Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 27th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'm now going to call to order meeting thirteen of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Today we welcome witnesses from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Our orders will be, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study on the actual mandate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I would hope we can keep to the agenda on the mandate. I would hope that would be our goal.

We welcome Mr. Rabinovitch, who is the president and CEO and the chair of the board of directors.

Mr. Rabinovitch, please.

[Robert Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer and Acting Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to appear before you. This is our first opportunity to meet with this committee. So I'm looking forward to having a real dialogue with you today. To help to do that we will be making only brief remarks, then we would like to hear your questions.

With me today are Sylvain Lafrance, Executive Vice-President, French Services, Jane Chalmers, Vice-President, CBC Radio, and Richard Stursberg, Senior Vice-President, CBC Television.

You've asked us to talk about our mandate, and we will, and hopefully we'll have a discussion on this, but our mandate is clearly stated in the Broadcasting Act. It is literally to inform, enlighten, and entertain. It's a very broad mandate, and it hasn't really been reviewed in 16 years. A lot has changed since then, and that is why I and my board agree that a mandate review is essential at this time. We think, quite frankly, it should happen on a regular basis, because it's the only way to ensure that we're still doing what Canadians want us to do.

I have in the past summarized our mandate this way: to create audacious, distinctive programming, programming that reflects Canadians and Canada's regions, programs that help tie the country together and explain great national and international events, programming in all genres, with emphasis on news and current affairs, drama and culture, and not forgetting our very special responsibility to children.

In a minute I'm going to ask each of our vice-presidents to talk very briefly about what this means in their services, but I would like to make two points.

First, we're not the only ones who make Canadian programming, and I dare say we're not the only ones who get government funding to create Canadian programming, but we are the only ones who can make it available in prime time, when people are actually listening and watching. We offer Canadian stories that reflect individual communities as well as the entire country. We do this in English, in French, and in eight aboriginal languages.

Second, broadcasting is an industry that is going through dramatic and dynamic changes, literally changing almost by the day. If we're going to continue to reach Canadians, we have to reach them when and where they choose, whether it's on the Internet, on cellphones like we did with the Olympics this year, on satellite radio, or on new platforms that are just being developed and being discovered as we speak.

That said, traditional media like radio and television will not disappear. These two things, producing Canadian content and making sure it is available when and where Canadians can use it, costs money, more than we can expect from government. As long as that is the case, we have to find the money to continue to fill our mandate wherever we can. We have to be creative and innovative in looking for funding sources.

In some cases, this means commercials. In other cases, it is finding new funding sources. That is why, later this afternoon, we will be filing our submission to the CRTC television policy review, proposing that all broadcasters, not just specialty channels, should receive subscriber fees for the programming they create. It's one way to ensure that there will be specific resources available for CBC/Radio-Canada to provide the programming services that Canadians want.

We want to constantly re-examine what we do. We need to take risks, which means we will not always succeed. Like any other broadcaster today, the pace of change forces us to experiment with new platforms, new genres, and new programming concepts, not all of which will work, but they all must be tried. Serving Canadians demands no less than continuous renewal.

I'm sure of one thing: Canada has few means at its disposal to bind this geographically dispersed and culturally diverse country together, and public broadcasting is one of the most essential instruments for doing just that.

I will now give the floor to my colleague Sylvain Lafrance, who will speak to you about French services.

[Sylvain Lafrance, Executive Vice-President, French Services, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

Thank you, Robert.

Almost one year ago, all of the French services were reorganized under a single vice-president. I would like to say that one of our fundamental roles at Radio-Canada, and one of our corporate objectives, is to improve democratic and cultural life, with all that that entails in the 21^st century.

Improving democratic life by providing quality information in the 21^st century means much more than it did in the 20^th century. The same thing is true for culture. Today's definition of culture is very different from what it was, because of globalization, immigration, new means of communication and for many other reasons as well. In order to do this, democracy and culture must be defined.

Our action plan is based on three main components that will guide us for the next three or five years. The first element is of course distinctive and high quality programming in terms of content and technical quality. We want to ensure that we are always in the forefront as far as the means of distributing content are concerned, and to help bring Canada to the state-of-the-art level for all forms of content distribution that may exist, so that Canadians continue to have access to quality content that speaks to them.

The second element is the integration of our services, that is to say that we have integrated all of our radio, television and web services under a single management group. We are also integrating all of our management activities, because we believe that the best way to confront the technological changes and all of the new platforms is to create a very strong brand, which is that of the public broadcaster, that showcases the very strong values and that we will now be able to broadcast over all of the new distribution technologies. Therefore, the integration of services component is an extremely important one for us.

The third component deals with human resources management, as much our own employees as the thousands of people who work with Radio-Canada—musicians, artists and authors—to create the content that we broadcast. We want to improve all of our labour relations, both with our own staff and with all of the stakeholders who work on public services every day. This is the third main theme of our action plan for the next few years. All of this with a goal to simply improve overall content and the overall choice we offer to Canadians.

We often hear that people hope that Radio-Canada will be everything to everyone, and I often respond that yes, we can cover almost everything for everyone, but not on all platforms at the same time. We have radio, television, and the web. There are a huge number of different platforms, and the more time goes by, the more fragmentation there is, and the more we will choose the best platforms at the right time and with the right content. I believe that we are currently building the structures and giving ourselves the means to do so.

Thank you. I now give the floor to Jane Chalmers.

[Jane Chalmers, Vice-President, Radio (English), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

Hello.

I don't know about you, but to me, as you scan through your radio in your home or when you're driving--albeit carefully, with your eyes on the road--you don't even have to look at the dial. When it stops on CBC radio, you know you're on the public broadcaster. I think it's important to note too that around the world, our programming is acknowledged as some of the best anywhere. We're heard extensively around the world.

I wanted to set it up that way because I believe we are a cherished institution for many Canadians. We've heard, and I know many of you have heard, anecdotes about how relatives and friends talk about listening to some of this great programming, one in one part of the country, another in another part of the country. They say, “This makes me feel like I'm a Canadian.” It's a shared experience.

At its roots, English radio was built on a very strong foundation of local service. Our regional stations are there deliberately. Obviously, on a journalistic level, it's to explore the stories and issues of the community, but as well, on a cultural level, it's to expose and discover and showcase a wide array of artistic expression. What's unique about this is that it's always done from the perspective of the communities in which our stations live. Our network journalistic and cultural programs, which, as I said, are recognized internationally for excellence, are informed and nuanced by the work of those local stations. Our goal at radio each day is to provide the highest-quality public service radio programming we can--locally, nationally, and internationally.

I want to give you a quick purview of the scope and depth of CBC radio. I understand that some members on the committee are new, so give me a moment to tell you about our service.

We operate three networks. We have 37 stations across Canada, and news bureaus in 15 more. We produce 70,000 hours of original programs each year. We broadcast more than 725 live concert recordings. We program in English and in eight first nation languages across the north. As I said, local, and strengthening our connection to Canadians in their communities, remains our greatest focus. In the past few years we have moved more network production to the region. We've expanded local programming, starting most recently with the afternoon drive show--an extra hour--to reflect local traffic and listening needs.

We've also talked about what the role is of each of our three networks against this objective--to become more relevant to more people in more ways--because broadcasting is evolving very quickly. Radio One is a broad-based service, connecting Canadians to their communities, to the country and the world, through a broad mix of journalistic, cultural, and entertainment programming. Radio Two is our adult music service, and it has an emphasis on classical music, jazz, and higher arts. Radio Three is a contemporary music service for younger adults.

This drive for relevance that I've talked about is also taking us to new platforms, such as satellite, podcasting, and other digital delivery. We are developing now a new generation of listeners by being on the leading edge of new platforms. One example is with podcasting. This is a huge success for us and, I would say, for Canadian content. Each week we have 200,000 downloads, and these are largely from the feedback. These are new listeners who are discovering content that many of us listen to on the radio through other means.

Looking forward, we're working toward a vibrant Canadian radio service that continues to embrace programs defined by their creativity, depth, and intelligence. We see a radio service that is more celebratory of high-quality Canadian cultural and artistic expression. We will continue to pursue diversity as a core value. We envision traditional, over-the-air broadcast, combined with more on-demand content, to reach more Canadians, and one that expands its commitments to local communities across the country.

On that, I will end by telling you that means more stations. Six million English Canadians in urban centres across our country have no local service and no consistent conduit to our national airwaves. It is for us an unacceptable void in our service.

Richard.

[Richard Stursberg, Executive Vice-President, Television (English), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

Thank you, Jane.

It's a pleasure to be here.

At CBC television we're driven by a very simple focus: to make programming that better connects with Canadians, programming that matters to them and that they want to make a part of their daily lives.

English Canada is the only place in the industrialized world whose citizens overwhelmingly watch the programming stories of another country. We've been making changes that we hope will allow us to bring to air more and better programming by, for, and about Canadians. We've made key appointments in important program areas such as arts and entertainment, factual entertainment, and documentaries. Indeed, the new head of documentaries, Mark Starowicz, last week received the Governor General's performing arts award.

Like other major broadcasters, we're moving to a 24-hour-a-day schedule so that Canadians will be able to watch the programming they want when they want to watch it. We've adopted a new approach to program development focused on more long-running series, to build loyalty among viewers.

Our efforts, I think, are starting to bear fruit. We have new programs such as Intelligence, the crime and spy series, and the 20-episode comedy series Rumeurs—or Rumours in English—which was a huge hit and is still a huge hit on the sister network at Radio-Canada. We have a new lifestyle show hosted by Gillian Deacon and have re-developed The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos at 11 p.m. on the main network.

We've created a new home for independent and in-house documentaries on the main network's prime time schedule, at 8 p.m. on Thursday nights. We're also continuing our tradition of commissioning dramatic adaptations of the highest-quality Canadian literary and theatrical works, with projects based on Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride, Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Englishman's Boy, and Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman, all of which are now in production.

But we still have important work to do. New platforms, new technologies, and an increasingly diverse and demanding audience require that we evolve. We can no longer think of ourselves solely as a television broadcaster. We are a content producer and distributor, and it is incumbent upon us to get that content to Canadians via the medium of their choice.

In a similar vein, we're also exploring how CBC news would evolve in the changing media world. CBC news is the cornerstone of the service we provide to all Canadians, and we want to make an outstanding product even better. This process will result in a three-year strategic plan for CBC news that we hope to begin implementing in early 2007.

We are trying to effect significant change at CBC television, and not all of it is easy; nor is it without risk. Programs will fail. Some ideas won't work. But if we are to have a national public broadcaster that is relevant, that Canadians want to make a part of their daily lives, then we must listen to them and provide them with the programming they want, and that means taking risks. I believe we're on a path that will allow us to do just that.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay. Are there any questions?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

How much time do we have individually, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Five minutes.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Five minutes? We're going to decide the future of CBC in that time?

Mr. Chairman, I want to focus on something not in terms of the actual programming, but I need to set the stage.

In the previous Parliament this committee spent a lot of time looking at Canadian broadcasting, the CBC in particular. There seemed to be a consensus around this table that there needed to be a review of the mandate of CBC. The minister, when she was in the opposition, had supported that, as the minister supported that same thing. Then in June things came to a halt. For some reason the decision was made somewhere that we were not to proceed with a review of the mandate of CBC, which is unfortunate, because there seemed to be a bit of goodwill all around to at least look at it.

I'm going to imagine that at some point in the future this will occur. It has to occur. My question is for that reason.

I would like to know what elements, in your opinion, should be included in the mandate review. What should be looked at as a minimum and what would be nice to be looked at? For instance, in the area of the overall orientation of CBC, more or fewer commercials would seem to be a fixation for a lot of people, including our Prime Minister. And what funding formula should presumably be looked at also to accompany whatever orientation we wish to determine? How should technology be reflected in the mandate review, and the relationship of CBC with the universe of broadcasters, or the relationship of CBC with the CRTC? Should there be any regulatory or legislative review?

I would like to know.... I understand you haven't got enough time to answer all of this, so I'll invite you to say what you can, but also to forward some documents, some thoughts on paper, to all of us, because I expect we will keep pushing and will eventually see such a review.

So what are the minimum elements, in your opinion, that would have to be looked at in such a review, and what are the ones that would be nice to be looked at?

[Robert Rabinovitch]

You've really thrown me a big fat football. It's hard to give you a comprehensive answer, but I think you began to hit on some of the most important elements of such a review.

Personally, I believe that the review has to be comprehensive. One of the most difficult aspects of broadcasting is how elements interrelate, one with the other. If you're not in commercials, then perhaps you're not in sports programming.

I'm not sure whether a mandated review should get into specific types of programming, but it should get into questions like regional programming, local programming, and national programming. The act does talk about that, but at this point, the funds available in some ways limit our ability to do all things on top of all of our services.

The other reality is that the technology is changing so dramatically and so drastically. There are people who believe that IPTV, Internet protocol television, is the future. People will be able to chose the service they want, when and how they want it, and choose the program they want. We already have a situation in the United States where programs are shown, and then literally the next day, for 99¢, you can buy access to a program on your own. So you can see it when you want.

The whole concept we grew up with and that we wrote the 1968 and 1991 acts in, which was basically linear services--radio and television, and English, French, and aboriginal languages—is and must be up for discussion. In doing so, I think we have to look and ask, what is the role of the public broadcaster within this context? What is the best way to finance the role of the public broadcaster?

My personal feeling is that there should be a mandated review on a regular basis, as there is in the United Kingdom. As the government defines the mandated review—which is sort of a contract with Canadians—the review also defines the extent to which the government is willing to finance the services it wants its public broadcaster to undertake.

I don't want to skate around, because I think your questions are extremely important. They are the right questions. And as I said before, we can go beyond these into the question of regional versus local. Then there's the question of whether we can do it in all our services. We believe that all the services where Canadians want programming—whether it's news, current affairs, drama, and other programs—have to be available to Canadians. We feel we must be there because Canadians are going to choose, and everybody is going to choose different ways of doing it.

I'm sorry I'm going on a bit, but it's such an important question.

The iPod story is very interesting. Our audience for radio skews old, to about 50-plus years of age. But as we've been accused sometimes, we don't have to dumb down to capture a young audience. On the contrary, a young audience—my kids—would be insulted if you told them that you have to dumb down to get them. What we're finding with iPods is that young people are discovering some of our more complex radio programs, such as Quirks & Quarks and Ideas. These are the programs they are downloading from us.

They can download their music from Radio Three, but they can download music from other places.

But to us, we're creating a new market of 18- to 35-year-olds and giving them access to programs, so they don't have to listen to Quirks & Quarks at noon. They can listen to it when they want, how they want.

It's all these issues that must come together when you do a mandated review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, allow me to congratulate the SRC, both radio and television, for the quality of its recent programming. We have been able to appreciate it lately, at least since the last time we saw each other. We have observed a rather positive evolution. Moreover, we listen to our constituents, and from that end, the comments are very positive. You are moving in the right direction.

Having said that, I would like to know what the situation is within the corporation in comparison to where we were when we last saw each other. Are things going better, as far as the unions are concerned? What is your current situation as far as labour relations are concerned?

[Sylvain Lafrance]

I can state that things are going rather well. This is one of the main areas where we would like to see some improvement. Over the last three months, we signed two significant collective bargaining agreements for which the rate of acceptance was rather high. Both sides have shown a great deal of maturity. Currently, we are negotiating with the directors' guild, but we have no reason to believe that there will be any particular difficulties. There are many negotiations underway with the artists' unions. We are also maintaining contact with the guild. People are often under the impression that the guild represents anglophones and that Quebec unions represent the francophones, but that is not quite right. In fact, the guild represents all employees who are outside of the Quebec and Moncton regions. Therefore, we have regular contact and discussions with the guild on issues that can arise concerning the management of French services.

Overall, I think that things are going rather well.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I have thousands of questions to ask you, but we have very little time. I know that Mr. Chairman is watching me out of the corner of his eye. I'll ask you some straightforward questions.

Do public radio and television still have their place, in the era of globalization?

[Sylvain Lafrance]

More so than ever, because the only way in my opinion to maintain our credibility will be to have strong credible branding, and the only way to get robust Canadian content will be to have the businesses that are capable of producing it.

I will give you a few simple examples as far as French services are concerned. Currently, the only mass media undertaking capable of serving francophones outside Quebec is Radio-Canada. The only mass media undertaking capable of speaking to all Canadians across the country is Radio-Canada. The only mass media company capable of opening the doors of the world to francophone Canadians is the French service of Radio-Canada. In my opinion, it is extremely important. The more fragmentation there is, the more dubious information there will be, the more important it will be to have very strong and credible broadcasters, and the public broadcaster will be part of that. This is a major democratic and cultural issue. It is a major issue for socially important questions like cultural co-existence and understanding of the great international problems.

The public broadcaster will always serve as a gauge of quality in that sense and it will be more useful than ever in the 21^st century, much more useful than it was during the 20^th century, in my opinion.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

We know what your mandate is. We will not dwell on that subject, but do you, objectively speaking, have adequate means to fulfil it?

[Sylvain Lafrance]

That depends. As I was saying earlier, some people want Radio-Canada to be everything to everyone. For example, a lot is asked of us in the regions. As far as covering world news is concerned, we would need much more in order to be able to do it properly, but of course, we do not have the same means as other great international public radio broadcasters. If we look at how much is spent per capita on public broadcasting services in Canada, it is much less than in many other countries.

We could offer even better quality programming if we had more funding. Having said that, I think that given our current funding, we produce quality public radio and television.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Some organizations funded by Canadian Heritage have had problems recently with the new government. In your case, this spring, you will have to table a request for supplementary estimates. Do you have enough time to do so? Has this been done?

[Robert Rabinovitch]

We have not asked for supplementary estimates and Treasury Board studied that last week. For the sixth year in a row, we were granted 60 million dollars for programming with the private sector. We were given the same amount of money and the same increase of 60 million dollars, one year at a time.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I have other financial questions. Certain rumours—I still have connections in the production world—have been brought to my attention. People are saying that you are having trouble with the Canadian Television Fund. Can you talk a bit about that?

[Sylvain Lafrance]

All of the broadcasters could talk about operational difficulties, that is to say constraints that are imposed on us, for example for the negotiation of rights. When we appear before the Canadian Television Fund, the only thing we can negotiate are licences, we cannot negotiate any other rights tied to other platforms. This, in my opinion, does not correspond to the needs of the 21^st century. When we decide to commit to a significant production, it is important to know how we will best be able to make use of it. Will we be able to run it on DVD, broadcast it, broadcast it on the radio or in some other form?

Currently there are huge limitations involved with the Canadian Television Fund. For us, these constraints are less and less acceptable. If we invest significant amounts to produce, for example, the show Rumeurs, we have to know what all of the various platforms will generate for us. I feel that such constraints create major difficulties and do not correspond to the environment towards which we are heading.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you very much for coming again to the heritage committee.

I want to follow up on my colleague's question about the mandate review, because it was our understanding that with our new minister the mandate review would be one of our first steps taken. We were very much under the impression that the mandate review was going to be announced at Banff, then suddenly it disappeared. Were you expecting a mandate review this spring? What did the minister tell you about not having a mandate review?

[Robert Rabinovitch]

We were never given the precise date as to when there would be a mandate review, but I did have discussions with the minister, and the minister has said publicly that she would like to undertake a mandate review.

There are two other reviews going on at the present time, and I suspect that she would like to have some of the information from those reviews, especially the section 15 review that she asked the CRTC to undertake--in other words, a definition of what's going on and what has happened and what can be anticipated from a technological point of view. That report is expected by December 14, and I suspect that it might actually enrich the mandate review by elaborating on—what I was saying before to the member—the technological changes that are happening, that it would enhance the types of questions she might be asking in the mandate review.

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

Once again, Mr. Rabinovitch, you are in the position of being both chair and president. Have you spoken with the minister about when a replacement will be named? Is there any sense of how that process will be undertaken?