Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 27th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the guests for coming here today.

This is really my first time on the committee. I have a point, and then I have some questions.

My first point is similar to that of my colleague from the Bloc on lack of coverage. I'm from Cape Breton, and northern Cape Breton has a real lack of CBC coverage. There's a community called Pleasant Bay; they're even willing to get land for you to put up a tower—they have a request in. This is more for the record, to tie in with my colleague's point. If you can look into that, it would be really appreciated.

I have two questions. One is, we are a CBC house, and my children tend to stay with me most of the morning and listen to the radio, if they have to, but we all tend to lose it in the afternoon.

I was just wondering: when you sit around the table among producers.... I'm trying to think who would listen between one and four o'clock to CBC radio. I'm not trying to be too critical, but it's the commentators and the music, and I just don't find it relevant to 99% of the people. I like to keep the channel on all through the day, because.... But music can be changed and be relevant to all groups of people. So that's a question: did you ever think of changing the format or what's on in the afternoon show?

The other one is dealing with employees. I've had complaints even from reporters from the CBC who work in my region. Do you find, concerning flexibility with employees—upward movement, young talent coming in—that the unions, maybe, or the people representing your employees are stifling that, or keeping the CBC's hands tied, inasmuch as you could have a better mix or vibrancy, or even a better coverage on the weekend if they wanted to do overtime? That's my second question.

[Robert Rabinovitch]

I'll start, but I'd like Jane to talk to you about the afternoon shows, because we have been experimenting with different combinations. Some work for some people, and some don't work, but it has historically been a drop-off in the CBC. The morning goes up, plateaus, comes down, and it comes back up again with—for lack of a better term—the “rolling home” shows.

But Jane, you're going to an asymmetrical model, where you'll change it and go back and forth in different areas. So why don't you talk about that? Then I'll go back to the other question.

[Jane Chalmers]

Specifically concerning the afternoons, first of all we're looking at this program and working with those people very closely. I want to assure you of that. The idea was really to increase local time. That was the idea behind the music show. First of all, we saw that in certain parts of the country the drive home started much earlier, and it made more sense to start the show at three o'clock. What we did is put the word out to the regions, so that in your region it was decided locally what pattern they wanted to use, whether they wanted to start their afternoon show earlier—which they still might. That means that in some places you actually have an hour extra of local time. We wanted to give the location more control over the kind of schedule they wanted to create.

We also did some research—and we do quite a lot of talking to people, audiences—and they thought a music format was better, because people tend to use radio in the mid-afternoon more as background, and actually, CBC radio programming is always troughed in terms of listening.

We wanted to give exposure to Canadian music, and.... You know what? We're still working on this program, and I'm hoping you're going to be a little bit patient with us as we try to figure out exactly how it's going to work and what we're going to do.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Just on this point, if you're in a car listening.... I find it's really intriguing now, because my kids are listening to the same music I'm listening to, and my parents—for instance Abba, or Neil Young. We're all listening to the stuff. What an opportunity for the CBC to take advantage of that, instead of going off into some spectrum that most of us aren't listening to. I guess that's my point.

[Jane Chalmers]

I hear you, and I do want to tell you something else, though. One of our real thrusts at CBC radio since I've started is really trying to work in getting people's creative juices flowing. If you've listened through the summer and at different times, we're really working hard with our producers to get new programs.

I want to create a new energy in the place. Certainly I'm really proud of my colleagues who are programming and working the service. Some things will work a little better than others. I think one of the problems we had with this specific show is that we actually launched it too quickly. We should have worked a little bit more with the.... We learn every time, so we were sort of developing on the air. We want to deliver the kinds of schedules that people want and like but we also want to be fair to our producers and programmers so that they get time to work it out and work with the audience to get the show where it needs to be. It can be a very difficult process, but, inevitably, we want it to be a very positive process for our folks.

[Robert Rabinovitch]

With respect to your second question, it would be grossly unfair, I think, to say that the problems we have in terms of bringing in new talent and new programming people are due to the union structure and the union contract. The problems we have are due to a company that has been shrinking for the last twenty years in terms of number of employees, amount of money it has, and it's only right and fair that union contracts be written to protect existing employees. Sure, it's frustrating because of bumping rules and all that--and that's one of the reasons we are quite satisfied--but I must say that the current contract we have with the CMG allows for more contract employees, more temporary employees, and in that way at least young people can come in to help ventilate the place, help develop new programs and with time actually become permanent employees.

I think we have gained a significant amount of flexibility, but let's bear in mind that we're talking about an organization that is essentially shrinking. In that situation it's only right to protect those who are already employed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you very much for your presentation today.

I have one question and then a broader one. I'd like you to describe what you were talking about, Mr. Rabinovitch, with subscriber fees. That was in the latter part of your presentation and it seemed to be an orphan, so I didn't understand what it was about.

I think it would be very helpful, not only for people on this committee but for Canadians at large who are all investing $30 a year in the CBC.... With the $900 million plus that the CBC is getting, people understandably are asking, how does all that work?

I have read through CBC financial documents and so on and so forth. Either I'm very slow or somebody is very fast at being able to put together documents that ordinary laymen can't understand. I would dearly love to see on one, at the most two, pages, “The management and overhead for the CBC is x number of dollars; the expenditures on CBC English television are y number of dollars; the revenue side is z number of dollars.” Do you understand what I'm saying--simply bang, bang, bang, bang?

It would be exceptionally beneficial and would enable us to conduct sometimes more intelligent discussions about the CBC if you could completely grossly oversimplify the numbers for us.

[Robert Rabinovitch]

We have prepared those types of fact sheets, sir, and we will clarify them and send them to the committee to be circulated. And we, as individuals or together--and this is an offer to all members of the committee--and perhaps my chief financial officer, if you wish, at any time are ready to sit down and talk about those numbers and how those numbers come together.

We pride ourselves more and more on transparency. I think your government stands for transparency. I believe government must demand that of us, and we are more than willing to do it. We can give you numbers right now off the top of our heads, because we live with these numbers every day, but it's probably better, if you wish--or if we have time later on we can go into it--to give you a fact sheet and then after that, in your offices or back at the committee or any way you wish, we would love to discuss it with you, because you must be informed and understand what these numbers are. Once you start breaking them down into components, they become very small relative to our competition. And I don't mean Canadian competition, I mean outside the country.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

On the question of subscriber fees, what were you referring to?

[Robert Rabinovitch]

The CRTC is holding a TV policy hearing and they've asked for submissions from the public, from the broadcasters, and today is the deadline for those submissions. They highlighted certain particular points, one of which was HD and the move to HD. Another was how to ensure that there is more drama in the system. They want to talk as well about the health of the broadcasting system. There are many people who are very concerned, especially about conventional broadcasting, because conventional broadcasting has essentially been financed through advertising and advertising for conventional broadcasting has plateaued or gone down in the last couple of years, with the growth of the Internet, with the growth of other alternatives.

So the very model on which conventional broadcasting is built may turn out to be a foundation of sand. So a lot of us are very concerned about that and are looking at different ways and means to finance conventional broadcasting. It is conventional broadcasting that produces the most, about 80% or 85%, new programming. Therefore we have to make sure that it is healthy and that it can move forward. The government does a lot in terms of CTF, in terms of tax credits, etc., so we all get money from government in one form or another to do programming.

What we are suggesting here is not something new, and it's something that all of the conventional broadcasters, I believe, will be putting forward; that is, now that the Canadian public, 85% to 90% of the Canadian public, receive television not over the air but from a satellite operator or from a cable operator, there should be a fee paid for those programs that we deliver. That's what we mean by a subscriber fee.

As I say, the hearing will be in November, the end of November. The deadline for filing of briefs is today. I'm sure there will be stories in the press, because almost all of the broadcasters, public and private, are going to say they don't want to give their programming for nothing, that they should get a fee because they need another source of revenue if they're going to be able to do Canadian programming.

From the point of view of the CBC, we feel exactly the same way. Our finances from government are basically static, if not decreasing in real terms. Our advertising revenue is relatively flat and we don't anticipate it going up dramatically, perhaps going up with inflation but not much more than that. Yet the cost of programming continues to rise. The amount of programming we want to produce is going up very significantly. Richard's up to I think 175 hours this year from about 125 hours two years ago of Canadian drama, and it's the same on Sylvain's side.

So we see the subscriber fee as a legitimate payment for service rendered. And I might say that this debate is going on in other countries as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I always wonder how you guys do it, because when someone doesn't like something on CTV, they change the channel. If someone doesn't like something on CBC, they phone Charlie Angus, their local, their regional, their national heritage critic, and they demand accountability and say they don't want their tax dollars being spent on this.

For example, this summer I had a letter of outrage about your pro-Israeli coverage and they wanted me to check out a news show. Two days later I got an almost similar letter demanding action on your pro-Lebanese coverage. And each one ended with, “I don't want my tax dollars being spent on this kind of outrageous programming.”

So I'm always wondering how you resist political pressure. I know if you, for example, cancel a curling show, I'm sure there will be members of the government party standing up in the House saying they don't want their tax dollars being spent because they're not getting curling.

It brings me to the question raised by Mr. Lukiwski, who is unfortunately not here right now, but he was quite charged and quite upset about Prairie Giant. He talked about this portrayal of an alcoholic Ku Klux Klan member. I've seen the movie. I think he had a drink in his hand once. So God help him if he sees me with a bottle of wine after work; I don't know how he might describe me. But the issue of Prairie Giant to me is important. It raises the question how does the CBC present programming that doesn't please everybody and how you have a mandate and a clear plan for dealing with this so that it's transparent.

I've looked at the case on Prairie Giant and I've got both the statement and the rebuttal. It seems to me that to cancel a movie based on the work of “anonymous”, someone who wouldn't come forward with their name, raises questions. The fact that I've got two or three rebuttals from researchers and directors to that.... It would seem that you would have a platform where this could be looked at independently and then a decision could be arrived at, but that wasn't the case with Prairie Giant.

You had an anonymous person make claims. You did not allow the screenwriters to rebut, so the movie was canned, the movie that's up for nine Geminis. So I'm wondering what steps would you have in place to protect not just your writers, not just your screenwriters, but your journalists as well, from political pressure?

[Robert Rabinovitch]

Let me do the journalist and then I'll throw the hot potato to Richard, if you don't mind, because you've hit the nail right on the head.

The Prairie Giant story is one of the most complicated stories I've ever seen. And there's probably right, I would say--in fact there is right--on all sides, and it's very frustrating. My own personal feeling is we've learned a lot about how to do this in the future, which I'm more than willing to talk to you about and I think Richard will talk to you about as well in terms of standards and whether we let our standards down, etc.

With respect to journalism, our problem and our job is to get the facts out. Facts are not always objective, or the facts that are objective for one person are not objective for another person. As you say, you get e-mails. Given I'm from a minority group, I get a lot of e-mails, as you may well expect. But I take comfort in the fact that we have the most sophisticated ombudsman system in the world, and it's a model that's being adopted by other public broadcasters. That ombudsman is not an apologist. They--both the English and the French--look at complaints very seriously and have from time to time taken real issue with the journalist making the report. Very often they support the report. We do now have a conflict of balance between a program--it may not be within the same program but it must be within a legitimate period of time--but these are principles the ombudsman has developed in consultation with the public and will continue to develop.

I'm very proud of that fact that we have this system that allows the public to come forward and say they disagree with our presentation and with our citing of the facts. On that I think we are in reasonably good shape. Sure, we get a fair number of complaints, and we should, for many reasons.

In the case of drama, it's even more complicated. In drama, sometimes you take artistic licence; sometimes you create a composite character. The questions are very fundamental, though. Should you create a composite character and give him a real name? If you're going to start playing around and root into that nature and have composite characters, maybe there should be a principle that you cannot use a real name, that this is a fictitious story, and not do what we did with Mr. Gardiner.

I think Richard should also add to this.

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

But, sir, you've been doing television at CBC for 60 years. Haven't you had a policy on this up until now?

[Richard Stursberg]

Well, just to be clear, separating out journalism, there is a standards handbook that all the journalists get that lays down the standards that are expected of CBC journalists. That's the first point, and they all get trained into it. The second point is that the job essentially of the editor in chief is to ensure that what's put on the CBC by way of news reflects the standards laid our in the journalistic handbook. That's his job.

Beyond that, as Bob points out, if you think we haven't done a good job, you can go to the ombudsman and the ombudsman will look into the matter and decide whether you're right or wrong. If he says you're wrong, that's one thing. But if he says you're right, then what we'll do is we'll issue corrections and apologies.

Finally, what we also do when there are things that are matters of major public interest like elections is we set up independent panels. The independent panels are there to look to make sure we're treating all the parties fair and square.

That's the type of journalistic standard.

On the fiction side, as Bob points out, the waters are somewhat murkier. This is not a new practice to actually create composite characters, to add to characters things they did not actually do or say. For my part, as I was saying earlier, I found the Prairie Giant conversation very interesting and very troubling and very tricky to deal with, because we were dealing with essentially a fictionalization of real events.

I think what we probably need to do is we probably need, on the drama side, to codify in a similar sort of way to the way we have on the journalistic side what constitutes reasonable principles to be able to guide people. Currently right now we don't have that except in the most general sense. One of the things we are going to try to do--Sylvain and I and Jane are talking about--is precisely to figure out what is the appropriate artistic licence to give people and when does it step over the line when you're naming real people who are real historical characters.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We've gone over time again. I'm sorry for that.

Mr. Bélanger.

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

Mr. Chair, I have four brief comments to make.

First of all, Mr. Stursberg, some colleagues around the table might be interested in taking a look at the CBC handbook for journalists. This might give us some ideas on how to better interact with them.

[Richard Stursberg]

Absolutely. We certainly can give you a copy.

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

Mr. Rabinovitch, you have been president and chief executive officer of CBC/Radio-Canada since 1999, I believe. I want to ask you for your opinion, and I do not know whether you will want to answer my question.

According to you, and in an ideal world, what would be the minimum duration of financial support from the Canadian Parliament for the CBC/Radio-Canada budget? Would it be two years, three years, four years, five years, six years or longer?

[Robert Rabinovitch]

I would say the best possible.

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

The best possible, all right.

[Robert Rabinovitch]

Yes, the best possible. Our situation is not quite the same as that of the BBC in the United Kingdom, where every 10 years...

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

Ten years?