Canadian Heritage Committee on May 25th, 2007

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Kotto.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to continue in the same vein. Most of the witnesses who appeared before us asked that Radio-Canada's funding be maintained, even increased. We've asked questions to determine whether the money was well managed, if there was transparency with regard to accountability. In the past, we heard the evidence of Ms. Fraser, who herself did not have access to all the relevant information to support the work of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. In light of what we've heard this morning, considering what might be called game-playing with independent producers, there is reason to believe that the money is not rigorously managed.

Is that a misinterpretation of your statements this morning?

[Michel Bibeault]

I would say the contrary. I think Radio-Canada managers manage their budgets rigorously. Managers see that the Radio-Canada budget is smaller. The production of Virginie cost it only 20% of the price. However, the $86,000 amount, as opposed to $68,000, was paid by Radio-Canada, but it has access to funds to pay virtually 80% of the price. So Radio-Canada's management is fine. However, we are asking you whether that is good management of public funds.

If we take all of the $5 billion that, in Canada, is—

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

It's up to us to ask you questions.

It's the information you provide us that fuels the recommendations that we'll be making in this report. That's a question that I would eventually ask you to answer, but first I'll ask you how long this phenomenon of delocalizing production from within the corporation to outside it has been going on.

[Pierre Roger]

With your permission, I'll answer that question. The Fédération nationale des communications has conducted two studies which are consistent with the one my colleague mentioned. It isn't the same study, but I could send the committee copies of those studies, which have been conducted since 2000. In fact, the introduction of independent production has occurred gradually since 1986, with the advent of Télévision Quatre-Saisons, whose licence was related to the fact that production had to be done using independent producers.

However, I would like to draw your attention to one factor that I referred to in my presentation. It indeed costs less for broadcasters, but it costs more for the public, because these subsidies are granted out of public funds. One of the dangers lies in the ownership of those programs. This is a danger for Canadian heritage. If Radio-Canada no longer owns the rights to those programs, who will? It is the producers who will get them. As Mr. Bibeault said earlier, they will continue making money on derivative products and a lot of other things. They can even resell a program to another broadcaster.

For example, the program Catherine was broadcast on Radio-Canada about four years ago. But we have just learned, in the newspapers this morning, that it will be rebroadcast on TQS, whereas Radio-Canada invested large amounts of money in that production. But it doesn't hold the rights to it. The producer has a right to leave with the program. What happens to the amounts of money that are invested in those productions, if the producer disappears after a certain number of years?

Fortunately, before it was possible to use independent producers, Radio-Canada had extensive archives in place. As we're currently seeing, it has put a large part of its archives up for sale in the form of DVDs and derivative products, and the profits go to Radio-Canada. It can do that because it owns the rights to those programs, which it produced within its infrastructures. Let's take the example of the children's program La boîte à surprise or Les belles histoires des pays d'en haut and a whole series of programs; there are tens of them at Radio-Canada. It can do that in the case of programs that it itself has produced entirely.

We said that the structure for funding television productions had to be reviewed and that the broadcaster had to be allowed to have this access to that funding as an independent producer. We're not saying independant production should be stopped, but the television or radio broadcaster must be allowed the choice whether to produce in house or to opt for independent production.

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

We were told that the Canadian Television Fund guaranteed Radio-Canada a 37% share. Is that correct?

[Pierre Roger]

Yes, that's correct. That's not the problem.

[Robert Fontaine]

Radio-Canada has to allocate that 37% share to private productions to which it does not hold the rights.

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

I'm asking questions candidly, while also playing the devil's advocate. I'm very up on the information. If you had to make two or three specific recommendations to improve the situation, what would they be?

[Michel Bibeault]

The idea of the 37% share is among our recommendations. However, we think that Radio-Canada should be able to spend and manage those funds as it wishes, as a reasonable person would do, like being required to produce information and entertainment programs in accordance with the established rules. It should be entitled to contract programs out or produce them itself, based on profitability. I always come back to the same example. It is more profitable for it that it be done using this 37% share because it is subsidized. If it does so itself, it does not have access to that source of funding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

[Pierre Roger]

You heard the comments made earlier: people in the regions are complaining about Radio-Canada's declining presence. It is important that Radio-Canada continue to be a strong presence in the regions with journalists in the field and regional programming.

It must also be ensured that Radio-Canada is adequately funded so that it can carry out its mandate. It must receive funding over a longer term, five, six or seven years, and not just two or three years. For that purpose, the CRTC should be able to grant a 10-year instead of a seven-year licence, as the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications recommended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay, next is Monsieur Levasseur.

[Alex Levasseur, President, Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada]

I'm going to continue on the question of regional production. General programming other than information programs, be it dramas, entertainment programs, youth, and so on, is currently centralized in Montreal. Independent and private producers are concentrated in Montreal because that's where the broadcasters are, that is Radio-Canada, TVA, TQS and the specialty channels. The areas outside of Montreal have been completely emptied of content production, what someone earlier called the “Montrealization” of television.

Radio-Canada's programming this year reflects what I have always called the Plateau Mont-Royal vision of Canada. I'm from Quebec City; I've lived in Sept-Îles and I'm originally from the Gaspé Peninsula. I can tell you that this programming does not always reflect the reality of Canadians and Quebeckers in the Quebec City region. As the private producers are based in Montreal, their vision is necessarily always that of Montreal.

Radio-Canada should have the opportunity to produce regional programs—it should even be required to do them—in order to reflect the regions, somewhat as it did, for example, with Le Temps d'une paix, which was about the Charlevoix region. You know the story of Radio-Canada's production; I don't need to go back over it.

Regional programming is important if we want to break the mould of productions centralized in Montreal and reflect the regions, not just in the area of information. Of course, we have to have regional information programs, but we also need other types of regional programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Now we'll move to Mr. Angus, please, for your questions, sir.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentation this morning. We've been told that Canada should follow the BBC model. My riding has 80,000 inhabitants and covers a larger area than that of Great Britain. Thirteen percent of the population listens to Cree radio, 50% the CBC or the English-language radio station, and 40% Radio-Canada programming intended for the Franco-Ontario community or the English-language radio station.

It's very difficult to take a model like Great Britain and say that we can apply this across Canada.

I've found on our study that about the only thing people from across the country agree on is how much they detest the voice of Toronto and Montreal. What we've heard in community after community is about the disappearance of resources, the disappearance of staffing, and the disappearance of capacity to maintain regional voices. The question has to be asked, is it possible to maintain the notion of a national broadcaster if all we're hearing is Montreal and Toronto?

[Robert Fontaine]

As we said in our presentation, we unreservedly support the request that Mr. Rabinovitch made to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for a special budget envelope to provide better service to the regions of the country. However, we would like rigorous control to be exercised so that that funding is in fact spent in the regions, as Radio-Canada is undertaking to do. That control is necessary precisely because the CBC/Radio-Canada tends to refer everything back to Montreal and Toronto.

[Jacqueline Turgeon]

Mr. Angus, I'm going to answer your question. In 1995, the former Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, cut the CBC's budget by $495 million. Consequently, our budget is still not at the level where it was before the budget cuts.

The CBC/Radio-Canada tried to save what it could and tried to maintain as many services as possible. However, as a result of the budget cuts, the corporation had to make certain decisions that might not necessarily have been consistent with what all Canadians wanted.

If we restored to the CBC the means to carry out its mandate properly, because we believe it is still highly valid, I think it will be able to do so. Every place will then see its own personality reflected in the information programs and television productions.

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

The question we have not had clarified is this. We recognize the massive cuts that happened in the 1990s that stripped the CBC's ability to do much of its job, but coupled with that now is a management approach that it's simpler to do new production in the major centres. Even if money was coming back, would we need a separate dedicated envelope to ensure that the capacity not just for news but for the development of indigenous programming was possible?

Then on top of that, is your position that because we've moved to the CTF funding over the last 10 years of independent production, which we have heard many good things about...? Because the independent production is centred mostly in the major centres, we have a situation in English television where we have Little Mosque on the Prairie and we don't need a prairie; we can actually pretend the prairies are in Toronto, and that's where we film it. Is this the example of how we now do production, that even if the money comes back, it's a streamlined process and it'll be very difficult to restore the loss of the expertise we had in the regions--the editors, the production people, and the visionaries who used to be part of our staff right across the country?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Levasseur.

[Alex Levasseur]

Indeed, what my predecessors said is entirely true. It is important that Radio-Canada be compelled, to a certain degree, to provide services to the regions, as regards both information and general production. In any case, that is part of its present mandate. However, that is not always what it does, and that is for two reasons. First of all, budget cuts and difficulties often encourage large organizations to centralize in order to save money, which is a natural and normal tendency during such periods, and then sometimes there is an intrinsic will to centralize.

I was in Quebec City yesterday, and the RDI team learned that its staff was being cut by half. The Quebec City information production team will be reduced from nine to five persons. Quebec City is the capital of the Province of Quebec, not some little village. And yet there are no budget cuts. There's no explanation for this reduction, the only explanation that Radio-Canada is giving us is that it needs a team in Toronto and doesn't have any additional funding available. So it is making cuts in Quebec City and sending the money to Toronto to build an RDI team.

Funding is one of the causes of the problem, but the lack of any genuine will to serve the regions adequately is another.

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

Sir, we have five staff for French services in Sudbury. Are you telling me that Quebec City, as the capital, is going to have the same staffing as our French services in Sudbury?

[Alex Levasseur]

RDI is the subject of these cuts, not the CBC. RDI had two hours of programming a day to serve Quebec City and the eastern part of the province, that is the region extending from Quebec City to the Saguenay, North Shore and Gaspé Peninsula. That mandate no longer exists. The team has been cut in half, as a result of which the impact will be extremely significant for this large Francophone audience. There are indeed not a lot of Anglophones in that part of the Province of Quebec.

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

Thank you.