Canadian Heritage Committee on March 7th, 2011

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

This is why we set up our coordinating function, which will be reflected, in part, on our website, where we're trying to get the detailed information.

I don't know if you were in the room, because I noticed that you arrived a little bit late, when I was saying that one of the challenges with this national initiative is that the impact is very local. In other words, what is happening in your community depends on what your local broadcaster is doing and on when they're switching. That's the information we're trying to gather right now from the various broadcasters so that we can have a consistent message across the--

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

I fully understand that. I mean, I look at the United States, where the government took a strong lead role. I know you're saying that people will forget, but people don't know, whereas in the United States they made a decision long in advance to work with regions and local groups.

Did you look at that experience and decide that it didn't work? Why was the decision made to just wait until the last minute?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Well, it wasn't a decision to wait until the last minute. I wouldn't put it that way. It was a decision to enter the marketplace when the communication opportunities were at a maximum. Remember that just a few months ago broadcasters were still fighting the possibility of going to digital. It was only a few months ago that they turned the corner on that, I think, and accepted that it is happening. Now we are putting pressure on them to give us the exact dates of the transition, which channels they're moving, and at what time, and that is what we need to do. The government can't communicate without that information.

The U.S. case is actually quite interesting. Down there, the broadcasters—not the government but the broadcasters themselves—spent nearly $1 billion to communicate.

It is very much a cooperative approach we need. The government has a certain role, but the broadcasters have a role as well. That's what we're coordinating.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Dupuis, we're looking at the sell-off of channels 52 to 69. What is the percentage, roughly, you're thinking of setting aside for public safety? Do you have any plans to set aside the white spaces at this point for any kind of future public use?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Go ahead, Mr. Dupuis.

[Marc Dupuis]

Thank you.

At this point in time, if you look at our consultation, we've set aside four channels for public safety in the 52 to 69 range. That represents four out of about 18 channels--I don't have the exact number here--or whatever that adds up to.

If you look at our consultation, there are two extra channels being contemplated as well for public safety applications. That is the subject of debate. Whether those would be public safety or commercial spectrum will depend on the results of our consultation and the reply comment period, which as I said, closes March 30.

With regard to the white space, the white space devices in the U.S. will operate below channel 52, in the channel 2 to 51 range. Those devices are short-range devices mostly used for Internet-type access in the home or in what we would call Wi-Fi hotspots. At this point in time there is no plan to put anything aside in those white spaces. The white spaces will become a first come, first served, or all come, all served, if you prefer, opportunistic type of use of the spectrum, the way Wi-Fi is today. We do not set aside any spectrum in the Wi-Fi bands. Everybody can use them. They are subject to interference. If you can operate, good for you. If you're in the interference zone, you change channels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Angus.

We'll go to Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses for a very good presentation today.

I guess I'll start with you, Mr. Blais. I said the other day, and somebody blogged about it after, that I didn't see that we had a big problem here that we were trying to deal with. I thought the CRTC was actually doing a good job managing. I thought the concessions they were able to garner from Shaw or that Shaw put forward when they purchased Global--I would anticipate that they will seek similar concessions from CTV--to make sure that anyone within this mythical 7% who may or may not be watching television, who may or may not have U.S. satellite dishes, or who may or may not have electricity in the first place.... The reality is that we seem to be really concerned about a group that, frankly, most people have a hard time putting their fingers on.

I don't know too many people who are not currently capable of accepting the free satellite dish that would be extended to them, in the case of the Shaw deal or the potential Bell deal, and who would be left without television after this change occurs. Can you comment on that?

How many people do you think we're talking about? CRTC whittled it down to about 30,000 people who they think will actually be left in the lurch, ultimately, which is not very many.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

I don't think I can add much to the CRTC's own number, other than to say that any time you do change, people are very apprehensive before the change occurs. My experience has shown that Canadians are far more resilient than we give them credit for, and they adapt. Keep in mind that the policy in Canada has always been to “lag behind the United States”. The advantage of that has been that costs have come down, but also we are sort of on their coattails in terms of all the publicity that has occurred in the United States.

Most Canadians live within a close range of the U.S. border. If people had been over-the-air consumers, they would have lost most of the U.S. services—which a lot of Canadians value—when that occurred. We didn't hear a noise; we were actually getting ready at that point because we thought there would be some noise. What I think has occurred is Canadians have adapted; they've gone on to buy the converter boxes or otherwise dealt with all the options that I outlined earlier.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Or, alternatively, they were no longer using those signals. Even though those analog signals were still being pushed out, very few Canadians were still receiving them via conventional antenna--

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Oh, absolutely.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

--and weren't caught up in the transition at all.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

The vast majority are not touched.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I think everyone around the table understands that as elected officials we have responsibilities to our constituents; we've talked about communicating this. I agree that the most effective way to push this communication out is over the channels that people could lose, and I think they also have a vested interest. They want you watching their channel because they need to sell advertising—that's how they pay for it—and if nobody was watching they'd have a hard time selling advertising, so they have a vested interest in pushing this message out. I think that's the most effective means.

Will you work with MPs' offices that could be impacted, to tell them what the impact will be in their riding, so that they can have responses? I do anticipate that some of us, myself included, may receive some calls at our constituency office. Is there a plan to make those MPs aware of the impacts in their own ridings?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

In addition to a more traditional advertising campaign, our outreach strategy certainly included reaching out to provincial and territorial governments, consumer associations, as well as MPs. As I said, the impact is local. We're working on a kit that actually drills down, for the respective ridings of all members here, exactly what would happen in that riding, so that you're in a position to answer those questions. Officials from the department are willing to meet with you or your staff to go through that as we roll that out.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Dupuis, can you unpack something a little bit for me? What is the 700 spectrum? Why are we transitioning, just for the benefit of the report? Why are we transitioning, and what's in it for Canadians by making this transition?

[Marc Dupuis]

If you don't mind, let me start with the last question first: why are we transitioning? We're transitioning so that Canadians who want to receive TV over the air can receive a better quality signal. They can actually receive HDTV signals like people can right now in the U.S. Right now, if you look at over-the-air TV, you're getting a poor quality signal compared to what you can get on digital cable. If you convert the over-the-air TV from analog to digital, as Jean-Pierre was saying earlier, you're actually going to get a much better signal than you would get over cable or satellite because you're getting the true HD experience.

The second part is, why are we then reducing the number of channels available to TV? Well, we live in a North American marketplace, whether or not we like it. The U.S. has already converted; they've managed to squeeze all the television signals below channel 52. We've demonstrated that we can do that quite easily here in Canada, and by doing that, we're giving benefit to Canadians for the advanced wireless services that everybody wants on their cellphone, Blackberry devices, as well as PC sticks, etc.

Also, we can give capacity for public safety. I think we all want public safety to be interoperable, and 700 megahertz provides that. Just for those who are technically inclined, 700 megahertz are those channels from 52 to 69, and over-the-air covers the range of 698 megahertz to 806 megahertz.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Del Mastro and Mr. Dupuis.

Madame Crombie.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Blais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Blais, what is your budget for the education awareness program? How much do you anticipate spending for the education awareness program?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

I don't think I'm at liberty...because decisions haven't been finally made on that. But we are using existing resources of the department as well to do outreach, like the MP kits--

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

You only have five months to go, so I anticipate you'll have to make the media buys soon. Are you doing public service announcements solely, or will there be media focus?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

The public service announcements are the responsibility of the broadcasters.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Of each broadcaster. What about yourselves? Will you also have public service announcements, and where will they appear?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

The draft proposal I saw is not so much public service announcements, although I guess one could put them as public service announcements, but it could include media buys.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

From what I'm hearing, the onus is really on the industry for awareness, even though it's part of the recommendations the CRTC made that you take the lead and coordinate the education awareness program.