Canadian Heritage Committee on May 13th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Del Mastro, please.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, witnesses, for your presentations today.

Frankly, we'd love to ask questions of all the witnesses and get in a couple of rounds in, but unfortunately, because this is only a one-hour session, we haven't the time. So I apologize if anyone feels they're being ignored by the committee today.

I'm going to start with ACTRA and Mr. Hardacre and Ms. Crewson. Frankly, I emphatically believe in and support an awful lot of the statements you made today. I think the role of the CRTC is to protect the Canadian identity. I think that's why it was created. We live next door to the largest exporter of culture in the world and we are trying to define ourselves and tell people the Canadian story.

You mentioned Passchendaele. I've spoken to you about this. One of the things I liked about Passchendaele is that it acknowledged that Canadians served in the First World War, it acknowledged the role we played, and it told a Canadian story from a Canadian perspective. I think it was unique.

I'm pretty passionate about this stuff. I really think that Canadians need to learn about their history. I think they need to learn a better identity.

You talked about drama. I think drama is critically important. What are we losing right now by whittling down Canadian drama on prime time?

[Wendy Crewson]

Canadian drama is the linchpin of popular culture. It is the one thing we all turn to. It is the voice that can go from one end of the country to the other. It is a voice that joins us. It is our humour, our fears, our hopes, and our dreams. It's all encompassed in Canadian drama.

That's what Canadian drama does. It tells our stories to us and to our children so that we're part of a country that has stories that are heroic and that form who we are, instead of having our identity constantly chipped away by American programming and American drama, and by having your kids, every time they turn on the TV, watching some American show about some American dream or American reality that is not going to be theirs.

It diminishes us not to have our stories on television in prime time in the form of drama. Unless this turns around, I think we are truly becoming a branch plant of American culture, and that's all we'll ever be. A few people will make a ton of money from it and the rest of us will suffer the consequences. At this point, you see the cracks in the facade already, but I tell you, it will be devastating. We will lose our identity.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you.

You mentioned the 1999 decision. As I said earlier, the CRTC's role was to make sure that there were Canadians on the airwaves and to make sure that Canadians got to see Canadian programming. What message would you give directly to the CRTC? I know that you've asked them to do nothing for a year, but what would you say to them with regard to fees, whether it's a Local Programming Improvement Fund, which they've already decided to move forward with, or alternatively, the fee-for-carriage the broadcasters have spoken about and the BDUs have argued against?

What would you say to them about these fees and the importance of ensuring that they perform their role in making sure that Canadian content is on the air in prime time? What message would you give directly to the CRTC?

[Richard Hardacre]

Thank you.

The message we've delivered already--and I'm going to make it quite clear again--is that we need to see in the hearings, both for digital distribution and for the conventional distribution of programming, dedicated space for Canadian content, dramatic content being part of it, and we need to see minimum expenditures.

It's not just an actors' union that needs to see this. It's the Canadian people who need to see this: minimum expenditures dedicated to Canadian content and, of that, a major part of it for Canadian drama, for those stories that Wendy has just spoken about.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thanks so much.

Ms. Fusca, I'm encouraged by your commitment to the process of this committee. I've seen you here at virtually every committee hearing, which means that you inherently believe in the committee process of Parliament. I want to express my appreciation for that.

You run three stations right now: the Pet Network, bpm:tv, and ichannel. Are you having any problems in getting any one of those carried right now? I wasn't aware that there was a pet TV station, but I think my wife would probably like it.

[Martha Fusca]

Yes. Well, I'm disappointed that you didn't know there's a Pet Network.

I just want to add that in general, and on behalf of the community folks and ACTRA as well, the system really needs more money. There has to be a better sort of sharing of the revenues that are generated. We also need to be using the mechanisms that we have available to promote it. With The Pet Network, for example, I can't. Shaw and Star Choice don't carry The Pet Network or bpm:tv.

We had an NDP member from Windsor here who asked why it is that we can have a couple of pornography channels but not the Windsor station. I have the same question and so do many citizens across the country. Why is that they can't get bpm:tv? Why is it that they can't get The Pet Network?

If North Americans alone spend billions of dollars on pets, you would just intuitively--never mind bpm:tv--conclude that this is an extremely popular programming genre. Yet you have the folks from Shaw sitting here telling you that the consumer decides. Well, what consumer? What consumer decides? Because the consumer is definitely not deciding--those folks decide. Unfortunately, over the years they've been given the authority to make the decisions about what Canadians can and can't watch and what gets promoted and what doesn't get promoted.

I would love to promote some of the Canadian drama we have on ichannel, but it would cost me half a million dollars for each channel to do a seasonal campaign. That's not what the CRTC intended, but the CRTC isn't doing anything about it yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Again, as has been stated, all our witnesses are very important to this committee.

Our first hour is complete. We are going to recess for a couple of minutes. Just before that, I would request that everybody get back here as I have a couple of items that I have to go through before we start our next group.

Thanks very much to our witnesses. We'll recess for five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I call this meeting back to order.

Before we start, we have to do a little bit of committee business. I've been talking to the analysts. On the first Monday back, May 25, we have the CRTC here.

There's been a suggestion that we have a mini-round table on May 27. That would be a selection of the witnesses who have been before us. I'm going to ask that each party suggest two people to the clerk, and we'll see if we can set that up.

At the same time, I'm going to ask that the meeting on June 1 be suspended. There's a request that I think will come through the clerk in relation to an event at the Library and Archives that day. They would like to have as many as possible from the committee attending that event. I was not going to be here anyway on that particular day; it's the opening of the Stratford Shakespeare festival and I have tickets for my wife and me. We'll correspond through the clerk and get some of that across tomorrow.

The other thing is that if we can meet with our analysts to give them some idea of what we might be looking for in a report, if we can give them a little direction, maybe they can rough some things out over the break week. When we do get into the report, we're only going to have about four or five meetings to quantify the report and get it presented to the House.

Go ahead, Mr. Rodriguez.

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

Thank you.

I have no problem with scrapping the June 1 meeting. What I suggest, then, is that on May 27 we do a round table for two hours and extend the meeting so that we can have an in camera working meeting on the report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Yes, that sounds good. We did talk about that. I missed that. I think we can do that. We'll be in camera through that round table anyway. We'll extend it for half an hour to an hour and use our discretion as we go.

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

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

I don't know if we can make this decision here and now, but we might need a working lunch before that. Before we go into that meeting, I think, we should all have had a chance to at least have a sense of some of the issues we need to address, so that we're not coming in and then floating our ideas blind with the people we're going to have to bounce these ideas off.

We have very little window and we have to come forward with some very technical responses, and a lot of people are paying very close attention to what we're doing. We don't have to do this now, but if we can look at our calendar and find time to have a meeting and talk about some of our ideas together, it will give us a chance to test some of those ideas. Then we're going to have a much better sense of what we need to do with recommendations. Then we can go into that meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Del Mastro, but keep it very short, please.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I think Mr. Angus makes a very good point. I know that we don't have a steering committee in this committee, but if Mr. Rodriguez and Madam Lavallée are interested in such a proposal, I'd be very happy to get together with the three of you, perhaps informally, to kick around some ideas and see where our heads are at on the issues we've heard about. If others are interested, I'd certainly be interested.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Are the bells at 5:30?

[A voice]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Go ahead, Ms. Lavallée.

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

Mr. Chairman, something is troubling me. We're going to cancel our June 1 meeting for a press conference at the Library. I don't know whether it's for a government announcement concerning the digital converter, as I think it is. It seems to me that's an odd way to proceed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'm going to interrupt, because that's not my understanding. The clerk has suggested that.... I don't even know whether it is the archives or the library that wants us there. To me, it's not an announcement and--

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

I'm going to tell you: I know what it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It might be a coincidence, you say? Who knows?

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

It's the launch of a digital collections generator at Library and Archives Canada, and it's at 4:30 p.m. on June 1.

Is that correct?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Chair, she doesn't have to attend that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You don't have to attend. It's optional--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

It's optional.