public broadcasting system would be a common point. But in terms of creating a formal ongoing alliance, if that's what you're suggesting, I think there are too many diverging views for that to happen.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'll move to Mr. Abbott now.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You said--I hope I wrote this down correctly--that when you make films you actually want to see, there's no need for screen quotas. I think you said something along that line.

I'd like to go back to a question I had asked the previous witness with respect to regulation. I realize that you're here in your capacity as president of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, and I do want to get into content in just half a second, but I wonder if you would like to make a comment about the issue of regulation.

In the minds of some people presenting to our committee here, there's still the idea that if only we could regulate, we would get more people watching CBC, or in fact that the regulation of CBC with respect to Canadian content, with respect to all of the issues surrounding the CRTC and those regulations, would make a difference.

If we take your comment, about making films you actually want to see, and the testimony by the previous witness, about his family of four teenagers making choices, I would suggest that when people make choices, they will make those choices whether there are regulations in place or not. And with the Internet, there is serious question as to whether regulation is in fact even possible now.

So in this dialogue we're having with respect to CBC, I wonder if you would like to comment on my comments about the place for regulation.

[Ted East]

First of all, I'd like to say that in the theatrical world, the cinemas and distributors, it is unregulated. You do not need a licence from the CRTC to be a film distributor. You do not need a licence from them to open up a cinema or a chain of cinemas. As long as you're a Canadian-owned and -controlled company, I don't believe the Department of Canadian Heritage is going to have very much to say. They're not going to require you to distribute any percentage of Canadian films or to exhibit any percentage of Canadian films.

Very little subsidy, if any, is available to exhibitors. Very little, truthfully, is available to Canadian distributors. You're in a free market world. But once you get onto the public airwaves, it's a different game. Different things apply. Looking at the CBC and at what their role should be, with the government money they're given and the mandate they're given, it's completely different from the expectation you might have for a cinema chain or a group of film distributors.

As for the Internet, it causes us great concern. We see a potential scenario where, in the future, the Canadian market will be eroded into a global market, which will negatively affect the pseudo-ecosystem that exists now. Canadian content gets produced by producers working with the marketplace. Subsidies are a critical part of that. But if Canadian territory is being eroded by the Internet--for instance, if foreign suppliers who supply Canadian distributors now don't need to because they can reach Canadian audiences over the Internet--then that will weaken the Canadian distribution sector. As a consequence, that will weaken the Canadian production sector. They won't have that partner to work with and to get those films into the marketplace.

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

On the revenue side there's the issue of simultaneous substitution. That already is being eroded just by time-shifting because of satellite.

[Ted East]

Right.

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

Do you have any comment on that?

I guess we're looking for any suggestions you may have. Trying to think outside the box is sometimes a little difficult.

[Ted East]

We have not discussed that issue. I wouldn't want to speak on it without consulting my members.

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

Finally, relating to the issue of Canadian content, people who are critical of that as a concept often talk about how many wheat fields and how many buckets of maple syrup you can have in a picture, in terms of whether it's Canadian enough.

I would ask for your comments here. How in your judgment do we best determine Canadian content? Is it actually a judgment call that we can make on something that is clearly subjective? Can we make an objective judgment, in your opinion? Can we set up regulations? Can we set up a regulatory authority that would actually give us the ability to stipulate Canadian content?

Again, let's relate that to the watchability, or the desirability of watching, on the part of potential audiences.

[Ted East]

I think there are two issues here. One is the objective regulations themselves. In my opinion, and in the opinion of my members, the regulations that exist now are long overdue for an overhaul. In a more subjective area as far as what constitutes Canadian content, I think we need to be a lot more open and inclusive about that.

I think one of the frustrations in English Canada is that there has been a tendency, particularly with government money when you're getting investments from Telefilm Canada, to make very serious movies about very depressing subjects.

I did an analysis of the development of feature films and discovered that an extraordinary percentage of government money at the development level was being put into the least attractive genre for audiences, which is the psychological or the bleak drama. I mean, audiences typically don't like to go to those, even if there are big movie stars in them. What they like to see are comedies, romance, action adventure. There's no reason we can't make those kinds of movies here.

If you look at the success of movies in French-speaking Canada, a lot of it is due to the entertainment value. There are a lot of comedies. There were two English successes last year, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, which was widely entertaining, and the Trailer Park Boys movie. People went to see them.

I think that when we're dealing with Canadian content we want to instruct the people who invest government money to be much wider in their appreciation and encouragement of those genres. I can say that in working with Telefilm and the new working group over the last year and a half we've made great strides there. I think the message needs to get out that it's okay to laugh; it's okay to make a coming-of-age comedy about growing up in Red Deer. There's nothing wrong with it. You don't have to make a serious drama about your mother dying slowly of Alzheimer's and the family coming over Easter weekend to visit her. Canadians aren't necessarily going to be attracted to that if they think it's going to be depressing.

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

There's another issue, which is Canada's changing demographic.

[Ted East]

Absolutely.

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

I was told yesterday that by 2010 or 2012--I can't recall the year--50% of the population's ancestry in greater Vancouver will have come from outside of Canada. That's 50% within the next five to seven years. I don't think we see the reflection of that demographic to the extent that perhaps we should.

[Ted East]

No. And I think there are probably a lot of very good stories there. Some of them are dramatic, but there are probably a lot of great comedies. I think that's something we want to encourage.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

I'd like to add that I like funny stuff myself. I think we need more of that in our features films as we go forward. We need to see more of that on television. In fact it goes back to one of my yearbooks in high school. At that particular time I was told I was the Red Skelton of tomorrow. That tells you how old I am.

I have the same question I asked the last presenters. Should the CBC be something for everyone in Canada, or should it start to target certain segments with high-quality programs?