Official Languages Committee on Nov. 8th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

I am sorry, Mr. Lauzon.

Mr. Samson, you have the floor.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

With respect, Mr. Dalton, the questions you ask today have to relate to official languages.

I would like the Conservatives not to waste their time asking questions about government investments to which they will not get an answer, rather than talking about official languages, which is such an important subject.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Mr. Dalton, you may continue.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

It's $16.7 billion that has been spent on consultants in the last year alone. How much money has been spent on consultants for official languages? The reason I ask this is that the action plan has $30.5 million to be spent on economic development for the official languages. Groups have been telling us that they have seen no funding. What they do see, however, is the government's year-to-year spending expanding by billions of dollars.

How much is being spent on consulting on official languages?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Mr. Dalton, your speaking time is up.

Thank you.

Ms. Anand, you may provide an answer when you are answering other questions. Ms. Kayabaga will have two minutes to ask questions.

Ms. Kayabaga, I chair the committee and I simply told Ms. Anand that she could answer Mr. Dalton's question if she wished. That said, you may ask your questions.

You have the floor.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I have only two minutes' speaking time; I will not waste them on that.

Thank you for being with us, Minister.

A lot has been said about the francophonie outside Quebec and the importance of immigration for the francophonie outside Quebec.

What do you think about francophone immigration to Canada outside Quebec? Can you reiterate the importance of making sure we achieve our francophone immigration levels every year? This is important to us.

[Anita Anand]

That's a good question.

It's very important, of course.

I went to Alberta last month, and some francophone officials there told me about their experience. They want to work in a public service environment where they can speak French.

We want to support immigration by people who speak French all across the country.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you for your answer.

We know that 65% of the francophone pool in the entire world is in Africa.

What do you think of the idea of supporting the immigration of francophone Africans, especially African students?

[Anita Anand]

That's a question for Mr. Miller.

I support the immigration levels that he presented last week. I will continue to support the French language and francophone immigration.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Do you have any further information to pass on to the committee on your role in the francophonie in Canada and outside Quebec?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Thank you, Ms. Anand.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kayabaga's two and a half minutes of speaking time are up. You may forward the information in writing to my colleague.

Witnesses, thank you for participating in this first part of our committee meeting today.

We will suspend in order to do a test with Mr. Lauzon and to prepare for the next witness panel to arrive.

Ms. Anand and Mr. Quell, thank you for being here today.

[Anita Anand]

Thank you, everyone.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

We will resume and start the second part of the 75th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

I would like to welcome the witnesses.

With us is Catherine Tait, President and Chief Executive Officer of CBC/Radio-Canada.

Thank you for being with us today.

We also have Marco Dubé, Chief Transformation Officer and Executive Vice-President, People and Culture.

Welcome, Mr. Dubé.

Ms. Tait, you will have five minutes for your opening statement.

Then we will go to a period of questions.

Go ahead, Ms. Tait.

[Catherine Tait, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to this meeting.

As you can see, I am joined here by Marco Dubé, Chief Transformation Officer and Executive Vice-President, People and Culture. He is the official languages champion at CBC/Radio-Canada.

I want to be clear, CBC/Radio-Canada is proud of the phenomenal work it does to serve Canadians in English and French in every corner of this county.

We know how much people depend on us, particularly in minority language communities where we are one of the few media broadcasting in the French language. We take our commitment seriously, particularly our ability to support the health and vitality of the French language every day across the country. We are also an organization where employees are encouraged to express themselves in either English or French. Where our documents are shared in both languages, and where staff are encouraged to learn the other Official Language. I would not want one unfortunate incident to take away from those facts.

This Committee has invited me here to discuss media reporting about one of our English-language podcasts that was adapted into French and Spanish. I understand how that reporting caused this Committee concern. I want to assure you that what has been reported does not accurately reflect who we are as an organization, our commitment to supporting Official Languages, or our day-to-day practice when it comes to adapting content into other languages.

CBC and Radio-Canada each offer Canadians hundreds of podcasts. CBC and Radio-Canada have worked together on the adaptation of three very popular CBC podcasts into French. They were adapted either by studios in Quebec using actors who are members of the UDA or by Radio-Canada itself.

In the case of the podcast Alone: A Love Story, CBC was approached by Studio Ochenta, which proposed adapting Alone into French and Spanish. They did not seek out the expertise that already exists in Canada. That was a mistake. And, an unfortunate and hurtful comment was made in a media interview regarding the Quebec accent. This was wrong, and it is not a position that we hold. We admit it unequivocally and have offered our sincere apologies.

We are fortunate to have, here in Canada, an unparalleled dubbing industry that works with very talented actors. We use their services often, for podcasts and for TV programs, and that is what we should have done in this case. We are clarifying our practices to prevent this from happening again. We have withdrawn the French version and we will redo the episodes with a Quebec adaptation company. Radio-Canada will be in charge of the adaptation.

When I learned of the incident, I immediately called and wrote to Tania Kontoyanni, the president of l'Union des artistes, and offered my unequivocal apology. Ms. Kontoyanni kindly accepted my apology.

I am aware that this Committee had invited two of my employees to take questions from Members on this matter. As President and CEO, I am responsible to Parliament for the activities of the public broadcaster.

When mistakes are made, we correct them, but all of our employees must be confident that their work is shielded from external interference.

All of us have a responsibility to protect the independence of Canada’s public broadcaster. And I welcome the Committee’s support in this effort. I want you to know that CBC/Radio-Canada’s commitment to the health and vitality of the French language remains steadfast.

It is vital to our mandate to serve all Canadians. That commitment will not change.

And with that, I welcome your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Thank you, Ms. Tait.

Before we begin the round of questions, I would like to say the following.

A moment ago, you mentioned the correspondence that you had with the committee.

The fact that we are hearing you today will not preclude us from potentially summoning other witnesses. While our objective is not to interfere in content, programming, creativity or innovation, we may nevertheless revisit the rest of the motion in future.

Then, without further ado, we will begin the round of questions, starting with Bernard Généreux, of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Mr. Généreux, you have six minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Tait and Mr. Dubé, welcome and thank you for being here today.

You've no doubt taken note of the motion that I submitted to the committee. I hope my accent isn't a problem for you. Is that all right?

[Catherine Tait]

Yes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

In an organization as important as CBC/Radio-Canada, which is mostly funded by public money, how was it possible for something so disrespectful toward the Quebec francophone and francophile population of Canada to occur? Can you explain that to me?

And that question logically leads to the following one, which is this: are there any safeguards for preventing this kind of situation?

[Catherine Tait]

I think it's important to know that the CBC/Radio-Canada teams produce hundreds of programs every month, thousands of hours of programming in both official languages and eight Indigenous languages. In this case, one mistake was made among the thousands of hours of programming.

So as I said earlier, I hope that an unfortunate and regrettable incident such as this won't cast doubt on our work as a whole. It should be borne in mind that we have two teams, one anglophone, the other francophone, and more than 3,000 people on each side who work together every day to produce an enormous number of programs.

I would dare say that we are one of the most bilingual businesses in the federal family.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Ms. Tait, you said that you do in‑house translations at Radio-Canada, but that you also contract out. You mentioned the Union des artistes earlier.

How many podcasts, videos and other programs may have been translated, or actually have been translated, by French teams rather than Quebec ones?

If that happened, were any calls for tenders issued that might explain how a team in France, for example, or in Quebec was selected?

[Catherine Tait]

First of all, many podcasts on the English side have been adapted in French by either in‑house Radio-Canada teams or Quebec studios. We have never done business with agencies or businesses in France.

In this instance, an employee of ours received a proposal for translation into French and Spanish from a company that specializes in podcasts in several languages. So it was a response to a proposal.

We don't have any other similar examples.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

In spite of that, Ms. Tait, what could have caused that person to make that decision? That's why we want to hear from the other two witnesses we requested. The Chair explained it clearly: we aren't interested in the general aspects of their everyday work.

What was the basis of the decision made by that person within your organization. If it was a reflexive response, could it potentially occur again?

I'm asking a basic question. In addition, remarks were then made about avoiding the Quebec accent. You referred to that earlier. I'm going to restrain myself because otherwise I might make some unpleasant comments, but, sincerely, between you and me, those remarks were insulting not only to both the Standing Committee on Official Languages and the Quebec and Canadian French language, but also to the entire population of Quebec and particularly Quebec artists.

I hope this kind of incident never occurs again because it's a downright insult to the Quebec nation.

[Catherine Tait]

I accept responsibility for that mistake, and that's why I immediately called the president of the Union des artistes in Quebec to apologize.

I entirely agree with you about those remarks.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I'll repeat my question—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

You have 30 seconds left.