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.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
I didn't have the opportunity to read about your background. Perhaps you could briefly, in a few seconds, tell us the source of your interest in this issue.
As an Individual
It was for CTV. I was the station manager of CTV here in Ottawa in the 1980s and 1990s. As a parent, I was interested in the issue. There were not a lot of people stepping up to the plate to get involved on behalf of the industry. I thought it was important that whatever we do, we do right. So I got involved and ended up being involved in helping write the industry code. I have appeared in front of this committee and in front of the CRTC. I've participated in numerous conferences, including the C.M. Hincks conference, which really kicked this whole thing off in the early 1990s. I also led the development of the classification system, the creation of the onscreen icons, and most recently I supervised the roll-out of encoding for V-chip technology for the industry.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Could you elaborate on the onscreen icons? They don't come to mind. Every now and then you'll see a little box. Could you just refresh my memory?
As an Individual
It's a black box that will appear at the top left-hand corner of your screen. It's square and there's a little bit of a maple leaf on one corner of the box, and the classification of the program will be in it. It's up for about 15 seconds at the beginning of any program that has to be rated.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
I'd like your comment on this. In my understanding, there are maybe a couple of cross-cutting issues.
One is that, as a parent, you just want to be able to sit down from time to time with your children and watch a few hours of television and know that you will not have to switch the channel all of a sudden or that your children will be frightened by some violence or whatever. So you tend to think, “There are certain channels I will not go to, but I will go to CTV, or CBC, between this hour and that hour, and I should be fine.”
In my view, as a parent, as long as I have this space that I can trust at certain times of the day, I really don't have any other problems, because I can use a V-chip or I can reprogram my box to block out certain channels and what have you. That's when you're talking about young children.
Then, of course, there's the issue of the age of the children. At a certain point it's very hard for you to control all their viewing. That's where, I guess, media literacy comes in.
On the topic of media literacy, you get the sense that we're just putting our finger in the hole in the dike when it comes to educating about media. It's just so overwhelming what is out there. You might get the message across to an adolescent for a little while, and then you just feel that the message will be lost for a time anyway because of the omnipresence of questionable content. But do you find that these media literacy programs work? Do they have an impact? Have we been able to measure the impact?
Another part of the question would be, are they offered fairly broadly in all provinces and all schools? Is it one hour a month? Is it one hour a year? Is it an intense kind of program? I can't imagine that it would be; there are so many subjects that children are learning in school and there are so many activities.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
We have to get an answer, Mr. Scarpaleggia. We're over the time here.
Liberal
As an Individual
There were a lot of questions in there. Let me just say, from the perspective of media literacy, that I was a founding director of the Media Awareness Network and a past chair.
The approach of media literacy is that when your child is young, you teach them the rules of the street. You teach them that when they go to the corner, they have to look both ways. They have to watch out for traffic. They're not supposed to talk to strangers, things like that. You streetproof your child as they're growing up so that they become safe and aware in their neighbourhood. The challenge today is to do the same thing with your children as they're growing up.
The Media Awareness Network, through its website, which has literally thousands of pages, offers all kinds of help for parents. It offers teaching materials for schools, and I know they have teaching modules that they have been successfully marketing to some school boards. As to the extent of that, I'm not really current on it.
There are the tools there, and I think the issue of just making parents aware that they have to media-proof their kids the same way they streetproof them in terms of growing up in the neighbourhood, because the media is so much a part of their environment.
Conservative
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. MacKay. Thank you for coming along today to share your expertise with us.
The president of the CRTC told us that it would be worth considering a third sanction as a mid-way point between the on-air apology and licence suspension. He suggested fines, what is your view on this?
As an Individual
Well, the CRTC would be the one that would best answer that, and you've already heard from them. I would just make an observation as a former broadcaster who spent the better part of 25 years at a local television station. When you're a local broadcaster, it's just not necessarily the programs you broadcast; it's the role you play in the community.
The suggestion is that if you are found to be in violation of the code or the rating system and you have to issue an on-air apology, that doesn't mean very much. I would argue that it means an awful lot.
Broadcasters are constantly positioning themselves as community citizens, being actively involved in their community, and nobody wants to have to air an apology saying—this may be non-parliamentary language—“We screwed up”, especially when it's followed by perhaps a promotional spot saying “Watch our telethon”, as we try to help the cancer hospital.
It's a very strong deterrent. Once you've been through having to issue an apology for making a mistake in what you've done, you don't want it to happen again.
As to the monetary side, it's really for the commission to answer that question.
Bloc
As an Individual
I would say that I don't have the ability to give you an informed opinion. It's the commission that has to make that decision, not me.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
Ms. Graydon said earlier that the way in which the code is currently administered is unsatisfactory. She also pointed out that it contains no real disincentives: in theory, broadcasters can lose their licences; but, in practice, that has never happened. Indeed, she told us that five years went by before sanctions were imposed on CHOI-FM. Furthermore, the burden of proof lies on consumers. She believes the complaints-based system to be frankly dysfunctional. I am only repeating what was said.
What do you think?
As an Individual
Well, the CRTC has been working on a complaint-based system ever since it got started. That was viewed as the regulatory approach that was going to be the most effective for the resources that were available.
Bloc
As an Individual
From my perspective, I would say yes.
And perhaps just to talk a little bit more about what Shari mentioned earlier, back in the 1990s when we were dealing with the formation of the codes and the national hearings were being set up, the question arose of whether there should be a body set up to screen all these programs before they go to air. Somebody did the mathematics, and it was in the tens of thousands of hours of programming that would have to be screened.
From a practical, operational basis, it just would not work. I know, for example, that in many cases a lot of the prime time programming that is delivered to stations is only delivered on the day of the broadcast, because the timeline for production is so close to air time. It's not available three or four weeks in advance, which you'd require if those were supposed to be pre-screened by a particular body.
What the broadcasters do is, when they do get it in, they screen it against the Canadian standards, because all broadcasters are responsible for what they put on the air. So there is screening related to Canadian standards. There are all kinds of instances where edits have been made in programs and decisions have been made in programs, where the Canadian station has made changes to the shows so that they conform to the standards that have been agreed to in the Canadian system.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. MacKay, for being here.
I have a couple of quick questions, given your extensive background in developing the system that's in place. I really appreciate that you're here with us today. I'm glad you referenced the 10-10-80, because I felt rather proud of myself for finding that when I was Googling around the Internet, although my sense of timing of when Mr. Spicer actually made that comment was a little off and I confused the witnesses that day.
It strikes me that you've worked hard on the code part, that 10%. On the technological part, there's been stuff there. But it seems as if the 80%, which was the significant piece, is the place where maybe we haven't done so well.
Is that your sense of the way things are today, that the media awareness, media literacy piece of that is the one that is the least successful of those three pieces of the three pillars?
As an Individual
I would say that the media awareness part of the puzzle is as successful as it has been able to be. The material the Media Awareness Network has been able to turn out on its website--and I urge all members of the committee to take a look at it--and the quality of the material that's available has been remarkable for an organization with very small funding. I think it's slowly being recognized across the various educational platforms that maybe literacy is an important thing.
I think the problem a lot of teachers have is that they're being asked to do a lot of things parents used to do. They're trying to figure out when they have the time to teach the reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I don't think media literacy can be avoided. I know it's part of the curriculum in Ontario for particular grades. I'm not sure when it kicks in--I'm not an expert on that--but the more it's paid attention to at earlier ages, the better it is for everybody.