I believe they are up north.
Evidence of meeting #65 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programming.
Evidence of meeting #65 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programming.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
President, Maliseet Nation Radio Inc.
The Northwest Territories. I don't know the complete aspect of it, because we're dealing with the Maritimes.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
So essentially it sounds as though CBC TV and CBC Radio are not really serving first nations communities (a) in their language or (b) even in English or French. You seem to be saying that this is a forgotten—excuse the word—market, if you will.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
And you're suggesting that we have to find a way to bring that community into the CBC. You seem to be recognizing that maybe with the financial constraints that CBC has at the moment, it can't build, for the moment anyway, a third radio system or a third television network. So you're suggesting a private-public partnership with the CBC, starting with your community.
Am I essentially understanding correctly?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
It's very interesting, because we had other groups come, not native groups but community radio people. They seemed to be suggesting the same sort of thing for different communities. So you raise an interesting point.
Mr. Côté, you talked about sport on television, but you made a distinction between professional sport, which is well covered by the private networks, and federated amateur sport. Is that correct?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
There is virtually no amateur sport on television now?
3:50 p.m.
President, Sports-Québec
On the other channels, on RDS, for example, they get significant coverage. They work with us, during the Quebec Games, among others, and on certain occasions, like the Gala Sports-Québec. So there is collaborative effort. Moreover, RDS took over from Radio-Canada when it withdrew, because the Quebec Games were already being produced in cooperation with the corporation, at its expense.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
What about the other private channels, like TVA, TQS?
3:50 p.m.
President, Sports-Québec
There's little coverage by TVA. They've opted to cover professional sport, but in a different way as well. There is very little federated sport, amateur sport.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Do you think there is room on Radio-Canada's programming schedule right now to go beyond professional sport? Is there still professional sport on Radio-Canada? Obviously, hockey is now on RDS.
3:50 p.m.
President, Sports-Québec
There's still a little. Let's say it's coming back slowly. We can think of the Impact matches that are presented, which is entirely new. We've learned that boxing is coming back as well. But things are nevertheless very limited with regard to sport.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
If you were the king of Radio-Canada and you had to establish the programming schedule, have you thought of what would have to be moved in order to include amateur sport?
3:50 p.m.
President, Sports-Québec
We're aware of the costs and of what that represents, but we also know that a corporation like Radio-Canada has a responsibility that it must bear. We've named a few for you, including the promotion of physical activity. When you think of the problems of obesity, excess weight and inactivity, there is a responsibility there for Radio-Canada, but also for Canadian society.
Canadian society has little control over private broadcasters. They are supported by private financing. From the moment we talk about public funding, I think we have to identify major targets for Canadian and Quebec society. So, in that sense, we have to go back to coverage of federated sport in order to present the models we have as often as possible, in the best context and at the lowest possible cost.
Just think of people like Alexandre Despatie, the swimmers, and so on. We're currently creating the Centre for Excellence in Aquatic Sports in Montreal, where we've brought four sports together. There is no coverage of this, and yet this is a major event; this is a special situation in Canada. We would like these events to be covered.
As regards newscasts, if we don't keep people regularly informed and support their interests, we lose a significant amount of influence, particularly since the information is readily available. In Quebec, we've put in place an organization called Sportcom, which is an amateur sport communications agency. All the information is known. The athletes, coaches and organizations can reach the network 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if we want to spread information, we don't necessarily have to have people on the spot; we can use what already exists. Collaborative efforts with RDS, among others, will be possible. That is another way of using public funds in an appropriate manner.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Before we go to Mr. Angus, I'd just like to say that we did hold some hearings in Yellowknife. Just to clarify—Mr. Scarpaleggia wasn't there—CBC North does a fair bit; they're trying to deal with some of the language problems they have in that area. In the Yukon and the Northwest Territories and around James Bay and northern Quebec, they not only do English and French, but they work in eight Inuit and aboriginal languages. They did say they cover about half of the country with a very sparse population, and they even work a wee bit in partnership with some local aboriginal stations. There was one place where they helped with a transmitter tower to make things work.
I know there is nothing in New Brunswick, but they do have that in place right now in the north, so they are trying to work on some of that.
That is just a little explanation.
Mr. Angus.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
[Member speaks in Cree]
I know a little Cree from my work on the James Bay coast. Our communities are dependent, absolutely dependent, on Wawatay Radio. They connect the Cree communities over a 1,000-kilometre radius in my riding, and they allow them to speak to each other; they allow them to participate as a larger community, particularly with the families who have moved to our biggest centre, which is Timmins. I'm very interested in the role that aboriginal radio plays in the protection of language with the development of community.
You speak of the need to restore language. I know Wawatay focuses mostly on Cree in northeastern Ontario and Oji-Cree in northwestern Quebec. I have worked in aboriginal communities in Quebec where some of the language has been lost, and the language on the radio station would tend to be English, but it still played the role of bringing people together and allowing them to hear and talk....
Are you going to be exclusively focused on language, or is this also a way of allowing all the communities within your territory to participate with each other, whether they speak English or...?
3:55 p.m.
Research Director, Maliseet Nation Radio Inc.
It's a good question.
A big part of the network is just that, networking and providing a voice for first nations people. Although the network will be dedicated to first nations language instruction and mother tongue programming, a big part of its activity will be just to provide that link, as you've mentioned, which is so important, not only to share information but to create community, to bring people together, and to share important information as it relates to first nations issues. For example, there could be English programming going out on the national network at some point that all the languages would be interested in hearing in English if it relates to some general concern for first nations people.
4 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Right now you have a central radio station that is operating and you're looking to add the transmitters to connect the others to it.
4 p.m.
President, Maliseet Nation Radio Inc.
Exactly. We want to put repeaters around all the other communities. We're in the city of Fredericton, and we do broadcast other programs, for the simple reason that we have to have advertising to operate. It would be very difficult if we had nothing but aboriginal language on there. You'd never get the advertising. We have other big radio corporations with 99% of the advertising budgets around our area, and we don't get funded by anybody else, so we have to put entertainment on that non-aboriginals will listen to so we can get non-aboriginal advertising. We have to operate by advertising, and that's where we have our difficulties. We're just barely making it through because we're competing with big corporation radio stations that have huge advertising dollars, and we just can't compete on that level.
There are only 4,500 Maliseet left on earth, and probably only 2% of them can speak their language right now. The majority of them had that pretty well beat out of them in the schools a few years back, and the language is completely dying. Our language is one of the languages they are saying in the next 20 years is going to be completely gone if we don't do something about it.