Canadian Heritage Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

I believe so.

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

Okay, thank you.

You spoke about the civilizing and democratic force for public television, and that's something that's certainly near and dear to our heart. We see the issue of English television in particular being trapped in the rating cycle, because in order to prove relevance it has to have ratings, yet in order to chase ratings there's a question of relevance of programming. Much of this appeared, from our study, to come from the financial pressures that are being exerted on English television. How do you see your role in terms of dealing with a budget that has been seriously cut, since 10 years, and a static budget with growing needs? Do you see yourself as advocating for a stronger financial envelope or making do with what you have?

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

My view is that I'll be working with senior management. In a perfect world, we'd love to come back to the federal government and take the allocation of $60 million up to a higher level, because it would give us more flexibility to do more programming in both English and French. I think realistically, though, that has to be subject to the mandate review you are working on right now. I think our role is to provide you with as much information as we can to help you determine the best way to fund CBC/Radio-Canada on a going-forward basis.

I like the model they've established in the U.K., with a royal charter with a 10-year mandate. The issue of how that structure works has to fit within the Canadian context.

As you know, right now, the focus at CBC/Radio-Canada is to source revenue from commercial sources. We have surfed a lot of value from the real estate portfolio we have. When I was in Vancouver in early May, I had the opportunity to visit the CBC facility that was built in the early 1970s. I don't know if any of you have had a chance to go there, but we would be honoured to show you what's going on in preparation for 2010. Even though we're not the lead broadcaster, we hope to be working with CTV. They've sold the air rights and the parking lot, and they're reinvesting $60 million in that facility. It will be a great facility when all is said and done because it will be reaching out to the community far better than it is right now. People, I have to tell you, are very excited about what's going on there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Casgrain, for coming in this morning. We appreciate the time you've taken. Congratulations on your appointment as well.

Everyone on the committee has had the opportunity to look at your resumé. But I just thought, for the benefit of those people watching, you might.... You talked a bit about your lack of broadcasting experience, but there are many more things, many more components, that will come into your responsibilities as chairman of the board. I'm wondering if you could talk about the experience you have that makes you the right person to oversee the budget of nearly $1 billion, and then also about your experience in terms of dealing with the board. What is some of your past experience that makes you the right person and the right fit for this position?

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

Why don't I try to answer the second question first and then go back to the first one?

I've spent the better part of my life working in public companies. The governance level, as you know, in public companies continues to get refined and refined more and more. We've seen the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States spill over into Canada. Governance is a big part of a public company, and I've had a lot of experience with public companies.

Whether it's for a public company or a public broadcaster, the role of the board is very similar. You have a whole mandate for a chairman and a mandate for the directors. Their role is to interface with the senior management, and ultimately, in our case at CBC, to also interface with the government and the Department of Canadian Heritage. Our role is not, as chairman and the board, to manage the company. It is to respond to the business plan, the budgets, and the strategic direction senior management has tabled and to get the approval of the board. If there's a problem, we have to challenge the senior management and ask them to go back and revisit their presentation.

I don't expect it to get to a point where a presentation would come to a board level and be turned down by the board, because the way the chairman and the president of the senior management team interface is that there's constant dialogue going back and forth.

As it relates to the budget, I had the occasion to sit with Madame Charbonneau, our CFO, yesterday. All I would tell you is that the accounting is a little different for the Government of Canada compared to private sector accounting. But ultimately, we have to give the citizens of Canada value for money for every dollar that's spent. I believe the work that's been done....

I was listening to the Auditor General's presentation here last week. A lot of progress has been made in the last five years in this organization, and with the work on internal controls and the like, I'm very confident that you can be assured that no money is being wasted.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you. We know that your expertise will be relevant in your position in terms of your past experience with large budgets and with working with corporations that do deal with that as well.

The relevance question is something that we as a committee have seen go around the table many times. We have tried to discuss what will ensure that the CBC will be and remain relevant going forward. I'm wondering about your thoughts on the issue of relevance; you talked a little bit about the importance of being relevant as they move forward in your submission this morning as well. In terms of CBC/Radio-Canada, could you speak a little bit to your vision or your thoughts as CBC/Radio-Canada struggles to be relevant as it moves forward in the coming decades?

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

That's a good question.

We have 32 million people in this country, and I think 32 million people have an opinion about the CBC. In the less than one month I've been in the position, I've already had letters come to my house from passionate listeners of the CBC who have concerns about the changing format of Radio 2.

This is a big organization that reaches across into many regions and provides many services. What I'm excited about is the integration of the platforms, which will allow you as the users to find what you want from the CBC on your own terms, whether it's watching something on television or going to the Internet and watching last night's Senators game on the Internet, as opposed to having to stay in front of the TV. You can download it or watch it in real time.

The whole industry is struggling with this evolution. You'd have to say it's not an evolution; it's a revolution that is taking place. I think working in an integrated manner so that you can have radio, television, Internet, Sirius satellite radio, and everything out there at the disposal of Canadian citizens will help to make that offer available all the time to Canadians.

What is my vision? I keep coming back to what I said earlier. I really believe that the way you make the CBC relevant to Canadians is to get CBC listeners engaged, CBC viewers engaged, viewers of Radio-Canada engaged. That is not an easy task, because we are a very regional country. What unites us day in and day out is maybe that we're at peace day in and day out and we take things for granted. We have to tell Canadians about what goes on in the rest of the world--as we're doing--and tell Canadians what's going on in other parts of the country, and it's a daunting task.

I'm hoping that when the next president comes in to replace Mr. Rabinovitch in November, he or she and their management team and the board can really rise to that challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Mr. Scarpaleggia.

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

Thank you, and welcome to the committee.

Mr. Casgrain, you must have an opinion about....

First of all, I'd like to go to the distinction between radio and television. We've heard from many witnesses during the ongoing study this committee is doing on the mandate of the CBC, and we've heard a lot of them wish that CBC television were like CBC radio. They seem to apply the radio model to television and suggest there should be no advertising on television--if CBC radio can do it and be distinctive, then why can't CBC television do it and be distinctive? I'd like your opinion on that, because there are many people who suggest we should take advertising off television. I'm not sure the two models are comparable, and I'm not sure we're comparing apples and apples.

Just last night on TV, I believe, Lorna Jackson was retiring, and she made a statement that gave voice to what I felt but couldn't put words to: that radio is different, that the relationship between the listener and the medium is more intimate. She said it was like a friend. I'm not sure television has the same rapport with the viewer, and I'm not sure you can apply one model to the other. I would like your thoughts on that generally, but also and more specifically on whether you think the CBC should push to become totally advertising-free over the medium term.

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

Let me begin by saying that I think Lorna Jackson is right. They are two completely different mediums.

I wish it was so easy that everything that goes on CBC radio could be transposed, and we'd get the great following on CBC TV.

Let me just speak to that one point. CBC radio does not compete with the likes of Hollywood and CSI and Lost. You, the viewers, make that choice. And remember, what goes on on CTV and Global is really a rebroadcasting of a U.S. show with different commercials. That is what CBC TV is up against.

The question is, should we go away from that model and not compete? Should we try to come to the House and ask for a huge increase in funding? That is a discussion that's going on, as you know, in your committee. It's a constant discussion that goes on at the senior management level and at the board level.

And I would say that the model we've got right now, when you look around the world, is similar to that of many public broadcasters, in which there is commercial advertising sold. If I can digress, if you have the rights to Hockey Night in Canada, why wouldn't you sell the commercial time? Why would we ask the Canadian taxpayer to underwrite that and just show it without advertising when someone is more than willing to pay for that? So there might be segments you could modify, to some extent, but that's certainly not in my mandate.

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

Just to be the devil's advocate a little bit, because we had some witnesses come to us and say, “Well, when you have advertising, you're going for the big markets”. What's going to happen and what has happened long term--and I don't know if they were correct or not, but the theory is that if you go for the big viewership in the big markets, you're going to sort of, by attrition, leave regional programming behind. That's just some food for thought.

We were in Montreal on Friday with the committee, and we visited Radio-Canada and CBC in Montreal. The senior management--who seem to be an extraordinarily talented and vibrant team, and I hope you get to meet them soon, if you haven't already--put up the mission statement for Société Radio-Canada. There was something in that mission statement that I'd never seen before and that I thought was very bold and very visionary. They said that Société Radio-Canada is an instrument of democracy and culture. I've never seen those terms. Maybe they're there, but I've never seen them in the mission statement of CBC.

I'm wondering what you think about those two words. The CBC, when you really get down to it, is an instrument of culture and democracy. And I'm wondering if you would be in favour of including those two words in the CBC mandate overall.

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

Well, I go back to what I said at the outset. “The BBC”--but let me substitute CBC--“fosters a rambunctious, vigorous and informed democracy”. If we can make CBC come alive in that way, then we will have accomplished what the mandate of CBC is.

To incorporate it into our mandate or mission statement at this point in time really is a question that the board and senior management have to take under advisement.

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

One more point. I would encourage you to bring that up to the board and look at that mission statement of SRC, because I think it's very inspiring.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Madame Bourgeois.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Casgrain, good morning and welcome to the committee. I want to ask you certain minor questions that have come to my mind following your answers.

You say you were interviewed by a group of individuals from the Prime Minister's office. Would it be possible to have the names of those persons? Did you know them beforehand?

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

I don't know them.

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

That—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I think we're getting a little off base here.

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

Not at all, Mr. Chairman. I simply want to know the connection that can be made between the Prime Minister's office and Mr. Casgrain's appointment. I think that has to be clear, unless I'm mistaken.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I think the questioning should stay a little closer to Mr. Casgrain's position that he's to take forward.

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

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I don't think a list has to be supplied. That line of questioning is a little out of bounds. Please stay closer to the mandate.

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

Mr. Casgrain, it is very, very important that we know where you come from, what your mandate is and who appointed you to this position. It has often been said, and rightly so, that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has played a fundamental role in defending the interests of national unity, particularly in Quebec. As you'll understand, this question is extremely important for Quebeckers, because they don't want to have this done to them twice.

That said, what do you think about the neutrality and professional ethics that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation should show, through both its journalists and its function across Canada?

[Timothy Wilson Casgrain]

I haven't yet met the Montreal journalists. However, last Wednesday, I met the senior management in Montreal. It's impossible for me to give you my opinion at this time. I met Patrice Roy—