Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 16th, 2011

[René Bouchard]

No, not really.

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

So can you answer it?

[Daniel Jean]

In fact, we would not answer it in any other appointment process either.

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

You aren't entitled to say who you recommended?

[Daniel Jean]

It is an order in council appointment process. So it's a process that comes from Cabinet...

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Excuse me, Mr. Jean, but Mr. Armstrong has a point of order.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

What does this line of questioning have to do with the orders of the day? How does this affect our study on the CBC?

Badgering a witness over an appointment, when they've already established that they followed the proper process—what does that have to do with the orders of the day and the study on the CBC?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

In light of the comments made about Radio-Canada earlier today by a minister, Mr. Rodriguez was asking how the appointment process worked for this particular case. So tangentially it relates to CBC/Radio-Canada. I'll allow the question.

But I would ask the member to allow the public servants in front of us to answer their questions.

[Daniel Jean]

Mr. Rodriguez, no one has forbidden us to answer the question; it is our role, our function, that prohibits us from answering it. It is an order in council appointment, and we can never publicly disclose any advice that is given to a Cabinet committee. René has described the process that was put in place.

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

Thank you.

I am learning; I have never dealt with this to date. I won't come back to that, but I am curious to know whether there wasn't partisanship in it. Appointments to the CRTC will have a direct consequence for the renewal of the CBC's licence.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

One minute.

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

You know that by giving the CBC the same budget, for one thing, you can say you are not cutting it. For another thing, we know that under the collective agreement bargained over several years, the directors are required to give a 1.5% increase. They are required to do that, they are bound by contract. They therefore have to make cuts elsewhere. Are you aware of that?

[Daniel Jean]

Yes. You probably also know, Mr. Rodriguez, that all departments and agencies are in exactly the same boat. Government and Crown departments and agencies had to absorb wage increases in the budget two years ago. This was in a situation of financial restrictions, fiscal constraints. In any event, as the Minister said a moment ago, in other countries there have been straight out cuts, while this allowed us some flexibility for managing, in a difficult fiscal situation.

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

So...

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Jean.

According to the orders of the day,

we're supposed to stop at 5 o'clock.

But if it is the will of the committee, we can continue until 5:15.

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

And if we at least let Mr. Pomerleau speak?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Brown would also like to make an intervention as well.

Is it the will of the committee to continue for another 15 minutes?

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

For those two, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

For two more? Okay. We'll have two more rounds.

We'll have two more members pose their questions, beginning with Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions.

The first is just to follow up on Mr. Angus' point about regional voices. That's something that's particularly important to me, coming from Simcoe County, where there were concerns that some of the local TV might have been...their fate was in question.

It appears more encouraging now that that's not the case, but one of the tremendous benefits of the CBC, I think, is the fact that you have that guaranteed ability to put an emphasis on things that Canadians care about. Local TV and regional voices are things that Canadians care about, and I was pleased to see that referenced in the five-year plan.

The question I have is—it's an ambitious project to have those regional voices—how are you going to do that within an existing budget, assuming that it doesn't increase dramatically and you have the normal increases each year? How is that going to be possible? When I think of regional voices, do you not have to have people on the ground? If you're going to cover regional stories, you have to have infrastructure to do that.

How is it going to be possible to achieve that aspect of the five-year plan?

[Daniel Jean]

I think that is a good question that you could ask Mr. Lacroix of Radio-Canada, but certainly in conversations with them, this is also where the evolution of new technology sometimes makes things less expensive. Nowadays, with digital cameras, with a feed through the Internet, you can actually offer coverage and have the same journalistic coverage at a cheaper price. The technology also offers an opportunity to reduce some of your costs.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

There are tremendous opportunities with technology. It was referenced by Mr. Lacroix. I like that you can log in to your local region and you'll see your regional news, you'll see your national news. But to cover a story, you have to have people on the ground. If it's a story in Thunder Bay or Trois-Rivières or Muskoka, you have to have someone there to do that. I think the only realistic way to do that is by hiring people in partnerships who would be able to cover that project.

If we're serious about the goal of enabling regional voices, are there any exploratory ideas of how that would be achieved, or is it still in the elementary stages?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

I don't know exactly how the CBC, which is independent from us, is going to do it, but I can tell you, broadly, from a broadcasting perspective, technology is enabling wonderful opportunities where you have citizen journalists. We see it in Toronto and Vancouver, because people are tapping into technology. They're actually the eyes and ears of many broadcasters. That's one opportunity.

But as the deputy mentioned, there's also the issue of lowering costs. One can't assume that everything costs more. In fact, you find productivity gains when you leverage technology.

That's really how they're going to do it. I think the minister was quite clear that it's a direction the government supports, but it's also one that every consultation has supported. Having both a mirror and a window into the country is a good thing. It's up to the CBC, and they themselves have given themselves that mandate to accomplish.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I just hope the implementation is realistic.

The other question I had is with regard to CBC sports. I realize one of their major success stories, obviously, has been their sports coverage over the last few decades. Some of their icons, if you look at the CBC, are people who are involved in that aspect, whether it's hockey or in earlier times when the CBC was more involved in the international coverage of sports, such as the Olympics.

My question is, given the fact that there's much more market competition now, and one day when they have to bid again for those contracts of professional sports, do you believe it's realistic for the CBC to continue to be that major player in covering Canadian sports?

[Daniel Jean]

With regard to programming, the CBC would have to answer. That's part of their independence.

Having said that, I did read the testimony from Mr. Lacroix. He certainly spoke about partnerships. We've seen in other countries where sometimes there are alliances between broadcasters to bid for something like the Olympics or other things like that.