Canadian Heritage Committee on March 2nd, 2011

[Catherine Edwards]

I think the group that's done the most accurate research is the one you mentioned on Monday, the Canadian Media Research Consortium. I don't know where those numbers came from on Monday. I've seen some of them before, but if roughly 10% of Canadians, on average, don't have cable or pay television service, that amounts to about three million Canadians. I've never understood where the 900,000 came from.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

They were speaking about 900,000 households.

[Catherine Edwards]

Oh, it is households.

The 31,000 households, as I mentioned, may be the number that lose service right on August 31. They will be where we know analog transmitters are going to be decommissioned and not replaced. Our belief is that they're going to be decommissioned gradually over a period of years. The CBC has already said that this is the case. After 2013 there will just be no over-the-air Radio-Canada or CBC outside the mandatory markets. That's it.

[Beverley Milligan]

Your question speaks to a very important point, and that is the lack of research. I think that's consistent with many other activities that affect people with disabilities in communication. Again, there needs to be ongoing research in this and many other areas.

We communicate regularly with people and organizations across Canada. We are united on this issue through the Access 20/20 coalition, but we're prepared to assist and to work within the framework of a plan.

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

Do you find that the government is trivializing the fact that, from now on, Canadians will have to pay for television? It's still going to cost them $30 for a converter. We know how difficult it could be for a person with low income to find this $30. I find that some people are being arrogant and saying that it's only $30 and that people are going to get it together. Actually, $30 is a lot of money for someone who has difficulty paying their rent or who must live on social assistance and has 80% of their income going toward their rent. Don't you find that the government is trivializing the fact that people with low income don't have a way to buy these converters and even, possibly, to replace them?

[Beverley Milligan]

The first real issue, realistically, is whether it is $30 we're talking about. This is a situation of supply and demand. If nobody knows about it in the first place, on September 1 you're going to have lineups at electronics stores. They're not going to be $30--not at all. They're already in short supply.

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

I believe that the price in the United States doubled during the transition, didn't it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Merci, Madame Lavallée.

Go ahead, Madam Edwards.

[Catherine Edwards]

I just wanted to reiterate that I think there's a lot of focus on the fact that the digital transition may bring in a loss of service for some Canadians, and that's true. I think it's such a pity that we're not focusing on how to make sure that Canada as a country gets the most out of the digital transition in terms of new services.

All that transmission infrastructure is in rural areas. There's no reason any of those communities should lose service. The communities have what they need to step up to the plate. They should not just maintain existing service; they can use those towers to get new services, such as wireless broadband and all these other things rural communities don't have.

Simultaneously, in urban areas all the new space that was supposed to be opened up during the digital transition for new, free TV services is being hogged by all the same broadcasters. We're not going to see any of those new services unless we modify the direction we're going. Other countries just aren't going in those directions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Edwards.

We'll go to Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you both for excellent presentations.

Madam Edwards, you're here so often that it's almost as if you're an honorary member of our committee.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

I wanted to compliment you, because there were a lot of really thought-provoking elements in this. We had an excellent presentation from the CRTC. The overall message was “don't worry, be happy”, and I left whistling the tune. The more I walked away, the more disturbed I got. I think that sometimes happens.

What disturbed me was the sense that there will be a hodgepodge. We're going to have Shaw doing this and CBC doing that. My concern, from a practical point of view, is that if you suddenly don't have your television, how do you call CTV? You don't. Who do you call? You call us. Beyond a national education campaign, I think we need a member of Parliament education campaign, because people are going to be calling, and they're going to be mad as hell. This happens to me every time our CBC signal goes out and people don't get the Montreal Canadiens. They call me.

They can't call CBC. They can't call Shaw. They're going to call us and ask what's going on, and we're going to have no idea. We're going to say that they told us that there was a box plan, and then there was another plan. Why is it that we don't have a coherent explanation and a national strategy for the hodgepodge that's going to be out there, so that people are at least aware of what's coming?

[Catherine Edwards]

That's the main reason that we think information needs to be prepared at the municipal and riding level. It needs to be specific and tell municipalities and counties and so on what their other options are. They don't have to just sit back and suffer loss of service.

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

I wanted to follow up on this issue of sitting on the six megahertz band. I think one of the ideological differences we New Democrats and the Conservatives have about the market is that although we also believe in the market, we just don't believe that the market exists because industry wants it to exist. To have competition, you have to sometimes lay down some rules. I've never met a single company, ever, that wanted competition; they want the market to themselves.

We don't have a marketplace in Canada. We have a family compact, and that family compact has grown bigger and bigger. They control more and more of the market, and we're being sold here, continually, the benefits of scarcity in an age of absolute abundance. My concern with the spectrum sell-off and the digital transition is that you have a couple of very large companies whose interest is to squat on as much of that spectrum as possible, even if they don't know what it's used for. This happens in mining all the time. Big companies always squat on the ground because they don't want small guys out in the field. They might not think to develop it, but they just don't want the competition.

What is the role of the CRTC in representing the public interest and saying that there are public possibilities and a lot of things that could be done with this? How do we ensure that the public is part of this?

[Catherine Edwards]

As I mentioned, the squatting is happening on two levels. It's happening on the TV channels that we have left, channels 2 to 51, which will still be used for TV service. I mentioned that all the existing broadcasters still get to sit on a whole one of those channels for HD, and they don't even need it all for HD, so that's a problem.

Second—and this is the part of my presentation I didn't get to—the upcoming spectrum auction of channels 52 through 69, the so-called digital dividend that this is all about, is going to be finite, no matter what. We already know that what is driving the demand for more bandwidth is rich applications, and in particular video applications that Canadians will be able to consume with their cellphones on the move.

In our view, it's just a move from the unregulated broadcasting spectrum that you watch in your home on TV, and now we have less space for that and fewer channels available for new entrants. We're giving it all to people who are going to offer us more mobile TV so that we can watch all over the place. It's mostly going to be light entertainment, foreign fare, with no regulation whatsoever. At the moment, there's no move to regulate any of that.

We're asking—that was our fourth and last recommendation, which you can see when you get our presentation—that a percentage of that spectrum auction be held back for public use and public planning.

[Beverley Milligan]

I'll add the important point that if you want to use any of that spectrum they're squatting on, you have to partner with them. You're just not going to get that access, so how can anybody ever break into anything? How is there innovation, when you have to partner, inevitably, with the broadcaster? They virtually get to dictate what innovation is going to happen in the future.

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

Ms. Milligan, I want to just switch--

[Catherine Edwards]

Sorry; can I add one other thing?

It's just that you wouldn't know how many people don't intervene in these kinds of processes or in CRTC or Industry Canada hearings because they're afraid to alienate big broadcasters, and they're afraid because they have no choices out there. You're hearing a tiny number of the voices out there that have these kinds of concerns.

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

Yes, we've heard that.

Ms. Milligan, I just want to switch gears somewhat, in terms of issue of accessibility. I've raised it before and I know the issue of television and the need for captioning, but do you track Canadian movies?

This is a concern in our household. We never watch a film that's not closed-captioned. Our kids grew up on American movies and Quebec films, because they always close-caption them to try and get an English market, but great English movies and documentaries were never closed-captioned, even though they were paid for by taxpayers' dollars and through all Telefilm Canada and everything else. Has that been addressed? Do you know if that's still a...?

[Beverley Milligan]

Well--

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Go ahead, Madame Milligan.

[Beverley Milligan]

What's really sad about that is if there's any Telefilm or CMF money involved, they'll actually pay for the captioning and description if it's in the budget, so it's kind of sad you're saying that and experiencing that.

The only research that's been done recently—the beginning of it is just being published at the end of this month—is tracking, right down to time code, over 1,800 hours of content, both Canadian acquired, first window, and so on and so forth, for accessibility. We're going to see, for the first time in about 19 years, some really relevant statistics to provide both as evidence and to help with policy decisions going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Milligan.

Mr. Del Mastro is next.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

Over the past I think I have demonstrated that I don't always agree with the CRTC. In fact, especially if we go back to the issue of fee for carriage or value for signal, I made it pretty clear that I was very disappointed with the position they were taking. I thought it would lead to gouging of Canadians.

We saw a court decision earlier in the week, which I think potentially opens the door to that and which I'd be very disappointed to see. I think Canadians are, frankly, tired of being nickeled and dimed, and a decision in that regard to go in that direction would provoke the type of furor that Canadians have responded with on a number of fronts, so I hope we don't go there.

However, on this decision, I actually think the CRTC is doing a pretty good job. They do have breakdowns by regions, by ridings, of the number of homes they believe could potentially be affected and of which broadcasters and which towers are currently broadcasting in any given area. They do have pretty good data on that. I thought they had broken some new ground with Shaw on the purchase of Global, and I would expect we will see a similar deal made with the Bell purchase of CTV.

Of course I understand you said it's time-limited, and nothing says they will renew this deal, but I would expect that the CRTC, which held them to this standard in the first place, is likely to continue to hold them to this standard when they come for licensing renewal. I don't think too many BDUs will tell you that the CRTC is their buddy. They might not dislike the CRTC, but they are very concerned when they go before the CRTC that the regulator certainly does tend to come down on them.

I'm just curious. If we look at what Shaw did when it purchased Global, which was to extend free satellite dishes and signal and installation to anyone who could have their signal disrupted, and we anticipate that a similar deal is most likely to occur with Bell—which came before the committee and extended the offer of a program they call “freesat” a couple years ago—and if that is extended and continually re-extended, where is the problem?