Canadian Heritage Committee on April 29th, 2009

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

It's overwhelmingly positive. The two existing funds, the Canada Media Fund and the Television Fund, will continue to be in existence until April 1 of next year. That's when the new fund is created. Moving forward, of course, as is always the case, whenever you have a change in any kind of public policy there are always people who have concerns and questions to be raised about it, and we're addressing those. We're continuing with our consultations. The money has now been set aside. When it's delivered and administered, of course, there will be terms and conditions associated with that. We're going to make sure that the fund will be put forward in a way that maximizes the creation of Canadian content on multiple platforms.

Overwhelmingly, the response has been entirely positive. I can tell you that I don't think there's any government that could succeed ours at any time in the future, 10 or 20 years down the line, that would even think about going back to the old ways of doing things, because modernization of these policies is what's needed for the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

Ms. Fry, please.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank the minister for coming to meet with us today.

The minister made a speech, and there are a couple of things I wanted to pick up on. Here in this session we're talking about the future of television in Canada, and he made comments with regard to digitalization and what it is going to do for the future of television, not only in Canada but around the world. Well, this is true; however, currently CBC cannot reach Kamloops, never mind a world reach. It is unable to reach Kamloops because it doesn't have the infrastructure that it needs, for instance, to convert its current.... The last time the CBC had any infrastructure was in the sixties. This is old. CBC needs that infrastructure.

The reason I'm speaking to CBC is not that I want to pick a fight with CBC. CBC is the public broadcaster. There is a responsibility on behalf of the Government of Canada to be able to fund CBC appropriately.

I want to talk about digitalization. The CBC has not had any ability to do the kind of digital reach that it could do and that the private broadcasters have had the ability to do. When the private broadcasters were given the ability to increase their fees to their clients or their customers, they were able to get into the digital world quickly. CBC does not have that ability. It is a public broadcaster. It is dependent on the government to help it to do the reach, and it cannot reach Kamloops. That's the first question.

The second question is this. The BBC, which is a public broadcaster, has now been digital for so long that it only talks about digital. We have let our public broadcaster down. We are actually ranking 16th out of 18 in all of the countries that have a public broadcaster--our funding is 16th. If you're going to be committed to the public broadcaster, then one cannot lump it in with the other broadcasting industry. You have to talk about the public broadcaster's ability to be digital.

Secondly, you also talked about the new media fund that will allow everyone to make a large number of new films. The problem with films in Canada, if we are to be able to get our films around the world, is that we absolutely need to have a distribution model, and we don't. The BBC has used its digital model for distribution; the CBC could do that. It could be great at getting Canadian films to the rest of the world. It cannot do it because it does not have a digital infrastructure.

I'm speaking with regard to commitment to the public broadcaster under two headings. The first one is digitalization, for its ability to reach all areas of Canada and the world. Secondly, with regard to digitalization and your new media fund, how will you see the distribution model given to the CBC to allow it to function in the way that one of the great public broadcasters of the world functions, and that is the BBC?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

All right, there's a lot there. Thank you very much for the question.

First, look, you know this from having been in government and having been a minister. It's not the role of the government to give funds to the CBC and say they have to provide a specific level of services to Kamloops. It's an independent choice for the CBC, as you know. CBC is not going to be putting in place--I'm guessing--very expensive infrastructure in order to broadcast into Kamloops because of the transition to digital. That's a very expensive proposition that you're making. As you know, in 2011 there will be a transition to digital, where over 90% of Canadians will be covered. There is a gap, and I know that broadcasters are working on closing that gap, and the government has of course our eyes open about what the role may or may not be in that. We've made it very clear that the gap needs to be closed by the private broadcasters.

With regard to comparing CBC to BBC, the CBC receives about $33 from every Canadian. That's about how it's broken down per capita. The BBC is more than three times that, and they also have a television tax on top of that. If you want to propose that, you're free to do this, but that's not the politics and the policy of this Conservative government.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you, you have answered my questions.

I would like to make a comment. No one is suggesting that the Government of Canada tell the CBC what to do, but the CBC has a mandate, and its mandate is to reach every single region in this country. It cannot perform and fulfill its mandate if it is not funded appropriately enough to do so. That is the point I'm making.

Secondly, there was a review of the CBC that was brought out by this committee, and it recommended that in fact the government increase funding to the CBC, not keep it where it is or let it go down, but increase funding so CBC can complete its mandate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We need the question quickly; we're running out of time.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

It's the mandate I'm talking about. CBC is unable to fulfill its mandate. It depends on you to do it.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Well, I would just finish with this. We understand that, and we agree with that.

Look, Hedy, we made a campaign commitment to sustain or increase funding for the CBC, and we've done that in every single one of our four budgets. Hedy, you can't sit there and lecture. Frankly, you can't sit there and lecture me and the Conservative government about not supporting the CBC. We have increased support for the CBC. We kept our campaign commitment. When the Liberals were in power, you were at the cabinet table, Hedy. The Liberals cut the CBC by $414 million. You cut 4,000 jobs from the CBC. We have increased funding for the CBC. We have a strong working relationship, and we're going to continue to do that. We're not cutting the CBC; we have increased support. It was the Liberal government that cut. If you really believe in this, Hedy, you were awfully quiet at the cabinet table when you were there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Pomerleau, and then we'll go to Ms. Glover.

Try to keep your questions short. We're running out of time.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a brief comment and a brief question, but the preamble to it may be long.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I am a francophone who dabbles from time to time in anglophone culture, because I occasionally watch TV in English, read a book in English, and I read the Globe and Mail three times a year. So I dabble in anglophone culture, but I am not really part of it.

I have the strong impression that Canadian culture has been disappearing over the past 30 or 40 years. All the movies that I see in English are more and more American and less and less Canadian. As for TV series, they are almost all American. The music I hear is almost all American. And so are most of the books available. Even though I don't know English well, it seems to me to be more and more Yankee and less and less British.

It seems to me that, overall, the Canadian government is having more and more trouble sustaining Canadian culture. That's my impression. I'm talking about the government, not the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party may have slashed CBC/Radio-Canada's budget, which will result in the loss of 800 jobs, but the Liberals did much worse, even as the economy was booming.

It's really the Canadian government that appears to have this problem, this problem sustaining Canadian culture. There doesn't seem to be any real political commitment, in my opinion, to maintaining culture, to investing the funding required. The government is prepared to spend billions on weapons, but when it comes time to give $200 or $300 million to CBC/Radio-Canada, they hesitate.

Even Margaret Atwood, who is not francophone, has said that if she had to choose between voting for the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party, she would vote for the Bloc Québécois. That's not because we're any nicer than the others, but because Quebec seems to attach more importance to culture, especially as a profitable industry. That's something that does not seem to exist in English Canada.

My question is of a political nature. If the Canadian government is not capable of ensuring the survival and advancement of its own culture, then why should Quebeckers trust it to ensure theirs?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Here's the major difference. As a federalist, in my opinion, the difference is that Quebec culture and francophone culture are part of Canadian culture. We are together; it's not one or the other. We're together even if the members of the House of Commons belong to different political parties. I believe that what you are saying is completely false. It's false to say that there are no successful Canadian productions. Just think of Bon Cop, Bad Cop, Passchendaele, Éric Lapointe or Sylvain Cossette. Just think of our literary output.

I'd like to make a suggestion. BC Scene is under way at the National Arts Centre, located just across the street. This event ends on Sunday night, and between now and then you can see magnificent creative artists, dancers and singers who are unequalled in the world. They are here and they are anglophones and francophones. They come from British Columbia. They are proud artists and they are unrivalled in the world.

Canada is a world capital of culture. Just look at the performances that are presented in Montreal, the filmmaking industry in Vancouver, Canadian museums—all our homegrown talent. We have much to be proud of. The government's responsibility is to set up programs to help artists in need, to invest funds effectively and to support training for the next generation of artists. We are making investments that were previously unheard of in our country's history: $2.3 billion will be injected this year. That is an unprecedented amount. I am proud of our artists, and I am proud of our investments in our cultural activities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you. The time is up.

I'll go to Ms. Glover for one very short question to the minister, and you'll get a short response, I'm sure.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Minister, thank you again for being here. I want to address a couple of things.

On Mr. Angus and the things he had to say about hostility, I can assure you that the Conservative representatives here believe in the CBC. We reiterated when we had questions to ask that it was the Conservatives who created CBC, and we will continue to support it, as you said.

I want to take a moment to thank the Liberals who are here in committee today. They supported our last two budgets, and it's really surprising to hear what they're saying in committee and see what happens in the House of Commons. I want to thank them for supporting our last two budgets, which included the funding for the CBC that we are maintaining.

We have been listening as a government and we have been proactive. I want to give you an opportunity to tell this committee what you've been doing since your appointment. I want you to show these members that you have indeed been listening on behalf of our government. Can you explain to us what you and your department have done on the CBC?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I have been very busy, as you know. I've gone from one end to the country to the other and had round tables on official languages, in my responsibility as Minister of Official Languages; and as Minister of Canadian Heritage I've talked to arts and culture communities. I have frankly learned a great deal from them and have a great deal of respect for the diversity that exists in Canada's cultural communities from one end of this country to the other. It's really quite remarkable.

This committee came together on the question of the CBC--that was the genesis of this conversation. I'm a strong supporter of the CBC and believe in the CBC. It's a great public broadcaster. It has incredible standards of journalism. It is a true pan-Canadian platform for showing Canadian content in both official languages and in multimedia environments, and giving Canadians access to Canadian stories.

We have made commitments in the campaigns to support the CBC, and we have kept those commitments. We're providing over $1 billion to the CBC, and $60 million per year for specific Canadian programming. Like all Canadians, I'm incredibly proud of our public broadcaster. It's going through difficult times, but we will go through those difficult times with it. We will work with it and make sure that in the long term, Canadians will have a broadcaster that will be a platform for Canadian content from coast to coast in both official languages. It will be a broadcaster we'll all be proud of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much, Minister.

This meeting is adjourned.