Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

[Peter Moss]

First, I think that the Quebecor decision, which we certainly welcome in the short term, seemed to come with a condition. He stated that he would like to take that money and put it into his own production company, run by his own company. That will be given full disclosure, and that is what I mean by the slow erosion of the fund. An ideal like that cannot in any way help the fund, or therefore the industry.

In terms of Shaw, I used to work for Corus Entertainment. I have a hard time guessing what he is thinking.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That's fine. I would imagine that we could also obtain the text of your presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I see this a little bit differently. I'm on the industry committee for our party, and there you actually have the minister running roughshod over the CRTC on a regular basis, not necessarily waiting for an opinion.

I grew up in Windsor, Ontario, and airwave was the only television, not cable, at that time. The children's programming I received was somebody getting hit by an anvil, falling off a cliff, or eating spinach and punching somebody in the face. I can tell you right now, as a parent of a three-year-old and a six-year-old, how proud I am of Canadian television and the children's department--for example, Treehouse, which offers limited access to commercials but at the same time provides really ingenious programs.

Your cultural connection is very important, and I think I would like to hear a little bit more about that, because I live in one of the most diverse parts of Canada, the fourth largest. We have over 100 ethnic cultures that are organized as bodies and groups, and our immigration population is booming.

Could you expand on your concerns about not being able to meet that challenge if the proper service and supports aren't there for you to be able to do your job?

[Peter Moss]

I think what it comes down to is a belief that because we are always dealing with new citizens to Canada, and particularly citizens whose first language is not English or whose English is developing, there is a tendency for them to grow up--and this is certainly true for the pre-school ages up until age five or six, when children enter the school system--enclosed within a community. Yet those are the most powerful years, when children learn to imitate the behaviour of those they see and learn to acculturate into the larger society. So you're dealing with a group of children who come into our country and are given no indication of what it means to be Canadian until they get to school. Then, depending on the school system that they get to and depending on the circumstances and the experience they have and the language they've managed to pick up, they are hit with the law of the jungle gym--to call it something else--of what happens to them in school. So that's one way I think television helps.

The other way is that there's a great body of evidence, tested both by Canadian universities and by the Children's Television Workshop in New York, that television designed for the youngest children actually has a very positive effect on numeracy, on literacy, and on school readiness, and that when you're looking at a society or a group of children who don't have the benefits of Canadian culture, which is to say they can hear and absorb what's on the radio and television widely, they need programs that are designed especially for them to help redress that.

So I do think that's an important function that television does.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

And do you believe, in your professional opinion, that Vidéotron and Shaw understand the consequences of their actions and the effect upon your programming, in particular? Do you believe they are aware of the repercussions and the ripple effect through your production and so forth?

[Steven DeNure]

I believe that particularly Shaw understands the ripple effect that it has through the production. The Shaw family has extensive investments in kids' programming, owning YTV; Treehouse, which you mentioned; Discovery Kids; and a share in Teletoon. They also, at arm's length, have the Shaw Rocket Fund, which contributed to our study. This is a hugely important fund in creating kids' television. So I actually think they do understand.

Somebody asked about whether they'd made any pronouncements. We're obviously curious to see what they will ultimately propose to do with the money that they're not putting into the CTF.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Well, it's really appalling to hear that Shaw...and I suspected the case as well, knowing the background and the connections of the industry. It's really appalling that they've actually put kids in the middle of this. That's really the end result, because as you know with your study, the declining programming is an issue in itself, and if Shaw now understands its repercussions, that's unacceptable.

Maybe I can ask a quick question, Mr. Chair, to the guild. I have probably a minute left.

I would basically like to get an appreciation in terms of what would happen to some of your successful programming.... I understand that everybody competes for this program; it doesn't just go to one particular group. But in terms of the successful programming that you've been able to do--because there are the ones that we do for a whole series and then there's the commercially successful--if they are delayed in terms of the next season, what can that do to the brand of a particular product that has become very successful in Canadian culture?

[Pamela Brand]

What would happen is that they would really lose the audience, because audiences are very fickle. As long as the program is there on a regular basis, they can tune in; they know where it is, they know when it is, and they watch. But as soon as that disappears off the television screens, within a few weeks, within a month, two months at the most, that audience goes. They gravitate somewhere else. And it will be very, very difficult to get that audience back.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

One of the biggest criticisms is always that you should produce something commercially successful, and when you actually do that in this particular case, you're going to put at risk that particular objective, which is often so criticized as part of getting funding in the first place.

[Pamela Brand]

Absolutely. The shows we mentioned are all commercially very successful.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

[Steven DeNure]

May I just add to that anecdotally?

Delays in decisions by broadcasters that are forced by this crisis will have an immediate effect on our moving into second seasons of some shows.

I have a new series that started production for the Family Channel two weeks ago. It was already delayed because of an ACTRA strike. We have other crises in this industry to deal with.

If the broadcaster is uncertain about funding, they will not renew the show for a second season. We're dealing with a cast that's 11 or 12 years old. If we delay for another year or year and a half, we may not make more episodes of the show, but for sure our cast will be grown up beyond the age that is meaningful for the project.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming here today.

I think we as a government are also disappointed at the actions of Vidéotron and Shaw. I'm hoping it was simply a shot across the bow, perhaps an attempt to renegotiate terms of licences, etc. But I think your comments reflect the fact that the minister's announcement of $200 million of funding over the next two years clearly is a vote of confidence in the fund itself and the purposes it serves.

Mr. Moss, you made some comments about feeling that the CTF is under attack and may have been under attack for some time. I'm not sure I would necessarily disagree with you. One of the concerns, I think, is that the regulatory framework within which the CTF operates may be flawed. As you know, the CTF, in one form or another, has existed since 1993 and certainly since 1996 has involved government contributions. But over those years we've had a regulatory framework that uses regulations, circulars, licensing to try to ensure that the BDUs make their required contributions.

There's some indication, when you look at the court precedents, that the current ability of the CRTC to enforce the contributions from the industry may not be as strong as people expected. That problem has existed for a number of years now, probably since the program commenced, and it may take parliamentary action to ensure that we can actually force compliance to get those contributions.

That's a struggle we have. I'm sure everyone on this committee is a little bit frustrated with that. There have been suggestions that the minister should intervene. There have been suggestions that the CRTC should simply enforce the regulations and that it may not even have the ability to do so if it's challenged in the courts.

May we have your comments?

[Peter Moss]

To begin with, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to the legality, but I can speak to the common desire since 1993, and again since 1996.

In terms of the feeling of its being under attack, every year or ever two years there's been a collective holding of breath as to whether or not the fund will be renewed. That holding of breath has caused the hiccup in production. What you're seeing now is an exaggerated over-holding of breath, I suppose. We're all turning blue in the face as we wait for production. But it happens with regularity that a kind of stick is held over the industry saying, “Will you? Will you?”, and then, “Yes, you will” or “Yes, you will for one year” or “Yes, you will for two years.”

So there is that sense that there isn't an ongoing commitment to the renewal of the fund and that it is haphazard, in the first instance.

In the second instance, it is true that we are in a small market and that we value our own culture. That being the case, there are various ways by which, in a common understanding, we seem to have protected ourselves, such as making cable companies pay a percentage of their revenue into a production fund, such as protecting the public airwaves and saying that BDUs using either terrestrial or satellite broadcast are protected and have to carry a certain number of Canadian channels.

We've built an infrastructure that protects ourselves and is at the same time open to the world. We may not have built every single law in just the right way to make sure that it absolutely passes muster in a legal challenge, but we have built it in such a way that it evidently works.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question for Mr. DeNure.

In your testimony you suggested that children's programming had dropped by 25%. I'm assuming you're referring to Canadian children's programming.

[Steven DeNure]

That's correct.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

And you also stated that the CTF contribution had dropped by about 17%?

[Steven DeNure]

That's correct.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Now, there have been some suggestions, primarily from the industry, that the CTF, or the system, is broken. Do you suggest that's the case? What are the reasons the percentage of programming for children's programs has been down?

[Steven DeNure]

It is clear that there's a different kind of crisis in the drama area, and that ratings for Canadian drama have been poor. What we've seen is that there has been a shift in funding away from children's programming towards drama to try to fix that problem.

In many ways, this is the first opportunity we've had as an organization to speak up on behalf of kids' programming and children and to identify the consequence of more money going to other genres.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Do you feel it's the CTF's role to fix that problem with Canadian drama?