Canadian Heritage Committee on May 8th, 2008

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a few proposals to make. With regard to the agenda, we could decide, as you suggested earlier, to have a meeting on the 13th or the 15th at which time we could hear from the CRTC on the Internet. We could also, on the 27th or the 29th, have the people who want to talk about Radio 2, as Mr. Siksay's motion proposes. I do not know how many hours we would plan for that, maybe four; I do not know. Mr. Siksay would be in a better position to say.

Then we could decide, on the last day of our week in Ottawa, either on the 12th or the 19th, to go to Vancouver if our budget allows. In order for our budget to allow for this, I suggest we each take one travel point out of our budget as MPs, so that the Committee would not have to pay for our travel. The travel costs of the employees we need to take along would be picked up by the Committee. In that way, if we each used one of our travel points, the budget would be lower. Maybe we could even return on the same day rather than stay overnight. Those are suggestions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Ms. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

In the past, other committees that were cash-strapped or coming to the end of their budgets have travelled with representative members from each of the parties. The entire committee didn't go. The support officials went, plus maybe a person or two from each party.

I would like to point out that Bill Siksay, Mr. Abbott, and I live in Vancouver. So if you do it on a Friday, for instance—one can go on a Friday as well as a committee day—you have already cut out three of your travel people.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Fast would make it four.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Yes. You could have two representatives from the government, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Fast, along with one other person. I would be glad to come for the Liberals. Mr. Siksay would be there. This way, we can cut down on our costs.

If we're going to discuss the CBC Radio Orchestra, we should do it in Vancouver, because it's a Vancouver issue, really.

I think Mr. Abbott makes a good point. The Liaison Committee may not let us get the kind of money we're looking for to travel. It could all be moot, whatever we say, because we have no mandate to interfere in the programming decisions of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. However, we could do one meeting in Ottawa that would deal with Radio 2, classical music, etc. Then we could go to Vancouver and do Radio 2 classical changes and the orchestra in an afternoon or a day. It might be possible.

I think this was what Mr. Coderre was talking about when he said we should see what we can afford. It may very well be that we can't make a decision until we hear from the Liaison Committee about whether we can travel to Vancouver. If we could do the two days, one day here and one day in Vancouver, we could cut our costs. It would be a simple matter of doing what I suggest with regard to the many of us who live in that beautiful province.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

And who would be on the list of witnesses?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I think between us--all of us--we could give you lists of witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

What about the people who have a voice in Newfoundland? What about the people in my riding who would like to have a say in front of the committee? What about the people in the rest of the country?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

On the CBC Vancouver orchestra?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

All I'm saying is that when we get into this.... We had to change when we looked at the public broadcaster in the 21st century. We started out with about four places we were going to go, and we ended up having to go to six or seven because there were people who were not represented.

I know that the Vancouver orchestra is in Vancouver, but there are people across the country who have pros and cons on that also. I have received some of those. In fact, some people from my riding are very disappointed with what's happening with CBC Radio 2 and with the orchestra. I don't think this is something that can only be handled with people from Vancouver.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm just suggesting a cheap way to travel, that's all. I threw it out on the table. You don't have to agree with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I have to say that whole committees haven't been travelling. When we travelled on the CBC, I think there was the chair, two and two, and one and one. I do know that only half the committee travels.

We have to decide, is this just an exercise to get the voice from Vancouver? Is this an exercise where we'll have four or six witnesses here one day? How many witnesses from Vancouver, and how many witnesses do we have here? Do we listen to people from Newfoundland or from Stratford?

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a recommendation. There's an important point here, and I think it's what Mr. Siksay is getting at.

I think the CBC as a public broadcaster must have their independence from government. We shouldn't be telling them what to do. That said, there is a responsibility to the public they serve. I think he wants to give them a voice. He wants them to be able to be heard, and I think that's important.

Certainly in other committees that I've been participating in we've been doing an awful lot of video conferencing. It actually works quite well. The committee doesn't have to leave town, the costs are low, and it's a very easy forum for people in Vancouver, for example. We can get as many witnesses in by video conference as you'd like.

So it may be a trade-off, I'm suggesting. It may be a means of getting accomplished what we want to accomplish. If there are people in Stratford who would like to speak on the issue, they can come in on video conference as well. It's very cost-effective, no one has to travel, it's a greener way of doing it, it has a lower carbon footprint; there are all kinds of positives on this. We can do it without any of us needing to impact our other commitments that we have as members of Parliament.

I would like to suggest that we can have this forum. We can provide this stage for people to speak their minds. I believe CBC will actually hear it, and they may well consider it in their ultimate decision. I think it's important. Let's do it by whatever means we can to make sure that we hear the voices.

I would like to suggest that perhaps we look at a video conference as a means of allowing people the forum and the access to us in Ottawa. At the same time, we'd be allowing people who would like to come to Ottawa the opportunity to appear before the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

That goes back to our study. When we couldn't go to Great Britain, BBC did a teleconference. I think it worked very well.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Video conferencing is even better.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Yes. Well, it was video conferencing.

So we could maybe look into that.

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

When I originally proposed the motion, I included travel to Vancouver for at least some of the hearings, because it is very important to people in Vancouver.

As I said at the time, this is a national cultural institution based in Vancouver, and as far as I know, there aren't any other national cultural institutions based there. I think it is important to go there to hear from people, and to allow people in the community to be present at those hearings as well, even if they're not testifying before us. That would be a respectful thing to do for that community that has no other national cultural institution based there. I think this question is of very particular interest to people in the Metro Vancouver area.

That being said, if the Liaison Committee denied us, and given your record, Chair, it seems very likely.... Given the parliamentary secretary's statement, it sounds like it might be very likely that they will deny us. We should try, but if they deny us, then video conferencing sounds like a good idea to me, or bringing people to Ottawa.

As somebody from the west coast of Canada, I know there is a big carbon footprint for travelling across the country. But if we deny Canadians from the west coast the ability to come to Ottawa and make the connections that other Canadians who live closer to Ottawa can enjoy all the time, to see the operation of Parliament, I think we are getting into serious problems about our democracy. I don't want to say that we should always be doing video conferencing. I think there is great value in allowing Canadians to come here to make their presentations, to meet other parliamentarians, to meet other people who are presenting on various issues. If we deny that consistently to people from the west coast of Canada, and people from other parts of the country as well, we are making a very serious mistake.

It seems to me that there are some very key places that are organized around this. Toronto seems to be well organized. Vancouver certainly is. Maybe Toronto would make sense for us to visit as well. But I think we should go out of our way to bring people here from other parts of the country and to have those hearings here, Chair. I do think we have to be careful about how we make these kinds of decisions on who we're letting in and leaving out because of where we happen to come from in the country.

That's what I have to say for now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

There's one thing. I'm not going to be able to make it to the Liaison Committee on Tuesday because we cannot get a budget ready for the presentation in that particular time. We'll have to wait for the next Liaison Committee meeting. I can instruct the clerk to come up with a budget. The budget has to come to committee, and the committee has to approve the budget. That's the big thing. We have to approve the budget and then go to the Liaison Committee. And the Liaison Committee is before we have our next meeting.

I'm going to ask the clerk to prepare a budget to go to Vancouver and meet for one day with the regulated amount of participants. That is, two Liberals, two Conservatives, one Bloc, one NDP, the chair, plus the staff--the clerk and the translators and support staff who go along with that entity. The clerk will get a budget together, and we'll bring it forward.

Yes, Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Chair, can I ask how long the clerk will need to prepare that budget and maybe whether it's possible to have a special meeting of the committee to look at it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

The clerk says she could have it by tomorrow. If that's the case, we'll get it together.

Mr. Abbott.

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

I apologize that I had to leave the room for a couple of minutes, so I'm not sure who will be coming as witnesses. How will we determine who the witnesses will be? Are there going to be x number of witnesses per party? Are we going to have a maximum number of them? At what point will we have exhausted all of the witnesses we're prepared to consider? I think that obviously has to be considered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

The other thing that needs to be considered is the date when this will happen, because without a date it will not pass. One time, because of the weather, we stretched a day and had trouble with Liaison, as far as the committee was concerned. So we have to make sure all of those things are together.

As far as the budget is concerned and people going, will there be two Conservatives plus the chair?

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

Sorry, I'm talking about the witnesses who will be coming before us here.

There's another thing that just crossed my mind. In normal circumstances, when any standing committee has witnesses, the witnesses come with some background and expertise. The witnesses who will testify before the committee on Radio 2 will have very valid opinions, and we should hear those opinions. But having heard them, I'm just wondering how we would then get to questioning.

In other words, if we're talking to a nuclear physicist about something that's happening at Chalk River, that person has some expertise other than what they can bring to their testimony. A person who would be testifying that they are unhappy about the way Radio 2 has decided to do their programming has a perfectly valid point of view, and I want to hear it. But past that point they really won't be bringing any more wisdom to the table other than their opinion.

I am an avid listener of Radio One in my constituency. Am I an expert on Radio One, or am I an observer of what the programming happens to be? There's a difference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Just before we get into too much back and forth, there are a couple of things here that we have to get straightened out. I've already instructed our clerk to get a budget ready for this trip. We have to decide how many meetings we're going to have--one in Vancouver? If that's the case, how many meetings are we going to hold here? How many panels will there be per meeting, and how many witnesses per panel?

The last time we had two panels of one hour each, usually with two witnesses in each panel. We can work out how many minutes we'll allow for opening remarks, but will we have one or two meetings? How many people are we going to bring here? Has anyone given that any thought?

Will we still go back to Mr. Siksay's original motion from the other day to just have one meeting in Vancouver?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

That wasn't the motion, Chair. You're misrepresenting what my intention was. It said to have at least one meeting in Vancouver.