Mr. Chair, CBC/Radio-Canada is a fundamental part of Canada's broadcasting system. The public broadcaster provides 29 local services across the country on the radio, on television and on the Internet. The public broadcaster is, without a doubt, the most important cultural driver in the country. Moreover, CBC/Radio-Canada offers services that private broadcasters never will, such as local and regional services in small communities and in minority languages. Canadians depend on these services for information, debate and entertainment. These services help people participate in this country's public life.
You are most likely aware of the 800 job cuts and service reductions underway cut at the public broadcaster. There are two reasons that happened. The drop in advertising revenue during the economic crisis was significant, but the main factor was the combined year-over-year effect of inflation on public funding allocated to CBC/Radio-Canada. Last Friday afternoon, we learned that CBC/Radio-Canada might once again face the threat of another budget cut of some $50 million following a strategic review of its budget undertaken by the government. I must say that such a cut would be devastating and would prevent Mr. Lacroix, the president of CBC/Radio-Canada, from implementing initiatives he announced to the committee, such as restoring local service in communities where service has been cut. We beg you to do everything in your power to stop the government from carrying out this threat.
On Friday afternoon, we learned that the CBC is facing the threat of another cut, something that could be as much as $58 million, under the strategic review program launched by this government. This is on top of the cut that the public broadcaster is currently dealing with.
A new cut, I have to tell you, would be devastating and would obviously negate any efforts now being made by the CBC to try to restore local service in the areas currently being hit hardest by the service cuts this past spring.
We have to implore you, and we do so with heartfelt feelings, to do all that you can do to stop this review and stop this possibility of another cut.
As you know, funding for CBC/Radio-Canada is modest compared to public funding for public broadcasters in other industrialized nations. Parliament allocates just $34 per Canadian per year to CBC/Radio-Canada. That amounts to just over $1 billion for all 29 services. The average among the 18 OECD member nations is $80 per person. If Canadian funding matched the industrialized nations average—and Canada is an industrialized nation—the Canadian government would be giving CBC/Radio-Canada over $2.6 billion to carry out its mandate.
Furthermore, the funding CBC will receive from Parliament this year is the same in constant dollars as it received in 1995. When adjusted for inflation, that funding is worth $360 million less this year than it was in 1995. In 2005, the then president of the CBC, Robert Rabinovitch, stated in a public statement at McGill University stated that the CBC had not had a one-red-cent increase in its programming budget in 25 years. That was in 2005. This is 2009, and I don't think anything has changed.
There lies the crux of the problem. Even without further cuts, the public broadcaster struggles year by year with declining spending power. Unfortunately, we know that over the years it's the regions and local programming that have been squeezed hardest by the financial restraints.
As members of Parliament, you are the ones who can solve this problem. We are asking you to implement the main recommendations set out in your February 2008 report. Specifically, we are asking the government to sign a seven-year contract with CBC/Radio-Canada for increased, inflation-indexed funding.
For the past few weeks, people across Canada have been demonstrating their opposition to the public broadcaster's reduction of services. Yesterday, in Windsor, over 300 people denounced the closure, for all intents and purposes, of the only francophone radio station serving Ontario's south-west peninsula.
A few weeks ago, in Sudbury and Thunder Bay, hundreds of people denounced the reduction of services to Ontario's far north. Similar demonstrations have happened across the country wherever citizens are realizing that, bit by bit, they are losing their voice, the reflection of their community.
That is why we are asking for an immediate increase of $7 per Canadian per year in funding for the public broadcaster, as recommended in your February 2008 report. That would allow the immediate restoration of services that are about to be cut, and the improvement of local and regional services across the country, especially in communities that are growing but do not yet have local CBC/Radio-Canada service. For example, the French radio station in Windsor could be reinstated.
or we could maintain services in Thompson, La Ronge, Sudbury, St. John's, or Sydney. With proper stable funding, the CBC could also be looking at setting up new radio stations to better reflect and serve communities such as Red Deer in Alberta.
The time to act is now. We plead with you.
The time to act is now. We must not delay any longer.
We need Parliament to take action.