Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 20th, 2011

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

So, you did not submit all those requests to CBC/Radio-Canada. I assume that you solicit various organizations, institutions and departments.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

There are about 250 institutions.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Exactly. As we have seen the Information Commissioner of Canada's audit figures, we know that the current Conservative government has received failing grades, Fs, for a number of departments. Those are very low grades. If my children came from school with similar report cards, I would be very angry. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada has even been placed on

red alert.

Things are completely

out of control.

Would you say that the number of responses CBC/Radio-Canada has given you regarding your ATI requests is lower, higher or on par when compared with ATI requests you submit to the federal government or its institutions in general?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

That's a very good question. I will answer as honestly as possible. I admit that I am biased. I have a lot of admiration and respect for the institution that is CBC. Considering that those people know their profession and have a level of expertise that many other institutions lack when it comes to ATI, I expect CBC to do a better job. I also expect it to have an innate knowledge of access to information matters and to understand why society needs that information.

Taking that into account, I find that CBC's performance has improved, but that the corporation does deserve the F grade it received from the information commissioner. I find that unfortunate because I honestly believe that it could have done much better with very little effort.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much. That's your five minutes.

We'll now go to Mr. Butt for five minutes.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate it.

It never ceases to amaze me that the two so-called transparency NDP members at this table are continuing to defend the CBC's lack of transparency. I don't get the irony in that.

Thank you, Mr. Drapeau, for being here.

My first question is, do you know Ms. Legault, the Information Commissioner?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

Indeed, and I have a lot of time for her. I think she has done a spectacular job in a very difficult situation. When she took over there was a two-year delay of complaints. She has addressed that. I think she's hired new people. I've been very critical of her predecessor, but I want to be on the record to give her the type of support and the type of acclamation that she deserves. I think she's done an excellent job.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm glad to hear you say that, because I think very highly of her too. I think members of Parliament do, our government does. I think she's done an excellent job. I think she's extremely competent.

So here's my follow-up question. Do you not believe that Ms. Legault and her people have the ability in-house to determine whether section 68.1 applies or not in access requests to the CBC? Do you not think they have enough competence in that department to determine in a private, confidential way whether section 68.1 applies or not to a request for access to information from the CBC and to let her make that determination, rather than the CBC deciding what the definition of section 68.1 is?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

You're taking words out of my mouth.

Absolutely. No question there. Can she do it? She could do it now. Has she done it in the past? She has done it. She has been trusted with information, the quality and the degree of severity if leakages were to happen being far more significant—national security would be one case in point—information that is protected because it belonged to a third party of a commercial, scientific nature. She has done that and her predecessors have done it. Absolutely.

I have said before, and I say it again, the Information Commission office is probably one of the best and most effective offices of Parliament that I know. They've done the job, and they're doing it. Can they do section 68.1? Absolutely.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm very glad to hear that.

One of the things you mentioned in one of your responses, or maybe it was in your initial statement, was hybrid documents and that they would be subject to section 68.1 in many cases. If you were the CBC, would you not make sure that most of your documents were hybrid so you could claim section 68.1? Wouldn't you be making sure, if you wanted to avoid people getting access to information, that you stuck something in there just to make sure that it was covered, or supposedly covered, so that you wouldn't have to be subject to these requests?

And then I'll ask your advice. How would you recommend we clean that up?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

I recommend you leave it alone, because, as I said, the act was beautifully crafted, has been 30 years in existence, has been interpreted ad nauseam, and it covers all this. There's a provision in section 25 that you could have a document—I'll use another example—you could have a document that is advice by a lawyer to a public official, so it's client and solicitors. Even if the document is protected, there are some fragments of information therein that can be released. The fact that there is in existence a briefing note, for instance, the facts on which the opinion is based would be releasable.

So even if it's a hybrid document, there would be some portion of it that would be redacted. The Information Commissioner would recommend the portions that are and should be disclosed. In other words, if there were an aircraft accident, there were so many fatalities and so on and so forth, and CBC dispatched a crew, then that's part of the public record. It's factual. That information would be released. But you have to let the Information Commissioner do her job to make recommendations to the institution, the CBC, what to release and what not to release.

I also accept the fact that at the end of the day, CBC and the OIC may not see the same issue in the same way. I sometimes don't agree with everything the OIC does. Then I have a choice to go to court, but it should be one in a million, not the first reaction, which is what CBC does now: if you don't like it, take us to court.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Do you believe that CBC has a culture of avoidance, that basically it's imbedded in there that they're just not going to comply, that they're going to constantly claim section 68.1 or any other section that they can to not release information?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

I don't know if they have the culture of avoidance. I don't think they ever did until September 1, 2007. Quite the reverse, they have a culture of disclosure. If you do something bad, it's going to be on CBC news tomorrow.

When it comes to access, for some reason—I don't know if there was something in the coffee that day on September 1, 2007—it just runs against the culture of CBC and the reputation they have in Canadian households. I would see them, and I thought I would see them, as an example of how they can administer the access act.

CBC found itself so pressured by access requests and their inability to respond that they requested an advisor to come in, a consultant, in December 2007 to advise them how to do it. They organized your access regime three months after becoming subject to the act. Something fell along the tracks along the way. Unfortunately, the reputation of CBC as an organization, as a corporation, has suffered unnecessarily as a result of it.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Drapeau.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Butt. Your time has run out now.

Monsieur Drapeau, thank you very much for appearing before us this morning. Certainly we've appreciated the expertise you have brought to the table.

Mr. Juneau, thank you also for being here.

I will now suspend for five minutes while we get ready for the next section of our meeting.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

I call this meeting back to order, please.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses for the second portion of our meeting. We have Mr. Péladeau, Mr. Lavoie, and Mr. Sasseville.

Mr. Péladeau, I understand that you're giving the opening remarks. I will ask you to go forward, please, for up to ten minutes.

[Pierre Karl Péladeau, President and Chief Executive Officer, Quebecor Media Inc.]

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, good morning. My name is Pierre Karl Péladeau. I am the President and Chief Executive Officer of Quebecor, Quebecor Media and Sun Media Corporation. We want to thank the committee members for the opportunity to share our opinion on access to information regarding CBC/Radio-Canada, given our experience with the state broadcaster in this matter.

I am here today as the CEO of Sun Media Corporation, Canada's largest newspaper publisher and private media company in Canada. We manage 42 daily newspapers all around the country, including major urban newspapers like the Toronto Sun, the Calgary Sun, and Le Journal de Montréal, the largest- circulation French newspaper in Canada, the 24 Hours chain of free dailies, as well as many other newspapers, like The Sudbury Star, The Peterborough Examiner, the Grande Prairie Daily Herald Tribune, and even Canada's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, The Kingston Whig Standard. In addition to this, we also own close to 200 weekly newspapers in all regions of the country, as well as two all-news stations, Sun News and LCN, and Canada's biggest French-language broadcaster, TVA, which dominates the news segment in front of Radio-Canada.

Sun Media newspapers have a long tradition, both proud and fearless, of shining a light on wasteful and ineffective spending of all levels of government, forcing them to reveal critical information of interest to Canadians. For example, we recently revealed the fact that the federal government had a list of suspected war criminals wanted for deportation, and that Ottawa would not disclose their identities. Our front page stories, along with coverage on Sun News, led to the government changing its policy and creating a most-wanted list, which resulted in the apprehension of a number of dangerous fugitives.

In other words, we abide by the credo expressed in the landmark 1989 Supreme Court ruling that “a democracy cannot exist without that freedom to express new ideas and to put forward opinions about the functioning of public institutions”. As the crown corporation receiving the largest subsidy from the Canadian Parliament, CBC/Radio-Canada cannot be immune from public scrutiny. Unfortunately, for about 25 years, from when the Access to Information Act was adopted in 1982, until 2007, citizens and journalists were not able to use one of the most important accountability tools available in our democracy, the access to information regime.

When this changed, following the adoption of the Federal Accountability Act, it is understandable that an organization with over a thousand journalists would file a great number of access to information requests to the state broadcaster. It is our duty and our right as conferred by Parliament to do so. What followed is by now well documented, having been the object of several damning reports by the Canada Information Commissioner: proactive delays, exorbitant demands for search fees, numerous complaints, and, in the end, very little information to Canadians about how the state broadcaster manages public funds.

The main reason that CBC/Radio-Canada lacks access to information performance is its insistence on hiding behind a series of exemptions and exclusions. The most significant of these exclusions, and the one that brings us here today, is the exclusion stemming from section 68.1, which states that the Access to Information Act "does not apply to any information that is under the control of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that relates to its journalistic, creative or programming activities, other than information that relates to its general administration". CBC/Radio-Canada took the Information Commissioner to court over the right to be the sole decider over what information can be withheld by virtue of section 68.1.

A first ruling rejected the state broadcaster's conceit. Judge Boivin declared that the "position taken by the CBC confers the Crown corporation judge in its own case in respect of access requests it receives". To CBC/Radio-Canada and executives, this case is first and foremost about protecting journalistic sources. Of course, protecting journalistic sources is also a priority for Sun Media. This is in fact shown by the fact that not a single one of the numerous access to information requests we sent to CBC/Radio-Canada was aimed at journalistic sources. In fact, not only have we never made such demands, but we never would. Furthermore, of the 16 access to information requests that are before the court, not a single one is in any way related to journalistic sources. I have the requests with me.

The requests ask for travel expenses for Sylvain Lafrance, who received la Légion d'honneur in France, outdoor advertising expenses, a commercial agreement to create a new magazine, and so on. In other words, it has nothing to do with journalistic sources, but all to do with CBC/Radio-Canada using every possible scheme to refuse accountability.

This, unfortunately, is nothing new for us at Sun Media. To illustrate this, I have brought with me a couple of requests submitted by Sun Media to CBC/Radio-Canada and what we got in return.

The first one concerns the state broadcaster's fleet of vehicles. What we got back is a single line of text mentioning a lone 2007 Ford 500. All other 17 pages of the document have been redacted, with CBC claiming an exclusion under section 68.1. I must still have a lot to learn about creation, programming, and journalism, because I fail to see what asking for information about a fleet of cars has to do with any of these activities.

Another request concerns CBC/Radio-Canada's 75th anniversary celebration planning budget. What we got in return is 250 pages with all and any dollar amounts redacted by virtue of one exemption or another. Withholding information from Canadians about the cost of anniversary celebrations is apparently par for the course when it comes to CBC/Radio-Canada's interpretation of the Access to Information Act.

Ladies and gentlemen, I used these few examples to try to illustrate the types of difficulties Sun Media has come across in its attempts to do its job as a media outlet.

Despite the opinion of people who accuse us of waging war on CBC/Radio-Canada, we believe that those requests are not only legitimate and of public interest, but also fully compliant with the spirit of the act.

Unfortunately, the reality is that Sun Media is currently the only press group with the distance and independence needed to ask those questions of the state broadcaster. That testifies to the extent to which many of our competitors are allied with CBC/Radio-Canada.

Is it a coincidence that the presence of reporters from the daily newspaper La Presse, published by Gesca-Power Corporation, on CBC's television and radio programs is inversely proportional to the number of requests the newspaper has submitted regarding CBC/Radio-Canada, which actually specializes in that?

But to be sure, the lack of scrutiny of CBC/Radio-Canada is not just a Quebec media phenomenon. When the National Post was launched back in 1998, one of the changes it brought to the media landscape was the willingness to turn a critical eye to the management of the state broadcaster in a regular segment called “CBC Watch”. That has changed. Today the National Post is in a commercial partnership with the CBC whereby the CBC provides it with essential sports and video content. It is no surprise that “CBC Watch” is gone. It has been replaced with stories promoting new CBC programming and giveaways of episodes of The Nature of Things to people who sign up for their mobile app.

I don't want to pick on the National Post; it is the rest of the media as well. Bell, the owner of CTV and CTV Newsnet, has just launched a joint bid with CBC/Radio-Canada for the Olympic coverage, and Canadian Press's biggest customer is CBC/Radio-Canada.

The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Sun, two of the three owners of CP, benefit from large advertising buys from the CBC. Meanwhile, taking a critical editorial position on the CBC will result in the state broadcaster pulling all advertising from our papers, as Sun Media knows only too well.

Between their strategic partnerships, their advertising budget, and their direct payments to journalists in other media organizations, CBC/Radio-Canada has somehow managed to quiet dissenting voices in most outlets--everywhere, that is, with the exception of Sun Media.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, CBC/Radio-Canada annually receives over 1.1 billion dollars in parliamentary appropriations to fulfill its public broadcasting mandate. In exchange, Canadians have the right to expect a level of transparency that would enable them to ensure that the money they give to the crown corporation is well spent. In other words, the money should be spent efficiently and in alignment with its mandate.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you, Mr. Péladeau.

We'll now go to our first round of questioning.

Mr. Angus, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Monsieur Péladeau, Monsieur Lavoie, and Mr. Sasseville.

We've met before. I'm pleased to have you here. You're a veritable Citizen Kane in the Canadian media market, and it's good to have you here.

You mentioned, sort of in passing, your biggest competitor in the Quebec television market, which would be Radio-Canada. Would you share with us any of the letters that you've sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper complaining about the fact that you're not getting enough advertising dollars from your number one competitor?

[Pierre Karl Péladeau]

I read yesterday, in sort of a “get the facts” type of piece related to us, in a quite highly surprising attack on our company, which is a highly respectable company, that we send letters to the Prime Minister of Canada.

This is completely false. The letter that I sent was to the CEO of Radio-Canada, mentioning that Sun Media and all our properties--especially, obviously, as you can imagine, in the newspaper business--are the ones that would be able to bring as much of an audience as possible.

I sent a letter to Prime Minister Harper--

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

Just to clarify, did you send it to the Prime Minister on this?

[Pierre Karl Péladeau]

I'm sorry, sir, do you want me to answer your question?

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

Well, I only have seven minutes; I'm not trying to be rude.

You did mention--just at the end you were complaining that your competitors are getting advertising dollars. So did you write to the Prime Minister about this issue, or did you write to CBC--

[Pierre Karl Péladeau]

I sent one letter mentioning that I'd been talking to...and sending letters. In fact, there were 17 letters being sent to Hubert Lacroix.

My job, as the CEO of Quebecor Media, is to make sure that we have the appropriate proportion of our advertising in Canada. Since our media business, especially newspapers, is basically fed by advertising, this is one of the most important sources for newspapers.

If we want to have strong newspapers in Canada, I think it's only natural that the public corporation--

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

Gives you a share; okay.