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.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I will respond by repeating what the President of the CBC said when he appeared before you the last time. He said that you put it in a contract and that, when it is accompanied by the necessary money, you get what you want:
the punishment must fit the crime, so the bill must fit the order.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you very much for coming here today. This is an excellent presentation. There was a great deal of thought put into it. Unfortunately, I only have five minutes, so I'm going to scramble through it as quickly as I can with some key points.
The issue of governance structure is key. Right now we have a very bush-league governance structure at the CBC, and I'm glad you brought that up.
I'm interested in where you say the technology does not pose challenges; the lack of funding to deploy and use technology poses the challenge. Then you say the audio-visual content being delivered through the Internet to mobile phones and other wireless technology must contribute to Canadian content financially. I'd like to speak to that question.
The only thing holding back widespread watching of free downloaded Hollywood movies right now is bandwidth. The bandwidth is moving up continually because the telecoms are moving in to address the fact that the public want to watch whatever they want whenever they want, and they're going to watch it for free because they won't have to pay for it.
Would you suggest that the telecoms should have to pay into the fund because they are now the providers of content that many people are enjoying?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
Yes, that's a point that we've made on several occasions with the CRTC in different hearings. We believe that as the act is technologically neutral, the funding that goes with the act should be technologically neutral, and therefore all providers of all platforms should be called upon to contribute to the fund.
Monica Auer Legal Counsel, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I would just add, Mr. Angus, that one concern that was raised by many people was that there would have to be some way of amending the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act to ensure that they were consistent on this issue. Although the CCA would definitely prefer to have all distribution-like undertakings contribute to Canadian content if they want to participate in this economy, the question is whether the Telecommunications Act would allow that kind of payment to be made. That might require an amendment by Parliament.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
If you could provide this committee with any recommendations down the road, for us to follow up, that would be very much appreciated.
I'd like to ask another question about your support for the Canadian Television Fund, which we have just studied here, as an effective and accountable instrument to achieve the objectives of the Broadcasting Act, and whether it can evolve into a multi-platform model for funding Canadian visual content.
One of the questions that has been raised—because we're dealing with money going into independent production—is how realistic it is that these independently produced shows that are being done out of various production houses can then be put onto a viewing platform, since the broadcaster gets one-time rights to use this show and does not get the rights, then, to put it into other content. How do we address this issue? Does there have to be a change at the CTF in order to ensure that if you're going to broadcast a show, you're also going to be able to broadcast it onto cell phones, or onto any other possible platform?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
There is no doubt that the rights and the debate about the rights are at the centre of all of this. It doesn't help that we don't know exactly where we're going with rights. It's a very difficult debate. It's a debate that has divided our own organization, quite frankly, just to show the extremes of positions that are taken on this topic in the past. We are waiting now to see what the proposal on the table to amend the act will be, but there is no doubt that in this particular file, we have to reinvent the business model.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I have a final question on this. We have seen--and I have pointed this out at committee--that BBC is moving rapidly. They've just basically put it on YouTube, and it's been extremely successful in terms of building another whole viewing audience. Have you looked at the difference? Is it because BBC does in-house productions? For what reason is BBC able to put their back catalogue on the Internet while CBC is very challenged in terms of that?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I cannot answer that question, but I certainly take note of it. We're not only telling you and other people that we should look at things globally. We are planning, over the next year, to organize a conference that would try to look at the big picture. We're in the process of gathering the main elements of that event. That's one of the questions that we will put down in terms of either research that we produce or debates that we organize.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for attending today. Your information is very helpful.
I'd like to get back to something that you did your level best to skate around. That was the issue of professional sports, and whether CBC should actually be in that market at all.
Since this is a CBC mandate review, and you represent the arts and cultural programming, do you believe that CBC should play a role in presenting professional sports programming, and if not, why not, and if so, why so?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
There are many arguments concerning sports that have been used throughout the years. The debate is not new, and until last night all indications seemed to be, except very recently, that the CBC would be out of most major professional sports events in this country through the sheer force of the market, because until last night it was not clear that it would be able to secure the rights to Hockey Night in Canada.
Hockey Night in Canada can be defended from all sorts of points of view, including, I think, articles in the act that say that the CBC should be reaching all. At this moment in time, it's probably still true—I stand to be corrected—that the CBC is the distribution system that reaches the largest number of Canadians. So they could at the end of the day say, “If it's Hockey Night in Canada, and it's so important to Canadian identity, shouldn't it be our role to bring it to all and sundry?” That's one set of arguments. There are others.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I don't want to hear your arguments; I want to know your position on it.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
We don't have a position on this one at this point, sir. We may have one by next year, if the work we are planning goes well.
It's something that has to be looked at in the general ecology of the system. Important financial aspects are linked to that, and unless we make trade-offs in the system as such that would not disfavour one party, whether it be the private or the public sector, in trying to achieve the objectives of the act, I think we should not tinker with that.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
All right.
I'd like to go to the brief that you submitted to this committee. On page 7 you make the bold statement, and it was articulated earlier, that “the CCA recommends that all forms of distribution systems be regulated by the CRTC”. That's a pretty broad statement. I'm assuming what you're saying is that you would like to see the government and the CRTC regulate all forms of new media. Is that correct?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I want to clarify the word “regulate”. We are not against deregulation, don't get us wrong. But we are for the level playing field. We think all distribution platforms should be treated alike.
The current ones that are recognized under the general headings of radio and television broadcasters, cable operators, and satellite deliverers are submitted to a regime, whether you call it regulation or whatever, that has them contributing to the objectives of the act through the money they have to invest in various funds and through the Canadian content regulations that apply to them.
There cannot be the Canadian content regulations for broadcasting that there are or were as we have understood it over the past several decades. I'm with you entirely on that. We're just saying that instead of exempting, we should be looking at the appropriate way to regulate.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Yes, I think you've put your finger on it. The question really is, are some of the forms of new media even capable of being regulated? Can we capture it all?
Mr. Angus, of course, quite correctly pointed to the fact that the real issue here is how we capture the value of the content that's being delivered on these various forms of media. If we don't have a way of capturing it, monetizing it, and being able to secure some remuneration to the creators of that content, we've got ourselves a real problem. And every day that goes by, we're presented with a new form of media, so I suppose that's a challenge.
A broad statement that we should regulate all these forms of new media may be somewhat naive, given the fact that some of these forms of media are incapable of being regulated in the traditional sense of the word at this point.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
To the extent that we're sounding naive--and I will hand over to my colleague here in a second--I can assure you that we will be looking at those issues to get a better sense than I can give them today. And we are looking at them, quite frankly.
You're right. It's not the same thing and it's not easy. It's a question of giving access, essentially. That's the basic touchstone, giving access on all platforms to Canadian cultural content.
Legal Counsel, Canadian Conference of the Arts
I think lawyers are sometimes not given enough credit for being creative when it comes to figuring out what should or should not be captured by regulation. I have no doubt that the CRTC's very capable lawyers and those of the Department of Justice would be able to deal with some of these issues.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
The CRTC has taken a position that it's premature to regulate all the forms of new media at this point.
Legal Counsel, Canadian Conference of the Arts
As you perhaps noted in our brief, we have a difference of opinion as to whether they've used the right legal test for this.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you very much.
I want to apologize for being late, but I read your submission last night.
I think we've heard from everyone. I don't think there's anyone who has come to us and said that the CBC should be cancelled. Everyone spoke about the CBC and its importance. We've seen the figures. We were talking earlier on about what the CBC should do and how it should focus. The most recent survey has shown that 81% of Canadians felt that the CBC must focus on news. They believe that the CBC is the only news carrier they can trust to give a clear picture and not a biased picture. So that's an important piece, news.
About 78% of them also said that the CBC is essential, the glue that holds the country together and helps us to understand each other, and that's a strong mandate.
So I'm not going to ask you about sports or anything like that, but you did say--and most people have said to us--that we should look at the BBC model. Well, the BBC model is exceptionally well funded, and we currently, as you know, are third to last in terms of per capita funding of our public broadcaster. So the CBC's ability to be competitive is completely poor, when you think that we allowed cable companies to be able to get their digital infrastructure and allowed them to raise their fees for Canadians who are buying cable, while the CBC has no ability to raise fees. The CBC has absolutely no ability to do anything but depend on government to raise its “base funding”.
So I would like to know from you what you see as being that increase in CBC funding over the next five years that would bring it up to par with countries like the United Kingdom. That's a first question. I'm asking for a monetary answer here.
The second question is if CBC is going to be able to get into all of the platforms.... We have heard over and over, at least in Vancouver, that one of the important things was for the CRTC to begin to license the digital media forms and new platforms, because I think that's how we can look at monetizing it eventually. So my big question to you is, given that there is political will--and that's a big given; it depends, obviously, on who is going to be making those decisions--what do you think the CBC's funds need to be to make it on par with something like the U.K., maybe over five years, not immediately? How do you see the CBC being more arm's length, because with that money has to come that accountability? What is the arm's-length structure that you see?
My third question--Monica may be able to answer this--is do you think it's important, do you think the key to this has to be the licensing of the new platforms, and therefore copyright changes in the legislation?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
On the arm's length issue, I already answered that question before you came.
On the BBC model, I could not tell you, honestly, by how much the budget of the CBC should be increased at this point in time. There are too many components that have to be put in place to answer that question, for me to say anything that would be intelligent, so I will avoid that one.
I'm sorry, I forgot to write the third one.
