Evidence of meeting #20 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was television.
A recording is available from Parliament.
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
No, not at all. The president, Mr. von Finckenstein, also gave you a very clear answer on Tuesday: like me, he isn't in favour of censorship at all. It's the public that decides whether there are problems. If it doesn't see a problem, who are we to say there is one?
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
How do you go about determining that there isn't a problem? Is that related to the number of complaints you receive?
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
It's related to the fact of receiving no complaints. A single complaint is what it takes for us to start an investigation. It doesn't take 15, 20, 50 or 100: a single complaint can trigger the process. If no Canadians complain about a program, are you claiming that the government or our organization is responsible for telling the general public that there is a problem, simply because it has decided there is one? That makes no sense in Canada.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
What is your basis for saying there isn't a problem? I'm telling you there is a problem because 1.3 million persons signed a petition demanding a change.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
I'd like to know your basis for saying that there isn't a problem. Is that related to the number of complaints? Have you conducted a survey?
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
I explained that to you, madam. You just gave me the contrary example by mentioning the 1.3 million complaints.
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
I understand. Should Virginie Larivière have told Prime Minister Mulroney that she couldn't find a single person in Canada who was prepared to say that there was a violence problem and nevertheless have made her presentation? No. She came in 1991, supported by 1.3 million signatures. All I'm telling you is that, if we receive not one million signatures, but a single complaint, we are prepared to start an investigation. That's very reasonable. It's not reasonable to start an investigation if the public doesn't see a problem.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
I heard you mention censorship a number of times. I heard you use that word a number of times. The bill, as I understand it, provides that the CRTC would establish regulations. I didn't hear any mention of prohibiting production or broadcasts, but, rather, ultimately, of delaying broadcast. So I'm trying to understand why there would be censorship because we would be requesting regulations?
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
It's not because of that. It's because you asked that the government take action, through either regulations or a self-regulatory system, depending on your preference, even in the absence of any complaints. That's censorship.
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
Yes.
We've already done a lot about delaying programming when it isn't at all appropriate to broadcast it before the later time slot. We don't need to change the act in order to operate in that area.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for joining us this afternoon, gentlemen.
I have to say that I do share a little of the skepticism about the definitiveness of your statement that violence is decreasing just because we don't have the number of complaints. It would be helpful, I think, to see some other way of backing up that statement. But it leads me to a couple of questions.
The broadcast council only deals with broadcasters that are members of the council. Can you tell me how many broadcasters wouldn't be members of the council?
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
I'm not sure we know the answer to that.
Do we know the answer to that, John?
John MacNab Executive Director, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
I think there are in the neighbourhood of 900 or so licensed broadcasters. That's not necessarily all broadcasting, though; so I don't know exactly how may broadcasters are actually broadcasting, as opposed to how many are licensed.
We have 629 members. So we have the vast majority of the private broadcasters.
NDP
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
Not a large number of large-market broadcasters, if I may characterize them that way. The bulk of the licensed broadcasters who are actually functioning and who are not members would include very small-market radio broadcasters who are obviously not working in the area of television violence. But in terms of large markets, there would be very few broadcasters who aren't members—apart, of course, from the public broadcasters. We're talking about the private broadcasters.
Executive Director, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
From a television perspective, there are almost no private broadcasters who are not members.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
The other day when Mr. von Finckenstein was here, he said that one of the problems he saw with the current situation was that there were very light penalties and what he called very heavy or excessive penalties. He called for administrative monetary penalties that would allow the imposition of fines.
Do you folks have a response to that? How do you feel the penalty system works in terms of the broadcasters you deal with?
National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
There are two things.
First of all, you just characterized Mr. von Finckenstein's statement as having suggested that there was a problem with very light fines. He didn't say that. What he said was that there is a range of possible recourses that go from the light end—that is, statements or announcements that are required to be made—to the very heavy end, which he described as the blunt instrument, which would be the removal of a licence.
He sought the instrument that he described as an AMP, and I must say we don't have a view on that, because we don't need it. If he comes here and asks for that, then I suppose it's up to you to determine whether it's relevant or isn't relevant. It truly has nothing to do with us. Our instrument works very effectively. We don't have a fining ability; we don't want a fining ability. If you said to me this afternoon that we could have one, I would ask why. We simply don't need it.
So for us it's irrelevant, and we can't speak to what he may or may not find relevant for his circumstance.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Of the broadcasters on which you've imposed a penalty, how many are repeat offenders in the sense that they have been disciplined more than once for a positive finding on a complaint?
