Mr. Chairman and committee members, my name is Marc Simard, and I am the President of CKRT-TV Ltée, which owns CKRT-TV, the CBC/Radio-Canada affiliate in Rivière-du-Loup for the past 45 years. I'm accompanied today by Raynald Brière, President and CEO of Radio-Nord communications, which owns CKRN-TV, the CBC/Radio-Canada affiliate founded almost 50 years ago in Rouyn-Noranda. Also with us is Pierre Harvey, Executive Vice-President of CKRT-TV.
We want to thank you for taking the time to listen to us here today. We feel that your committee's work is essential in order to orient CBC/Radio-Canada's future activities and to ensure that all Canadians have free access to this public service.
Our submission will not deal with all the issues raised in this investigation of the role of a public broadcaster in the twenty-first century. We will be talking about certain issues of particular concern to us as CBC/Radio-Canada affiliate television stations in Quebec operating primarily in the regions for almost 50 years.
On June 2, 1952, the first test pattern (an Indian head) appeared for the first time on television screens on CBFT-Montréal, which presented its first program a few weeks later, on July 25. At that time, the Government of Canada and CBC/Radio-Canada wanted to make the French-language and English-language television service available to all Canadians free of charge and as quickly as possible. For economic reasons, CBC/Radio-Canada television was established in the country's large cities.
To extend its services to the regions, CBC/Radio-Canada, which did not have the financial resources, would have to call on local individuals or companies who would set up the first private television stations in the region, as affiliates of CBC/Radio-Canada, thus giving the vast majority of Canadians the country's first French-language and English-language television service.
In Quebec in particular, the arrival of television in the regions was made possible by major amounts of local capital and a colossal effort by people who wanted to develop their community by giving it an unparallel means of communication and exchange, television. At the same time, they were responding to the government of the day's desire to give all Canadians access to television as quickly as possible. It is worth nothing that most of these families are still active in the communications field today and that their contribution to extending and maintaining CBC/Radio-Canada television in the regions, even today, is inestimable.