Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 25th, 2011

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

I thank Bobino and Bobinette.

[A voice]

Exactly.

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

I grew up with The Friendly Giant, which I wanted to be when I grew up, but--

[An hon. member]

It didn't work out.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Well, I like to think I'm friendly, but a giant, perhaps not.

I want to dive into this. I'd be derelict in my duties if I didn't get into the regional aspect of it, given the fact that I come from Newfoundland and Labrador.

By the way, congratulations on your production of Republic of Doyle. It has created a lot of excitement in a market that is small, but we do it quite well. It's a cool show. We like to think it's pretty cool, and it's met with a great deal of success. But that being said, it's great for the community there, the independent producers, the people involved in film-making, and beyond just the local programming or just the news value of Here and Now , the local news show.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about CBC was that it shared a story based in one area with the entire country. I can go to CBC and I can learn about the history of the pipe organs of Quebec, and how it's such a world-famous industry. I didn't know that until a short time ago. We can learn about how they discovered dinosaurs in Alberta. We can learn through the stories told of Newfoundland. For example, CBC covered our commemorations of 9/11—how Gander was opened—and the movie as well. That the story played out through the rest of the country is, to me, the ultimate expression of how the CBC was the cultural crossroads.

I worry about that in light of certain cuts that are coming. I understand the fact that we all have to tighten our belts, and that sort of thing, but if we're talking about a possibility of a $100 million or more deficiency in revenues—I'm not saying that's what it is, I'm just saying that it's a possibility—then how does regional programming survive that? In other words, that third pillar, which means so much to me, has to be somewhat shakey in looking at something like that.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

As I said to Mr. Brown a second ago, I don't know what the number is going to be at the end. I don't know what kind of adjustment we're going to have to make. But I would like to reiterate the fact that we are going to preserve the three directions, the three thrusts, the three strategic directions that you will find in 2015. One of those is our presence in the regions, because we've said many times that we cannot be a public broadcaster without being deeply rooted in the regions.

Will that change the way we deliver the services in the regions? Perhaps. I don't know what that means yet. We'll have to see for ourselves what consequences we have. But the important thing is that everything is going to be connected to those three strategic priorities, which are the heart of 2015—our plan—and we're going to try as hard as we can to preserve them.

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

I hope you do.

I wanted to stress the importance of the fact that a show like Republic of Doyle to us is local, but it is a national show, really—

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Absolutely.

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

—and it has such a huge consequence for us.

The other part of it, of course, is radio. I can listen to my central morning show where I am, and get what you consider to be hyper-local. I hope that is preserved through all of this as well.

I'm sorry, I think you wanted to add something.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Yes, Christine wanted to add something.

[Christine Wilson]

Someone asked me about Republic of Doyle. Do you know that more than a million people a week watch that show? It's a hit.

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

So it's not just us then.

[Christine Wilson]

No way, and in fact one of the things that Doyle helped us recognize.... We've got Doyle coming out of Newfoundland. We've got 22 Minutes in Halifax, Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays in Ottawa. We've got all across the country.... We've got InSecurity coming out of Regina and this new show that's going to be coming out of the Arctic. We used to talk about what a Canadian show looks like, what's a real and authentic Canadian show, and people would make jokes about beavers and Mounties. What we've come to realize is that what Canadians seem to love is seeing the country, because our most popular shows are those shows like Doyle and like Heartland, which showcase how big and beautiful the country is.

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

I hope during the Geminis that the city of St. John's wins best supporting actor, quite frankly, because it is a great backdrop.

Sorry, I don't mean to jump topic, but I don't have a lot of time.

My colleague wanted to know about the services in French outside of the major French market, across this country. The second part of my question is about the fact that some time ago there was a decision made by the CBC head office, which I did not agree with at the time and I think it wasn't a good decision, to reduce the hour-long supper newscast down to 30 minutes across the country. Now in Newfoundland, for the show Here and Now.... and I'm using it as an example, but I think other shows across the country suffered the same when they went to 30 minutes. It was a decision taken at the main office, I guess, in Toronto. Earlier you said decision-making locally. I think that's something very interesting as well.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

You know, Mr. Simms, that we're talking about 90-minute local news now across the country. That's the window of local news. So that trend has been reversed.

When I said on the video that sometimes we were not always there in the regions, yes, we recognize this, and that's why we've turned it around. We understand also the importance and our role as the public broadcaster in the regions. When I say that Louis was the person responsible for French across the country in the regions, we understand the importance of that. A gentleman a few seconds ago, Monsieur Nantel, referred to the situation in Windsor. Windsor is the fourth...well, we have four stations in Ontario. When we saw the reductions that we had to go through in 2009-10, we had to deal with the fact that we had a $206 million shortfall. We had to let 800 people go. And we tried to keep the Windsor programming and use other models that we had in the country by inserting local Windsor information in the Toronto morning show, in French, and then we listened to the population and the two windows of 10 minutes have now become 55 minutes between seven and eight in the morning.

So we're adjusting based on what we can do and the imagination of our people.

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

So there's a greater degree of autonomy now?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

No, I think what we're doing is committing all the resources and efforts towards these priorities, and that's what rises to the top when we have to make decisions.

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

And what about the question about the French services for the rest of Canada?

[Louis Lalande]

Could you repeat the question?

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

My colleague wants to know essentially, in the face of budget cutbacks, how you would ensure that francophones outside Quebec do not lose their essential services.

[Louis Lalande]

Obviously we're working very hard to keep and expand our services in transforming our operation.

I will give you an example. In Acadia we have reorganized all of our resources so as to increase service in Nova Scotia, while maintaining discussions with the community.

We did that in Ontario and we have done so in all of the regions. Hubert referred to an increase in local news. In French, we went from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. This change took place two years ago. We now have 30-minute news broadcasts in all of our regional stations during the weekends. I believe this demonstrates that Radio-Canada is respecting its mandate and attempting to serve Canadians wherever they may be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Simms.

Mr. Gill.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for being here today and providing us valuable information.

Two years ago, CBC News totally revamped its format. The way news was gathered, presented, and accessed by the public has been updated to meet the needs of a modern audience. How has this been received by Canadians? Could you also tell us about CBC's experience in handling this change?

[Christine Wilson]

The transformation in the news business over the last five years has been unbelievable. For example, on May 2, a date you may recall, there was an election in the country. There were, as usual, results shows in the evening on all of the major channels. In the past, that would have been what we would have offered Canadians on election day, that results show, and we would have said that we had won. We'd have had a huge success because two million Canadians watched our results show. Well, now we have radio and television and podcasts and Twitter and blogs and we have Vote Compass. In fact, the real story is that more than ten million Canadians used CBC on that day. That's the success that we've been able to have—we've been able to give Canadians the information that they need, where they need it. We had 17 million page views of local riding results on that night. You can imagine somebody sitting and watching Peter on the big screen, and then on her laptop she's checking out to see how folks are doing in their markets.

So it has totally transformed what news means, and I'm proud and happy that we were at the beginning of the wave in making those changes.