Me too.
Evidence of meeting #21 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #21 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:30 p.m.
President, Section Local 406 of the American Federation of Musicians of Canada and the United States, Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec
As you know, Radio-Canada was forced to make that choice because it lacked funding. That's one of the reasons Radio-Canada has often cited.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Oh, but those programs are very expensive!
I really want to take the pulse of what you said. I simply want to make sure I understood the essential points.
With regard to the Local Programming Improvement Fund, unless I'm mistaken, you would like there to be more regulations to ensure you can benefit from that fund.
Is that correct?
5:30 p.m.
President, Section Local 406 of the American Federation of Musicians of Canada and the United States, Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec
In fact, I understood that the Local Programming Improvement Fund essentially concerns news, local information programs. But we have to go further. Local culture doesn't consist solely of general news in a municipality, a riding; it also includes the life of the riding, the socio-cultural component; it's everything that goes on there. So we're talking about artists too.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I understood.
We also talked about the regulations imposed by the CRTC. With respect to Canadian programming, unless I'm mistaken, you both want to see more regulations so that the CRTC can demand more Canadian content?
5:30 p.m.
President, Alliance québécoise des techniciens de l'image et du son
The requests made by the conventional TV broadcasters and by the major producer-broadcaster conglomerates are always to reduce or eliminate regulations. From what we understand of the current model, of our system, there is a Broadcasting Act, which was developed by elected officials, parliamentarians. That act is administered by a regulatory agency, which is the CRTC. It establishes the regulations that enable it to meet the objectives of the act. Television funding is done by parapublic organizations that redistribute taxpayers' money, which is collected in the form of taxes for the production of Canadian works, including the diversity of voices and priority programs.
We can see that some lobby groups have done their job. The transformation of the Canadian Television Fund—opening the door for producers and broadcasters to gain access to it—is no doubt the result of a lobbying effort. Let's go back further: they're calling for a change to regulations in order to support the rules. I'm afraid our system is coming undone from the bottom up. Eventually, someone will say that we no longer need the Broadcasting Act in Canada. All that starts from the bottom up.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
We have to bring the response to a close.
Again, I thank our witnesses for coming here today and for being so open to our questions.
Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.