Thank you, Mr. Chairman, mesdames et messieurs, for the opportunity to present to this committee.
My name is Bart Simpson, believe it or not--it could be worse—and I'm with the Newfoundland and Labrador chapter of the Documentary Organisation of Canada. I'm also the immediate past national chair of the organization.
I'm also lucky enough to have produced, with my former company, the feature film The Corporation, which got over $5 million in domestic box office and is counted as the highest-grossing documentary of all time.
The Documentary Organisation of Canada is a national, bilingual, non-profit professional arts organization that represents almost 700 independent documentarians across the country. They live in all provinces and territories, ranging in size and scope from kitchen-table producers to veteran craftspeople to producers who own companies employing more than 50 people on a regular basis.
Before going further, I believe it's important to state outright that there is an historic connection between the CBC and documentary filmmaking, and indeed the emergence of the documentary industry in Canada. As CBC's mandate outlines, their duty is to accomplish many of the same things domestic documentaries strive to be--namely, to be distinctly Canadian; to provide a means of cultural expression; to contribute to our national consciousness; and to reflect the multicultural and multi-ethnic nature of Canada in both official languages.
Our national body and chapters across the country have presented briefs to this committee. I won't go into those in detail. Rather, I will refer you to the presentation made by our executive director, Samantha Hodder. Our chapter stands by this presentation and those of all our chapters, the main bullet points of which I'll outline here. Then I'll talk briefly about issues in the regions, specifically Newfoundland and Labrador.
As Ms. Hodder and national board member Danijel Margetic outlined in their brief, despite documentaries' natural fit with the CBC, we've seen some alarming declines in documentaries on the main network. Programming hours have declined from a peak of 263 hours in 2003-04 to just 122 hours in 2005-06. We've seen many strands cut or diminished over this time period, including Life and Times, Opening Night, and The Nature of Things.
The funny thing is that all of this is in a time when documentaries are more in the public consciousness than ever before. It seems almost counterintuitive, for example, to cut The Nature of Things, a well-respected documentary strand focusing on the environment, from its 17-hour peak to a nine-hour summer series when environmental issues are now in the forefront of Canadian discussion and when films like An Inconvenient Truth prove to be a massive success with audiences.
The recent Canadian documentary Manufactured Landscapes, made by DOC member Jennifer Baichwal, also dealt with environmental issues and enjoyed a long run in theatres in major centres in the country. It was also one of the top-grossing English productions this year.
Given all of the above, we have much concern over how the CBC will potentially operate the documentary channel--assuming it goes through--specifically in regard to feature documentaries, licence fees, and definitions of documentary.
I'd like to close with a few comments on Newfoundland and Labrador. First, we support the statements made by the Producers' Association of Newfoundland. We're a tight-knit community here. I'm not native to here, but I moved here two years ago and have been amazed at the amount and quality of work that comes from this region in particular. It's not the reason I came here, but it's the reason I've stayed.
Newfoundland has a strong storytelling history. We can help in the goal of CBC reflecting Canada to its regions and to national and local audiences. We support a regular and routine examination of the CBC's mandate. We also support local and regional airtime for locally made, well-funded productions in documentary. What's more, good development support in the region will act as a good springboard to national exposure.
On behalf of our membership, our regional board of directors, and our regional chair, Nigel Markham, thanks for the opportunity to present these remarks. I welcome your questions.