Canadian Heritage Committee on May 24th, 2007

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thanks very much.

We talk about the various inputs to the broader film, and the role of fiction and documentary film—and Charlie mentioned the various programs that exist and talked about consolidation. Would they require consolidation? As many witnesses have suggested, one of the things we have to do, in terms of the role of the CBC into the next century, is to see it as a leader among players, rather than, as was historically the mindset, a player. Part of the problem that exists right now perhaps stems from the fact that we haven't figured out how to be that leader among players.

I would want a reaction to that. But I want to go back, very specifically, to the reference to the local support for the ACTRA position nationally around the mandate, and whether the mandate is sufficient.

Could I suggest perhaps the need to offer some clarity, then, to that sufficient mandate, because it's read differently? When I asked the question last night, and again today, people do react here to the fact that when I ask what the region is, they say Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't think that's the way the CBC in Toronto views the regions, because I've had the experience of being told to be satisfied with Halifax. As an Atlantic Canadian, you can appreciate how offensive that is to a New Brunswicker.

Each of us will argue in the regions—and we should, and when I say “regions” I'm talking about regions—about the unique nature of the jurisdictions. In our case, it's the only bilingual province, and we coexist. That's the story in and of itself, and we have all kinds of stories to tell about that.

It may be necessary to simply offer more clarity to the mandate. I don't think that is necessarily the overall thing, but I think it may be necessary. My fear is this. I think there is a resource problem. I think that the CBC has changed. No fault to the CBC; they've been forced to change. Unfortunately, it might very well be that we would be surprised to find out that if we restored the funding to levels that we believe to be necessary to offer what you seek from 20 years ago, we'd restore the funding but we wouldn't get that back.

Now, in some ways we're not going to get it back anyway. But even to the extent to which we think, at this moment, if there were a significant amount of money made available, I'm not convinced that it would change, in terms of the interventions that I get in my constituency, in Fredericton, or that we're getting here about the nature of what they expect of the CBC. I'm not sure it would necessarily come, and I'm trying to figure out how to get it.

I would be fearful that we would make the resources available, but we would be surprised with the outcome. It may very well be that the institution has changed—no fault to the institution—because of the cutbacks.

[Amy House]

The institution has changed, but we talk about reflecting our culture, and the culture of Newfoundland and Labrador is very different from the culture of New Brunswick, which is very different from Toronto. So maybe you're right, maybe the mandate should be clarified and maybe we should talk about exactly what we mean by the region and exactly what this means in the mandate so that we know. If the CBC could get funded to the capacity that we could answer some of their prayers, then it would be distributed and we would all get a fair kick at the cat, as they say. We'd get that chance. And when we talk regionally, we mean in our own province, because we have a culture, in the same way as you have a culture, in the same way as Toronto has a culture. That's what makes up Canada, our multi-cultures. So I think that's profound, that maybe we do need to redefine what the regions are.

[Bart Simpson]

Just to follow up on that, it's slightly out of my portfolio, as it were, but there was an interesting suggestion that you may have heard before. It was made by a local actor here. It was that one thing that would really work is having something like a half-hour slot in time for each province, or territory in the case of CBC North, an amount of time available for new programming that's locally developed, locally produced, and locally done. And again, following up on what Amy was saying, it's a way of being a testing ground to see what's going to work nationally.

From the documentary perspective, it doesn't really work the same way. It might look like maybe that same amount of money could be given to simply develop an idea and go out and do some test shooting, find your subjects, and not restrict ourselves in that case to regional stories. It would have to be open to international stories, as long as it's a regional filmmaker making the story.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Ms. Bourgeois. Please be shorter this time.

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

I will try to be brief, Mr. Chairman.

Listening to you, Mr. Scott, a thought came to mind. I will share that thought with you, and then, I will ask my question of Mr. Simpson or perhaps even both of you.

You spoke about a culture that is typical of Newfoundland, of Acadian culture and the culture of New Brunswick. We, in Quebec, talk about our francophone culture. I tell myself that we wanted so badly to make this country, Canada, a great melting pot that we suppressed all of the cultures in order to make a single one, Canadian culture, forgetting that there are particularities within each of the regions. Having said that, I think that Canadian culture is now facing a serious problem. It will soon drown in American culture if Canadians do not take care and do not quite frankly go in a new whole new direction, as Quebec did at one time. That does not mean that one should become separatist, it means that we must want to define who we are in each of our respective regions. The ball is now in your court, ladies and gentlemen.

My question is for Mr. Simpson. You advocated a regular review of the CBC's mandate. I already know what the answer will be, but I would like to hear it. Currently, does the CBC consult you regarding the funds it receives from the public, money coming from taxpayers, and regarding its programming and the use it makes of these taxpayers' funds? Have you been consulted? If yes, in what way? If not, how would you like such a consultation to be done?

[Bart Simpson]

That's a great question. It's changed slightly. And again, I'm speaking somewhat from personal experience.

Certainly in the past, our organization has had a very good relationship with CBC. We've been talking about.... Again, that's when the documentary tradition was perhaps more visible on the network.

Now with this latest round, I can tell you, as somebody sitting in the audience as the new leadership was coming through, it wasn't an involved discussion. I had the experience of it being a speech, a talking-to conversation rather than a talking-with conversation. Certainly there were times when they asked us questions, but was that ever really taken extremely seriously? It didn't feel like it to me.

Obviously, things move forward. Rather than falling back to the way it was, we'd rather find new ways of working with the leadership in a creative dialogue. Obviously, there are lots of people. Documentary isn't the only thing that would be showing on CBC. There's also variety, there's sports, etc.

We just want to get into a regular dialogue as part of that pan-industry discussion. We're open to how that looks. We had a good relationship in the past with the documentary unit. It's not as powerful now simply because it's not a focus of the main network.

Does that answer your question?

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

No. I'd like to hear from Marlene, if she has any ideas. In fact, it could be either Marlene or Amy.

[Marlene Cahill]

We're not producers; we're representatives of the performers who take part in the productions. So no, the CBC doesn't consult us on funds or on programming. It's between the producers and the CBC. We come in at the next level. I honestly don't see us taking part in that process. It really is between the producer and the broadcaster.

Other than in a forum like this, a public forum, one-on-one in terms of what's being programmed and when and whatever, it's not something I've ever been involved with, on a regional level anyway.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

We'll move to Mr. Angus.

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

I feel for CBC management--not all the time, but every now and then.

The game we're in right now is very high stakes. The cost of a pilot is enormous. We've set the benchmark; we're trying to compete with House and CSI. If a show is a clunker, they have to come before the committee and explain why they made a bad show. If they cancel curling, we're going to hear about it in the House of Commons. Altar Boys, oh my God, we're going to have editorials. I don't think anybody even got to see this show. If CBC gave me a bootleg copy, at least I'd appreciate it.

We're in a strange situation where you really have to either be absolutely safe or absolutely guaranteed. So we're not going to do a lot of interesting television because of that.

Yet the question I'd put to you is.... If we think of the best Canadian television we've had, it's been fairly cheap. If you look at The Second City, we've created a generation of not just stars, we've created a generation of superstars from a program that was done very much on the fly, and it allowed people to develop their skills. John Candy would not have been a superstar if he hadn't had endless hours on television developing his craft and building an audience.

Is the argument to be made that it's worth it in the long run to put some money into regional programming where the CODCOs come out of and the Rick Mercer Reports are born, rather than having to put everything on the one roll of the dice in Toronto, where if you don't make it, that's going to cost a lot of money, it's going to be egg all over our faces, and we're going to have to debate it in Parliament? Is there a better argument to say there's got to be a funding envelope to allow the bubbling up of new ideas we never would have expected, and if it fails, what the heck, it didn't cost us all that much money anyway?

[Amy House]

I think Bart's idea of the half hour in each region.... That gives us a chance to have a go at it, so we see the best of what we can get out of each region. That, historically from Newfoundland, is how we have produced national icons, by starting small, by getting the word out, and it becoming a national show and producing stars. That seems to be the template. And I think that could probably work again if we were given the opportunity to get the best regionally and then take it from there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Go ahead, Mr. Simpson.

[Bart Simpson]

I think the answer is a definite yes to the idea of regional funding for development. Again, just to highlight the documentary difference, it might look more like putting money to develop an idea and do a test shoot.

I'm going to Nicaragua in two weeks, for example, and bringing down a seasoned crew. We're putting the money into that, and then taking that internationally. CBC might get a first opportunity at a window of that documentary down the road, rather than seeing a small half-hour documentary. That might be a different way of dealing with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

Just before we conclude, there's one thing. We've been to Yellowknife, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, and here in Newfoundland, and tomorrow we go to Montreal, but there is one thing--there are almost four CBCs. There's CBC television, English and French; then there's CBC radio in English and French. The one thing we hear, as we hear in St. John's today, is Toronto, Toronto; in the English, it's all about how we don't want to be like Toronto necessarily. All we hear is coming out of Toronto.

One thing we heard in Yellowknife and in Vancouver and from the francophone community outside of Quebec was that we don't want to hear all Montreal, all Montreal. There's a lot of CBC francophone transmission from Montreal, and it seems to come back to the Montreal area.

How to make all of that stuff work is quite a quandary. I've heard a lot of things here last night and today that have been echoed across the country in various other regions. They also want to know the definition of a region.

Again, I thank you very much for your presentations today and for answering our questions. Thank you.

We will just recess to see if we have our next witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I've just reconvened to say that our next witnesses have failed to arrive. So with that, I'm going to adjourn this meeting.