Canadian Heritage Committee on March 14th, 2007

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

Actually, Mr. Morrison, what you are experiencing as an anglophone Canadian is exactly the same as what we have experienced as Quebeckers.

I would just give you one example, and then ask you a very specific question.

This is the second time I have come to Vancouver and I have been trying to watch the news in French on Radio-Canada. When I go to the CBC website, I get the news in English. At the Radio-Canada site, in French, all I can find is cartoon characters. That is really quite something.

Although I am only visiting, and while perhaps it might not be possible to get RDI, the all-news network, I think I should at least be able to get the news in French. Like aboriginals in Vancouver and the Inuit in the North, I need to have access to the world and to find expression of my culture locally, regionally and internationally.

My question to Mr. Morrison is very specific. You said that someone in your group or one of your acquaintances had done a study of the Internet. If I understand correctly, Radio-Canada apparently invested $20 million in developing the Canada.ca site.

[Ian Morrison]

No, that was the Radio-Canada.ca site.

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

So it was Radio-Canada.ca.

You also said that in your opinion this was not a very good use of the money, because very few people could use the Internet and go to the Radio-Canada.ca. Did I understand you correctly? We went to Yellowknife to visit the Radio-Canada facilities there, and we were told that the viewership was very high. So could you give me some figures on this?

[Ian Morrison]

On the first point, by the way, I find I can never trust hotel televisions to faithfully reflect what is available in the surrounding population. Sometimes they do little things, like catering to American tourists, and that type of thing. It may well be that if you were not in this hotel, you could have received better services in the other official language. I'm not sure, but I've have had trouble with hotels before.

But on your point about cbc.ca or radio-canada.ca, in the situation of a shortage, priorities have to be addressed. We advocate more money, as you know, but we believe that the CBC has not been forthcoming about the costs of its Internet operations. We have picked up bits of information about the number of employees, advertising availabilities on their site, and we're making an estimate that something in the range of $20 million is being spent there.

We're asking why, if they can't afford to put Canadian programming on prime time on their largest television networks, they afford this. We're giving you numbers that show that, at any given time, only 2,000 Canadians are on there. Over a day, there are fewer than half a million Canadians, and over a month, four million Canadians.

The French television network of the CBC reaches five million Canadians each week. The English television network reaches 11 million Canadians. That's five times more than the number of people who read the The Globe and Mail or five times more than read La Presse, according to the data in our study.

Now, cbc.ca is the 20th largest website in Canada. We think it's wonderful. We use it. But we think you should be asking questions about priorities within the corporation, just as you should ask a question about how they can afford to invest in Sirius satellite radio and lose money on that every year when they can't afford to put television programs on in prime time.

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

Thank you.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

Just to follow up on the fear factor, I have to say that Canadian artists, in my experience, are not fearful. Canadian artists look around them and they find that they rank very highly among the artists of the world. Certainly Canadian artists are highly regarded and are all over the place in leadership roles.

What artists fear is that the institutions of their country do not fully support them, do not make their successes known within their own country, so that very often they have to go somewhere else to keep being successful. And that's really unfortunate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Savoie.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm replacing Mr. Angus here today, and so I come perhaps as less as an expert in this issue than as an ordinary Canadian holding an elected position.

I found your presentations both really interesting and touching. When I was asked to come here today, I realized that I have gone from being a strong supporter of the CBC to being a strong supporter of the idea of the CBC. And I find myself, like Mr. Wilhelm-Boyles, listening less and less and watching less and less of the CBC. I don't find that it does reflect Canada or its regions, and it certainly doesn't appear to me to be serving the special needs of Canada.

Considering the increased number of channels and the accessibility we have to everything happening, to globalized forms of media, I have a couple of questions.

First, there were a number of recommendations I heard made today and that I read about in some of the briefs to eliminate patronage appointments, to make CBC less dependent on advertising, and to ensure stable funding. Would that be enough to put us back in the right direction to have a CBC that really does respond to that mandate, or are we missing something else to get us back there? That's my first question.

[Ian Morrison]

There is the issue of leadership.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Could you talk about that?

[Ian Morrison]

Yes. Obviously, with all the money in the world, there still needs to be some type of vision, which is why in the end portion of our presentation we called on Parliament to take the lead in saying this is what we want in this institution and we would like the board of directors to come to us with a plan, and then that is something Parliament would consider investing in. This would take the spending up to something like the median for the western democracies. And your famous predecessor, Mr. Chair, and I think friend, Clifford Lincoln, was very proud of page 178 of that report. You were a member of that committee. That page shows where Canada is in relation to the western democracies, because in public broadcasting it's very modest. But the key is the leadership.

In my work I get to see other public broadcasters. I get to see some of the German public broadcasters, French, Scandinavian, Swiss, the Japanese. I do not mention the Americans. They have senior professional leadership that understands the business.

The tradition in this country has been for the Prime Minister to appoint the president of the CBC. His broadcasting experience has not been—apparently, if you look back—a criterion that is deemed important, and that even goes down to appointments that the president makes. I don't want to get into personalities, but you would need new leadership as an ingredient of basing this new case. It would be very important, and that goes back to a board of directors that is equipped to do its job—in the phrase we use, “the best and the brightest Canadians”—who would then go out and hire and, if necessary, replace the management. That's the missing ingredient.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

There's not much I could add except, as a one-time employee of the CBC, to tell you that I joined the CBC because of the best and the brightest. At the time it seemed to me that the best and the brightest either worked for the CBC or came through the doors of the CBC and became program providers on the CBC, and it was a very exciting place to be. I believe it has everything to do with leadership and vision.

During my 15 years or so of relationship with the CBC, I could name the people—I won't—who brought that vision and that passion for what we were doing and that understanding of the nature of the country and the nature and responsibility of public broadcasting. There weren't that many of them, but they did exist, and you knew there was different leadership at the top. You felt it, right down to Inuvik, for heaven's sake. You knew there was somebody there who cared, who knew what he was doing—and usually it was a “he”, of course, in those days, and I guess it still is—and was able to lead and provide the vision that we were able to follow. It has everything to do with that. Money alone will not get the job done, but without money, a leader is hamstrung.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I think it's Ursula Franklin who says we've gone from good governance to being administered. The value, it seems to me, with globalization and as we've embarked on many of these international trade agreements where we've divested of our government's ability to protect public interest.....

As we're reviewing the CBC's mandate--and you suggest it's fine as it goes, but it's just not able to fulfill it--is there a need or an interest in having our public radio have a mandate to protect our democratic institutions? Democracy and culture are closely related.

I look at another issue that's uppermost in the minds of many Canadians today, and that's our ability to fight climate change, so sustainability--are those issues that the CBC, within its mandate, should be taking more seriously?

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

The CBC, as the national public broadcaster, should be taking more seriously anything that's a major threat to the people of the country. Obviously something like climate change should be taken seriously. It's been on the horizon for more than 20 years, and only in the last year have we started taking it seriously. I think that's a dereliction of duty.

But there are other issues as well. After climate change, the most serious threat facing this country is, I believe, the increasing diversity of its communities. That in itself is not the threat; it's the ability of communities to deal with that and to live harmoniously. After climate change, this will probably be the issue of the next 10 or 20 years. I see certainly the CBC dealing with that, but I think more could be done.

I'm not sure what you mean here by defending democracy. I believe democracy is best defended by openness and broad consultation, by access to information, by discussion and debate with each other. I'm not sure if you were implying any kind of state regulation...?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

No, no.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

Right. I didn't think you would be.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I was implying what you just suggested--that is, increasing that dialogue within Canada. Our community has become the whole world, but our physical community, reflecting each other, is missing.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Did you want to reply to that as well? Please make it short, because I have a few questions I'd like to ask.

[Anne Ironside]

Okay.

I want to respond to your comment about democracy. It's so essential to have a media that represents a balance of perspectives. I think we have an example to the south of where media concentration has not allowed that balance of perspectives.

I had the great good luck of once meeting Graham Spry, who said, when he was promoting the concept of Canada having a public broadcasting system, that it was the state or the United States. That's the sort of fire in the belly he had.

As a citizen watching all of this unfold, I would say that from 1984, which is when Friends got going, you've had a slow hemorrhaging of that. I'm amazed they do as well as they do. I understand the morale is very low. I would hope that a leadership that communicated a real vision of the CBC's role in the world would do a lot to improve that morale.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

I am a member of Parliament from southwestern Ontario. Speaking of arts and culture, the Stratford Shakespearean Festival is in my riding. I live three miles from Stratford. There has been a lot of growth in the 50-plus years the Stratford Festival has been there. I do know that arts and culture needs to be nurtured, and there has been government help with the festival.

I'm going to make a couple of comments first. One, we're used to television being available over the regular airwaves, but when we get into cable and those types of things.... I had a call about three weeks ago from my mother. Since I've been a member of Parliament, one of the most interesting channels for her is CPAC. She never misses question period, and she's always looking to see me on television. It's a personal thing.

What happened was that she didn't have a box; she had basic television cable, and she got CPAC on channel 59, I think, or whatever it was. Her television went up to about channel 75. Wouldn't you know, they changed CPAC to channel 104. That is basic, and it is supposed to be provided for by the cable companies. Well, I guess it's basic cable up to channel whatever it is. She then had to go out and get a box. She got a couple of other things with that, but she pays an extra $14-and-something now to get what should be basic. People should have that opportunity, I think, to get what is supposed to be a basic part of their licensing.

I just wanted to make that response.

Yes, Mr. Morrison.

[Ian Morrison]

The problem you're dealing with comes from what I describe as an unregulated monopoly. Ted Rogers is a great Canadian, but somebody working for him made the decision that this would drive the penetration of digital. It costs your mother $14 a month, and it would cause other people not to see CPAC. If anybody says CPAC is not important to democracy, I'd argue with that.

I want to relate that to your CBC investigation. Oh, by the way, they didn't move just CPAC; they also moved the Ontario legislature to a place you couldn't get it. Maybe they didn't think that was important.

One thing that Rogers has done in Ontario, which we are getting a lot of complaints about, is that they have moved the carrier for radio stations to their digital. You have to pay more to get radio over cable, which is important in big cities with high-rises such as where we are here or in Toronto. And they've eliminated CBC Radio Two from the offering--they have CBC Radio One--and yet they have three Vancouver radio stations available to the people of Ontario on their cable system.

The CRTC has the authority to make sure this doesn't happen, and they have delegated it to the cable monopolies.

You're raising a big subject...maybe for your next investigation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay. Thank you.

I have one question, and then we'll have one small question from Ms. Bourgeois.

How should CBC take advantage of new media technologies to build audiences? I know it's something we've talked about, whether it's the WIPO treaty and all of this, but in the end there's always this new media thing. It's my understanding that we're on the breaking edge of new media. Someone related to us the other day that by the time we're done with this exercise and we bring in the report it could almost be redundant, because new media is changing so much.

Again, how can the CBC take advantage of new media? I know that in the one report here, it says it's very small right now. When we were in Yellowknife yesterday, they were trying to bring up their web page. They have a new person in charge, and they're trying to bring that in.

I put that question forward to you, please.

[Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles]

I have to confess to you that I haven't done enough thinking about that, and my constituency hasn't done enough thinking about it either, because we're still concerned with the vehicles of mainstream performance opportunity.

There will be others. You will hear from other presenters, I'm quite sure, as to how they feel the CBC could take advantage, could better exploit new media. I'm just not qualified to do so this morning.

[Ian Morrison]

For example, to give some praise to the management of the CBC for a change, management on the English side of CBC Radio—I do not know the French-language examples in SRC's radio—have developed Radio 3, which is not broadcast over the air, it's broadcast on the Internet. It is targeting the young demographic with a style of music.

They are one of the leaders in podcasting. Millions of downloads are available on your iPod, or something like that, where you're listening, when you like, to a CBC-generated program that you get the same way as you get any other type of podcast. Half of those podcasts, Ms. Chalmers, the vice-president of English radio, tells me, are from non-Canadians. So it's becoming part of the Canadian outreach to the world.

When the CBC appears before the committee, ask those radio people about new media and building audiences. They're addressing their demographic issue through the web.