Canadian Heritage Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Ian Morrison]

With your permission, I'll speak in the official language that I better understand.

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

Go ahead, please.

[Ian Morrison]

I was sitting across the hall when you had a communication with Minister Moore just two weeks ago. In it, as I recall, you held up the main estimates, which showed a 5.6% cut to the budget of the CBC. Minister Moore consulted his deputy and acknowledged that this was in fact what was in the main estimates, but indicated to you that the government was going to supplement it with $60 million. I believe that has not yet happened, but I presume we could take him at his word.

On Friday.... CBC has many qualities. One of them is that its employees leak like sieves, Mr. Rodriguez.

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

I'll get to that later. That's my next question. I just want to finish this one.

[Ian Morrison]

Okay.

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

If CBC gets this $60 million, if there's no cut of $60 million, it's even. There's no increase at all, right? So in the best-case scenario, even in the worst-case scenario, they lose $60 million.

[Ian Morrison]

If you take purchasing power into account, which is something that is done over time to factor in inflation to find out what a dollar will buy, you will find that CBC has been getting less federal purchasing power from its grant over the years consistently. We've done an analysis over the last 20 years, and it has been continuing to go down. I think that's the meaningful statistic, Mr. Rodriguez, that you should keep your eye on, rather than the non-inflation dollars.

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

We are reading about further cuts to the CBC as part of a strategic review. We are talking about an additional $56 million or a 5% cut in the $1.1 billion provided by Ottawa. I read that. You said that Mr. Moore misled Parliament and the public when he stated that there would be no further cuts. If the CBC’s budget, as indicated by Mr. Lacroix, is cut by 5%, or $56 million, what will be the impact on staff as a result of the review exercise? Do you believe that many more jobs will be eliminated?

[Ian Morrison]

Obviously CBC is in a crisis right now. They've laid off 10% of their staff. It's not a very good time to ask them to amputate more. I am aware that the federal Treasury Board has this exercise, which a variety of government departments and agencies go through. I just felt, Mr. Rodriguez, that it was unfortunate that at this time, when CBC is in a crisis, they would be asked to consider further cuts.

I sat in the room two weeks ago when you asked Minister Moore if he could guarantee that CBC would be receiving the money, and he told you that he could. At least that's what I heard, Mr. Rodriguez. I was very disappointed to see that this happened.

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

One thing is worrisome. When Mr. Lacroix appeared as a witness, he said that for every dollar of revenue lost the CBC must cut its expenses by the same amount to balance its budget. That means that, tomorrow morning, many jobs will be cut to offset the reduction in revenue. That is troubling.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You'll have to get that answer through me to Mr. Rodriguez, because the five minutes is up.

Ms. Lavallée, please

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

Thank you.

Mr. Morrison, I will address my question to you. I know that you follow Radio-Canada and the CBC very closely. I would like you to help us decipher the minister’s words. His words and his actions are discordant. The best example is the one you provided today. The last time the minister appeared before this committee, he said that he did not intend to cut CBC funding. But then he asked the CBC, as part of a strategic review, to identify where expenditures could be cut by 5%, which amounts to $56 million.

You know very well that the Conservatives applaud when the demise of the CBC is mentioned in Parliament. Even here, in committee, questions about the CBC from our Conservative colleagues are very harsh. There is no sense of collaboration, solidarity or any type of assistance. Even the minister himself, when asked about the CBC’s budget, has told us that he is keeping the promise made by the Conservative Party in the last election. He seems to be sticking to that and we might say that the unfinished part of that sentence is that the Conservative Party will no longer commit to maintaining the CBC budget.

What do you make of the minister’s statements? Do you believe that this Conservative government wants to help the CBC and maintain its budget?

[Ian Morrison]

Our organization is non-partisan, and sometimes that is difficult. In the years that I have been doing my job, I've had reason to criticize this government, the Liberal government, and what was then known as the Progressive Conservative government.

I will be very candid with you, Madam Lavallée. I detect in the current government two discordant messages. During the last election campaign a Conservative fundraising letter came into our hands that asked if the money being spent on CBC was being well spent or not. It caused us to commission a public opinion poll from Nanos Research, to find that Canadians answered 63% yes and 25% no. We asked the Prime Minister to give his answer to the question, and he wouldn't.

Minister Moore says good things, things I would want a heritage minister to say about public broadcasting. But there are other messages from the government. I thought that Mr. Rodriguez's question two weeks ago and Minister Moore's response put that to rest. Effectively, Mr. Rodriguez used the word “guarantee”, as in, would you give the committee a guarantee? The minister said yes. Then to read on Friday that the CBC is once again being put through an exercise that could lead to a 5% cut 12 months from now was most unfortunate and inconsistent with his guarantee.

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

The minister told this committee that he did not intend to make cuts but then he turned around and asked the President of the CBC, Mr. Lacroix, to find a way to cut 5% everywhere. I do not want you to be partisan. However, I would like to know if this is a consistent and standard approach by a minister, no matter his political stripes.

[Ian Morrison]

There's a colloquial expression in English about hitting someone when they're down, if you know that expression. It would seem to be an inappropriate time, if the government had any discretion, to impose such an exercise on the national public broadcaster when it is in a crisis.

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

What main recommendation would you make to help the CBC?

[Ian Morrison]

Here I'm actually borrowing an idea from Prime Minister Harper when he was the leader of the opposition. He made a speech to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. I have it here, and I mention this in my remarks. He said that he thought CBC Television should withdraw from the advertising market except when it is broadcasting professional sports, and that would help the private sector by changing supply demand. In return, the CBC should be provided with stable long-term funding. The words are right in his speech.

I think that would be a very good idea, because right now, with both SRC Television and CBC Television on the English side, too much of their activity is chasing audiences for advertisers and too little is doing what public broadcasters do in other western democracies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Lacroix, can you tell me how many Francophones live in northern Ontario? Is the number of francophones in north eastern Ontario comparable to the number living in the Abitibi-Temiskaming region in Quebec?

[Sylvin Lacroix]

I do not have the exact figure but I do know that there are 125,000 francophones living in north eastern Ontario. When you include those living in north western Ontario, there are approximately 175,000 francophones across all those communities.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

In the north, there are many small, rural, francophone communities that are isolated and very few francophone media to represent them. Therefore, you are dependent upon the CBC with respect to Franco-Ontarian culture and identity. Could you tell us about the impact of cuts to public broadcasting?

[Sylvin Lacroix]

I am not an expert in the cuts to the CBC. However, I can tell you that, as a result of the latest cuts announced because of shrinking advertising revenues, the only public affairs program in French-speaking Ontario—a 30-minute program on Radio-Canada’s Première chaîne—was cancelled. In the Windsor area, there was one local French-language station. Now, everything, or almost, has been eliminated.

As you know, the CBC is a symbiosis of a French-language network and an English-language network. They cannot necessarily be separated. The fact that Sudbury and Thunder Bay are losing half of their journalists will have repercussions. There will be fewer staff members to gather information and, consequently, less people to rebroadcast it. If francophone communities are unable to talk to one another and to talk to the rest of Canada, especially public decision-makers, we might as well say that we will no longer be able to advance our cause. The local media are vital to this task.

In a debate on the CBC, I pointed out to a member that even you, the MPs, depend on the local media to get your message across and to reach your constituents. This obviously does not apply to those fortunate enough to live in the Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa or Vancouver areas. The others must use the local media, which are dwindling.

I will give you an example. In Ontario, every newscast on the television program Ce soir spends about 90 seconds on Timmins. About 29,000 francophones live in the Timmins area. On MCTV, which serves the English population from Barrie southward, they spend an average of about three minutes on Timmins in each newscast. It truly is difficult to get the message across.

I listened to the briefs, which I found very interesting. However, our local community and association would like to know whether there will be anyone left in 10 years to convey our message. We are beginning to think that there will be no one left. In recent rounds of cuts at the CBC, northern Ontario was the hardest hit, per capita, in terms of job. That is very troubling.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Morrison, you were talking about the minister's comments at the April 29 meeting. You were there, I'm sure. Do you remember my trying to get a straight answer from him about why he said very clearly in the media--in the middle of the crisis in funding, when CBC was trying to get bridge financing--that there was never any discussion about the loan against future appropriations? I found that very odd, because it was clearly in the article. He said I was pulling headlines out of thin air.

I went back and checked it. Sure enough, it was a very clear and definitive statement--probably as definitive as his statement at the meeting that there would be no further cuts to the CBC. Now we're seeing $56 million being identified. It's very hard for us at this point to take the minister's word that he and his government don't have a vendetta against the CBC.

When you were sitting there, did you hear a very clear enunciation that the attack on CBC was finished, as far as he was concerned? It looks like it's just starting.

[Ian Morrison]

A very brief answer would be yes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.