Canadian Heritage Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Wait a minute, between any government and the CBC?

[Marc-Philippe Laurin]

I was asked if our members felt this government was negative toward the CBC. They said yes. That's the question--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

But they didn't feel that way about the Liberal Party.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Question over, question over. We've gone over time.

Mr. Simms, please.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

And now for something completely different. Wasn't that a ball?

Now that we've dealt with question period as per this afternoon, I have a couple of questions.

Some of the themes that came out of your testimony interested me, because we are talking about fee-for-carriage, about the local improvement fund, all these things. Do you feel that in the absence of any regulations...? Let me put it another way. What is required of you, or what do you think should be required of broadcasters when it comes to a local improvement fund, or any type of money that helps subsidize local funding?

[Peter Murdoch]

I don't know, I'll just take it very briefly.

The first thing is accountability. Supposedly once this fund is set up, it's set up for a purpose, and I think as an incumbent, to ensure that purpose is met.... It's not a slush fund for broadcasters. It's not something to go to the bottom line. It's targeted, and we have to have accountability and transparency on it.

It's also for original hours of news programming, primarily, and that is different from simply repeating news or calling pet horoscopes or something news. It's not news broadcasting.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

If the government had made a statement that, yes, we're recommending this local improvement fund have all the stipulations, all the disclosures, all the transparency, and the regulations to boot to make sure local programming objectives are fulfilled, then.... What you're saying is that in order for the CRTC to do this, it's going to last for a short period of time and then we're back to where we were before. In other words, because the broadcasters don't fulfill these commitments, it doesn't really matter.

[Peter Murdoch]

Well, (a) we would like to see some sort of enforcement of it, but (b) it seems to me we have the cart before the horse. If we have a commitment to local news and local programming, if we believe Canadians deserve that in whatever community they live across the country, then let's ensure that they have it. If the broadcasters have a little downturn in the economy, maybe they need some help. If they have an upturn, maybe we can deal with that as well.

If it seems this is a permanent structural problem, as the broadcasters claim it is--I'm not sure it is, but let's suggest that it is for a minute--then we need something like fee-for-carriage, which is permanent additional funding.

Maybe my colleagues would like to add to this.

[Lise Lareau]

Very quickly. Our union called for having the fee-for-carriage and having that money specifically allocated for local news. The LPIF, the local program improvement fund, was a little bit of an offshoot of that recommendation. The current plan is for the LPIF to be funded out of cable and satellite fees; we're saying it should be matched by government money. I think we should get going fast on the LPIF to help what I think is a wonderful project at CHCH, which is the idea of local ownership of local stations. Get that project going and use it as a test case.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Okay, I think I read you loud and clear on that one. It was one of the comments that came from Mr. Murdoch that two or three recommendations had been accepted by the CRTC.

I agree with you. I agree wholeheartedly. One of the reasons I wanted to call this together was to provide some kind of direction from Parliament as to what CRTC should be doing. But my goodness, I'm seeing it time and time again. Nothing is being followed and recommended. Who is talking about a long-term, seven-year commitment to the CBC? Outside of us, nobody--except for you and certain interests. And I appreciate all the information you gave me.

[Peter Murdoch]

I think this committee, other committees, other royal commissions, other inquiries, for years have been calling for a fully resourced public broadcaster. It's not new. The question is, why hasn't anything been done about it? I don't care which party it is. Why hasn't anything been done about it? As to the degree to which the CRTC can lend its weight, that hasn't happened either. If you ask me why.... Catatonia? I don't know.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Should the CRTC, then, actually consider—and this has been brought up before by other witnesses—getting into the business of sanctioning? Obviously it's something without teeth. Is that a fair statement? Because, really, you either revoke the licence or you don't, in which case you want the types of sanctions that can make them behave in the certain way that the government wants them to.

[Monica Auer, Consultant, Interconnected, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada]

The current Broadcasting Act makes it an offence to breach either a regulation or a condition of licence. The CRTC can also issue mandatory orders currently. It has issued mandatory orders, but even though those have in turn been breached, the CRTC has not followed it up at the courts. There is already a legal remedy in the Broadcasting Act.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

But is that legal remedy too cumbersome?

[Monica Auer]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Simms, we can't get into dialogue, because that's the end of the answer.

We have to move to Ms. Lavallée. We have one more question over here, and we have to get this meeting over.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I did not call the point of order earlier to prevent the witnesses from answering, but to ask Mr. Del Mastro to treat our guests with respect. He was preventing them from answering. I respect the Chair, so I did not bring it up again. Thank you very much.

With all due respect, I have a few questions, but I want to begin with a comment. Mr. Del Mastro said earlier that his government has been more generous than any other toward Radio-Canada. However, according to the Canadian Media Guild brief, CBC/Radio-Canada is now operating on $354 million less in constant dollars than it was in 1995. According to the Fédération nationale des communications, funding is down by an estimated $300 million.

You are not very generous. On page 23 of a document that the CEO you appointed, Hubert Lacroix, presented to the committee—sadly, I do not have it with me—he estimated funding to be $400 million less in constant dollars than it was in 1990. I do not know which numbers you are going by. That was just a comment.

Regardless, all of the people who talked to us about the CBC/Radio-Canada's budget deficit said that the corporation has had a significant deficit for 20 years. The only ones denying it are the Conservatives.

Mrs. Larouche, I would like to talk about the survey. Since we are comparing documents, let us go ahead and compare some. Earlier, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting submitted a survey of 943 anglophones that looked good for CBC/Radio-Canada. According to the survey, 54% of respondents agreed that the corporation's budget should go up to at least $40 per Canadian per year. You conducted nearly 1,000 interviews in French and English, probably only in Quebec, because people in that province identify strongly with CBC/Radio-Canada, the audience ratings are very high, and competition from Hollywood is not as tough. But only 57% think that the subsidy should be maintained. The results are weird.

[Chantal Larouche]

I think we should take a look at the questions that were asked.

Considering the overall results of the survey, we see that 80% of respondents said that they cared about CBC/Radio-Canada and were prepared to increase its funding if necessary. However, when it came to numbers, we wondered if people might have been confused by the methodology. First, they said that they were prepared to pay more if need be. Some 86% of them wanted to make sure that CBC/Radio-Canada received funding. However, when asked whether they would rather pay $34 or $40, many said that $34 was enough.

When the survey was being put together, experts from the firm told us that we should avoid introducing a bias. We thought that we had to include information to help people understand that, elsewhere in the world, a public broadcaster could cost up to $133 per person, per year. We were told that in terms of methodology, and to keep the questionnaire honest, we should not include that information. Nevertheless, the results point to some clear facts. Over 80% of the respondents wanted to protect CBC/Radio-Canada's vocation and mission. Some 73% said that the government's refusal to grant CBC/Radio-Canada temporary financial support made no sense. Finally, 60% of the respondents were against the government giving financial support to private companies via subsidies. That is significant.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I see that Mr. Laurin has something to say, but I would just like to add that, last year, the committee put together an excellent report in which it clearly asked for funding in the amount of $40 per Canadian, stable funding together with a memorandum of understanding and another $60 million in one-time funding. I cannot understand why the government did not respond favourably to the report.

Mr. Laurin.

[Marc-Philippe Laurin]

I just wanted to add that when one talks to francophones across Canada about CBC/Radio-Canada, they think about the national Radio-Canada network. When one talks to anglophones, they think about the national CBC network. They do not think about all of the other services. When we meet with Canadians to tell them about the 29 separate services, what is different about them, the number of languages used—basically, all of the services that CBC/Radio-Canada provides as a public broadcaster for a billion dollars—they begin to understand a little better. To answer your question about the $400—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It is $400 million.

[Marc-Philippe Laurin]

Oh, sorry.

If you look at the document—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have to wrap.

[Marc-Philippe Laurin]

Yes, I am getting to the point, Mr. Schellenberger.

In the document, you can see that for 1990, our numbers match Mr. Lacroix's. For 2008, the comparison between appropriations in nominal dollars and appropriations in 2008 dollars shows that there is a $400 deficit compared to 1990.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.