Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you about the CBC mandate.
My company, Agentic Communications, is a web development company. It's very representative of the majority of companies across Canada, as far as the interactive profile has revealed. We're a small business employing fewer than 20 employees, but we are still generating a significant economic impact across Canada.
As we know, the CBC needs to offer Canadian programming to all citizens. To remain relevant to Canadians, the CBC should be reaching out to address Canadians where they are. And that often is through different platforms, as we've seen. As the CBC's Robert Rabinovitch reported in his October 27, 2005, statement to this committee, CBC must be a leader in developing “specialized content for new platforms, like podcasting, satellite radio, and the Internet”. To some degree, this is actually occurring. CBC Radio 3, Bande à Part, the sadly defunct Zed television program, and the powerhouse that is cbc.ca have all provided additional value to Canadians online.
However, this is not the only opportunity that CBC has to offer Canadians. Many of the web initiatives on CBC are directed to supporting broadcast on radio and television. A project such as the CBC website Censor This!, which was an online initiative investigating issues of censorship that supported over 17 radio programs over a week in March 2007, is an excellent example of how an online initiative can support a larger vision of programming. None of the programs themselves could have supported the large-scale vision of censorship.
The CBC citizenship website is another example of unique Canadian content that's been created specifically for the web. CBC Aboriginal, which is another website property that CBC has launched recently, provides another example of how the CBC, in an online environment, can reach out to new audiences.
There is excellent online content being created at CBC North. As you may have seen in your trip recently, it has generated content specifically for the web on Canadian issues of interest to all Canadians, as has the new media pod in Halifax.
However, this is not enough. I think a key issue is that there's a lack of original Canadian content directed and developed specifically for the web. CBC has indicated to our industry, through informal conversations, that they would be willing to support further commissioning of original and unique Canadian content for the web if there were a revenue model for it.
I think, members of the committee, that there is a way, and that is to develop potentially an Internet broadcast licence. While this is probably a larger issue than this committee can address, I think there needs to be a coordinated effort to potentially complete the following.
First, amend the Broadcasting Act to include digital media as well as radio and television in the CBC mandate to encourage that unique digital media development. This would be different from the original proposal released last year in regard to supporting digital media as an adjunct or supportive role in radio and television. I think it's really clear to see, as we've seen in the presentation that Lynda provided to the committee, that there is significant activity in this sector that can really be addressed online and only online. There are enough content providers across Canada that can actually pull this off.
Second, encourage the development and distribution of an Internet broadcast licence that would be targeted to creating original Canadian content for the web. This could be achieved in a number of different ways, and we could talk about that as we get to some questions.
Last, encourage the private industry telecommunications providers to develop and sustain a fund to provide grants--not recoupable advances--to Canadian Internet content providers to create original Canadian programming online.
That concludes my brief presentation to the committee. Again, I'm very happy to be here to explain, or to talk, and to take any questions on those issues.
Thank you.