Canadian Heritage Committee on March 12th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I call this meeting to order.

It's a tremendous pleasure for us to be here. I apologize for being late, but when we got to Calgary, unfortunately our plane wasn't there. It wasn't flying today. We had to get a charter flight. I'll take part of the blame for being about an extra half hour late, because I got there before everyone else and went on to Edmonton. For a little while, everyone was looking around trying to find me. So between Air Canada and me...and I'll apologize for my part in it, but I won't apologize for Air Canada.

To start, I know that one gentleman has a brief to give this evening, so I will ask him to present it first. After that, as each person around the table wants to give their comments, I will take those comments. Then we'll go to some questions from members.

Mr. Shaw, would you like to go first with your brief, please?

[Curtis Shaw, General Manager, Northwestel Cable]

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You have about five minutes.

[Curtis Shaw]

Thank you.

By way of introduction, my name is Curtis Shaw. I'm the general manager of Northwestel Cable in Yellowknife.

Northwestel Cable is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwestel. We are the incumbent local exchange carrier operating across the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the top third of British Columbia. Northwestel's services include local telephone, long distance, high-speed data, video conferencing, and, through subsidiary operations, wireless and cable television services.

Northwestel Cable here in Yellowknife and our four other operations carry a number of CBC services. CBC North and CBC Montreal are on basic cable, and CBC Newsworld is also on cable. We carry CBC television feeds from Calgary, Toronto, Regina, and Halifax on our digital cable service, as well as various CBC southern and northern radio stations.

The purpose of my presentation is not to go over the comments this committee will likely hear from other cable companies and competitive television broadcasters in southern Canada. I was hoping to take this time today to talk a little bit about northern Canada and the important role CBC North plays in the north today.

If I can start with affordability, for many northerners CBC plays an integral role in bringing the rest of the world to a remote community. In fact in many communities across northern Canada, local CBC radio and television broadcasts are the only entertainment and information source available to residents. A number of communities across the north don't have a local cable television provider, while direct-to-home satellite services such as Star Choice and Bell ExpressVu may be cost-prohibitive.

I'll give you an example. In the mid-1990s, Northwestel built several cable systems across the north. In the Yukon, we built cable systems in Watson Lake, Haines Junction, and Old Crow. In the Northwest Territories, we built cable systems in Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik, Fort Good Hope, Fort Resolution, and Tulita. In Nunavut, we built cable systems in Pangnirtung and Nanisivik.

By the year 2000, five years after we built these systems, all of them were losing money. The subscriber numbers declined dramatically due to competition from direct-to-home satellite. More importantly, customers in these communities simply could not afford to pay their cable television bills. In the years following, most of these systems were closed, and a few were transferred to the local community co-op.

In the north, direct-to-home satellite services are available to residents in communities without cable television providers. If you live in one of these communities or in the north, you can get Bell ExpressVu and you can get Star Choice. However, in some of the estimates we've done, up to 40% of customers in these remote communities are receiving television and radio programming exclusively from either CBC North or the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, APTN. That figure is dramatically higher than what you would see in Toronto, in a southern Canadian city.

To talk a little bit about northern language and culture, one thing I will say is that CBC North provides a very pan-northern perspective for local news and culture. No private sector today delivers as much television and radio programming, especially in aboriginal languages. CBC provides a local news show across the north, Monday to Friday, and they also provide it to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories in Inuktitut.

The emergence of new media has provided consumers with more choice in how they receive news, entertainment, and cultural programming. The Internet allows customers to stream audio and radio stations from around the world straight into their homes. In fact the majority in northern communities today now have access to at least one high-speed Internet provider in their community. Satellite subscription radio is available in most areas in northern Canada.

CBC North is playing an important role in delivering regional news and broadcast services to northern residents using the Internet. On the CBC website, northern residents can listen to streaming audio feeds of CBC North radio from Inuvik, Iqaluit, Whitehorse, and Yellowknife, and streaming feeds of the CBC North's television programming, including Northbeat and Igalaaq.

In terms of operational costs, CBC North today operates in the same geographical region as Northwestel. The north spans over four million square kilometres, in four time zones. The majority of communities are served exclusively by satellite. Across these four million square kilometres are 100,000 residents.

Some of the operational costs that CBC North faces are the same as for our company. Delivering service and maintaining infrastructure, rising labour costs, transportation costs, technology costs, along with the unpredictability of our northern weather are daily factors that CBC would deal with in delivering broadcast services to northern audiences.

As a cable provider, we believe our residential customer base would be opposed to paying additional charges for CBC carried on cable television, especially given that here in Yellowknife, CBC is available to households on a free-to-air antenna. We currently pay a per-subscriber rate for CBC Newsworld, but we are opposed to paying a per-subscriber rate for CBC North.

Does the CBC compete with the private sector in northern Canada? As CBC radio is commercial-free and CBC television is the primary regional broadcaster, pretty much the only broadcaster focused on northern Canada, the answer is clearly no. Cuts to CBC funding in northern Canada will mean a reduction in radio and television news and cultural programming, a void unlikely to be filled by the private sector.

As broadcasting competition evolves in southern Canada and funding from traditional advertising sources declines, the funding mandate and governance of CBC must evolve. So I would close this presentation by asking the committee to consider the important essential service the CBC provides across the three northern territories, and request that the committee recognize the importance of the unique services delivered by CBC North today. Many northern residents would like to see the number of northern services expanded in the communities to include more aboriginal language and community programming.

In closing, the private sector will never provide northern Canadians with the entertainment, cultural, and news programming currently being delivered by CBC North. There is an important and continuing role for a public broadcaster, especially in the three northern territories.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Provencher, sir.

[Léo-Paul Provencher, Executive Director, Fédération Franco-TéNOise]

Mr. Chairman, my name is Léo-Paul Provencher, and I am Executive Director of the Fédération Franco-TéNOise. Pardon me, but my voice is hoarse as a result of the flu.

Mr. Chairman, madam, gentlemen members of the committee, first I would like to say a few words to put our remarks in context. Our comments take into consideration the Broadcasting Act of 1991 and the CBC/Radio-Canada's general mandate as the national public broadcaster. Paragraph 3(1)(m) of the Act states that general mandate as follows. In particular, we refer to subparagraphs (ii), (iii), (iv) and (vii).

Subparagraph 3(1)(m)(ii) provides as follows, and I quote:

(ii) reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions,

Subparagraph 3(1)(m)(iii) reads as follows:

(iii) actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural expression,

Subparagraph 3(1)(m)(iv) reads as follows:

(iv) be in English and in French, reflecting the different needs and circumstances of each official language community, including the particular needs and circumstances of English and French linguistic minorities,

Subparagraph 3(1)(m)(vii) reads as follows:

(vii) be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available to the purpose,

We also take it for granted that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is subject to sections 41 and 42 of the Official Languages Act. Under Part VII of that Act, the Corporation is required to implement positive measures to enhance the vitality of Canada's francophone minorities and to support and assist their development.

We therefore recognize that the Crown corporation has an obligation of result in its efforts to foster the full recognition and use of English and French and to advance the equality of their status and use.

I would like to make a comment on the mandate. Our community supports the Act defining the mandate, but emphasizes the need to implement measures to enable the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to perform its role fully across the country.

I'd like also like to make some preliminary comments. The Fédération Franco-TéNOise and the components of its network of associations appreciate this invitation to take part in the national investigation of the role of our public broadcaster. The federation wishes to point out to the committee the major challenges that the very brief notice of this hearing has forced on us. This has had considerable impact on our ability to conduct an analysis of this important issue, an analysis that we would have liked to conduct in depth. This has also limited our ability to illustrate the impact of limited services on our communities uisng actual, relevant examples.

Our comments are of course made in the very specific socio-economic-demographic context of the Northwest Territories. This is a young territory, dependent on the federal government, which is experiencing vigorous economic growth, whose population is very mobile and where the ratio between a diversity of aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations is reaching a balancing point.

These realities raise very specific challenges, in particular the challenge of keeping our francophones and francophiles in the territory and increasingly extending their length of stay. The same is true of support for the development of our youth in all respects, including their access to services in general and radio and television services in particular.

I would like to make a few general observations. Our communities of Fort Smith, Hay River and Inuvik do not receive the Radio-Canada signal. Our capital of Yellowknife receives the Radio-Canada radio and television signals from Montreal. Broadcasts very rarely concern us, our realities or our concerns. It is virtually never possible for us to express our values, opinions, or ideas or to develop the creative talents present in each of our communities.

Our francophone citizens and our communities never have the opportunity to be recognized by Radio-Canada's regional stations. They also have no access to local radio or television content in their language. Our francophone citizens enjoy no medium of exchange with their linguistic minority colleagues in the other Canadian provinces. Our francophone citizens do not have an opportunity to contribute to the broadcasting of cultural events that would add value to the vitality of both the Quebec and Canadian francophone community.

The minority francophones of the other Canadian provinces have little opportunity to be involved in a manner proportionate to the way in which Quebec, and particularly Montreal, is involved in program content, for virtually all programs.

Our francophone citizens tell us about dubious reception quality and the cost associated with that reception. They also note that they never hear the expression "Two hours earlier in the Northwest Territories” on the airwaves, similar to the expression "One hour later in the Maritimes".

As regards the public mandate of the CBC/Radio-Canada, the proliferation of predominantly American new media means that our Canadian media occupy less listening space. If our government service took positive steps to reflect the various realities of the country's linguistic minorities, if our people could see themselves and were recognized in representations of regional diversities, that would undoubtedly promote their sense of belonging and thus their attachment to our corner of the country. In other words, that would enable the Crown corporation to make a greater contribution to a shared national consciousness and identity.

We often get the feeling that radio and television programming is concentrated in Montreal, thus reducing the space of our region and our Canadian regions, which could provide enriching diversity for both the information and variety programming sectors.

It is no doubt unavoidable that, if government authorities give free rein to the commercial imperatives related to the profitability of broadcasters, the reality of the regions will not often be on the agenda, since our minorities will never carry enough weight to boost ratings. Regional representation will be increasingly reduced if our government service has to compete in the free market.

In a way, the programming business consigns smaller interests to oblivion. Developments at RDI should no doubt be assessed in comparison to other live news networks in order to appreciate the impact on regional programs over time. These facts influence and accentuate the problems that Canadians have in grasping the realities of minority francophones, and deprive our fellow citizens of any potential sense of greater solidarity within the Canadian francophone community.

French Canada is not limited to Quebec. Subparagraph 3(1)(m)(vi) of the Broadcasting Act states that it is part of the national public broadcaster's general mandate to, and I quote:

(vi) contribute to shared national consciousness and identity,

Our fellow citizens are expressing their disappointment at not having a specific network so that they can hear news from their region more often. A small community like Hay River is forced to pay the cost of receiving the service. We can only observe that this measure is not equivalent to the situation of the linguistic majority and infringes subparagraph 3(1)(m)(vii), which states, and I quote:

(vii) be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means...

Let's talk about the services the CBC/Radio-Canada offers on our regional station. We emphasize how important we consider the link that we would like to have with local news in French. Radio-Canada is the only broadcaster that can play a key role and broadcast local radio content in French. We moreover support the demand made by the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada that a Canadian community radio fund be established to maintain the viability of our community radio stations.

These institutions rely on intensive volunteer work to maintain the only French-language radio service offering part of its local programming in French. An analysis of the content of programs like Le Téléjournal, Le Point, Enjeux and others could show the lack of space allocated to current affairs in the francophone communities and to francophone personalities working in the cultural, social and political spheres in a rural or minority context.

Too few francophone productions are done outside Quebec. Looking to the future, the importance of new communication technologies, which are particularly within the grasp of our youth, leads us to propose that our government broadcaster put in place a supply of services tailored to the virtual meeting places of our young people.

The flexibility of the media thus used and a range of dynamic products can promote greater participation by our youth in a diversity of interactive fora.

To sum up, it is our view that Radio-Canada must constantly work to reflect the reality of Canadians, both those in the majority and those in the minority, must draw on the wealth of our diversity and, as the Act states, must be offered across Canada in the most adequate and effective manner possible. Radio-Canada has a responsibility to reflect our regional diversity and the regional diversities of Canada's official language minorities. Our minorities have the ability and the desire to contribute to the country's cultural vitality.

As a result of the issues associated with free trade in this area of public communication, as a result of the too small numbers in most francophone communities outside Quebec, as a result of the great interests in reflecting regional diversity in the country and the obligation to do so, we ask Parliament to grant adequate funding to make it possible to carry out this public mandate.

As a result of ratings in the regions, which are always low, and as a result of the services offered by our community radio stations, their vitality and their vast potential, we request that a Canadian community radio fund be established to support and develop local radio services in French.

We invite our Crown corporation to invest in and work toward increasing ratings among young people through modern interactive technologies.

Lastly, in our view, it is urgent that commercial logic be replaced by the political will to protect our Canadian cultural sovereignty.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Foisy.

[Batiste Foisy, As an Individual]

My name is Batiste Foisy. I had first planned to present in my language, but I see how hard it is for your organization, so I'll speak in English. However, I would appreciate it if you could acknowledge that this is my second language; I might make some slips.

I am a citizen of the Northwest Territories. I am speaking in my own name tonight. I also work as a news reporter in this town, but tonight I just want to speak from my heart.

First, I'd like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to express myself on a topic that I care about--namely, access to information and to public broadcasting. More precisely, I'd like to talk about francophone citizens' lack of access to such services in the Northwest Territories. And when I say lack of access, I mean that in the NWT and in Nunavut in 2007, there are no services offered by the Société Radio-Canada, the French-language broadcaster.

The mandate of this corporation states, and it's pretty clear, that French-language broadcasting has to be available throughout the country. It is not. I'd like to suggest that committee members visit the public broadcaster's website--at www.radio-canada.ca/radio/frequences.html--to see an image that speaks for itself, a map of Canada that shows Yukon Territory and all of the ten provinces in shades of grey, and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in plain white. Below the map is an explanation, in French and English, of what the white means: “Aucune fréquence n'est disponible pour cette région”, or “No frequency is available in this area”.

In the communities of Fort Smith, of Hay River, of Inuvik, where both Canadian Heritage and the Government of Northwest Territories acknowledge that there are significant francophone communities, they don't get the signal of La première chaîne--that's the French equivalent of CBC Radio One--nor do they get Espace musique, the French cultural channel.

The citizens of the Northwest Territories outside of the capital, Yellowknife, do not have access to French radio. Here in the capital, it's a little different. We don't have the French cultural channel Espace musique; however, we do get the signal of CBF, La première chaîne from Montreal.

Well, one could think that it is because Radio-Canada acknowledges that we francophones do exist in the Northwest Territories, but that would just be too nice. Indeed, the Association franco-culturelle, the French cultural association, holds the licence for the rebroadcasting of CBF--at their own expense, of course. The French people in Yellowknife are so desperate to get the CBC public service that we're ready to pay twice for it. We pay it with our taxes and then we pay it with our membership in the francophone association. I'm a member of that association, by the way.

I'd like to point out that it's the same for the television signal in the communities and in Yellowknife. But I don't really care about that; I don't have a TV.

I would now like to speak to the point that I'm more interested in raising, and that has to do with the lack of access to information. There is no Radio-Canada reporter in the Northwest Territories. There is no reporter in Nunavut, either. It has never happened that a francophone citizen in the north has heard a local newscast in their language. We had such a newscast at the French community radio, CIVR, but now we don't have the funding to have reporters at the French community radio.

Radio-Canada has correspondents in Paris, they have them in London, they have them in Washington and Tel Aviv, but there is no correspondent in Yellowknife or Iqaluit. If I mention this, it's because in the very rare times when we get news from the NWT on Le Téléjournal, we feel it's presented as though it were foreign news. It's always a reporter based in Montreal who, after a few days spent in, say, Yellowknife--or, more often, relying only on press releases--explains to Canadians how things are going in the Great North, where we live. But their vision is always false, totally wrong.

Today is a special day, actually; we got news from the Northwest Territories in French. It doesn't happen often, but today it did. The people from the pipeline, the Mackenzie gas project, released the new costs and all that, so it made the national news. I read the news, and it says that the construction of the pipeline will only begin in 2014.

Now, I'm a news reporter in the north, and I know that what happened today is that the proponents of the project said the pipeline would only be in production--not construction--by 2014. That's what happens when you make reports without reporters.

I acknowledge that Société Radio-Canada has an obvious lack of interest in the Northwest Territories, which in part has to do with access to the signal—they actually acknowledge that we don't get it--and in telling other Canadians what's going on up here. In that spirit, I would make the suggestion to the standing committee that Radio-Canada create a fund for regional information in French. The money from that fund could serve to help us get daily information of quality here in our community, which in turn could help other communities in our situation get such information where the public broadcaster is incapable of filling its mandate.

Ladies and gentlemen members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Mr. Chairman, I wish you a pleasant stay in our community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We'll now go to Mr. O'Brien.

[Christopher O'Brien, As an Individual]

I'm afraid I didn't have a chance to do anything formal, so I've just written down some fairly random notes here. I didn't hear about this terribly long ago.

Anyway, I'll move right along and say thanks for being here. It's very important that you've come here.

First of all, I'd like to say that I can't imagine Canada or the north without CBC. Mr. Shaw gave us all the reasons why CBC is so extremely important to the north, so I won't go into that. It's important in many ways, for many people in the north.

To me, the CBC is an important part of the glue that holds this country together. That's why I can't imagine Canada or the north without it. The CBC is a very important part of our face to the world, rather like the BBC is for the U.K. One thing I couldn't imagine is CTV as our face to the world. I think it would be a wholly different face. And if I ever catch that guy who says “C-T-V”, I think I'll have a word with him.

If the CBC didn't exist, we'd have to invent it, wouldn't we. Without the CBC or something like it, we would be on the slide to becoming another part of the U.S.A. Those forces lurk all around us. I think the CBC is an important part of helping us remain Canadian.

As I said, these are random notes, so there's not necessarily a rational flow here.

I've heard tell that some folks--obviously the radical ones--say that the CBC should be done away with, that we should let the private sector do it. Well, I'll fight that tooth and nail forever. Sure we should make the CBC as efficient as it possibly can be. That's something we have to be vigilant about with any form of public organization, whether it be government or anything else. But in terms of cuts to the CBC, we have to be extremely careful, because cuts can lead to a downward slide as well.

We all remember the self-fulfilling prophesy of the railways; I think it was the Conservatives who started it. You cut the railways, the services weren't as good, so people didn't use the services. Then the government said, “See? People aren't using the railways like they used to.” They cut them further, and it became a downhill slide.

We have to be very careful about that perhaps happening to the CBC. You can destroy morale very easily inside an organization by making cuts in certain sneaky ways.

I think the mix of programming on radio and TV on CBC is fine as it is. There are bound to be some adjustments. The CBC has to be careful about avoiding the latest trendy thing. We are all aware of some rather embarrassing examples, such as the reality show that died after the first two minutes, things like that. Bring in the new stuff, including the new media, but do it carefully, with the country's future in mind, basically.

I don't think the private sector can do this kind of thing, because you end up with the profit motive entering into it. A race to the bottom is something we want to avoid for the CBC, and at all costs. Yes, there is a profit motive in broadcasting. We know what happens there, and we know the influence of people who own the broadcasting organizations.

Basically, especially on the news side of things, in the documentaries, in informing Canadians about what's going on in the world, you end up with a self-censoring kind of thing. You have to be totally above and beyond all that. Keep it away from political influence. Defend the CBC against political influence. And get rid of these patronage appointments. I don't know a lot about them, but it seems to me there have been some recent disasters. Get some professional folks in there. Obviously there has to be some general guide in terms of keeping an eye on the CBC from the political realm, but political influence on the CBC is very dodgy in any shape or form.

I've mentioned the influence of big advertisers or big commercial interests. We all know how irritating advertising is. We don't have it on the radio, and that's something. Why it's still on the TV, I don't know. It's obviously a cost thing. Again, there has to be some influence from advertisers. CBC relies on advertisers for some of its funding, so there inevitably will be a subtle influence there.

When you look at the BBC, it may or may not be totally above all influences--I don't think it's that pure--but there is that feeling of integrity there. I would like to see that with the CBC as well.

Funding for the CBC must be sufficient. We can't expect the CBC to pay for itself. Again, that is all part of the slippery slope of funding cuts and worrying about income, and it can lead to a downward spiral.

I would say, then, keep CBC pretty well as it is while still allowing for changes coming in the future. The CBC is just too important to Canada to start playing around with it and taking shots at it, trying to water it down, trying to change it into something it shouldn't be and can't be, all the while trying to have it be what it is. Keep it pretty well as it is, but make it even better and make it more secure so that people don't have to go to work every day wondering if their station is going to be closed down or whatever. All of these things have happened in the past, with dire results.

Mr. Chair, many things have been said already, and many things will be said, so why don't I just leave it there and let others speak.

Thanks very much for the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you, Mr. O'Brien.

I've just been informed that as we tape these presentations this evening, your names cannot be dubbed for the record. We don't have the dubbing ability here. So please state your name before you give your presentation.

Ms. Morin.

[Jennifer Morin, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Jennifer Morin. As a citizen of Canada, I am representing the public interest.

First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for coming to Yellowknife. Thank you for chartering the plane. Welcome, and I hope you have a good few hours here before you're off to another session.

I also want to thank the staff for helping out and making this happen tonight.

I'm also speaking on behalf of my son, Archer, whom I've brought with me. It's his witching hour, the time he usually goes to bed, but I wanted to make sure he was counted in your review.

First of all, I'd like to say that we're really lucky to have very talented reporters and management up here. I see the CBC up here as the heart, the living entity--Chris O'Brien says it's glue, but I think it's more than glue--that connects all the communities and all of the local issues. As Chris said, one cannot see Yellowknife, the Northwest Territories, the north, without a heart pumping life, a heart taking away waste and giving life. It is really vital, especially for a small population in a large geographic area.

I listen to CBC radio, and I also watch the CBC broadcasts fairly regularly. I think they're both very important. I especially enjoy weekend CBC national radio. Lately I've been part of the CBC Radio 3 podcasts. I really think CBC Radio 3 speaks to an innovative component of the CBC by promoting local Canadian independent music that you can't get anywhere else. It's reaching beyond older, upper-crust generations. It's a living, vibrant organization that is connecting with many Canadians.

Another area that I find important and would like to put forward to the committee is environmental reporting. The private sector cannot report on environmental issues in its current capacity. They can report very well on business and some social issues, but the environment is always glossed over. There are no reporters dedicated to the environment, and we need strong investigative reporting to get to the critical core of some environmental issues facing Canadians. I find that to be a critical part of the CBC, and I appreciate having that local coverage.

Again, many of the issues I was going to speak to--how important the CBC is, how core it is--have already been mentioned. The one message I'd like the committee to take away is this: please keep the CBC, it is vital for Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Ms. Pellerin.

[Catherine Pellerin, As an Individual]

Hello, my name is Catherine Pellerin, and I'm a citizen of the Northwest Territories. I wasn't planning on presenting, but hearing everybody else got me thinking about the CBC.

The Northwest Territories has a great tradition of storytelling, so I'll start with a really brief story. The CBC brought the Northwest Territories to the rest of Canada. The NWT stopped being just a colour on the map during the Berger inquiry. That was a vital time. That was when many of us became aware of the Northwest Territories.

Many years after that--21 years ago--I was living in Edmonton. Circumstances in my life changed, and I found myself moving to Frobisher Bay. At that point in time I left my career, and I was at home with a toddler, with another one on the way. It seemed to me that the most important question had to do with the CBC; did the eastern Arctic have the CBC?

In those days, the GNWT had a representative, down in Edmonton and I think also perhaps in Ottawa, providing information and selling the NWT to people moving there. My important phone call was on whether they had the CBC in Frobisher Bay, and, more importantly, whether they got Morningside. When she did some research and told me, yes, they did, I said okay, I can move to Frobisher Bay.

CBC was the only channel in Frobisher Bay when I moved there, and for the most part it was excellent. It brought us Hockey Night in Canada, although sometimes a day late. It also brought us midget wrestling on Friday nights--

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Catherine Pellerin]

--and that was not one of the high points.

CBC radio and television let those of us who were living in remote locations feel that we were living in Canada. In the spring, when Gzowski would get on the line with Victoria and talk to them about the buds bursting there--in February or March, I think--and we knew that we would be sitting around the barbecue on Canada Day in the snow, we felt a little more remote. All the same, CBC helped us feel that we were part of Canada.

A number of years later, while still in what was then Iqaluit, I was lucky enough to host Peter Gzowski for a number of days. He came up during our Toonik Tyme festival. He was absolutely amazed at the number of Inuit elders who came up and shook his hand because they recognized him from his brief foray into television. I think it was called “Gzowski Presents” or something; I can't remember. At any rate, people were so happy he'd come north.

We sit here in the NWT and listen to our politicians talk about devolution, but it seems they go unheeded by the rest of Canada until the CBC down south picks up our northern feeds and broadcasts them to the south. Suddenly we're on the national stage; we seem to receive some validation because of that, and issues that are important to us are heard by the rest of the nation.

Just this past Sunday I was listening to CBC morning, and they ran Dave Miller's story, originally broadcast on CBC North, about the wolverine, about the legend and significance of it to our first nations people here in the NWT. CBC North and CBC national do help give remote people a voice they would not otherwise have.

When most of us from here in Yellowknife go south, people who ask us where we're from will say, geez, I'd love to visit “the Yukon”. The Yukon has a profile that the NWT still does not have. Perhaps that's because one of your most famous broadcasters, Pierre Berton, came from there. His tales of the Yukon and the magic of the gold rush really excited people down south.

The NWT hasn't hooked into that same kind of pipeline. The people of the NWT need CBC North to help us get our message out, and you should need us; the NWT is unique for its land and its people. We have at least eleven language groups, and that's before we even factor in our new Canadians. We have consensus government. That's unique and special.

Canada would not be the same without the north or the CBC. And the CBC is not just our radio and television network, it is the radio and television network.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Perhaps we can put some questions to the first presenters. Then we can bring in the next people, and hopefully at the end we can have an open forum.

There's one thing I'd like to say. Along with thanking the committee for coming here, a couple of you have mentioned the short notice. I've always been an honest person, so I'm going to tell you that when we set out to do the study on the CBC, on our public broadcaster, it was supposed to start in January. Then we had a little problem with the Canadian Television Fund, which took a few meetings; that held us up in terms of going forward with our public broadcaster meetings.

Again, being very honest, I'll tell you that we had Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and St. John's, Newfoundland, but we didn't have anyone in the north. We picked Yellowknife because we felt it was very important to come to Yellowknife. It was brought up in our meetings, and we discussed it; that's how we put things together.

So it was short notice for you folks, but it was also short notice for us. It also maybe shows why we were late today; we had some problems.

When we're sitting around our table in Ottawa discussing the CBC, we never forget the north. We also never forget the francophones outside of Quebec. It's brought up, at just about every meeting when we talk about CBC/Radio-Canada, that this involves all francophones in Canada.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I'm the member of Parliament for Yukon.

To Catherine, just because people say “Yellowknife, Yukon”, it doesn't mean that people have more knowledge of Yukon. We get “Whitehorse, Northwest Territories”, too, all the time.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you to all for your presentations. They were very clear.

I don't have a lot of questions, because I do want to hear the next presenters. However, I want to get a little bit of information from l'association francophone.

How many members does the francophone association have and how many people in the Northwest Territories have French as their mother tongue?

[Léo-Paul Provencher]

The Northwest Territories have 1,200 francophones and 3,700 persons who speak French. I represent a federation that represents 12 associations.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

How many people have French as their mother tongue?

[Léo-Paul Provencher]

One thousand two hundred persons have French as their mother tongue.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Curtis talked about aboriginal languages. Do any of the presenters know roughly how many people in the Northwest Territories have an aboriginal language as their maternal language?

[Curtis Shaw]

I don't know if I could give you a specific number. The population is approximately 50% aboriginal, and there are 11 languages across the Northwest Territories. As to how many people speak them as their native tongue, I don't know off the top of my head.