Our second topic is the effectiveness of cultural development funds.
Ever since the new Canada Media Fund was announced, we have been very concerned about its effect on achieving the objectives of the Act, which among other things requires the "maximum use, and in no case less than predominant use, of Canadian creative and other resources". Although the new Fund is to provide financial support primarily for drama series, documentaries and variety shows, the use of audience size as the unique criterion for awarding funding is perplexing.
La La La Human Steps said that the cuts to the Trade Routes budget would end their international visibility. Let’s have the courage to admit to them that they will not be visible in Canada either: the new system will fund only what constitutes a good support for advertising sales, and advertising is not (fortunately) the primary concern of this dance company, whose creativity and inventiveness are recognized around the world.
Basing performance envelopes exclusively on a single criterion, the famous ratings, is a restrictive and distorted way of allocating the Fund’s resources. It risks eliminating any notion of a level playing field. Specialty channels and educational television networks, either because of their mandates or because of their distribution, will be heavily penalized for structural reasons that are beyond their control and have nothing to do with the quality of their programming.
We unsuccessfully called upon the government to fundamentally rethink its decision to abolish the Canadian Television Fund. It seems to us necessary at the very least for the government to ensure that: the members of the Fund’s board will be genuinely independent of the BDUs; the contribution agreement that Canadian Heritage negotiates with the new Fund will contain long-term conditions guaranteeing the maintenance of envelopes for each category of programming currently supported; the method of calculating audience numbers will ensure all categories of broadcaster equitable access to funding; CBC/Radio-Canada’s terms and conditions of access to support from the Fund will not result in its becoming too exclusively concerned with ratings to the detriment of its mandate as the national public broadcaster; the access of production companies tied to a broadcaster will continue to be subject to a ceiling, and a still lower ceiling if they have, through their parent company, decision-making clout in the membership of the Fund’s Board of Directors; the funding dedicated to new media production will be determined without affecting the historical level of investment in television.
Now I'll move on to our third topic, licence renewals for private conventional television stations.
The CRTC has said—