Thank you.
I couldn't get my printer to work, which is why I'm reading from the screen here. You'll have to forgive me.
My name is Ben McDonald. The committee asked me earlier this evening, when I was registering to speak, whether or not I was here representing a group. I'd like to say that if more time had been available to me, I probably would be representing a group; I'm involved in social justice coalitions and organizations to promote the greater use of information and communications technology in the Northwest Territories. However, I wasn't able to produce something in time for anybody to endorse, so these are personal comments.
That said, those organizations do provide the framework for what I'm going to talk about, including commitment to equality, commitment to democracy, and commitment to better communication and free speech.
As a starting point, when I was preparing my thoughts for what I would say tonight, I went to the Internet, to the site of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. I'm sure that's an organization you folks are all familiar with. I generally endorse the positions that group presents in the various briefs and positions it puts to committees and agencies of the government--for example, on issues involving the appointment and composition of the CBC board of directors.
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting raises the point, for instance, that we have reason for concern because the board is not necessarily an independent operation, working completely independently, free of political influence. I think the method through which the president of the corporation is appointed--namely, by the Governor in Council or the Prime Minister, either directly or semi-indirectly--is fraught with danger, and it should be examined. It's better to have the president of the corporation appointed by the board to which he or she is responsible.
There are some other things on the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting site--about the different forms of information technology, about the means by which the CBC could raise money--but I'll just direct you there rather than take the time here. That said, one thing on the site does surprise me quite a bit, and that's where statistics, which I think were generated by a research body on behalf of the government, show that CBC's level of support puts it at number 20, out of 25 OECD countries, as a portion of gross domestic product.
I was quite surprised by that statistic. Considering the ten or more years of cuts we've had, other public broadcasters are funded at much greater proportions of the gross domestic product than is the CBC. The Friends' position is that it would be better to go to the average of the OECD. Considering the cuts that have happened over the last years and the importance of the CBC to the national fabric, I'm not sure even that is acceptable. Countries like Finland, Germany, and England contribute almost twice as much to their public broadcasters as the Canadian system does.
Much of what I'm going to say will be a repeat of what other speakers have said. The public broadcaster is needed, especially in the north, because it really is the only game in town when it comes to a northern or pan-territorial perspective. No agency in the north has the resources that the public broadcaster has to do the research and the analysis and the storytelling.
I agree with both sides: I'm a fervent supporter of the CBC, but I'm not so great a supporter of the CBC that I don't think there's room for improvement. As to how that is to come about, I'm not an expert. I do believe there are issues in the north that are not adequately addressed. Sometimes I hear--with all due respect to the previous speakers--that there's no ideological slant to the CBC. Well, quite often, I'd say 99.9% of the time, I can't tell any ideological difference between the newscasts and analysis and stories that come out on the CBC and what I see in the private sector. There's just not that much difference.
What is very critical, though, is that at least the CBC has the mandate and the flexibility and the independence that it could take a different position, if it were necessary. Private broadcasters, beholden to their boards of directors, are going to toe the line with the board of directors. If we have a well-appointed, well-constituted board, then the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, if there is good reason for an alternative viewpoint to be put out there, at least is going to have the flexibility, and I hope the integrity, to allow them to do that.
The CBC is needed to provide an alternative voice--this is probably expanding on what was said before--in both the public and private dichotomy, but also in the ever more deregulated and concentrated corporate world. I think the experience of the American media, especially newspaper, is that as corporations take over family businesses, their expectations for the rate of return increase dramatically. The way those rates of return are achieved is by attacking the softest parts of the organization, and the softest parts usually are news coverage and analysis, the things that we listen to the CBC for.
I think we have to keep it in mind that going to a private sector operation is not going to mean that we'll have anything comparable to the CBC, because it requires public funding for us to have the type of CBC we all want.
As a final point, I'm not 100% sure how the board is now constituted, but I do believe there is a need for regional voices on the board of the CBC. I realize it would be a really difficult political challenge to determine what regions deserve representation and how many there would be. I don't think the regional voices should come at the expense of good business leadership, journalistic knowledge, cultural commitment, and all those other things, but it does appear to me that for the CBC to get out of Toronto, to get out of Montreal--I guess that's the SRC, which I don't listen to--part of the way to do it is to bring other voices in. One of the ways to do that would be to specify regional voices, and potentially cultural voices, considering the size of the aboriginal population in Canada. In the north especially, it may well be that we need aboriginal voices on the board as well.
I have one final point. This is unsubstantiated rumour, but if it's true, I think it's emblematic of the problems the CBC has had in the last while. I've heard that in the recent decision to go from a half hour of regional news broadcast to a full hour of regional news broadcast, no change in resources was allocated to the program. The doubling of the programming is going to be absorbed somehow through the CBC, in this circumstance CBC North specifically--all in the face of ten years of cuts.
Again, that's unsubstantiated rumour, but I'd ask you to look into that to see whether this is the case or has been the case. If it is, then it's going to be very difficult for the CBC to meet its mandate in the north--namely, to reflect northern voices to northerners and to the rest of Canada.
With that, I thank you.