Canadian Heritage Committee on March 6th, 2008

[Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer]

The broadcast standards, as I understand them, and the Criminal Code cover the material. That's my opinion, and although WAVAW has not come out with a position on this, I think those do it.

But then the other part of this is that the bill, from our perspective, is fundamentally flawed because it is a stand-alone measure. There isn't a comprehensive way of looking at the big picture of violence, and there aren't the other mechanisms that you want to have in place to support NGOs and research, and the activities that go along with making a difference, the difference that we think might be made here. We don't believe this bill is the way to do it.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fast.

I want to thank our witnesses this first hour for your respect for our time constraints. We thank you for helping this committee in coming to grips with the complexity of the issue before us.

We'll now change the witnesses for the second round.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Colleagues, we'll undertake the second round. I need to remind folks that we're expecting bells convening us to a vote to start ringing at 5:15, so we have less than an hour. I'll try to keep us moving expeditiously.

Who wants to make a presentation?

Mr. Cohen, please.

[Ronald I. Cohen, National Chair, Canadian Broadcast Standards Council]

Merci, monsieur le président. Thank you very much, everyone.

My name is Ronald Cohen. I'm the national chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. With me today is John MacNab, the executive director of the CBSC.

I thank the committee for inviting us to express our views on the bill. We are also grateful that we have been accorded the opportunity to speak at the end of these deliberations. It gives us the opportunity to respond to issues raised during the appearance of other witnesses. And we will of course look forward to the additional questions you will have for us.

Let us begin by making our position utterly clear: we do not believe that Bill C-327 is either necessary or even moderately useful in dealing with the issue of violence on television.

We have filed a written presentation with the committee clerk that will hopefully provide a useful tour d'horizon of the issue. I will try to limit this oral presentation to the clarification of matters raised by witnesses and members of this committee.

The first issue is the nature and extent of the problem of exposure of our children to violence in the media. Is problematic violent content increasing or decreasing? The answer is that it is decreasing. The best evidence of this, as mentioned by Cathy Wing a few moments ago, is the level of complaints filed with the CBSC and the CRTC. Between 2000 and the end of February 2008, the level of complaints about violence on television fell by 22%. The statistics cited by Monsieur Bigras are neither recent nor appropriate. They do not extend beyond 2002, and even then they do not disclose what they cover or represent.

It is essential to acknowledge that not all violence is created equal. The original study of Mr. De Guise and Mr. Paquette, covering the period 1993 to 1998, made no distinction between appropriate and inappropriate violence. Monsieur Bigras referred to the eminent authority in the area, Professor George Gerbner, with great respect this past Tuesday. But what he did not acknowledge to you was that the Laval study did not follow Professor Gerbner's methodology.

The authors of the Laval study said:

Unlike Gerbner, who considers sequences of violence, we decided to count violent acts, such that, in this study, each separate gesture, action and event is considered as a separate act of violence.

Those are their words. They underscore that the numbers they report are exaggerated. Moreover, they make no distinction between our common goal of protecting children, on the one hand, and violence that may not be problematic or inappropriate at all, on the other. The bottom line is that there is simply no evidence that there is, in 2008, any problem that needs parliamentary intervention of any kind.

Second, the system is actually working.

When Mr. Scott observed on Tuesday that he knew that Mr. Bigras believed that the present system was failing, he added that he had not understood Mr. Bigras' explanation as to why he thought the system was failing.

Nor will the committee members have missed the response to the question put by Mr. Abbott regarding the absence of complaints about children's programming subsequent to the CBSC's Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers decision.

Monsieur Bigras was either unable or unwilling to cite a single example of problematic children's programming since the 1994 CBSC decision. It's because there hasn't been one.

Third, much justification for Bill C-327 has been placed on the fact that the violence code is voluntary. The only aspect, members of this committee, of the violence code that is voluntary is its title. As the CRTC chairman said on Tuesday, the code is obligatory: it is a condition of licence for every television broadcaster in this country. It could not be more involuntary.

Moreover, the statement by Monsieur Bigras that the adjudication is undertaken by industry peers, les pairs qu'li a mentionnés, is totally wrong. The adjudicating panels are all composed of at least 50% members of the public, including former CRTC commissioners, former members of Parliament and cabinet ministers, a former provincial premier, a former lieutenant governor, communications professors, the former head of the Vanier Institute of the Family, the head of the Centre de recherche-action sur les relations raciales of Montreal, the former head of Media Watch, and many other highly credible and committed Canadians who are devoted to public service.

Fourth, much emphasis has been placed on the fact that the violence code is a creation of the private broadcasters. I will not dwell on the notion that because broadcasters had something to do with its creation, they would have done so only to serve their own self-interest. That concept is outrageous.

Any one of you will readily confirm, on the basis of your own constituency experience, that local broadcasters devote considerable time, energy, resources, and promotional benefits to telethons and other local community initiatives. In good times and in bad, in ice storms, fires, and floods, broadcasters are there for the good of the public.

Leaving that aside, do not forget for an instant that as the CRTC chairman pointed out Tuesday, the commission vetted every word of the violence code before it was approved. Having participated in that process in 1993, I can tell you on an anecdotal basis that the wording went back and forth several times before all the CRTC's issues were resolved.

Moreover, the consultation process with stakeholders was substantial. During the development of the code, comments were invited from many public representatives, a list of which is appended to the CBSC's written presentation that the clerk has distributed to all of you.

The public organizations included Media Watch, Owl Centre for Children's Film and Television, the Alliance for Children and Television, l'Association nationale des téléspectateurs et des téléspectatrices, le Groupe de recherche sur les jeunes et les médias pour la coalition contre la violence dans les émissions pour enfants, le Conseil du statut de la femme, Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment, and the Animal Alliance of Canada, among others.

Fifth, Monsieur Bigras is not satisfied by the present complaints-driven system. He proposes a monitoring system of some unspecified description. I fully expect that Monsieur Bigras was surprised, if not shocked, to learn that both the CRTC and the CBSC operate on the basis of complaints made to them by members of the public. That was unequivocally confirmed by the CRTC chairman on Tuesday, and that is as it should be, for two reasons.

First, censorship is anathema to Canadians. When Mr. Abbott asked Monsieur Bigras whether the bill's proposer was not talking about censorship, Monsieur Bigras was at pains to avoid such a characterization, understandably. He admitted that he did not favour censorship, yet that is essentially the effect of Bill C-327. Let us not mince words. That is exactly what a monitoring system not based on public complaints is: censorship, nothing more or less.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

We'll have to conclude, Mr. Cohen.

[Ronald I. Cohen]

Should I shorten my presentation?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

You have one minute left.

[Ronald I. Cohen]

Oh, une minute.

Second is the cost issue. I won't go into that in detail. You have it in my.... Well, you don't have it in my oral presentation, but you can.

Any system, as Mr. von Finckenstein said, would be very expensive and intrusive. I should add, of course, that the present system is paid for by the private broadcaster, so not a bad way to go. It's not the general public.

Sixth, is the system really tough enough? There is not the slightest doubt. It is, thanks to the CBSC all by itself. The Power Rangers left Canadian airwaves, so too did Howard Stern, Laura Schlessinger, Stéphane Gendron, and Doc Maillioux. In the children's television area, no inappropriate violent programming has ever replaced the Power Rangers in the last 14 years.

Mr. Bigras also suggested that the American system is superior.

In fact, it's a curious conclusion, since the Americans have no code, since the FCC does not deal with violence on television, and there is no equivalent body to the CBSC that deals with violence on television.

In conclusion, the question for the standing committee is whether there is any need for a regulatory rather than self-regulatory framework, a statutory amendment or a government regulation rather than an industry code. If there were a problem that the present system could not deal with, of course there would be. But there is not a shred of evidence that the present system does not work.

Thanks to the private broadcasters and the CRTC, Canadians have the best codified protections for children's programming in the world, and thanks to the CBSC, those standards are rigorously enforced.

Thank you for the little bit of extra time as well, monsieur le président. We will be pleased, of course, to answer your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, it's your turn.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

I find it's a very hard topic to get a handle on, when you talk about what's on the air, what should be on the air, what shouldn't be on the air, and how we should govern what's on the air.

There was one distinction you made that I didn't quite fully understand, and maybe you could explain. You were referring to a study by some professors or by a professor and you were making the distinction between a sequence of violent acts and measuring violence as the number of discrete or individual violent acts. Could you explain briefly the distinction? I didn't quite understand that.

[Ronald I. Cohen]

Monsieur Bigras has relied in considerable measure on the fact that there was a Laval study in 2004. That's the study that has indicated a very significant increase in the number of violent acts. The trouble is that study—first of all, it's a little bit older than that—counts every individual act. No wonder the numbers are big. In other words, it's not a sequence. It's not saying, well, there was a fight sequence between two people—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

The number of gun shots.

[Ronald I. Cohen]

It's the number of gun shots, the number of arm swings, and so on and so forth. It's a really poor way to do it.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Right.

Now, for the purpose of the code or even for the purpose of discussion, how does one define violence and make comparisons between one year or one period of television history and another?

I'm just thinking about violence in the 1960s. When you look at it today, maybe in those days it seemed pretty violent, but when you look now at the violence that was on the television sets in the 1960s, it's almost laughable—the cartoon violence that one would see or even the Gunsmoke kind of violence. Now, if you look at that and compare it to the graphic violence of today, there might be less of it, but it's perhaps more shocking or damaging.

So how do you control for that, and how do you define violence for the purposes of the code?

[Ronald I. Cohen]

We define violence in the broadest possible way, which is to say that if the complainant says it's violent, we accept that it's violent. Our assessment is basically of two kinds. We need to determine, first, whether the violence is gratuitous. You have to bear in mind that under the code, any gratuitous violence cannot be aired on television at any time of day or night—not at four in the afternoon, not at nine o'clock at night, not at three in the morning—no gratuitous violence.

The second thing we do is look at the violence that has been the characterization of the individual complainant, and we ask, is it violence that is intended for adults or not intended for adults? If it's intended exclusively for adults, it has to play after nine o'clock. If it does, then it falls into the acceptable category of violence.

So there's no need to define it. We let the complainant say whether it is or not.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Then how do you decide who's right and wrong? It seems very subjective. I'm not suggesting that I disagree with you about the merits of the bill; I'm just talking about the ideas we're discussing. The word “gratuitous” is a very elastic term. If I understood correctly, you're saying television broadcasters never show any gratuitous violence. That's a pretty categorical statement.

[Ronald I. Cohen]

Not exactly. What we said is that they're not allowed to show any gratuitous violence at any time of the day or night.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

That brings me to my next point. You said at the beginning of your presentation that violence is down, because you've had fewer complaints. Maybe people have just given up complaining. That could be part of it. Then in your brochure here, you say, “Panel decisions are released to the media and remain open to the public. If a broadcaster has breached any of the codes, it must announce that decision on air during prime time television hours or peak radio listening times.”

I've watched a lot of television in my time, and I've never seen a broadcaster admit to violating the code.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

We need a quick question and quick answer here.

[Ronald I. Cohen]

We can show you the tapes. We get the tapes from the broadcasters as part of the system. We have them. Any time you want to look at them--

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

How often in a year would a broadcaster have to apologize?

[Ronald I. Cohen]

That varies with the year, but let's just say about 70% to 75% of the formal decisions that we render--and I mentioned this during the CBC hearings when we were here testifying, as well--go against broadcasters. We can give you the precise numbers.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for being here to present your viewpoint to us. You said that the present system was paid for by private broadcasters and that the introduction of a system that would be managed more by the CRTC, and would thus be more proactive and less complaints-based, would be very costly and intrusive.

Is this only a matter of cost for you? If, for example, the government gave the CRTC the necessary means and resources to do its job, would that also be fine with you?