Canadian Heritage Committee on May 6th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting 19 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We are dealing with the evolution of the television industry in Canada and its impact on local communities.

This session we have four groups presenting. We've had quite a few presenters as we've gone forward. I'm going to ask everyone to please keep their opening remarks to ten minutes. We will then have one round of questioning after the presentation. We've had some presenters who, when we've said that, have gone on for 15 and sometimes almost 20 minutes.

We do have a vote later on today, so we'll start with the Documentary Network, please.

[Jean-Pierre Gariépy, Executive Director, Documentary Network]

Good afternoon. My name is Jean-Pierre Gariépy. I am Executive Director of the Documentary Network.

The Documentary Network aims to ensure that documentary plays its rightful role in the defence of democracy, tolerance and open-mindedness. It encourages speaking out and public debates sparked by films that tackle the issues, aspirations and values of society. The Network works to improve the conditions that enable documentary creation, production and distribution.

The Documentary Network has 14 associative members. I won't name them all. I will name the television networks that belong to our organization. They are Télé Astral, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Société Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec.

At the Documentary Network, we feel that the documentary genre is a perfectly natural ally in the development of local television. For technological reasons, documentary has always been ahead of its time. It is perfectly adapted to today's digital technology. It is an extremely accessible and economical genre for the majority of the public.

Now I'll address the issues you've raised in points a, b, c and d in your committee's mandate. That's why I've started with the first. The second point concerns financial pressures on local and Canadian programming.

The documentary genre is traditionally produced in an economical manner and so as to be locally accessible. It is a genre that is conducive to social cohesiveness in all Canadian communities. It enables people to know themselves and to talk to each other locally. Today's local television stations don't have access to enough production and direction funding. So if you defend documentary at the government level, if Canadians recognize documentary as a fundamental cultural genre—which is also recognized by the Canadian Television Fund but no longer by the Canada Media Fund—if it is defended to decision-makers and all bodies, we are convinced that local television will have a future that will be useful to the entire population.

Now I will introduce my colleague Sylvie Van Brabant, producer and director from Productions du Rapide-Blanc, who will continue the presentation. Thank you.

[Madam Sylvie Van Brabant, Producer, Documentary Network]

Ladies and gentlemen, I am passionate about documentary film. I defend the cinema of the real, mine and that of my brothers and sisters from Quebec and Canada, from coast to coast.

Our kind of documentary film enables viewers to reflect, and question appearances, prejudices and injustices, but especially to glimpse pieces of our humanity, those that bind us regardless of our colour, language or religion. That humanity stems from our immense diversity, but also from our singularity, as a result of which documentary filmmakers at times manage to create universal stories that can touch Africans as well as Europeans.

Documentary film enables us to give a voice to visionaries, scientists, artists and famous people, but also to those who are excluded, marginal, without a voice, to the Saskatchewan farmer abused by Monsanto, to the fisherman from Nova Scotia weeping for the sea and his family boat because the cod is gone, to the lost street kid who spits out his pain and to the disabled youth who overcomes a missing chromosome to stun us with his magnificent drawing and smile.

Documentary, when we take the time to do it, enables us to reveal the transformation in living beings: to see the street kid turn his life around, to hear the clear mind of the farmer and fisherman, and so on. Viewers can also imagine their own transformation, the possibility of changing the course of things, of putting an end to barbarism and hailing the emergence of a just society that respects life.

This kind of documentary, which stems from an exemplary tradition, that of the NFB, is now under threat. A political-economic system appears to want to promote only the viewer side, what I would call entertainment. To do what exactly? To compete with the United States or to fill the addicts' pockets with money that seems to flow in the early years of the 21st century? To give consumer citizens bread and circuses, to clear their minds of their stressed lives, to put them to sleep in order to sell them more Coca-Cola, fattening snacks and useless objects?

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you recognize your role in the evolution of the society of tomorrow. The present government has already signed the death warrant of one of the building blocks of independent documentary film, the CIFVF, the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund. That fund made it possible to produce works of quality that were screened in colleges, church basements, NGO meeting rooms and so on, and just as easily in the comfort of our living rooms, in front of the television. These are films that enable us to evolve as individuals and as a society.

Please don't put the last nail in the casket of independent documentary production. A number of producer-directors are rightly concerned that independent production may disappear in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to the Documentary Organization of Canada, please.

[Lisa Fitzgibbons, General Director, Documentary Organization of Canada]

Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you for your invitation. My name is Liza Fitzgibbons, General Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada. My colleague is Daniel Margetic, President of the Performance Committee and one of the many volunteers DOC relies on to convey our association's positions on issues concerning our industry.

DOC is the collective voice of independent documentary filmmakers across Canada. It is directed by its members and supports the promotion and development of the art of documentary. DOC represents the producers, directors and crafts people who work in a type of priority program, largely under-represented and under-funded in the private sector of conventional broadcasting. As our presentation will show, there has been a serious decline in the screening of documentary films on conventional television networks.

[Daniel Margetic, President, Performance Committee, Documentary Organization of Canada]

Documentaries represent an important part of Canada's national fabric. They are one of our most successful forums of cultural expression, celebrated internationally, and they are extremely popular with audiences domestically. Indeed, across the various art forms the documentary genre stands out as being distinctly Canadian and complements local news and current events programming. Where news reports, documentaries probe and enlighten. Instead of presenting current events, documentaries explore the currents under the events. Documentaries multiply the voices of diverse, hidden, distant, and at times marginalized communities and connects them to the rest of our nation visually and socially.

It is our opinion that this entire industry that has found a way to flourish within a complex business and regulatory environment would be threatened should wide-reaching regulatory changes be made under the threat of an economic downturn. It's DOC's view that although sharp, this economic downturn is temporary, which is why we urge the committee to carefully consider and weigh any measures currently proposed by all the parties, as they have the potential to dramatically impact the entire sector for years to come.

While the broadcasters have stated that their industry is in decline, it is important to point out that the overall revenue trend over the last five years, from 2004 to 2008, is a positive one. With overall revenues rising by 3.49% and total revenue from advertising rising by 2.37%, we acknowledge that during the same period the broadcasters' profits went from $111 million in 2004 to losses of $96.4 million in 2008, a total profit decline of $207 million. It must be noted, however, that during that period of time, broadcasters' annual spending on foreign programming has gone up by a similar amount, $200 million.

In response to this decline, broadcasters have requested fee-for-carriage. We find the fee-for-carriage proposal to have some merit; however, such a proposal would only be effective if it was coupled with expenditure requirements that would preclude broadcasters from simply injecting more money into foreign markets, as opposed to investing it in Canadian programming.

Several witnesses have brought up the fact that while their conventional stations are experiencing difficulties, the broadcasters are still showing strong and increasing revenues from their specialty channels. Through the course of their presentations, broadcasters have opposed any suggestion that their corporate groups should be considered as a single entity and have insisted that each of their channels should be treated as a separate business. This stands in stark contrast to their position when dealing with independent producers. When a broadcaster commissions a program for their main network, they insist this entitles them to the rights to show it on all of their specialty channels, for no additional compensation to the producer. The reason they give for this is they are treating all of their media properties as a single entity.

Broadcasters have stated to this committee that they need some small changes in regulations to make them profitable again. But what are those small changes, and how will they impact Canadians and other segments of the industry? In short, what the broadcasters are asking from the CRTC is a reduction in Canadian-content programming; a reduction in local programming; complete removal of priority program requirements, meaning the complete removal of requirements to show high-quality Canadian drama, comedy, and documentaries; and removal of requirements to source programs from independent producers.

The characterization of independent production as a financial burden on the conventional broadcasters is of particular concern to us. For the last ten years, independent production has steadily represented only 10% of broadcasters' total program and expenditures. In 2008 foreign programming represented 52% of their total expenditures. While their spending on foreign programming has increased by 35% over those five years, the increase on independently produced Canadian programming has only increased by 16%.

Most disconcertingly, this modest spending increase on independent Canadian programming has not filtered down equitably through the different genres, nor has it been applied evenly throughout the country. The spending on Canadian documentaries, independent or otherwise, has fallen on the main networks, while the spending on broadcaster-affiliated productions in our programming category group has increased by 64%.

In two regions the decrease in independent documentary production has been particularly alarming. In the Atlantic region local independent category 2 through 5 production, which includes documentaries, has dropped by 48% over the last five years.

The situation is also drastic in Quebec, where independent production has dropped by 36%. At the same time, spending on affiliated programming in Quebec has increased by 54% and the spending on foreign programming has increased by 45%.

With those numbers in mind, documentary filmmakers are particularly concerned about the recent announcement of the rebranding and amalgamation of the Canadian Television Fund and the Canada New Media Fund into the Canada Media Fund.

Speaking before this committee, Minister Moore stated that the response regarding the announced fund has been overwhelmingly positive. Unfortunately, that has not been the experience in our community. Although we welcome and support government's continued commitment to Canadian production, we fear that the new fund may have a particularly negative impact on independent Canadian documentaries for the following reasons.

First, based on the announcement issued by Canadian Heritage, the fund will put priority on drama, comedy, and children's programming while making no commitments to sustaining funding for documentaries.

Second, the fund will expand access to broadcaster-affiliated productions, and for the first time allow broadcasters to access financing for in-house productions. This is particularly disconcerting to DOC because, as we have just shown, spending on in-house and affiliated productions for documentaries has risen sharply, while the spending on independently produced documentaries has decreased. We fear the CMF will only further deepen this trend.

Third, the CTF has committed funds to preserving and stimulating regional independent production, particularly in Quebec and the Atlantic regions, which had experienced significant declines. So far there have been no commitments that the new fund will continue the investment in the regions that need it most.

Lastly, and most importantly, we are concerned about the proposed governance of the CMF. The Department of Canadian Heritage announced that the cable companies will be nominating five of the seven board members. The majority of these cable companies are also affiliated with--or own, in part or in full--various Canadian broadcasters. These are the same broadcasters who will be able to profit from accessing the new fund. We understand that the Department of Canadian Heritage is committed to ensuring that the board of the CMF will be independent. But in a situation where beneficiaries of the fund are appointing the majority of the board, a conflict of interest may be inescapable.

In conclusion, the regulatory concessions proposed by the broadcasters could have a severe impact, not just on the documentary genre, but on all independent production as well as important local programming. The result will be further job losses in the already affected regions and across the country. Most importantly, it will leave many of our fellow citizens without a voice and ultimately leave us all poorer as a culture and as a nation.

Thank you again. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Next is the Société des Auteurs de Radio, Télévision et Cinéma.

[Yves Légaré, Director General, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma]

Thank you.

My name is Yves Légaré, Director General of the Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma, SARTEC, which is a recognized union under both provincial and federal law on the status of the artist and which represents 1,250 members in the audio-visual sector.

SARTEC is a signatory to collective agreements with the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec, CBC/Radio-Canada, TVA, the National Film Board of Canada, TQS, Télé-Québec, TFO and TV5.

Our writers write feature films, fictional series, youth features, television dramas, variety programs and documentaries that are broadcast by general interest television networks and specialty channels. They are produced by both the broadcasters and independent producers.

My comments will of course focus solely on the francophone market; I'll leave it to my colleagues from the Writers Guild of Canada to comment on the anglophone market.

The current economic crisis will of course have a negative impact on broadcasters' advertising revenues, particularly since a number of major advertisers are among the hardest hit. The current problems of the television industry do not stem solely from the economic crisis—they have been perceptible for a long time—just as they are not limited to Quebec or local television alone.

With regard to local television in Quebec, in most markets, local programming consists almost solely of information, and has for a long time. Can it be said that local television adequately reflects the activities of a region and that the regions are represented on the network as a whole. Not really. Ideally, local television programming should not be limited to news bulletins or to specific events, but should highlight the region's talent and make it accessible to the francophone population as a whole. That is rarely the case, and that's not new. In the 1990s, we, like others, criticized the termination of certain types of production in the regions by both Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec. Apart from the production of certain French-language projects outside Quebec, such as Francoeur or Belle-Baie, and apart from the production of certain documentaries outside Quebec and occasional variety programs, local production is always limited to information.

While local programming is not as rich as it should be, generally programming on French-language television has also undergone significant changes in recent years.

In March 1995, at a public hearing before the CRTC, all the partners in the francophone broadcasting system, including Radio-Canada, TVA, TQS, the producers and the unions, proudly stated that the francophone system differed not only in the number of services provided, but by its ability to produce programs that more accurately reflected the reality of its audience.

At the time, 47 of the 50 most watched programs on the francophone networks had been produced in Quebec. Of those programs, the so-called priority programs, particularly the dramas, held enviable positions. Again at the turn of the century, nine of the top 10 programs in the ratings were Quebec dramatic series. In 2005, only three dramas ranked in the top 10, and only one in November 2008.

The supply of television programming has changed, reality TV is increasingly on offer, and American programs and formats, which previously had trouble ranking in the top 50, are increasingly featured on our television screens.

Despite its past successes, Quebec television is thus witnessing a rise in various disturbing trends since early in this decade, and local programming does not appear to be the only segment suffering.

Of course, the audiovisual landscape has vastly changed in recent years: there's been an increase in the number of specialty and pay television services, and francophone audiences have migrated to those new services. This has made for more diversified television offerings and resulted in increased production in certain niches such as documentary series, for example. The fact remains that fragmentation of the market and, subsequently, of advertising revenues, has harmed the performance of general interest broadcasters. However, these broadcasters have always been the cornerstone of our broadcasting system, being the main trigger of original national content.

Long before the economic crisis, funding issues were already pressing in the sector and influenced the supply of television programming. One need only think of what some called high-cost series, where the main broadcasters stopped programming big budget series, or of the problems at TQS. And scarcely four years ago, in 2005, SARTEC and the Union des artistes criticized the decline in youth and animation series in Quebec.

The decline of general interest broadcasters is not the only problem. The CRTC's 1999 television policy, by relaxing the rules for priority programs, definitely had a negative impact. Similarly, the development of new platforms created by new technologies favoured certain types of programming, such as reality TV, which could broadcast excerpts on a number of platforms, whether it be for pay use, CDs, magazines, variety programs that were available in both broadcasters' reviews and on other platforms.

The past successes of the francophone broadcasting system are not necessarily a guarantee of the future of our television industry. Those successes were supported by adequate funding and an adequate regulatory framework. Even before the economic crisis, intervention already seemed necessary to ensure the survival of national content. Thus, to restore a certain balance in the system, we have long supported the idea of allocating subscriber fees to general interest broadcasters to the extent that regulatory requirements regarding priority programs guaranteed high-quality national content.

Similarly, rather than a softening of the regulatory framework, we argued in favour of raising requirements regarding priority programs for specialty channels whose profit margins are particularly high. We also expressed the wish that the CRTC would gradually start regulating the new media with respect to their broadcasting operations because, to repeat on all platforms the successes we had in television, we must acquire the resources and use the tools that have served us so well to date.

Would granting subscriber fees to general interest broadcasters solve all the problems? Surely not, but the funding already in place can also be used to guarantee adequate national content. On the one hand, with regard to local programming, the establishment of the Local Programming Improvement Fund through the addition of 1% of revenues from cable and broadcasting undertakings, will no doubt help improve the situation, but, here again, we are waiting for the CRTC rules to see what impact that will have.

With regard to priority programs, if continued government investment in the New Media Fund has proven to be good news, the fact that the new governance rules are making so much room for the cable companies, and the terms and rules of the fund are not yet established, creates great concern and uncertainty.

Will public policy and cultural interests be properly considered by a fund governed mainly by private funding organizations? What will be the impact of the importance attached to the measures regarding hearings? On educational and public television networks such as Télé-Québec, TFO and Radio-Canada? What will be the combined effect on Radio-Canada's programming of the cancellation of its reserved budget for the New Media Fund and of the recently announced budget cuts?

In conclusion, for a number of years now, our anglophone colleagues have rightly been concerned about the future of their television. In the francophone market, we have always publicized our successes. However, we can now only observe that we have been declining for a few years. Current trends are troubling. The francophone market should be considered separately and the necessary measures should be adopted to continue its success.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

The last presenter in this round is from the Writers Guild of Canada. Welcome.

[Maureen Parker, Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, all. My name is Maureen Parker and I am the executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada. Here with me today is Rebecca Schechter, president of the Writers Guild and an award-winning screen writer.

The Writers Guild of Canada is the national association representing 2,000 professional screen writers working in English-language film, television, radio, and digital production in Canada. We welcome this opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in this review, and we thank you for the invitation.

We have all heard the cable companies and the broadcasters lobby this government. A public hearing at this committee provides small organizations such as ourselves with the opportunity to be heard on these issues, and we thank you.

We are puzzled by the conflicting information being presented to this committee about the health of our industry. Are we in the middle of a short-term economic crisis, suffering from a long-term structural failure, or maybe both? From our view, Canadian broadcasting is healthy.

In 2008, $2 billion was spent on Canadian television production, which created 58,000 direct jobs. These were highly skilled jobs based in the knowledge economy. Most of these productions engaged WGC members to write drama series, documentaries, variety, and other Canadian television programs.

Private conventional broadcasters earned revenues of over $2 billion in 2008. Specialty broadcasters earned a combined ad-and-subscriber revenue of $2.9 billion. Cable and satellite companies had revenues of $8.2 billion. Until this year, all elements of the Canadian broadcasting system were forecasting growth. Now, due to the global recession, ad revenues are threatened and broadcasters are facing losses--and so are we all.

[Rebecca Schechter, President, Writers Guild of Canada]

Conventional broadcasters are looking for solutions to the difficulties they find themselves in. We are here to say that Parliament should ensure that regardless of the need for a short-term fix or a long-term solution, Canadian programming should not be sacrificed to pay for it. Canadians want Canadian programming. A Harris-Decima poll conducted last year showed that 78% of Canadians feel it’s important to them to have a choice of television programs that reflect Canadian society, values, and perspectives. Audience numbers show that when high-quality Canadian drama is on the air, audiences watch it in droves. This has been proven by series like Corner Gas and Flashpoint and by movies of the week such as Mayerthorpe and One Dead Indian.

Then why can't the market support the production costs of these programs? Why do we need regulation? Canada is a small market, divided even further into English and French, sitting next to the largest cultural exporter in the world. While every country in the world except the U.S. and India needs cultural protections, we are uniquely challenged by that proximity. Our television industry needs protection and subsidies if it is going to survive and thrive. That is why the Broadcasting Act was enacted and the CRTC was created: to ensure that Canadians can watch Canadian programming on their airwaves. Regulation is essential because broadcasters have demonstrated time and time again that their primary objective is profit. We want Canadian broadcasters to thrive as long as they remember they also exist to provide a public good: a Canadian broadcasting system.

Recently, local broadcasting has been hard-hit with station closures and job losses so this committee has made that a focus. But we ask you to remember that the Canadian broadcasting system is complex, with many interrelated components. Legislators and regulators cannot just look at one component and try to fix it without looking at the impact of those decisions on the other components. The broadcasters themselves have tied various elements together by saying reducing the costs of local programming, priority programming, and independent production could, together, solve their problems.

As you consider granting the broadcasters the relief they are asking for, bear in mind that Canadian broadcasters already have a number of lucrative benefits unavailable to U.S. broadcasters, such as mandatory carriage, simultaneous substitution, advertising deductibility under section 19.1 of the Income Tax Act, and program production costs subsidized by tax credits and the CTF licence fee program. Yet still they complain and ask for more concessions.

What will the end result be if the broadcasters are given all the concessions they ask for? Will we be able to tell the difference between Canadian and American broadcasters? We fear not. And if that is the case, why should we license Canadian broadcasters? Why don't we just allow the U.S. broadcasters free access to our airwaves with Canadian content conditions? This may sound like a radical solution, but a Canadian broadcaster is obligated, under the Broadcasting Act, and I quote, “to provide, through its programming, a public service essential to the maintenance and enhancement of national identity and cultural sovereignty”. If the broadcasters won't do that, maybe NBC or CBS will.

Prior to the CRTC's 1999 over-the-air policy, broadcasters had conditions of licence related to both expenditure and exhibition of underserved categories of Canadian programming, namely drama. That regulation created the thriving Canadian television industry with high audience numbers. Then, broadcasters demanded flexibility and the CRTC lifted expenditure requirements in favour of priority programming exhibition requirements. The results were devastating. Spending on Canadian drama plummeted from 5% of ad revenue in 1999 to a low of 2% in 2007, and that included the required spending from their benefits packages. In 1999 there were 186 hours of 10-point Canadian one-hour dramas on the air, by 2008 there were only 119.

Priority programming regulation affected both the amount spent on Canadian drama and the number of hours of drama produced. Why? Because instead of expensive, high-quality drama, they could now fill their hours with low-budget dramas like Train 48 and low-cost entertainment magazine shows. Today broadcasters are asking for even more flexibility in ways that would take the Canadian broadcasting system back decades, to the seventies, when Global and Baton made promises to license Canadian programming that they did not keep, forcing the CRTC to impose conditions of licence.

The public record demonstrates that Canadian broadcasters will only support Canadian programming, whether it is local or drama or priority programming, if they are required to do so.

Maureen.

[Maureen Parker]

Historically the CRTC has protected the cultural interests of Canadians. They have done this even though they have been hampered by an inability to effectively enforce their own regulations. At the CRTC hearing, we've heard that several broadcasters are not in compliance with a number of the regulatory obligations, from hours of news to hours of Canadian content. Lack of compliance appears to go on year after year in some cases.

The CRTC asks stakeholders to assist by filing complaints. The WGC has done so on two occasions, with non-compliance by several broadcasters in the entertainment magazine show category, and we also filed a complaint regarding a specialty service contravening its nature of service definition. In both cases it took more than a year to resolve the issue, with letters back and forth before the commission was able to encourage the broadcasters to comply.

As a union, we know that rules are only respected if they can be enforced. That's why we think that the Broadcasting Act needs to be amended to provide the CRTC with a full range of tools to enforce compliance. The CRTC needs to be able to administer fines and other non-financial penalties on broadcasters so that they can ensure the integrity of the broadcasting system in a timely manner.

The penalties should fit the crime. Broadcasters seem to be spending less and less on Canadian programming so they can spend more and more on American programming. But let's be clear here: the problem isn't foreign news or foreign information programming, the real problem is broadcasters competing to get the latest big-budget drama from Hollywood. Last year English language private broadcasters spent $490 million on foreign drama but only $54 million on Canadian drama. It must be noted that the excessive spend has not been a slow creep over time. It was an explosion that happened three years ago, in 2006, after consolidation gave certain broadcasters deep enough pockets to try to outbid each other in Hollywood.

But broadcasters keep telling you that they need to spend more and more on U.S. programming because they need to subsidize Canadian programming. In fact, they say that Canadian programming cannot and will never make them money. We disagree. Tomorrow morning, along with our colleagues at the CFTPA, ACTRA, and the DGC, we will be releasing a new study by Nordicity entitled Analysis of the Economics of Canadian Television Programming, and we will be pleased to provide this committee with copies as soon as it's available. The bottom line of the report is that Canadian drama may not earn broadcasters as much as American drama does, but committing to Canadian drama is not the financial burden the broadcasters make it out to be. The increasingly excessive expenditure on foreign programming isn't necessary to cover the cost of Canadian programming.

Tomorrow we will be asking the CRTC to proceed with one-year administrative renewals, followed by a policy hearing for the more complex issues, and then group licensing renewal in a manageable way so that small stakeholders such as ourselves, SARTEC, DOC, and DOC Network can participate in a fair and meaningful fashion.

The Canadian broadcasting system needs policy changes from both the CRTC and Parliament. We would like to share with you the simple policy changes that could be implemented by the CRTC. We will be asking them to remove incrementality from the LPIF and advance the distance signal regime, both in favour of a clear commitment from broadcasters to spend that revenue on Canadian programming.

I'm sorry, I'm almost done. It's the summary.

In subsequent hearings our priorities for structural change will be some kind of expenditure requirement for Canadian programming, no weakening of priority programming definitions, and maintaining independent production quotas and access to funding. We look to this committee and Parliament to look after the legislative end of the framework that upholds the Canadian broadcasting system. We have a couple of recommendations that I'll read very quickly.

First, we urge the committee to recommend to the government that the Broadcasting Act be amended to give the CRTC the power to impose financial and other non-financial penalties.

Second, relax restrictions on pharmaceutical advertising, to bring more revenue into the system.

Third, support the CRTC chair's recommendation that government eliminate part II fees.

Fourth, for digital transition, government could pay to subsidize the cost of extending digital television service to smaller, underserved communities.

Fifth, ensure that the CBC receives the same concessions that the private conventional broadcasters receive.

And that's it. Thank you very much.

We would be pleased to take any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

A couple turned into five. I saw that.

[Maureen Parker]

Did it? I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You can thank some of the other people for making their presentations a little shorter.

Mr. Rodriguez, ask your first question, please.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I ask that you interrupt me after five minutes and be very strict with me and all my colleagues, so we can maximize our questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I will.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'll be tough.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, please be tough.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome and thank you for being here.

First I would like to speak to the documentary people. Does the disappearance of the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund mean the loss of a major revenue source for you?

[Madam Sylvie Van Brabant]

It was a small fund, but it was important for starting up projects, especially community projects. We were required to do educational, community marketing. So these were films that went to groups, etc. Without those funds, a number of films in my company would never have been produced.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

That fund amounted to $1.5 million in total. As you say, it wasn't a very large amount, but it was useful.

Mr. Gariépy.

[Jean-Pierre Gariépy]

For the industry, for the business, the CIFVF was a talent and production incubator. It was a very economical fund relative to its needs, but it produced major results, starting with Jean Lemire, who made his first film thanks to the CIFVF, etc. As regards local television, this is a fund that made a major contribution to the making of high-quality works.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I agree with you that it should be reinstituted.

[Lisa Fitzgibbons]

The fund was a catalyst that would enable documentary filmmaking to find a financial model that was not that of television, which is essential.