Canadian Heritage Committee on May 25th, 2007

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

As much as I'd like to decide what the committee is going to say, I don't think the chair will let me.

So no, I'm just exploring the possibilities here. One of my concerns is that while we attempt to do this simultaneously, the level of disparity between the two would grow. Then you would have a different kind of challenge. I think that's a real concern.

I'd also like to ask you about the impact of resource restrictions. We've spoken of it here and we've gotten it all across the country. I don't think anybody would challenge the idea that if there are deficiencies in the CBC's exercise or fulfillment of its mandate, it can be related to resource restrictions that go back probably 15 years.

To each of you, what has been the impact for you? What have you seen in those resource restrictions or cuts?

[Marc Simard]

For the affiliates, the impact was as follows. As responsible broadcasters for 50 years, we have maintained the same level of local production at our stations, despite Radio-Canada's cuts. Consequently, our stations are now barely profitable. As broadcasters, we have decided to make the effort to continue, hoping that there will be an adjustment at some point, but we have not at all reduced our local programming so that we can maintain services to our fellow citizens.

[Justice François Lewis, Member of the Steering Committee, Coalition pour la radiotélévision publique francophone]

There is one thing that I don't clearly understand. In the case of the affiliated stations in Sherbrooke, Saguenay and Trois-Rivières, in the past, Radio-Canada has made the decision to establish service contracts. However, programs are produced in part by Radio-Canada journalists and technicians. It is Radio-Canada that produces the news broadcasts for Sherbrooke, Saguenay and Trois-Rivières. The service contract concerns launching and broadcasting. I think that Radio-Canada has done its share to ensure the program is created. Then it remains for it to be launched. I don't know whether the percentages that I heard reflect that reality. There was a change in that regard, when Radio-Canada assumed a certain part of the production. That is probably because the corporation does not have the necessary money to have broadcast transmitters. That's done by the affiliates.

[Sylvio Morin]

I'm going to make a comment on the impact that has on programming. It must be understood that what was taken from Paul will be given to Peter. The cuts that were made to CBC/Radio-Canada were made in order to create funding programs, particularly federal programs. Money isn't created in Ottawa or Quebec City. In the 1990s, Gérard Veilleux closed down the local stations. The budgets that were cut at Radio-Canada were given to little private sector friends through the funding programs. That has to be clearly understood.

People talked about the impact that had on Radio-Canada's French-language programming. The corporation had a revenue shortfall and had to make programming choices that, in some cases, were not necessarily consistent with its mandate. It had to take a private commercial direction where it had to go after ratings so that advertisers would pay money to offset the cuts. So programming choices were made. For example, in sports at Radio-Canada, La soirée du hockey is long gone. In English Canada, people could still watch Hockey Night in Canada. And yet Radio-Canada is a general-interest network. The sports field was taken over by the Réseau des sports, a private channel accessible solely by cable. Programming choices were made. The cuts had an impact: they changed the entire broadcasting universe.

At the coalition, we talk about holding a public debate on the future of public broadcasting. In fact, it's a debate on the future of television in Canada that we should have. I think that the federal government shouldn't just be talking about the CBC/Radio-Canada, but about the entire industry and prepare a report. Programs were created 15 or 20 years ago. Today, we have to see how far we've come; we see the crises that this is causing. Their convergence and new platforms are factors. I think we've gotten to the point where everyone in the industry in Canada has to sit down—that can be directed by the federal government—to sum up the position and see what is going on now. I think that, before long, we're going to wind up in a dead end. If we look at each of the factors one at a time, just CBC/Radio-Canada, just the private sector, or just funding, something will eventually occur and the machine will break down.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We're going to switch over now to Mr. Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hello again and thank you for being here. What you're telling us today is very interesting.

I have a lot of questions to ask you but I'm going to try to condense them in order to get the essential substance to feed our analysts. My first question is for the affiliates, and I'm playing the devil's advocate. Why do you think it appropriate and necessary to testify here today?

[Raynald Brière]

Because we play an extremely important and somewhat unknown role. We are located in regions that do not have a high profile: northern Quebec, the Lower St. Lawrence and so on. These are not regions that make the headlines every day, and people don't talk about them regularly. There's a kind of cleavage between the major centres and the regions. A lot of attention has been focused on the big cities. I'm originally from the Saguenay region. I've been living in Montreal for 25 years. I often have occasion to go into the regions, and I see that the needs are different. It's not the same thing. It's fine that it's that way. People are entitled to a quality of life in Rouyn-Noranda, Timmins, Kapuskasing or anywhere else. We think it's important to make this viewpoint heard. Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary are major centres. Rouyn-Noranda, Chicoutimi, Red Deer and so on are important places. Half of the population of Quebec lives outside Montreal. We work for that 50%. We respect half of the people, those who live outside the major centres. So I think it's important that we make ourselves heard today.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

You say you want your present role to be entirely maintained. What do you defend locally? Culture, information?

[Raynald Brière]

A local television station is, first of all, the information centre: it broadcasts the news. With increasing media concentration—and that won't stop—Canada's Francophone market has witnessed a certain standardization of content. Information is manufactured in Montreal and redistributed in the regions.

We think that local life exists. The softwood lumber problem in northern Quebec, for example, had virtually no impact in Montreal. If I live in Outremont or Westmount, the softwood lumber or mining problems in northern Quebec don't concern me. However, if live in Rouyn-Noranda, my life and my family are affected. So I need a community life so that I can talk about and debate those issues. That's it for information.

As for cultural life, an important festival was held in Rouyn-Noranda, at the International Film Festival in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. In Montreal, there's little interest in it, because there's already a major film festival in that city, and there's an even bigger one in Cannes. The Rouyn-Noranda film festival, who cares? But it's important for the people who live there.

There's also the guitar festival in Rouyn-Noranda. There are local cultural activities. These people are entitled to a community life. Television is like the church steps: it enables people to gather and talk. Economic promotion, community works, all that is disappearing because we live in big cities and that's where decisions are made.

And yet half the population lives outside those major cities. We're a kind of economic, cultural, social and information driver. One hundred percent of our news is local. No one can do it; the networks can't do it anymore because that's no longer their purpose. Their economic model is built on something else. That's the big difference.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

How do you see the community radio system?

[Raynald Brière]

That's a good question.

That system is important. The problem stems from its funding arrangement. If I have to compete with organizations that receive grants, I'm not fighting on equal terms or with the same weapons. By giving those organizations economic advantages and the same opportunities to earn advertising revenue, you create an imbalance that will ultimately affect us. We are private businesses, and we essentially live off advertising. So it's hard for us to compete with organizations that are subsidized.

[Marc Simard]

Allow me to add something. In fact, conventional television in our regions provides a service to the public day after day, free of charge. There are volunteers who organize all kinds of activities in our regions, which we announce on our airwaves free of charge.

I'm trying to understand the meaning of your question. Of course, if they announce their activities through a community station, on cable, on channel 82, for example, and we announce an important activity of a musical organization in the evening, in the slots that we have left, on a network program, you'll understand that, if there are 50,000 listeners listening to the free message that we've just broadcast, there's no comparison with the message that would be broadcast by a community station, with all due deference to the community stations.

In addition, our infrastructures are in no way comparable to those of the community stations. As affiliates, we have to have production equipment that is virtually as state of the art as the equipment in Montreal. Imagine you're in one of our regions or in another region of Canada and you're listening, on a small station, to a half-hour program that comes from the network and that was produced at a cost of $250,000. To produce local programs, we have to have adequate equipment. We have equipment similar to that of the major networks to produce programs of very good quality, but it's not comparable.

Conventional television, which is mass market television, gives our population a high profile. That's what is important. People can take advantage of a mass medium to advertise our activities to everyone.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I understand your message. Even though I'm not asking a lot of questions, that's quite clear to me. We've been informed in that regard.

[Sylvio Morin]

Incidentally, Mr. Kotto, the word “community” is included in the Broadcasting Act thanks to me. I'll explain that to you one day.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Your argument suggested that you had a fear, that the role you play in the regions will be diminished. Where does that fear stem from?

[Raynald Brière]

The more financial pressure Radio-Canada is under, the more it transmits that pressure onto us. It's the principle of the bigger versus smaller. It's a little like fishing: the big fish eat the small fish.

Earlier I told you that we were renewing the agreements every five years. In terms of revenue, the present agreement is 30% lower than what we had five years ago. What will it be when we renew in 2010?

In my view, there are two possible options: either Radio-Canada decides to take back its affiliates, by buying them back or otherwise, and to produce its content itself, to take care of that, to set up in Rouyn-Noranda, in Rivière-du-Loup or elsewhere and to serve the population; or it recognizes that we are playing an important role and decides to work with us to improve that role. There are little things that we can do.

In Abitibi, there is an infrastructure in which we have invested millions of dollars worth of equipment. So we should be able to provide images of that market to Radio-Canada in Montreal. However, to cover the International Film Festival in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Radio-Canada uses its own directors. That makes no sense, since we have the necessary infrastructure as an affiliate. We should be able to provide that service. We could save money together. The public and private sectors are not prohibited from working together. There's nothing in the act that says that can't be done. I think we have an interest in doing more of that.

[Marc Simard]

I'd also like to cite an example that occurred in the eastern part of the country, in the Lower St. Lawrence, where I live. Some 15 years ago, Radio-Canada was operating a television station in the City of Rimouski, a market twice as big as those of Rivière-du-Loup and Rouyn. For economic reasons, the corporation said it could no longer operate a station in that market.

We operate in markets half that size. Twenty years later, we are still there, and we produce news broadcasts every day. I'm citing that example in response to the question you asked in your document, whether private affiliates can continue to play a role in the Canadian broadcasting system, particularly with CBC/Radio-Canada. I'm telling you: we are ready to do it.

Mr. Angus referred to many specialty services, but they virtually don't serve the regions. The only way of reaching a mass of citizens is still conventional television. I know there are community and other radio stations, but here I'm talking about television. We're ready to continue playing this role, as we have for 50 years, when the corporation couldn't afford to do so. At the time, Radio-Canada said that television was so costly that it could not afford to provide it across the country and that it would limit itself to the major cities.

We helped extend CBC/Radio-Canada's service and we would like to continue doing that. We are able to do it very well.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

I have just a couple of comments I'd like to make, although they might show my age a wee bit.

I can remember very well the Indian-head test pattern back in the early fifties. I remember we'd sit there in front of the television and just watch that. Whether it was CBC or CTV or Global--I don't think I missed an opening in our area--we'd watch that test pattern for the longest time.

Back in those times--yes, I come from southwestern Ontario--CFPL London was a CBC affiliate, and they did serve the region well. As time went on, I watched that with newspapers too. A local newspaper would serve a region and then would maybe be bought out by a conglomerate or whatever. Pretty soon, if you bought the Toronto Star, you knew what was in all the newspapers across the way; there was very little regional.

This is something we've heard, whether in Newfoundland or in Yellowknife or in Vancouver or in Winnipeg: regional, regional, regional. I know there are a lot of public broadcasters in small areas; for instance, in our area, Rogers Cable has a very good regional area. They look into those little things--a 100th birthday party for someone or whatever--that are very important.

I know from talking with the Corus group, they have a couple of affiliates, one in Kingston. I know how those things can work together. The affiliates end up getting squeezed a little wee bit sometimes, but if we're going to solve some of the regional programming with the public broadcaster, CBC/SRC, I think we may have to look that way a little bit more.

Another question that has been brought up is, should the CBC be transmitters of programming or should they be programmers? Should there be a public-private partnership, with maybe the distribution of the signal shopped out in some way, and they concentrate on the programming? I know that works in some hospitals, where someone builds the beautiful hospital and someone else rents the system and carries on. There are various things like that.

I found the presentations this morning to be very interesting. I hope I haven't bored you with anything I have said. Thank you for your presentations and thank you for your frankness in answering the questions.

The meeting is adjourned.