Canadian Heritage Committee on April 20th, 2007

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. LaRose, let me just ask you this, then. We had a presentation from Corus this morning. They talked about being an affiliate station with CBC, or an affiliate network. Can you talk about the difference between that type of relationship and what you're talking about, or is that what you're aiming for; is that what you would see as beneficial?

[Jean LaRose]

I'm not talking about becoming an affiliate or anything of that nature. What I'm looking at is that they have access to 37% of the Canadian Television Fund.

We did the J.J. Harper story together about three or four years ago. There are many other stories of that nature that APTN can't afford on its own. But if CBC, Radio-Canada, and APTN were to partner, there are many more stories that we could tell together, and that's where I think the role is.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

This is a little off-base, but 37% of the CTF is designated to CBC, and I think it's 10% of the English-language envelope that is for francophone producers outside of Quebec. Anyway, there's a sort of designated envelope for CBC for francophones outside Quebec. Do aboriginal producers have access to the same sorts of moneys under the CTF as well?

[Jean LaRose]

No. The envelope that's available to the francophones outside Quebec is roughly $8 million to $10 million a year. APTN has access to what's called the Aboriginal Language Initiative, which is about $2.9 million. We currently support about 69 aboriginal producers with an envelope of $2.9 million, and from the numbers I saw for the francophones outside Quebec, I believe there are about nine or ten producers who receive between $8 million and $10 million. So I think there would be room for the envelope to be expanded for aboriginal programming.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Because they're not part of the mandate of CBC, as aboriginal peoples they're not forced to partner with you, I suspect it's not within the 37% that they receive, that there's a designated envelope within that for aboriginal producers.

[Jean LaRose]

No, that envelope is specific to them. Our envelope is what's called the ALI. It's a very small envelope that's administered by Telefilm, in this case.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

But there's no part of their envelope that says a certain percentage of that 37% has to go to aboriginal programming.

[Jean LaRose]

Not to my knowledge, no.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

I have a couple of questions, and again they're to the APTN.

When we were in Yellowknife—And I do understand the vastness and the underpopulation of the north. The vastness—about half of Canada—is very sparsely populated. I know that transmitters are a big thing. Are those your transmitters that you talked about--the 100 and some transmitters that are out there? Are any of them CBC transmitters? Because it was brought up when we were there that there was a francophone group whose transmitter was down, and CBC had helped them with $17,000, or some moneys anyway, to get their transmitter up.

Do you transmit, or do you use other facilities in transmitting?

[Jean LaRose]

The 96 transmitters across the north are basically APTN's network of transmitters, but some are co-located with CBC. On some of the towers there's both an APTN and a CBC transmitter from the same tower. I think there are about 30 of those that are co-locations. These towers are now beyond their life expectancies. What we've been working on and what we've received permission from Heritage Canada to do is to phase out the transmitters in favour of a cable and DTH solution to connect the entire north. It would not be economically feasible for APTN—there's no way we can afford to replace the transmitters today, and certainly not with digital or HD transmitters. So we've partnered with Bell ExpressVu as well as the northern co-op, the cable cooperators for northern Canada and northern Quebec. We will be connecting each home either through satellite or cable to ensure that they still receive the APTN north signal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much for that.

Thanks for your presentations this afternoon. I think this has been a great day here in Toronto with our committee. I wish everyone a safe trip home.

The meeting is adjourned.