Good morning, everyone.
My name is Maureen Parker. I'm the executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada. With me today is my colleague, Kelly Lynne Ashton, our director of Industrial and Policy Research.
We're going to try to think on our feet today, so our initial presentation is more or less scrapped, based on the minister's announcement. I would like to start off on a positive note and thank the minister for making the announcement this morning that she will indeed write to Shaw and Vidéotron and ask them for their delinquent contributions. This is a very necessary move.
I will keep parts of my presentation as background, which may assist you in an ongoing struggle. I would like to believe that a letter to Shaw and Vidéotron is going to do the trick, but I don't. I don't think it's going to work at all. I think this matter has gone too far and I think it's going to be sitting in front of the committee for a time to come. So what I'd like to be able to do today is leave you with some thoughts as to what an insider in the industry would perhaps recommend as a go-forward course.
I represent the Writers Guild of Canada. That's a guild of 1,800 professional screenwriters working in English language film, television, radio, and digital media. Writer members are the creators of uniquely Canadian stories, such as the hit series Little Mosque on the Prairie, and popular movies of the week. It's important, I think, for you to know that my members do not work on service production, so my members are the writers of the Canadian content that you see on our screens. It's a very pressing point for all the writers, who live both inside and outside the country, that there is funding available for Canadian content production. But more than that, writers are part of an integrated and regulated industry. No one element of the television industry can exist on its own without all the other members—writers, producers, directors, performers, broadcasters, and cable companies. We are all interdependent.
As the country evolved, we decided it was important to have our own programming and broadcasting system distinct from that of our neighbour to the south. As a result, we created the Broadcasting Act.
I think it's very important to understand how the TV industry works, and I'm sure you've all heard this many times before, but it is regulated from the top down. Those of us who are speaking about the Canadian Television Fund are not just speaking on behalf of artists and producers, but also on behalf of major companies such as broadcasters and cable operators. They, too, are regulated and are protected from competition by those regulations. It's very important to remember that we're not just talking about a cultural community; we are talking about big business, because they are also benefiting from regulations.
The Canadian broadcasting system is made up of interdependent entities like cable operators, direct-to-home satellite providers, and broadcasters. The cable operators are protected from foreign competition under regulation because the Broadcasting Act says the system must be owned and operated by Canadians. U.S. cable operators, like Comcast and AT&T, can't come into Canada and buy them out or undercut them. All these benefits were given to Shaw, Rogers, and Bell ExpressVu in exchange for the creation and presentation of Canadian programming. Remove one element, as Shaw and Vidéotron are now trying to do, and the whole house of cards falls down.
How will this affect broadcasters if CTF is not up to speed? First of all, if all the cable contributors pull out, it will not be able to meet its mandate and basically the fund will be cut by 60%. I know you've heard that from the CTF. Right now, without Shaw and Vidéotron, we're looking at a cut of 30% to the fund.
Without new production orders for this year, up to 20,000 direct full-time jobs will be lost. This doesn't take into account indirect jobs such as catering, car rental, etc. The spinoff is massive.
What will Canadian broadcasters put on the air? Let's think about their commitment to Canadian content. How are they going to fulfill that commitment if there's going to be a cut of 30% in the funding available? Maybe they're going to put on more American programming, possibly CSI all the time. I don't know about you, but as a consumer, I'm really sick of flipping to every channel and seeing CSI: NY or CSI: Las Vegas. Enough with the CSI. Or maybe they're going to choose to rerun old Canadian programs like The Littlest Hobo. I'm kind of sick of that too.
Whatever they do, this is going to hurt broadcasters in the long run because they're going to lose audience share, and that must be important to them. They're going to lose audience share to American broadcasters with full schedules of new programming.
And then there's the impact on Canadian consumers, who are going to miss their favourite shows, like This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Degrassi. I think we can all agree that this is not the future we want to live in.
No matter how many times Jim Shaw issues a press release decrying the CTF's financing of broadcasters without accountability, he is just plain wrong. He's wrong. The system allocates envelopes to broadcasters, who commission independent producers to produce programming. These productions are based on factors such as audience rating and past funding levels, so broadcasters are completely accountable. If they have poor ratings one year, they will have less money in their envelope the next.
The CTF board and staff—and I want to really stress this—have done an excellent job in introducing policies that encourage investors to invest more in Canadian programs and accept responsibility for their programming choices. To criticize the fund as being unaccountable, as being run by those who are not experienced in production or who have no financial expertise, is not correct. It's misleading and it's dead wrong. In fact, the changes that have been made in the fund in the last two years, in terms of policy to invoke more investment, have really started to do the trick. That's why you're seeing shows that are starting to garner more audience. It's because those changes have been made at CTF.
Governance is supposedly also an issue, but it has also been addressed. The minister mentioned this morning that she addressed that in 2005. Those changes were made to ensure that this board is in full compliance with the Federal Accountability Act, and it is. So governance, in my mind, is not an issue; it's another red herring.
I'll turn it over to my colleagues to talk about their own funds.