Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 16th, 2011

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You don't want to privatize it. Is that clear?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, it's clear: we don't want to.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Let's talk about funding now...

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

It's a conspiracy.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You said a moment ago that you believe the CBC currently receives the most secure levels of funding in its history. But Hubert Lacroix, who was here yesterday, thinks it is not so clear that his funding is secure. He said his funding was secure from year to year but he wasn't even sure he would have the famous $60 million. Is it conceivable, for you, with such great confidence in the CBC and in Hubert Lacroix' team, to guarantee funding for the length of its licence?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

The best guarantee...

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Five years.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

As I simply said, we asked the public to give us a mandate to govern. When we received that mandate, our platform clearly said that the Conservative government would maintain or increase the CBC's budget if Stephen Harper became Prime Minister of Canada. We have kept our promises.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Would you be prepared to do more, at the request of Hubert Lacroix, in whom you have confidence, and to guarantee the CBC five-year funding?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Hubert Lacroix' request is more complex than that. As I said in answer to Mrs. Crombie's question, the work we are doing together is really a partnership between the government and the CBC. It isn't just a matter of discussing the level, the amount, the number of years, what the CBC does, etc. We have to have an effective, responsible and adult relationship, in that we have to talk about sometimes tough issues to make sure that the CBC's mandate is maintained and carried out for the benefit of Canadians. That is what we are doing, and we always work with the CBC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Merci.

We'll go to Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your being here today, Minister.

Something that's on the top of my mind in relation to the CBC--it's been touched on a little bit already--is certainly the CBC's accountability when it comes to the Access to Information Act. So I'm going to ask a little further about that.

Mr. Lacroix has been here a couple of times recently. On both occasions, our party has asked him about CBC's distaste for complying with access to information. The last time he was here was as recently as last week. Actually, it was this week, pardon me. On both occasions, he responded by saying that they are open and they are accountable and they respond to requests in a more timely manner than they ever have before. The problem I have with that is that I don't really think the facts necessarily support this spin he's throwing at the committee.

You mentioned also in your opening comments something to the effect that when ordinary Canadians pick up their newspapers and read stories about the CBC refusing to release documents, it gives the perception that there's something to hide.

You also mentioned in your opening comments that as a corporation that's funded by taxpayers, you believe, and I certainly agree with you, that Canadians should know and deserve to know where their money is going.

I just wonder if you could elaborate and speak a little further to this issue for us.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Sure. I think you've articulated well, as have others, the importance of this with regard to the credibility of the institution of the CBC. We've seen in other instances--and I don't even have to mention an example, because I think some will pop into people's minds--that when even a small sum of money is spent in a way that might be seen as a little bit dodgy, people will just say, “Well, that whole fund has to go, that whole program has to end”, you name it.

I think this is something CBC has to be mindful of. When there are expenses that are made public, that are maybe sometimes troubling--and by the way, we face this as politicians all the time, so I'm not speaking, and none of us can speak, from the perch of virtue. We are all in a business that is full of examples of politicians doing things that are untoward. But you try to develop mechanisms not only to force accountability but also to inspire confidence among the public that the accountability mechanisms are being followed.

We've done our best as parliamentarians to do that, and we try to impose that. This is one of the reasons, if you remember back to 2006 when our government was first elected, that we had our five big priorities. Article number one, issue number one of our five big priorities was to bring in the Federal Accountability Act, which was to draw a number of crown corporations and agencies under the umbrella of responsibility for access to information requests. Included among them was the CBC.

The CBC has a responsibility to respect the access to information laws of this country and to comply with them as quickly and as effectively as they can, of course recognizing the fence that must divide journalistic integrity and professionalism and access to stories about how their day-to-day expenses are being spent. This is a mandate they've been given, and it's a responsibility they have. I suspect--even though we haven't seen it in the past, and there have been some critiques--that the message and the concern that people have raised about the CBC has been heard and that we will see better results in the future.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

When it comes to the rationale for having a public broadcaster, certainly one of the top items within that would be simply the idea of providing content to rural and more remote areas, and more specifically local content and local news to those areas that may not necessarily be as well served by private broadcasters as some of the more major urban areas are. So I just wanted to ask you a bit more about that, and about some of the plans the CBC has for using websites as a bit of a more cost-effective way to reach those areas, and about how important you think it is for CBC to focus on that role of serving regions with local content.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I think the CBC's launching of its TOU.TV iPad app is fantastic. They're following in the steps of what the NFB has already done with their iPhone and iPad apps, and they're really fantastic. Again, Canadians are very proud of Canadian content, and, by the way, we invest a lot as Canadians into the creation of Canadian content through the Canada Media Fund, the Canada Council, and all kinds of mechanisms.

We spend a lot of money as Canadians to create Canadian content, which we want to be able to have on the platforms that are most flexible and that we choose to enjoy. What's really critical, I think, for the public broadcaster, what's really critical for the CBC for their long-term viability, to have that connection with the next generation of Canadians so they see the value and the importance of the CBC, is that CBC has to get very aggressive. They have done a good job so far, but I would encourage them to be even more aggressive in embracing digital platforms and new media. They really have to aggressively grab that and do a really good job.

The CBC Radio app on the iPhone is fantastic; the Société Radio-Canada...the French and English apps are both great. TOU.TV is great. The websites are interactive and more fluid than ever before. They've engaged Twitter well. They've done really good things, but that continuing migration onto digital platforms is something that really does need to be accelerated, because when the next generation of Canadians comes up and they're used to free content on the Internet, and they're using BitTorrent, they're using websites, they have pirated material, they're using free things, and they don't have a connection with the public broadcaster because of the barriers between them and Canadian content on the public broadcaster, and it's just too inconvenient and it's old-school technology to use a PVR in front of your television to watch TV.... If the public broadcaster isn't right there with young people, they're going to lose an audience, and they're going to lose that mandate and that appetite for Canadian content that can only be reached if young Canadians see the CBC as being on the front end of engaging them on platforms that are convenient for them--not convenient for the CBC, but convenient for kids.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Minister.

The last member before the minister departs is Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Very quickly, I want to follow up on some of the themes Mr. Richards brought out, and I thank you for bringing up the regional aspect of it.

The pushing of digital platforms I wholeheartedly agree with. By way of comment, I have 193 towns in my riding and 60 of them have no access to broadband. It's one of those things where I agree with you wholeheartedly on pushing these platforms. The only thing is it's the proverbial horse pushing the cart instead of hauling it.

I hope you bring that back to 100% penetration on that issue.

About the expenses thing, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of it—at least from their defence—was that some of the information that was not out there pertained to industry secrets, I'll say—things about programming and things about being involved. They are the public broadcaster, but it's a private world they operate in, so they're competitors. Is it not about that?

I get the feeling they're not fulfilling their transparency directives, but what are they?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Well, the expectations are clear. They're in the Federal Accountability Act. I don't want to speak for them because they can speak for themselves. I don't want to misrepresent their defence of why they are where they are. The first one is an obvious one, and it's absolutely legitimate, which is to say that there has to be a boundary between journalistic privacy and so on, and what is and isn't public. There's that defence.

Then there's another one, of course, which is, to be blunt, that it's on TV. They have competitors who are doing a great number of access to information requests that are just overflowing the system, from their perspective.

They have to realize, though, CBC has to realize—and I think they do, I'm not criticizing them—that they are not a publicly funded competitor to the private sector. Their mandate is different. Their expectations are different. The social contract that exists between CBC and the country is different.

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to when you talk about trade secrets and that sort of stuff.

It's tough. This is a hard thing to follow—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Give me an example.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

They have an expectation with the public that has to be met if the public is going to continue to have confidence in the public broadcaster.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I agree, Minister. I'm just trying to come to the crux of this issue about what it is you expect them to fully expose.

Yes, they're a public broadcaster, but again, by design, by shared dint of getting eyeballs to watch their shows, they do have to compete. They bid on the Olympics; they operate themselves in a way that CTV or Global would.

How far do we go without infringing their ability to get programming and to get people watching?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

We think the access to information laws are pretty clear and the Federal Accountability Act is pretty clear. The expectations are very clear. As I said, some of these things are a little bit more grey than black and white, but the parts that are black and white need to be followed with great acuity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank the three witnesses for their appearance.

We'll suspend for a couple minutes to allow our next panel of witnesses to appear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We are coming out of suspension on this 42nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We have in front of us three witnesses: Mr. Jean, deputy minister of the department, welcome; Mr. Blais, assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs, welcome again to you as well;

and third, Mr. Bouchard, Executive Director, Portfolio Affairs.

Mr. Simms, you have the floor.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

This is somewhat off on a tangent to a certain degree, but I do want to ask about.... I received some representation a few days ago about an impending situation with the CMF. The thing is that the people who are contributing, the stakeholders of the CMF, may now have a problem on the horizon. It means there will be people profiting from the material by the CMF, yet they're not paying into the CMF. I'm talking about the world of Netflix and over-the-top users and that sort of thing.

I'm interested in finding out how we come to some kind of a solution for this, because we do have...I'm wondering about that situation. Of course, I'm not directly asking about the CBC, but certainly they have a stake in this as well.