Canadian Heritage Committee on March 14th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Order.

Good morning. My name is Gary Schellenberger, and I am chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I'm very pleased to be here in Vancouver this morning with some of our committee members.

What a beautiful morning. When I woke up in my room, the sun was shining in as it came over the mountains and the bridge over there. It was beautiful.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles, Executive Director, Alliance for Arts and Culture]

It's always like this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

That's great. And from the lawns I saw as we came through yesterday, you'll probably need to have the lawn mowers out very soon.

We have travelled here this morning as part of our study of the public broadcaster here in Canada. I'm very pleased to see that the witnesses who put their names forward could be here. We do have, I hope, a fair bit of time this morning.

We are waiting for Ms. Fry. She will be here or, I guess, won't be; whatever.

Welcome to Ms. Savoie and Ms. Bourgeois.

I will begin by thanking Ms. Bourgeois. One presentation that will be made--by the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting--is printed out, but it's not in both official languages. I would like to thank Ms. Bourgeois for saying that we can use that particular material here this morning, because I think there are some important graphs in there that could be useful.

I would like to try to hold the introductory presentations to around ten minutes, somewhere in there. Then we can open it up to questions. At the end of that particular time, if we've pursued the different avenues and we still have five, ten, or fifteen minutes at the end, I might ask our parliamentary experts from the parliamentary library if they have any questions for the witnesses. In all fairness, these gentlemen, or this group, will be writing up the report, so if that's suitable to our witnesses, I would hope we could go forward with that.

I would like to welcome this morning, from the Alliance for Arts and Culture, Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles; and from the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, Ian Morrison, the spokesperson, and Anne Ironside.

Following the order on my list, perhaps you would go first, please, Mr. Wilhelm-Boyles.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to have this intervention on behalf of the Greater Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture, which represents artists and cultural organizations in the 22 municipalities of the Greater Vancouver regional district.

I found last night that I had written long, so I'm going to read short. The complete text has been distributed, but regrettably not in French. But we'll get it done.

We do not propose to answer all the questions asked in the invitation document. The committee will hear from many intervenors who have expert knowledge in all the areas of this study. In that regard, we commend to you the excellent submission of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, with which we concur in every respect.

Our purpose is to address in more general terms the essential role of the public broadcaster in reflecting, nurturing, supporting, and advancing the Canadian experiment, which is, as we see it, the creation and maintenance of a pluralistic society that is distinctive, humane, harmonious, equitable, compassionate, creative, vibrant, healthy, and prosperous. It is our view that the arts and culture have everything to do with achieving that laudable goal and that the public broadcaster has everything to do with enabling them to do so.

When we use the term “arts and culture”, we refer to both the broad definition of culture, often described as the UNESCO definition, which is the “distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society [...] it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs”, and the more narrowly focused one, which includes performing, visual, and literary arts and heritage--and we add the media.

The second will be seen as a formalized encodification of the first. If we ignore the first, we dismiss what motivates people, what gives them identity and meaning, what connects them to their fellows. If we ignore the second, we forfeit the most powerful vehicles of imagination, creativity, inspiration, enrichment, and expression known to humanity. It is our view that in Canada the CBC is likely the single most important vehicle for the nurture, support, and promotion of the arts and the exploration and creation of identity at local, regional, and national levels.

Pier Luigi Sacco is a professor of cultural economics at the University of Bologna. Over the past several years, he has developed a relationship with Vancouver in which he has experienced, explored, and investigated the cultural ecology and economy of the city. Professor Sacco posits that since at least the Second World War, societies--at least those in the developed world--are no longer driven by scarcity or the search for daily necessities, but by a search for identity. He further posits that identity is primarily found in two ways: in the acquisition of things, which he calls identity through objects, and through the experience of significant relationships and occurrences, and this he calls identity through experience. The latter, he suggests, is what leads to the development of healthy, creative, effective, fulfilled communities.

As Canada welcomes the world in increasing numbers and our communities become increasingly diverse, there is an increased need to share our experiences through our stories. A recent newspaper article suggested strongly that if we are to develop harmonious relationships among all sectors of our society, rather than laying down rules of behaviour for those newly arrived in our communities--other than the rule of law, of course--we should welcome them into our homes and our gatherings; otherwise, how can they know how we live and what we value? Likewise, how can we know in any meaningful way about their values unless we encounter them where they live?

Since, realistically, most of us will not enter the homes of most of the rest of us, it falls to our public broadcaster to take us there, because it enters our homes, our living rooms and our bedrooms, and it can and should be a vehicle that enables us to tell our stories to each other with sensitivity, honesty, and humour. These stories are told by Canada's artists in all the disciplines. We believe it is incumbent on the national public broadcaster to maintain space on all its platforms for the expression of the works of Canadians artists as a priority.

In a paper entitled “Cultural Policy Beyond Aesthetics” by Professor Tony Bennett of the Economic and Social Research Council of the U.K., in reference to a study conducted in Australia in the mid-1900s by him and two colleagues, we read: “...viewed in terms of the democratic profiles of their publics as measured by their class, educational, gendered and ethnic compositions, public broadcasting led the field as being the most socially inclusive...”. It is not unreasonable to assume that a similar case could be made for the CBC in the Canadian cultural ecology.

In this regard, we fully support the existing mandate of the CBC. It needs no modification. However, it is a demanding mandate, one complicated by the fact that in the interests of responsible journalism the CBC must sometimes bite the hand that feeds it, and the CBC is no longer funded to carry it out with distinction. It is disturbing to realize that at a time when demands on the public broadcaster are expanding and the costs of doing business in nearly every aspect of life are increasing, the Government of Canada is funding the national public broadcaster at the same level as 30 years ago.

The CBC has a history of great achievement in the creation and promotion of Canadian art of all kinds. Indeed, the very existence of a strong, vibrant Canadian cultural sector--and its excellence is acknowledged by audiences and commentators around the world--can be attributed to the historic investment made in Canadian artists by the Government of Canada through the CBC and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Excessive cuts to CBC's appropriations over the past three decades, however, has resulted in seriously diminished investments in Canadian arts and reduced reflection of the regions and localities of the country and the world.

It is instructive to read the following from the 2003 report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Our Cultural Sovereignty, the Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting:

There is also cause for serious concern about the production and exhibition of English-language drama. Except in Quebec, where audiences are entertained and invigorated by original, home-grown dramatic productions, American programming dominates the airwaves to an extent that is largely unknown and unimaginable in any other country outside of the United States itself.... Canadians seldom have the opportunity to see their own lives and communities reflected in non-news programming in the places where they live.

Four years on, not very much has changed.

A word of caution: We live in the age of metrics, in which increasingly it is felt that anything worth supporting can and must be measured. So we spend a great deal of time, effort, and money measuring anything that can be measured, and a lot of things that really can't. In the arts we can measure all kinds of things, but we have no way of measuring the impact of that moment in the relationship of artists with audience or a participant with activity when a person gains a new understanding of herself or himself or another person, of a community, or the world at large--that electrifying moment, perception or realization, that can alter belief or behaviour or transform a life. That is not susceptible to measurement, and that ultimately is the purpose and meaning and highest value of art, whether live or broadcast. We need to acknowledge the value of what is not measurable and support it precisely because its value is beyond measurement.

What is true for the arts in general is true of the public broadcaster. While its reduced means has rendered the CBC a shadow of its former self with regard to its promotion of Canadian arts and culture, it retains the potential to be the most significant arts and culture institution in the country and the most pervasive purveyor of Canadian arts and culture.

Two decades or so ago, we, the arts sector, swallowed whole the idea that the way to long-term sustainability was to make strong financial arguments in support of our activities. So we did that, and with some success. However, in making those arguments, we too often neglected the other compelling arguments on the arts--those associated with the quality of life in our communities, salutary effects on health, public safety, education, the justice system, urban regeneration, community pride, social cohesion, and the personal and social development of young people, as well as the nature of our relationships with ourselves and one another, the nature of our humanity, and our place in the world--those things that defy easy financial analysis. We are concerned that a preoccupation with measurement will become simply another excuse to ignore what makes art special and irreplaceable. So we ask the committee to remain open to those elements and values of art, and the public broadcaster's role in creating and promoting them so they are accorded the value they deserve.

With specific regard to the role of the CBC, we believe the following--and more, but for now.... We believe there is a need for the CBC to be more active in commissioning and presenting new work by Canadian artists and performances by Canadian performers, and paying them properly. The CBC must continue to take a leadership role in providing as appropriate on all its platforms a diversity of programming, including historic and contemporary arts of all kinds, that has as its hallmark artistic excellence, intellectual rigour, and Canadian origination.

The making of art necessarily involves risk. The CBC must be prepared to take risks also and it must be supported in doing so. We believe the CBC must present a distinctively and honestly and unabashedly Canadian perspective. We believe that important cultural activities take place in every community in this land and that the CBC needs to be more present in the regions and localities of Canada to recognize, capture, and reflect these activities to the communities themselves and to the people of Canada.

We believe it is time to relieve the CBC of the necessity and the responsibility of competing with commercial broadcasters for advertising revenue. The CBC does not exist to deliver ears and eyes to commercial interests. It exists to be and do all that is set out in the mandate as described in the Broadcasting Act of 1991. The CBC should be held to that mandate and should be provided by the Government of Canada with sufficient funds to do the job properly. A properly funded and strongly supported public broadcaster is a fundamental element of a modern, democratic, autonomous, and sovereign nation.

I'll give the last words to some others deeply concerned about the health of this country and its arts. From an artist in Vancouver:

I love the CBC. It's ridiculous, really, but it's true. I feel it is wounded right now, but I have sincere faith in this creation of ours. Canadian culture is a vital, living culture that is the equal of any in the world. Its work should be broadcast to the people of our country and to the whole world.

And from writer, critic, advocate, and now Mayor of Lions Bay, Max Wyman, in The Defiant Imagination, Why Culture Matters:

The issue is the authenticity of the idea of Canada, which rests in the books it is able to read, the music it is able to make, the TV and film it is able to watch. It has to do with what the bureaucrats and politicians call “creative capital”—the ability of Canadians to write those books and make those films, to create and innovate. Ideally, what should emerge from this environment is work that is intelligent, truthful and sceptical, work free to shine a uniquely Canadian light on the issues of the day. Quality must be given fair opportunity to find its place.

We suggest that a greater investment in the CBC would achieve that.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you, Mr. Wilhelm-Boyles.

We'll now take the presentation from the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and then we can ask questions.

Ms. Ironside.

[Anne Ironside, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting]

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman and committee members, welcome to Vancouver. My name is Anne Ironside. I'm a Vancouver-based member of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting's advisory council and a strong supporter of Canadian public broadcasting.

Friends is a watchdog group for Canadian programming and the English-language audiovisual system, with the support of 100,000 Canadians, 25% of whom live in B.C.

Appearing with me is Ian Morrison, a Friends spokesperson. As you know, Friends submitted a brief to your committee on February 26. We've also encouraged our supporters to actively participate in your important investigation.

I want to make four points, our essential message. The first is that the CBC board of directors should be chosen at arm's length from patronage, drawn from the best and the brightest Canadians, and this board should have the authority to hire, and if necessary fire, its CEO.

Almost four years ago the Lincoln report recommended that:

In the interests of fuller accountability and arm's length from government, nominations to the CBC's board should be made by a number of sources....

[Technical difficulty--Editor]

Is it somebody's cellphone?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I don't have one, so it's not me.

Okay, please proceed.

[Anne Ironside]

Nominations to the CBC board should be made by a number of sources, and the CBC president should be hired and be responsible to the board.

The second point is that Parliament should instruct the CBC's board to attach a high priority to the Broadcasting Act's mandate to reflect Canada and its regions through national and regional audiences while serving the special needs of these regions.

The third point is that Parliament should invite CBC's board to develop a business plan to address its regional responsibilities, wean itself from dependence on television advertising and foreign programs, and strengthen the presentation of Canadians' stories in prime time.

The fourth point I want to highlight is that to fund that plan Parliament should offer to increase the CBC's budget drastically by annual increments of at least $100 million over the next five years. We see it as an investment in updating Canada's social infrastructure. As the Lincoln report made clear, such an investment would bring Canadians only to the average of OECD countries' spending on civic pride. If you put it in this context, by 2012 Canada would be spending 15¢ per person per day to support a vigorous, locally relevant public broadcasting system.

Ian.

[Ian Morrison, Spokesperson, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting]

I will be summarizing the main recommendations contained in our brief of February 26. If you wish, we would be pleased to discuss them further.

As an additional contribution to your important work, we have also commissioned, and we offer you today, a research report from CMRI, the Canadian Media Research Inc. The title is Trends in TV Audiences & Public Opinion, 1996-2006, with special reference to CBC English television.

This report provides data on such topics as TV set ownership, direct-to-home satellite subscription trends, over-the-air reception and new video technologies. It also features trends in TV viewing levels, market share, and audiences for Canadian programming, as well as a review of public opinion regarding television, and CBC in particular.

I would like to touch, Mr. Chair, on highlights from this research. First is the necessity of maintaining over-the-air transmission facilities in all parts of Canada. CMRI's report indicates that 10% of Canadians depend on over-the-air transmission to receive their TV signals, which is three million Canadians. This is not expected to change in the coming years. Because they access fewer channels, these Canadians account for only 7% of viewing hours. The percentage of over-the-air TV reception is much higher among French-speaking viewers, approximately 15%.

Fourteen per cent of the viewing of CBC's English television network is over the air: in Windsor it's 51%; in Leeds--Grenville, 32%; in Peace River north, 24%; in the Kootenays, 17%; Fredericton, 11%; here in Vancouver it's 10%.

According to BBM, there are 26,100 people who watch TV off-air in Okanagan-Kamloops--our friends in Save our CBC Kamloops are on your agenda this afternoon--and here in Vancouver there are 188,700 people receiving their television over the air.

In view of the importance of over-the-air reception to three million Canadians, we were more than somewhat concerned to read in a CBC television policy submission to the CRTC last August that “over-the-air transmission will remain a viable distribution technology for the distribution of television programming only in major urban centres”.

CMRI conducted a special survey of the CRTC last autumn among a representative sample of 1,000 Canadians who do not subscribe to cable or satellite TV. In the survey CMRI asked: If you could receive only one station off-air, what would that be? Forty-five per cent of English-speaking respondents said CBC TV and 49% of French-speaking respondents said SRC TV, far ahead of CTV, Global, TVA, TQS.

Friends therefore urges you to take up this matter with CBC next week and to remind their management that all Canadians pay for the corporation and all are entitled to receive its programming, whether they live in major urban centres or elsewhere.

We also wish to raise with you some questions about cbc.ca. That's another subject you've announced as a priority for you: the new media. This arises from CMRI's research. According to BBM--that's the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement--data, Canadians use the Internet for non-work purposes for an average of fewer than four hours a week, far less than the 26 hours they spend watching TV. Even teenagers spend twice as much time watching TV as they do surfing. Including usage at work, Comscore reports that Canadians spend five and a half hours weekly on the net.

Now, cbc.ca ranked 20th among Canadian domains in March 2006. Its monthly reach was 4.2 million users, but it had only 475,000 daily users, and they spent an average of fewer than seven minutes on cbc.ca. This represents one five-hundredth of all the Canadian web traffic. At any given moment in March 2006, cbc.ca was serving only 2,200 users, approximately the number of viewers assembled by a very small specialty TV channel.

The corporation has not been forthcoming with Canadians about the cost of cbc.ca. We estimate that cbc.ca costs at least $20 million net of revenues, and employs 5% of CBC's workforce. It's a legitimate question for parliamentarians to find out the extent of taxpayer subsidy to cbc.ca at a time when, for example, the English television network is retreating from its commitment to air Canadian programs in prime time. We urge the committee to probe management on this topic. You will be asserting Parliament's right to determine priorities for the expenditure of taxpayers' money.

As you know, CBC television's prime time schedule depends heavily on sports to the exclusion of other programming. Over the 2005-06 year--the broadcast year ends on August 31--23% of CBC television's schedule was sports. This accounted for 48%, so almost half, of the total CBC prime time audience. Most of this was for professional sports. By contrast, less than 5% of CBC TV's prime time audience watched Canadian drama series or movies of the week. Foreign dramas, on the other hand, accounted for three times the audience of indigenous drama on CBC TV.

Friends recommends that the committee insist that CBC television present Canadian programs in prime time as it did just seven years ago, when 96% of its prime time schedule was Canadian compared with just 79% today. This represents a quintupling of foreign programs in prime time on CBC television over those seven years.

We've given you a little chart in this presentation that shows what CBUT Vancouver was offering in prime time seven years ago, in a representative period, and what it is offering today.

Friends has published red charts over the past two decades to map Canadian and foreign programs offered by over-the-air broadcasters in ten Canadian cities. We wish to table with this committee today our most recent red chart. I think you should have a copy. It depicts what has been available over the air here in Vancouver during the past three weeks. CBC's Canadian offerings in prime time compare with 39% for CHUM/City; with 30% for Global Vancouver; with 18% for CTV; and with 16% each for Global Victoria and CHUM's A-Channel in Victoria.

Some of us were present seven years ago when CBC's president was invited before this committee to explain why he had decided to terminate CBC's regional supper-hour programs. I distinctly recall your colleague Mr. Scott's intervention on that occasion. This committee mobilized a huge outpouring of public sentiment then, forcing Mr. Rabinovitch to compromise with 30 minutes of regional news during the supper hour. We find it an ironic but positive development that CBC has now come to its senses and has announced plans to restore 60-minute supper-hour regional news.

The CMRI research we have tabled today may explain this turnaround. When CMRI's 2006 TV quality survey interviewed Canadians about their interest in various types of programs, 61% said they were “very interested” in local news. No other program category came close. The second most popular category was national news, at 46%. The third was international news, at 33%, followed by Hollywood movies, at 27%. CMRI's research revealed that local news on television is the top priority of the Canadian people.

I would like to thank you for your attention. I would also like to thank you for inviting us to take part in your hearing here, in Vancouver.

We would be pleased to make ourselves available if you would like to explore these issues with us on future occasions. We wish the committee great success in this important investigation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

We will turn to questions, keeping our questions relatively short, if we can. Again, we'll allow roughly five minutes.

Ms. Fry, please--and welcome.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I want to thank Anne, Ian, and Andrew for coming in front of us today.

I have a couple of questions.

First, to Andrew, you said in your presentation that the CBC needs no modification. I'd like you to elaborate on that, because many people have told us that the CBC isn't actually moving as quickly as it could to utilize the new digital medium. How do you feel the CBC could do that?

My next question, which is open to Ian and Anne as well, is with regard to the CBC's mandate. It says that it must be predominantly and distinctively Canadian. Do you think it is doing that? It also says that the CBC must reflect Canada and its regions. One only has to look at the little red chart here to ask a very important question--namely, do you think the CBC reflects its regions through national and regional radio and television? Or do you think it should? And finally, does the CBC respect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada?

Those are the three basic questions.

Andrew.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

Thank you.

The mandate itself is neutral on the distribution means. That's why we don't feel the mandate needs any overhaul at all. The mandate, which you've already referred to in part, is that the CBC is to reflect Canada and its regions, its national and regional audiences, serving the special needs of those regions. It's to contribute to an exchange of cultural expression, and to be in English or French, striving to be of equivalent quality in English and French. It's to contribute to shared national consciousness and identity, and to be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means.

According to this mandate, the CBC is able to engage whatever means to get the message out in the most efficient and effective way. So we don't see that the mandate itself needs any overhaul at all.

With regard to some of the other issues you've raised, I think the CBC is getting better at reflecting the cultural diversity of the country. It could improve. I think it would improve if in fact it were truly rooted in the communities. Many of our communities are increasingly diverse. Of necessity, then, a greater reflection of those communities would produce a greater reflection of diversity. One major concern we have is in fact the lack of rootedness established by the CBC in communities.

I can't remember the other question.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I wanted to know if you thought it was fulfilling its mandate.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

I don't think it's fulfilling its mandate--in any regard, frankly. Full disclosure here: I am an immigrant, coming many years ago from Ireland. I have lived in this country for 30 years, in literally every part of it. For a period of about 15 years I worked for the CBC in various parts of the country as an on-air person. I worked as a manager also, particularly in the north, in both the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. So I've experienced the CBC in a variety of ways.

I have to tell you that I am no longer as strong a consumer of the CBC as I used to be. I don't find it serves my needs. I find the programming has less and less excellence as we go along. I still have many contacts within the CBC, and I find that the morale within the CBC is not strong. Fewer and fewer people are being asked to do more and more, and with fewer and fewer resources. They do not have the time to do proper research all the time. They're constantly running around trying to find stories from newspapers, and not generating original research. These are vast generalizations, of course, but some at the CBC are saying it.

The fact is that the programming I hear is increasingly banal, particularly on CBC Radio One at popular times. I'm so tired of hearing people phone in and tell me about their first kiss, for heaven's sake. This is Canadian programming? This is not programming that is in any way curated. This is cheap programming. It fills time cheaply for the CBC. It buys a little more time for producers and journalists to do the work they're doing. I do understand why it happens, but I don't like it. I don't think anybody at the CBC likes it either, but it's a product of diminishing resources.

In that regard, I don't believe the CBC is able to carry out its mandate to the fullest. It certainly isn't doing it for the regions.

[Anne Ironside]

On the question about the regions, I think in B.C. it's been particularly difficult for urban B.C. to understand what's going on in rural B.C., and the CBC hasn't helped us much in that. I keep an eye on these things, because I'm interested in the whole question of the way work is flowing, and I've been amazed that the pine beetle crisis took a long time for Vancouverites to wake up to. Once again, the CBC didn't help with that.

It's interesting to me that in the Vancouver Sun this morning there's a big map of B.C. that says here are the bust areas, here are the boom areas, and that's great, but I wouldn't have got that if I had just sat and watched the CBC in Vancouver.

I am a big fan of the CBC, but I certainly think that Vancouverites are very smug and unknowledgeable about what's going on in the rest of the province.

[Ian Morrison]

On the distinctively Canadian question, obviously CBC is distinct; it's a question of degree. For us, the reason we're focusing our remarks on the English television part is that it seems to be the exception. Of course we are a group that can mention the anglophone perspective, but we're not really in a position to comment to you on SRC matters. But it's my impression as an observer that the French-language side of the CBC is much stronger in that regard than the English-language side, and that the radio side of the English is much stronger than the television side.

I remember the late Darryl Duke telling me once, with an ironic smile on his face, that when we get the next earthquake here in Vancouver it had better not be on a weekend, because CBC television won't be able to cover it. So it's the impoverishment of regional reflection, particularly in television, that's at issue. That is something that of course requires resources.

I am aware, through back channels, of a proposal that's doing the rounds to strengthen CBC English radio regional and to introduce programming capacity in ten large Canadian cities that now have none, including Hamilton. So I see that as evidence that CBC's management is moving in the direction of addressing those.

On multicultural, I would say it's getting better.

Finally, to turn this into a recommendation, as you may know, every seven years all major broadcasters, station groups, have to go to the CRTC to have their group licences renewed. CBC was to have done that this year. Although it hasn't been published, I believe their applications are sitting in files at the CRTC right now and they've been given a one-year extension. The CRTC was too busy with other things. Well, when the CRTC does review the CBC's licence, they should ask exactly the questions that you're asking. And the CRTC and this committee should lean on or advocate or push or encourage the CRTC to do that job, not just in Gatineau, Quebec, but around Canada.

You may remember that in 1999 the CRTC did that. They came to the Landmark Hotel up on Robson Street, and more than a hundred people from Vancouver came and talked to them. They got a feeling about Canada. So the CRTC should be holding its CBC licence renewal hearings around Canada, not in the bunker in Hull. Maybe Parliament could tell them that would be a good idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

We'll move on to Madame Bourgeois.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I find your comments this morning extremely interesting. They are music to my hear, particularly when it comes to culture. That is something very important to me.

I am from Quebec, where we are trying to preserve our culture. My impression is that you have a very deeply felt fear—and perhaps Mr. Boyles expressed this the best—of loosing your Canadian culture to the American culture.

Could you please elaborate more on your explanations. Even though you spoke from the heart to tell us what is going on, I would still like to hear more about this.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

Thank you.

Yes, I do speak from the heart. As an immigrant, I perhaps have a greater appreciation of this country than even those who were born here and take it for granted. I have lived in literally every part of it, and I have travelled to every part in which I have not lived, from sea to sea to sea. So I am a passionate Canadian. For me, the CBC is fundamental to the Canadian identity.

I am not going to be anti-American, because I'm not. It's an extremely interesting culture to the south of us, but it's huge and it is rapacious and it seeks to spread its culture wherever. I see this country as a very special country. When I talked earlier about this experiment...it's a wonderful experiment. It is an attempt to create a country that's different from anything that has ever existed on the face of the world before, in its inclusivity, in the kinds of relationships it can build, in the kinds of maturity of life in all its forms that it can provide for its citizens. It's not finding it easy, particularly as tensions mount outside of the country's boundaries amongst the relatives of those who now reside within the country's boundaries.

I believe we need to assert an identity that is enormously inclusive and tolerant and that enables people to share with each other their stories, their lives, their feelings, and their passions in a peaceful and effective way.

I believe we're succeeding to a very large degree. I believe the CBC is fundamental to that quest, and it disturbs me that the CBC is often looked at as just another commodity, just another thing that the state has to support.

CBC is fundamental to enabling this Canadian experiment to succeed, and I am utterly passionate about it. I love this country. I choose to live here. I owe so much to this country. It's a very special place, and I think we lose sight of that. I think we lose sight of the ability of the CBC, of the national broadcaster, to reflect this country to itself. We are not insisting that the CBC do it well enough and we're not funding them to do it well enough. That's the problem.

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

Mr. Boyles, you seem to be saying that CBC wants to compete with others. Do you think, in the name of culture, CBC should choose to provide service to all communities and disregard competition? Do you think CBC should opt for culture and broadcast everywhere in the regions? Is that what you are saying?

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

I don't think the CBC should have to compete for commercial revenue at all. That's not its job, and it brings it into conflict with the commercial sector. The CBC needs to be properly funded so that it can do its job without having to be concerned with deriving money from commercial interests. That simply makes sense to me. It's then relieved of certain responsibilities and can then take on the responsibilities imposed by the mandate in a full and proper way.

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

Your comments are similar to those of Ms. Ironside, who is going for greater regional and local presence on the part of CBC.

Our committee has just come from Yellowknife, where we could see that some communities, including the francophones outside Quebec and aboriginals, are calling upon the CBC to provide local service in the regions. Would you agree to have the service expanded throughout the Northwest Territories?

[Anne Ironside]

I'm sorry, but the French is not coming through.

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

Perhaps Mr. Morrison could answer the question.

[Ian Morrison]

The simple answer is yes.

If I could magnify the answer and pick up a little bit from your interchange with my colleague, you used the words “fear of losing one's culture”, English-taught. The English-speaking people of Canada have been exposed to American audiovisual culture much before anyone else in the world. In fact, the whole world is now exposed to it, but we were the first. We've coined the phrase “satellite rain” in Canada for that type of arrival. It means that English-speaking children who are 12 years old have gone to school for 6,000 hours but have watched 12,000 hours of television, of which 9,000 or 10,000 is life in Los Angeles or Miami. Audiovisual colonization is a major issue.

On the question of fear, a resource that you might find useful is on the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting website. All of the public opinion polls that we have commissioned for the past 10 or 12 years are up there. What Ipsos Reid, our pollster, is telling us is that around questions of culture they are noticing among anglophone Canadians that there is less of a negative fear factor and more of a positive patriotism developing, and it is just that the audiovisual system is not reinforced.

So if there was one thing your committee could do through this study, it would be to put before parliamentary decision-makers that what you have just described is the essential mission of the broadcaster.