Canadian Heritage Committee on March 7th, 2011

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

Can you believe that residents of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, who were used to receiving local Radio-Canada service, will, as of September 1, be able to receive only Radio-Canada programming for Montreal?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

They subscribe to—

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

People in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean are not happy. That is no laughing matter.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Yes, if they subscribe to a satellite provider.

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

They are really unhappy.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

But you have to remember that conventional service is available—basic off-air service.

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

When you did your overall analysis, with the number of people affected and the solutions for each group, how many converters did you estimate would be necessary?

You say it is too soon, but in the U.S., when everyone rushed out to buy their converters, prices doubled. That is the law of supply and demand. If you wait too long to tell people they need to buy a converter, they won't be able to afford one by the time August rolls around.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

The problem in the U.S. was made worse by the fact that the coupon system they put in place created inflation in the marketplace. The subsidy program actually caused higher prices. Canada does not have a subsidy program.

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

Unfortunately, I think you are underestimating what the converters will cost. Let's say it is really $30—which I doubt; we'll see come September because I am sure it will not be $30. You seem to be overestimating the ability of someone with a low income to buy a $30 converter.

It might not be a big deal for you or me, we won't go hungry that week. But there are many people without cable who have trouble just paying the rent. That is a fact. They struggle to make ends meet. Thirty dollars—and I am sure it will be double that—is an enormous amount of money for them. You cannot overestimate their ability to pay $30 for a converter.

You say people will go out and buy a converter, but how many people will need one? That is my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Lavallée.

Mr. Blais.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

I will give you the list of options available to non-subscribers who want to keep their access to television service.

As for those who do not have a lot of money, all I can say is that the government has no plans for a subsidy program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Blais.

And last on the list is Mr. Armstrong.

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

Thank you.

We've heard a lot of numbers floating around today, and I just want some sort of clarity. I know some guesswork is always involved, but we've heard 860,000 households. With grey dishes, American signals, Internet television, having no televisions, compatible TVs that have been purchased in the last five years, and probably thousands of cottages or secondary residences with secondary TVs and rabbit ears, what do you think is the real number of people who are going to lose a service?

You can take an educated guess. I don't expect you to be totally accurate.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

I trust the work done by the CRTC. They're the expert tribunal in this. They've done the hearings. They're estimating that less than 35,000 households would lose....

In fact, just going from memory, it's 31,000. So it's a very small number of Canadians.

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

Okay.

I think we do have to take some responsibility to make sure that those 31,000 people are informed. We're looking forward to the advertising plan when it actually is up and ready and running. I think we'll have to trust you in the timing of that. I agree, if you start too early, people will just ignore it. August 31 is a whole summer away, and they wouldn't pay attention. You do have to ramp it up at some time, though, so we'll be looking forward to maybe your coming back and actually showing us this program.

I do believe, however, that of the 31,000 households, there will be some difficult people to reach. I actually reached one this weekend, in my riding. This lady lives out in a very rural area. She doesn't have electricity. She does have a little generator, and she watches Coronation Street. I actually ran into her at the grocery store and warned her that this was going to happen. I told her that it might be time for her to upgrade. She's not a person who has no means or anything, so it would be easier for her to do it.

To reach her, to reach this type of person, I don't think the normal type of advertising plan.... We're going to have to extend something, maybe direct mail or some other things in certain areas, in rural areas. Print--in weeklies, in dailies, in some rural areas--might be something we have to look at.

I don't know what the whole plan is, because it hasn't been rolled out yet, but I would say that there will be some people in this process who'll be hard to reach just because of the nature of the people who don't have television--the very rural, elderly, and other people who might not be paying attention.

So those would be some of the suggestions.

I do want to have some more information on how the actual technical sharing of the spectrum happens at the border. That is going to be important in several ridings across the country.

Can you explain, Mr. Dupuis, a little bit about how we actually share spectrum with the U.S.?

[Marc Dupuis]

It's interesting, because what we call sharing is really preventing sharing. If you're using a certain frequency on one side of the border, you have to avoid that frequency close to the border on the other side. So as we do when we share within Canada, we make sure the frequency doesn't get re-used within a distance that would cause interference to users.

For example, we have channel 4--channel 9 here in Ottawa. You're not going to use those same channels within a few hundred kilometres of Ottawa.

It's the same thing with the U.S. We've negotiated what we call the allotment plan, which means every frequency is known, whether it's a U.S. frequency or a Canadian frequency, within 300 to 400 kilometres of the border.

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

Has there been any difficulty with those negotiations? It seems that a lot of planning and work was done before this transition took place--negotiating and working with the United States to do this effectively.

[Marc Dupuis]

It's never easy. I wish I could say it was easy, but negotiating with our friends south of the border is always difficult.

It took place over a period of about 15 years. So we've put a lot of work into these very technical details. If the committee's interested, we can provide you with the results of those negotiations through a copy of the understanding.

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

Other countries have already transitioned. As you said, we're sort of in the middle of the pack. Other than getting the information out to people who may or may not have the signal, have there been other mistakes made? Have other problems occurred that we've learned from and are prepared for? Is there anything that jumps out at you?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

The way Canada is doing its transition is somewhat different from every other jurisdiction, so comparables are difficult. For instance, in France, the U.K., and Australia, they're doing a circle around the country, and they're not doing everything at once. The U.S. did a flash cut. We are doing somewhat of a hybrid in the middle of that.

We are looking at the experience in other jurisdictions. We're looking at the kinds of communications they have done and who are the more vulnerable citizens that need to be reached. So we're trying to learn from those experiences.

To answer your earlier comment, all the various potentials of platforms are under study. I'm not at liberty right now...because a final decision hasn't been made. We understand it's a very difficult market, and my offer continues to be on the table to brief either you or your office personnel on exactly what's happening in your particular ridings. We are extending that offer to all members of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Blais, Monsieur Dupuis, and Madam Kennedy for your testimonies and presentations.

I've asked members to come prepared to deal with the three reports at Wednesday's meeting so we can dispose of at least one or two--or all three of them.

Without further ado, this meeting is adjourned.