Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Monsieur Roy, for appearing before our committee today. It's greatly appreciated.
Sir, I understand from the chair that because we don't have an NDP member here today we're going to get seven minutes for this exchange. I plan to speak for about four minutes, leaving time for your response. When I finish, I'll ask a few questions that will be directly related to your ability and skill to chair the board of Telefilm.
On the bottom of page 3 in your opening remarks you said that you had some apprehension before you accepted your position as chair of this board, because of the harsh criticism of Telefilm in the past. I will be asking you to comment on that past.
My comments obviously in no way will be a criticism of you, Monsieur Roy, as you're a recent appointment, but I want to touch on some of that harsh criticism and then allow you to enlighten us as to how you may lead the board forward.
First of all, in terms of the board, it's responsible for providing strategic guidance to management, ensuring good value for the funding provided by taxpayers, and holding management accountable for its performance.
The mandate of Telefilm Canada I read verbatim:
As a cultural investor in cinema, television, multimedia and music, Telefilm Canada is primarily concerned with the funding of original, diverse and high-quality productions that reflect Canada's linguistic duality and cultural diversity. Telefilm Canada accordingly supports productions with a high level of Canadian content.
It goes on from there.
Telefilm is an arm's-length entity to the government. Telefilm uses established criteria to distribute taxpayers' dollars. But the established criteria include discretion and value judgments.
In my mind, sir, and in the minds of many of my colleagues and many, many Canadians who will be watching today, the purpose of Telefilm is to help facilitate the making of films for mainstream Canadian society, films that Canadians can sit down and watch with their families in living rooms across this great country.
Historically, though, some of the judgments of Telefilm have raised controversy, the most recent example being a film.... I'm very hesitant to use this title, Mr. Chair, but it's part of the harsh criticism that we're going to levy at Telefilm Canada. The film is titled Young People Fucking, and that was shown this summer at the Toronto International Film Festival.
I haven't seen this film, but it's my understanding that the film contains a lot of soft-porn images. It's supposedly somewhat witty, but with very blue dialogue. It is certainly not discussion that most Canadians would share in their homes or offices.
There are, of course, other examples.
Let me just back up a minute. I'll read a description of the film I just alluded to. The description is that is “a scathingly honest and hilarious portrayal of four couples, one threesome and a crazy night of sex”.
There was, of course, a lot of controversy previously about a film called Bubbles Galore, in which an adult entertainer obtained a grant from the hard-working taxpayers of Canada to make what was a soft-porn film.
You can continue on and look on the Internet, and there's a film entitled Rub & Tug.
A colleague of mine approached me today, a very esteemed colleague, an assistant deputy speaker, Mr. Scheer, and said, “I want you to bring up at committee today a film called Control Alt Delete”. I just want to read for you, sir, a brief description:
It’s 1999 and lovable computer geek Lewis is dumped by his long-time girlfriend Sarah. So he does what any young techie would: beat off to Internet porn. But as Y2K hysteria takes hold, Lewis discovers that the website images no longer turn him on... and so begins his strange sexual relationship with the machine itself. It isn’t long before his desire for newer, sexier models has Lewis copulating with co-workers’ CPUs.
I could go on, but I'm not going to.