Canadian Heritage Committee on March 29th, 2007

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you very much for being here this morning. We appreciate your testimony.

Like Mr. Angus, I represent a community that has some rural and isolated French communities. We also have isolated English-speaking communities. The complaint seems to be the same in both communities--simply that the CBC doesn't seem to represent who these people are.

We heard some interesting testimony this morning. You were here for the earlier presenters as well. Where the CBC is not representing evening news or reflecting the communities it serves now, is there another way we might be able to better reflect both French and English communities, one to another, across this country?

The idea was floated of a possible renaissance toward more of a documentary style of production, and that type of thing. You probably heard that idea. What are your thoughts on it?

[Marielle Beaulieu]

As we mentioned in our brief, one of the dilemmas for Radio-Canada—and in my opinion, the previous witness clearly demonstrated this—is the whole issue of competition. There is talk of making Radio-Canada function in the same way as any other broadcaster, subject to market forces.

You propose to direct them towards the documentary format. I would say that that would be very risky. Canadian society is what it is. It is interested in what is happening domestically and elsewhere in the world. It likes comedies, documentaries and a great variety of programs. In any case, I believe it is very important that our public broadcaster speak to what is going on in the country, be it locally, regionally, provincially or nationally.

I believe that if we were to reduce the scope of Radio-Canada to give it a more documentary style, we would risk losing a large part of our current audience share. In my opinion, we must on the contrary strengthen Radio-Canada and Canadian content, so that we can better speak to what Canada is today and reach out to isolated communities, whether those are anglophone communities in Quebec—we must recognize that—or francophone communities like those Mr. Angus was talking about.

I am tempted to say that in my opinion, the solutions are not necessarily easy nor unique. I think we need to assess the entire problem—and that is to some extent the role you have given yourselves—and ask ourselves what we expect of our public broadcaster.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Yes, and that leads to the question of what we want. Obviously there are a number of things in terms of programming. I have no way of judging what Canadians want at this point, and we're going to have some mechanisms to get feedback from Canadians. But generally I think Canadians would like to see a public broadcaster bringing Canadians together as a country. We want to better understand who our neighbours are. We want to better understand other provinces. We want to better understand what people are doing in other parts, both the French and the English.

Do you have some ideas as to how we might begin to bridge what the CBC and Radio-Canada have possibly left out of their mandate in past years? There's talk of silos--of CBC being in one silo, Radio-Canada being in another silo--and that the two don't necessarily mesh. Do you have some ideas on how to better blend and communicate one to the other, at least to Canadians in different communities, so they might better come to understand one another?

[Marielle Beaulieu]

I agree with you on this.

[Serge Quinty]

I think that Radio-Canada and CBC have done some work on that, particularly here in Ottawa. I am thinking of the merger of the newsrooms. They really tried to break down the barriers to ensure that, on the one hand, radio and television could work together, be it in English or in French, and on the other hand, to try and ensure that the CBC and Radio-Canada work together, that the newsrooms work together.

Standing on the outside looking in, I would say that it is going to take time before they manage to decompartmentalize things completely, change their way of thinking and take a more national perspective. But in fact, I think that this decompartmentalization, which has already brought these people together and made them work together, is a beginning. But beyond that, who knows what the future holds? It is a good question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Scott.

Let's try to keep both the question and the answer to five minutes.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Is that directed to me personally?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I hope everyone around the table reflects on that.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Bienvenue.

I was pleased to hear what Mr. Angus had to say about northern Ontario. Coming from New Brunswick, I'm quite aware of the benefits of Radio-Canada. But I'd like to consider one opportunity, and that has to do with what I think is the complementarity between community radio and Radio-Canada.

Both perform a very serious, important function in an English city, Fredericton, with about a 10% francophone population. It has occurred to me in the past that there may be some complementarity there that could be helpful.

I spoke of this before, because the second problem, which is a real challenge, is with kids. Technology is working against a lot that has been accomplished in New Brunswick since the 1960s in reversing the assimilation that was taking place, and in fact I think New Brunswick stands out in duality. Charlie mentioned the school system. I think duality has done it in New Brunswick, for the record. But I'm worried now because the new entertainment systems, the new media for all kinds of things, are heavily English.

So is there some opportunity through the school system to engage kids in a very specific, objective, and driven way to at least offer the opportunity of options? I'm particularly interested in the complementarity, because I know how engaged you are in community specifically, and I think you can help a lot in some of these challenges.

I don't want it to become an excuse either way. I don't want community radio to be an excuse for not financing Radio-Canada, and I don't want Radio-Canada to be an excuse for not financing community radio. They're both critical, but I think they can be complementary.

Do you have any comments?

[Marielle Beaulieu]

Definitely yes. I completely agree with you on the issue of the complementarity of these two tools, because they are indeed different tools. My colleague will no doubt wish to comment on that aspect.

I would say to you that community radio is extremely important to us because indeed, it has to be situated at the heart of the action. For example, if we are talking about what is going on in the French-language schools, or even the English schools in communities where anglophones are in the minority, I think that community radio stations play an extremely important role for youth, for children and adolescents, and in a broader sense in terms of cultural identity as well, this goes without saying.

Having said that, Radio-Canada also absolutely has a community mandate, but in a different way. Community radio, naturally, has to be very close to people's experience, and must offer people through the broadcast of its programming, what is at the very heart of the community, through various means.

Radio-Canada, on the other hand, has a different image and is more concerned, obviously, with news, among other things.

Having said that, I will give the floor to my colleague.

[Serge Quinty]

Mr. Scott, I am in a good position to answer your question because I know the world of community radio very well, since I am a product of it. It is interesting, but sometimes it rather annoys the people from the Alliance des radios communautaires when we talk about complementarity. In fact, in an ideal world, that is what should happen. However, in some regions, community radio stations fully play the role that Radio-Canada should play.

For example, I'll bring you back to the example of Radio Beauséjour in Shediac, in your riding, in New Brunswick. In fact, it is thanks to CJSE that there has been a refrancisation and a new infatuation with the Acadian identity in this region, the production of new records and the creation of new groups. According to a BBM survey on audience ratings, the station had a 32% audience share, including both English and French, in the region of Greater Moncton. In this case, it is not an issue of complementarity, it is a situation where CJSE is squarely playing the role of Radio-Canada. In terms of the role that Radio-Canada could play, I would like to bring you back to television and talk to you a little bit about TFO.

In our opinion, TFO represents a television model that really piques the interest of young people, that really reaches out to young people in their world, whether it be at school, through podcasts, the Internet, or be it through chatrooms. These are solutions we should explore.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I want to comment on the point made about the collaboration between Radio-Canada and CBC. There are language of work issues that are critically important to protect in that exercise. That point didn't come up in a response, and I think it needs to be made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Ms. Bourgeois.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Beaulieu, during an exchange with Mr. Warkentin, you spoke of very isolated anglophone communities. You said that there are very isolated francophone communities, but that there are also very isolated anglophone communities. In any case, it suggested that there are such communities in Quebec as well. I was not aware of that, because we know that the situation of anglophones here, in Quebec, is different: we earmark budgets within our provincial programs to help anglophones here, in Quebec.

Do you really believe they are experiencing the same situation?

[Marielle Beaulieu]

Personally, I would make a distinction. There is the anglophone community of Montreal, which is not what I was talking about. On the other hand, if you go into northern Quebec, in the region of Sept-Îles, etc., there are indeed anglophones, even in some areas of the Gaspé, who live in a very isolated situation. One of the things we realized in working or speaking with anglophone communities in Quebec, is that in the regions, the situation of anglophones is similar to that of certain isolated communities.

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

All right, we must be very careful.

[Marielle Beaulieu]

Precisely, we must be very careful.

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

There are very few similarities because, to my knowledge, they do in fact have services, whereas certain francophone communities outside of Quebec have none.

[Marielle Beaulieu]

I am not in a position to comment on the subject. I believe that anglophones in Quebec could certainly better speak to the issue than me.

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

All right, but I would still like to set the record straight. The situation of anglophones here, in Quebec, is very different from the situation of francophones outside Quebec, because we allocate budgets for them and we pay attention to them.

Having said that, my second question is for Mr. Quinty. You said earlier that the CBC and Radio-Canada have tried to work together. Given the fact that Quebec is a sort of beacon for the francophone communities in Canada, do you believe it is a good thing that the SRC and CBC work together to harmonize all of the things they do? Would it not be better to keep the Société Radio-Canada as it stands in Quebec and rather to change the mandate of the CBC?

[Serge Quinty]

In my opinion, we need a Société Radio-Canada that represents all of the Canadian francophonie; we need a strong CBC that also represents the specificity of Canada in the English language. I would say to you that in terms of sharing resources, this could be advantageous, particularly in the context of converging technologies. I am talking about the breakdown of silos as I am aware of the situation, here in the Ottawa newsrooms, because I do not know what is happening in the other regions or in Quebec. On the other hand, I do believe that we still should have a French-language Société Radio-Canada that reports on the overall Canadian francophonie.

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

That's fine, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Warkentin. We only have a few minutes left, so one question.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I'll keep it short.

I certainly didn't intend to stir up any type of controversy. What I wanted to draw out is the fact that English-speaking communities, even in my riding, don't see themselves necessarily reflected when they see news coming from Toronto or from Vancouver. So I think it's a bigger issue, and you've identified it, and I certainly didn't want to put this tension between anybody on the committee. It's simply the fact that people in my constituency, if they be French-speaking, if they be English-speaking, don't necessarily always see themselves reflected by CBC or Radio-Canada, and they don't necessarily find out a whole lot more about other remote communities or communities that are less represented in terms of population.

What I'd like to do is have your feedback--and I think you've brought it--that there might be a unifying effect CBC and Radio-Canada might make. It wasn't my intention that we blow all the walls between Radio-Canada and CBC and that we merge the two; that certainly wasn't the intent.

I think there are common stories that Radio-Canada and the CBC could tell in the respective languages, certainly, but about the different cultures that we have here represented in Canada. We could tell the stories about rural Quebec to the rest of Canada. If we have to translate it into English, that would be all the better, so that everybody can understand it. That's the point I was making, and I think we might be in agreement on this.

[Marielle Beaulieu]

I think so too.