Evidence of meeting #22 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 code.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Thank you very much for that. Your time is up. You're going to have two minutes left in the next round.
Mr. Siksay, please.
March 13th, 2008 / 4:10 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming today.
I want to ask the folks from the Teachers' Federation this question. In some of the material you folks produced that accompanied the release of your study, “Kids’ Take on Media”, there was some discussion about censorship and the place of censorship in dealing with the whole problem of violence and media violence. One of the articles that's on your website quotes Marjorie Heins, the author of Not in Front of the Children, and she makes the point that censorship has a number of problems, that sometimes it actually defeats the purpose of placing limits, that it actually makes the material more attractive to young people, and also that censorship doesn't teach kids what's inappropriate about the material that's been censored.
Is that an issue for teachers as you approach this whole issue? And does that issue call into question regulation as a way of solving the problem?
4:10 p.m.
Director of Economic and Member Services, Canadian Teachers' Federation
It's absolutely an issue for us. We are very concerned when we draw attention to things or shed light on things. We are very aware that we don't want to be seen as being something that would be restrictive on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and so on and so forth. And we very much recognize and understand—early in the piece with this, we knew—that just using censorship is not going to solve the problem or address the issue. What's more important to us is to find ways to help parents, teachers, and students to come to grips with the new media technologies and, as Ms. Graydon so eloquently stated, find ways through a media awareness model for kids to learn how to recognize what's inappropriate and how to prepare themselves and defend themselves.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is part of the issue parents' education, though? I don't think we want to blame parents for the problem, but it seems to me that it's not just a media awareness or a media literacy issue for children; it's also an issue for parents. It seems to me that's the place that's not getting much attention at all. Or is there any improvement being made in parents' media literacy in any of your experience?
4:10 p.m.
Director of Economic and Member Services, Canadian Teachers' Federation
The news out today in the Ottawa Citizen is something that is very sobering for us. It is the recent study out of Montreal, showing that teenage boys, up to 60% of them, spend 42 hours a week watching TV or playing video games. There are numbers in there with regard to the percentage of them who watch it without the scrutiny of adults. That's concerning to us. It is an issue.
Part of what we will recommend is support for groups, associations, that engage in research and the provision of resources that will raise more attention for parents and provide more assistance and guidance for parents as to how they can play a more hands-on role with their children.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Do we have a sense that parents are playing less of a role, and do we have any sense of why that would be, Ms. Graydon?
4:10 p.m.
Director, Media Action
Absolutely. I think parents are less actively involved in mediating their kids' consumption of media, in part because of the explosion of sources. There's something shocking and unfortunate about the very fact that, as the CTF study found, 50% of Canadian kids had televisions in their bedrooms. I think that reflects the level of ignorance on parents' part about what's available on television and about the cognitive wiring in teens and children, which increasingly we're discovering is not sophisticated enough in the way that adult brains are. Clearly, adults are not as savvy about mediating kids' media consumption as they ought to be.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
In your proposals, Ms. Graydon, you talk about a sort of pre-screening process. I don't know how you'd describe it quickly, but some people might say that it sounds like a censorship board, where something would have to be submitted to the censors before it could go on air. Is that what you're talking about?
4:15 p.m.
Director, Media Action
I think that's an unfair characterization. A decade ago, the broadcasters themselves acknowledged that there was a problem with regard to TV violence. That's why they developed the code in the first place, and that's why they have supported it. In a society in which we're all affected by television violence, the broadcasters have stated that the conditions in the code are fair and appropriate. So if there's censorship going on, it's willing, voluntary.
We have forms of censorship in society for obvious reasons. Journalists, for example, do not typically report on teen suicide because they know the likelihood of imitation is high. That's a form of self-censorship that has the interests of the larger society at heart. I think the violence code fits in that tradition.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
In your proposal you draw an example from the Advertising Standards Council related to children's advertising. Would the kind of pre-screening you're talking about apply to all programming or just children's programming?
4:15 p.m.
Director, Media Action
I'm suggesting that any programming that contains enough violence to fall on one side or the other of the violence code guidelines should be subjected to pre-screening.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Witnesses, thank you very much for being here today. I wonder if we can cut to the chase on this bill, because that is—
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
Mr. Chairman, Ms. Cuerrier informed me that Mr. Caron will be unable to appear before the committee today. That means that we have one less witness. Would it be possible to have three rounds of questions with these interesting witnesses in light of Mr. Caron's absence?
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
No, we're going to have two rounds, and the next round will be two minutes, or thereabouts, for each person.
It's my understanding that we have bells at 5:30.
Okay, I'll give you three minutes in the next round.
Mr. Abbott.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
The exclusive purpose of this meeting, which is not your responsibility but ours as members of Parliament, is to deal with content desirability and to take information from you with respect to this private member's bill. So I'd like to dispose of that right off the bat.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if I characterized both your organizations as being very doubtful about the effectiveness of this bill, would you agree?
4:15 p.m.
Director, Media Action
First, unless the government is prepared to give the CRTC considerably more money to engage in the monitoring that it's asking for, I don't think the bill will work.
Secondly, I would prefer to see this kind of energy and investment go in advance of the broadcast. So I don't support this bill. I appreciate its intentions, but....
4:15 p.m.
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
We would support what Shari is talking about in respect of the specificity of this bill.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you.
I now have the answer to the question with respect to the bill. But because I have the opportunity, and because you're experts on this, I would also like to get some more information from you.
With respect to cyber-bullying, am I correct that this would probably be an Internet problem? You can correct me if I'm wrong.
Taking a look at Internet cyber-bullying, particularly interactive Internet, video games, and DVDs, which are not covered by this bill, do we have any notion of the amount of time an 8-, 9-, 10-, 14-year-old boy or girl in our Canadian society spends in front of some kind of screen? Would it be 10%, 15%, maximum, on actual broadcast television as opposed to Internet, video games, and DVDs combined?
4:15 p.m.
Director of Economic and Member Services, Canadian Teachers' Federation
Just so I'm clear on your question, are you asking if we have numbers that are broken out into components or just numbers overall?
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I'm asking for a best guess.
If a 12-year-old boy spent 100 hours in front of a screen, would the screen be driven by commercial television--or CBC, but we're talking over-the-air broadcasting—or would it be driven by the Internet, video games, DVDs?
4:20 p.m.
Director of Economic and Member Services, Canadian Teachers' Federation
I can answer that, and it's hot off the press: on average, students today put in 20 hours of TV time and 10 hours on the computer weekly.