Evidence of meeting #45 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programming.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, meeting 45.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we continue our full investigation of the role of a public broadcaster in the 21st century.
This morning, for the first hour, we welcome our witnesses from the Canadian Conference of the Arts.
Mr. Pineau, would you like to make your presentation? I apologize that our people are sometimes a little slow in getting up in the morning, and I hope they get here quickly.
9:05 a.m.
Alain Pineau National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
No offence. There are enough intelligent people around the table to have a conversation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Alain Pineau, and I am the National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, or the CCA. Next to me is Monica Auer, Legal Counsel for these issues.
I will start by speaking about our organization and explaining why we are interested in issues that affect broadcasting.
The CCA is the oldest and broadest forum in Canada for debate on arts and culture policies. The CCA was formed in 1945, making it 62 years old. It covers all of the arts: from arts and crafts to dance to opera, and everything in between.
Our organization has one characteristic that distinguishes it from all the groups in the country that represent other parts of the cultural sector. It is an umbrella organization, and some of its members are often at odds with each other. This was seen recently in the case of the CFTPA, independent producers, and ACTRA. These two associations are members of our organization in order to try to encourage an informed public debate—and this is our mission—on all matters affecting the arts, culture, artists, creators, cultural industries, institutions such as museums, and government agencies such as the CBC.
We therefore have a comprehensive overview. Our work in broadcasting is essentially accomplished through the information we produce, and the discussions we organize and participate in, such as the one today.
It is interesting that in the Broadcasting Act, we have the most important cultural statement in the country. This is where parliamentarians have established what most resembles a cultural policy in Canada. We are concerned with anything that affects this act, particularly given the current technical and future legislative convergence in the telecommunications sector and in the more traditional broadcasting sector.
I must say that even if I often use the words "radio" and "television" today, we must try to stop using this language, because these are not words that matter now. It is no longer about radio and television, any more than it was about papyrus or paper. It is the message that matters, the content. This is what we should be concerned with. The rest is housekeeping. Nevertheless, the convergence of laws is worrisome, because the objectives of the Broadcasting Act constitute the most eloquent statement on culture ever made by the Parliament of Canada.
This act has a number of very important elements that I will speak about. But today's discussion is about the CBC. The CBC is a unique instrument that has been around for a long time, that has proved itself, that has had its highs and lows, its times of trouble, but it is a very important public instrument for the cultural life of this country's francophones and anglophones, even if the reasons may differ. The 1991 act already recognizes that there may be asymmetrical solutions depending on market characteristics.
I will briefly summarize our presentation.
Thank you very much for these hearings. That's the first thing I want to say after presenting our interests.
We have deplored--on many platforms, many tribunes, and many forums--the fact that there is not an all-encompassing look at the cultural sector. We've been doing that for many, many years, and it's now coming to the fore.
Broadcasting is the vehicle through which most people in Canada consume cultural products. It's on your radio, your broadcasts, or whatever, that you listen to stuff and you watch stuff. And presumably--according to the objectives of the act--you see the society you are living in through all sorts of programs, from information to documentary to drama.
We are looking at this piecemeal, in little chunks, bit by bit, and in disjointed ways, which is worrisome. Sometimes it's through licence renewal in front of the CRTC. Sometimes it's through a policy hearing in front of the CRTC.
In this case, almost by coincidence, you are very fortunately working back to back on two very important components of the audio-visual sector: the CTF and the CBC. Yet the processes remain somewhat disjointed. You produce your report and it goes to Parliament, and that's the end of it as far as we're concerned.
We see opportunities. One of the things apart from this worry about the overall ecology in the system not being looked at globally...we talk about global warming in other forums, so we should talk about global warming in the cultural sector. We have to look at basic issues like funding and distribution of Canadian content. Those are the basic questions. Yet we're all focusing on tiny little things: should the CBC be in local news, should the CBC be in sports? They're all very important, don't get me wrong, but the way we have looked at them is very, very narrow.
We don't see technological change as necessarily driving the public debate. But it has been driving the public debate for the past 10, 15, or 20 years, quite frankly, particularly in broadcasting. Every time there's a new technology, the sky is falling: we need more consolidation, we need less regulation. We go through these in cycles, and it's always because technology is upon us. The reality is that we should look at the big picture. There are fewer and fewer players; they are more and more consolidated; they own more and more platforms across the various spectrums on which Canadian cultural content is to be made available. Only some of them are regulated. Some of them are exempted. Others we don't even think about. We think this sort of thing should be borne in mind in all debates.
Sorry, I'm running late.
We should take into consideration the fact that the 1991 Broadcasting Act.... Our thoughts are evolving on that. We thought it was fine. Maybe it has to be formally reviewed. Otherwise it may be made irrelevant. It is technologically neutral and it should stay as such.
I'm supposed to be talking about the CBC here. I'm sorry. I got lost in the big picture.
The real debate with the CBC is political will. It's not a question of mandate. I mean, the mandate can be tweaked, but it's not a question of mandate. It's a question of whether we really want to have a public broadcaster. It was created 75 years ago. We keep it, we keep starving it, and we keep asking more and more of it.
You have seen a chart in our brief that shows that in real dollars the CBC budget has declined over the past 30 years. And we're asking more and more of it.
Collectively, as a nation, should we put our money where our mouth is?
I've already said that the CBC mandate is fine, although it could be tweaked. The act provides for asymmetrical solutions to deal with the francophone and anglophone markets. It could also be broadened to other aspects of the question.
You've heard otherwise, but we think the CBC must absolutely be on all platforms. It's content that matters, not the medium. It's not the way it's carried to people. I fully support the CBC when it says it's totally technologically agnostic. I think all other broadcasters or providers of content should officially adopt the same position.
The CBC has a particular role to play in information, and in drama in particular, because this is a sick child of the family, particularly on English television, I should say, although not on French television, which is another story.
On the funding issue, we believe the CBC should be freed from commercial revenue as much as possible. We will never have, for example, good drama in this country if a show that draws only 365,000 people doesn't make it, because we need the investment in the industry.
We have very good people in that industry. Our success is well established, so much so that until very recently Americans came here to shoot with our teams and with our crews. Half of the creative people down south come from here. So we're not short on talent; we're short on money. That's what the issue is.
On predictability for the CBC, it has been tankering from one crisis to another for the past twenty years in terms of budget. The budget reductions started in the early 1980s, and they haven't stopped in real dollars. They just haven't.
We certainly support the idea of establishing a ten-year contract between the public broadcaster and Parliament or the government. It's well worth exploring. It could be done at arm's length through the CRTC. In such a contract, I believe—I'm not a lawyer, and we won't get into that right now—the relationship between the CBC and the CRTC may have to be adjusted. I don't know, though, because we haven't gone that deep.
We should also extend the arm's-length relationship. That's one of the most important characteristics of this organization. It should be at arm's length from the people who create and feed it, and it would be accountable on that to Parliament and through regulatory bodies. There's no problem about that. But the board should be empowered to hire and fire the president.
We also believe that for the board itself, nominations to the board should be made according to maybe a profile of board members—what is it that we're looking for there?—so that we really have, as has been the expressed intention of political parties, appointments of qualified people, not just people who are there to sort of bug the administration, for example, which has been seen.
I think I will stop here. I just want to say one thing, though, as part of the big picture. One of the policy priorities of the Canadian Conference of the Arts deals with cultural diversity. In that respect, we're very happy to see that the current government is following up on what the previous government was advocating, on the international scene, for cultural diversity. We're preoccupied with cultural diversity not only on the international scene, but on the national scene as well. We are concerned, and we think it's appropriate to ask of ourselves how we can do that.
We want to make sure we can forge a Canadian identity out of the multitude of cultural identities that we have in this country. How do we do that? How do we make sure we have a unified cultural voice to speak to the world? The message that I would like to leave with you is that we're an element of civil society, and no more. We're just coming to the people we have elected to say that cultural diversity starts at home.
I just want to say something very briefly, in order to give you full disclosure. Before my current job with the Canadian Conference of the Arts, where I've been for the past two years, I worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for my full career, for my full 34 years. I think you should know that. I'm not here speaking as an ex-CBC employee; I'm speaking here as a Canadian citizen, but I think you're entitled to know my perspectives.
Thank you very much for your attention.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Andy Scott Liberal Fredericton, NB
Thank you very much.
I have a couple of questions.
As we explore the mandate review, as you pointed out, the requirement for the country is going to be broader than a narrow debate on the mandate of the CBC or broader than a “conventional mandate review” kind of discussion. The funding issue has to be put squarely on the table. If we, as a committee, can agree on both the importance of and the nature of the contribution of the CBC, then the funding discussion can follow that. Unfortunately, it has been so much about funding that we've never gotten past funding and to actually talking about how the value of the CBC would warrant the investment. That's where I hope this goes.
So I have a couple of questions. First, in terms of this more general review of how we advance Canadian culture or Canadian identity—all of the issues that I think you spoke to—very specifically, what do you believe the role of the CBC is in that? That has been the subject of some discussion. Should there be a narrow role in terms of content, in terms of production, and so on? Should it be broader than that?
I heard you say the content is what counts and that the delivery systems are less important than the quality of the content. In terms of getting from where we are to where we would like to be in five years, what's the role of the CBC in that exercise?
Whether you said it out loud or it's in one of the documents here, you also said there have to be adequate funding mechanisms. Could you just clarify that? Is there something beyond public investment in that description? You talked about the fact that we should try to avoid commercial financing, so I'd like to know about that.
And then I'd like you to elaborate a little bit on the nature of the profile exercise you were talking about, relative to the board.
9:20 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
Thank you very much for your questions.
First of all, on the role of the CBC and whether it should be restricted or all-encompassing, I would say that the answer to that question has to be broken down into the two main components of the official languages, because there may be differences in the role, the way, the type of programming, or whatever Radio-Canada can do versus what the CBC can do. This is recognized in the act.
There was a deliberate policy in this country 20 and more years ago to restrict the CBC to small platforms. The CBC applied in the late 1970s for
CBC-2, if I remember correctly, or Télé-2,
and was turned down by the CRTC at the time. Then when speciality services appeared throughout the 1980s, the CBC was time and again rejected by the CRTC and discouraged from getting into speciality services. The purpose was to create--as was the purpose of other policies later on, actually, like the CTF, for example--a private sector. This private sector, this variety of voices outside the national broadcaster, is now, by the way, being consolidated more and more, and the environment has changed. Maybe we should look at the CBC role with that in mind, as well, because particularly in English Canada....
In French Canada, one of the long-used arguments is to say that Radio-Canada should be in variety, in drama, and in everything and should not leave the place entirely to Quebecor Inc. and TQS, to a much lesser extent--TVA, I should have said, but with Quebecor, it's all the same, isn't it? The arguments that were used, and that I think are still valid, were that the CBC should be a litmus test, a quality test.
Sport is another issue, quite frankly, that I'm not ready to tackle with you at this point, because I'm not sure that what we would say would be really meaningful to the debate at this point. It needs to be looked at more specifically.
Drama is definitely, on the English side, a place where the CBC should be. Absolutely. That's one place in this country where we can really nurture, develop, and create. And that's why the money the CBC accesses indirectly through the CTF is so important. And that's why we say that it should remain and that the CTF should keep, if not increase, the share that goes to independent producers who have deals with the CBC for distribution. That's most important. There are all sorts of issues related to that--rights issues and everything--and it's very complex.
I'm sorry, I'm eating up your time.
9:25 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I'm sorry, I'm not well disciplined.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
There will be other chances yet.
We'll go to Ms. Bourgeois.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Pineau and Ms. Auer. You said that the CBC's mandate was fine the way it is. In your opinion, is this mandate being fulfilled adequately?
9:25 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
It is the funding that poses problems. In my opinion, we are spending too much time punishing the CBC, instead of giving it the resources to do what it needs to do.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
9:25 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
Not all the time, and I am tempted to ask who always does fulfil their mandate perfectly. We must take into account all the constraints the CBC is facing.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
In your opinion, funding is the CBC's biggest constraint.
9:25 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
Yes. Also, the fact that there is no predictable funding prevents the CBC from planning ahead and forces it to live on a six-month basis. I experienced this first-hand, since I worked at the head office through the 1990s. And I also know what is going on now.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Since you worked for the CBC, why did you say in the eighth recommendation in your presentation's executive summary, "Thirdly, we support the idea that the Board should include CBC/SRC employees' representatives"?
9:25 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
This is something done by other public broadcasters. We will immediately remove that recommendation if it is seen as union-type representation. It must be clear that we are talking about an employee representative who is elected because he meets the same criteria and corresponds to the same profile as Mr. Scott questioned me about. I would say that this profile should be determined by the board of directors, because it can change to balance out the makeup of the board, etc. The elected employees would also have to have these characteristics.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I find that surprising, because usually there is an employee representative on every board of directors. I did not know that there was not one on the CBC's board of directors.
9:30 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
As far as I know, there is not.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Could local television stations be very useful to the CBC, to culture, etc.?
9:30 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I am not accusing you of anything, but the trick in your question is the word "local". What is a local or regional television station?
9:30 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
That is the great debate. In the 1970s, there were so-called regional stations in Rimouski, Matane, Sept-Îles and Jonquière, but there were none in other regions of the country. A regional station was created in Regina, but this is not the same thing as a regional station in Rimouski.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
This is why I asked the question. The people in Vancouver and Yellowknife complained about the lack of local television, the lack of local topics.
9:30 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
This is also a question of means and technological strategy. These elements must be considered together. The CBC/SRC should not be forced to do things locally that would be suicidal financially. Other vehicles should be looked at, such as the Internet, which is developing, etc.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
It seems as though you are saying that, at the end of the day, the crisis is not technological. It is a funding and programming crisis. If it is not a technological crisis, should the CBC, as a public agency—one that you want to keep public—provide all Canadian taxpayers with accessible television or radio programs that they can identify with?