Canadian Heritage Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Could you provide us—because you said it's publicly available information—with the range, if you know it, for 2023-24? If you don't, we'll keep going back to the years that you do know.

[Catherine Tait]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have six seconds.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Tait, for appearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I now go to Ms. Gainey for the Liberals.

Anna, you have five minutes.

[Catherine Tait]

Thank you.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We've heard a little bit about ratings today. I thought we could take this chunk of time to get a more fulsome picture of the question of ratings.

I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit for us on how many Canadians use the CBC's online news services, the music and audio streaming services like CBC Listen, and video streaming services like Gem, I gather, and podcast radio. Try to give us a more fulsome picture of the consumption or the participation of Canadians in the content that you're producing.

[Catherine Tait]

Just to be clear, to the previous member's question, when I joined CBC/Radio-Canada, the number of Canadians who were consuming linear TV was about 30%, and the number consuming just online was at about 18%. Those numbers have now reversed.

When we talk about the performance of CBC, we measure digital performance. Today, cbc.ca reaches about 17 million Canadians every month. That is the single-largest number.... Sometimes CTV is at the same level. Certainly, during the pandemic, that number shot up to 22 million, and again, add Radio-Canada into that, and there are close to 25 million Canadians touching in on our digital platforms, just the .ca.

In terms of podcasting in English Canada, CBC is the leader in digital podcasting, with close to 10 million downloads every month from CBC Listen, Spotify and Apple.

Radio-Canada launched its podcasting service about a year ago and has now become, fantastically, number one in French language as well.

With respect to Gem, when I joined, it didn't exist. We launched Gem in 2019, and today about two million English Canadians tune in to Gem.

Most importantly for the consumption of news, another million are consuming news on YouTube, so when we talk about the audience for The National, to address to the honourable member's on question about 6 o'clock TV news, it isn't the market we are looking at anymore. We're looking at the digital audience, and for The National, about 1.2 million Canadians tune in on a variety of platforms, including connected TVs, to consume that very important show.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Looking at those trends and the inversion of how people consume news and media, where is your focus on the future? Where do you see the most growth and how is the CBC investing in that growth?

[Catherine Tait]

If you follow the CRTC's licensing process, one of the big breakthroughs was the CRTC's recognition that, for our investments in programs of national interest—that's drama, comedy and variety—they would now count digital expenditures as well as linear.

The future is digital. We are moving to an entirely digital world. When will that happen? For sure, in Quebec, at 23% market share for linear television, I think we have a good long time, and we will protect it, because it's really powerful and very important. In English Canada, the shift to digital is already well on its way, and that's why we're launching fast channels and doing all of the work we are to reach Canadians where they are, on the devices they're using.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

How do we address, then, the “news deserts”, as we've called them? As we've seen the TV market shrink, and then the contraction as those jobs shrink across this industry, too, you've referred to the “crisis”. How do we help bring Canadians along on that transition where it's not happening as quickly and they feel like there's a shortage of local news available to them?

[Catherine Tait]

I think it's exactly what CBC should be doing and Radio-Canada as well: launching, for example, local podcasts, which we just did, with seven local podcasts in specific towns across the country so that there's local news produced by the local...the people who live in the community.

That will be the power—podcasts, FAST channels, Gem— all of those tools to make sure we're reaching those Canadians.

As I said, 80% of our news is coming from outside of Toronto and Montreal.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I don't have any more questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry. I was just speaking with the clerk for a second.

Thank you. I'm sorry, Ms. Gainey.

I'm now going to go to Mr. Champoux for 2.5 minutes.

Go ahead, please, Martin.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would first like to reassure my colleague Mr. Serré. The Bloc Québécois is quite vehement on this point. When we defend Radio-Canada, its French services, and francophone and Quebec culture, and we dig our heels in when we hear about the possibility of the CBC's influence over Radio-Canada expanding, obviously we are protecting Quebeckers. However, by default and the ripple effect, all francophones in Canada also benefit from the existence of a healthy, high-quality public broadcaster.

I wanted to clarify that, because it is a very important detail in the approach taken by the Bloc Québécois that does not seem to be very much appreciated by the Liberal government right now. Our vehemence is equalled only by our desire to protect our public broadcaster, which is the main vehicle of our culture in Quebec and Canada.

Ms. Tait, as you reiterated earlier, we cannot slash the CBC's budget without it having consequences for the French services. You have said that in the past, and it is clear to us. So if a Conservative government starts slashing the CBC's budget, it will necessarily have an effect on the French services.

If budget cuts were imposed on the CBC in proportion to its share of the public broadcaster's budget, would money automatically be drawn from Radio-Canada's share of the budget, so the CBC could survive, or would you allow the CBC to die out by eliminating a lot of services in order to preserve the viability of the French services?

[Catherine Tait]

That is the kind of question we are considering at the moment, because we are very far from the possibility of this kind of defunding of the CBC. We want to work on transforming our services and on a strategy to ensure the survival of both components of the broadcaster in the long term.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You are telling me that you do not foresee this threat materializing under a potential Conservative government. That is interesting. Do you have a plan or a vision of what might be? Are you not doing any calculations?

[Catherine Tait]

No, not for the moment.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Do you not think it would be useful to do so, rather than merging the CBC and Radio-Canada?

[Catherine Tait]

We are concerned about competition from the digital giants and about all the other pressures we are feeling.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

However, you are not concerned about the real possibility that a Conservative government will slash the CBC's budget, which is what the Conservatives are constantly saying they want to do.

[Catherine Tait]

For the moment, we are waiting for the results of the next election.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Tait.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Martin.

I now go to Nikki Ashton. You have two and a half minutes, please, Nikki.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you.

Madam Tait, I want to begin by saying that during the testimony, we heard from one of the whistle-blowers that they in fact did speak to you personally about the abuse of NDAs, including in their case. I understand that it is an issue that has been raised with you.

I want to share an excerpt from an anonymous employee who wrote the following: “It is anathema to what CBC rightly expects from its journalists—transparency, accountability and fairness. The CBC actually uses public funds to pay private lawyers to insulate its legal department from the burden of grinding down its own employees through this abusive process. Someone needs to ask Ms. Tait, on the record, about the extent of CBC's practice to demand NDAs and other gagging devices, such as non-disparagement clauses, when settling with employees who have well-founded and proven claims of abuse.”

I will also add to that whistle-blower's statement another whistle-blower's statement, that they were told that they had to sign an NDA in order for their case to be investigated.

These are chilling stories for any media organization, but I would say that it is wildly unacceptable for our state broadcaster to be running the show like this. It is wildly unacceptable for the CBC, which is publicly funded and built by Canadians, to be treating its employees like this.

What we've heard today is how under your leadership and under the current CBC reality, our national broadcaster, perhaps paralyzed by fear of right-wing attacks, is making poor choice after poor choice. The doling out of exorbitant executive bonuses is unacceptable at a time when we've seen cuts and layoffs and and of course Canadians going through such a difficult time.

The crushing of all internal complaints through the abuse of non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements and the mass firings of workers in your organization are unacceptable. CBC is increasingly resembling the Bells of this world, and Canadians will not stand for it.