Evidence of meeting #7 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cbc.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Hubert T. Lacroix  President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada
Christine Wilson  Executive Director, Content Planning, English Services, CBC/Radio-Canada
Louis Lalande  Acting Vice-President, French Services, CBC/Radio-Canada

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB

In your favour or against you?

10:25 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

No, no, in our favour, with respect to CBC News Network.

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB

You're suggesting that I'm throwing out anecdotes, but I would say your audience share has been sliding the last number of years on the news front. I'm a news hound. I want CBC to provide good news, and I don't think it's doing that. Your audience share television-wise has been declining. I don't know what it's called in television, NADbank for news, the audience numbers, industry standards, show your numbers are declining. I don't know how you can toss that aside and say—

10:25 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

No, we're not.

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB

—it's not, by taking a different matrix or a different measurement.

10:25 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Moore

Mr. Williamson, your time is up.

Mr. Nantel, you and Mr. Simms are going to share five minutes. Good luck with that.

10:25 a.m.

NDP

Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC

My question will be very brief.

I think that we have to try to demonstrate the relevancy of Radio-Canada/CBC in English, as in French, rather than questioning the investment we make in it. We have to ensure that we have a wonderful platform that reaches out everywhere.

I have a very brief question and I would ask you to respond briefly as well. Recently Minister Moore presented Breakaway. Radio-Canada made a large investment in that. Will you have the opportunity of following up on this on television because of your investment?

10:25 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

Yes, that's it. Normally we are the first to broadcast such things on television either on Radio-Canada or CBC. That matter is raised during negotiations when we make the initial investment.

10:25 a.m.

NDP

Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC

That is really a part of what we refer to as the Canadian identity. If Breakaway were to become a television series that would be something comparable to the program Little Mosque on the Prairie.

10:25 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

We will first of all broadcast the feature film during peak hours and then we will see what happens.

10:25 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

Thank you very much sir, you are very kind.

I find there's a diversity of opinion on the CBC. Trust me, in my seven years there were a lot of things in the CBC that I didn't like, but the diversity does exist. Incidentally, I don't agree with Don Cherry most of the time, but I like the guy. So I'm one of those left-wing pinkos that actually like him. Go figure. I will put that in as my opinion. I don't think that is correct, and I think you should get the other side of the story. We should be presenting as in newscasts.

Because it's been asked of me and talked about, I want to ask you about our treaty co-productions. The investment for CBC in treaty co-production would be something like The Tudors. There is money that goes into that from the CBC, Canadian Media Fund, and so on. What is the future of the CBC with treaty co-productions in fostering Canadian content and Canadian ideals?

10:25 a.m.

Executive Director, Content Planning, English Services, CBC/Radio-Canada

Christine Wilson

Treaty co-productions are regulated by Telefilm. We currently have one treaty co-production. Out of 27 Canadian series that we have, we have one treaty co-production. That's the most we've ever had on the air at any given time. Because you bring the audience great content like The Tudors or Camelot, they're good for the audiences. They also allow Canadians to work on an international stage, right? They allow Canadians to go and work with the best in the world, working on something like The Tudors. So as a small part of a balanced diet, they're a great thing. Co-productions work for us. But are they ever going to be more than a tiny part of an offer across our network? No, for exactly the reason that you say.

10:25 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

In the future, are you considering doing more co-productions? I'm not totally against it, because I find that in our neck of the woods co-productions worked over the years. They allow people to sharpen their skills and work in the industry. I would prefer something like Sir John A. over something like The Tudors or Camelot or that sort of thing.

10:30 a.m.

Executive Director, Content Planning, English Services, CBC/Radio-Canada

Christine Wilson

Right, and we would too, but the price point is different and the impact's different. We would be interested in doing it as one show out of a lot of shows, but not as the main part of our diet, ever.

10:30 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

Do I have more time?

10:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Moore

You have 40 seconds.

10:30 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

I want to go back to the issue on the regional programming once more. We're talking about the digital transition as well. I think Mr. Armstrong brought it up earlier too. What kinds of numbers are we looking at to make that transition from OTA over to digital, from analog to digital, in terms of your expenditures?

10:30 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

So $60 million was the investment that we made in order to deliver and to put up 27 digital transmitters and the infrastructure that went with that. We still have 627 or 628 analog transmitters. They're still running. That's our commitment to deliver those services. That's the impact and the way we use it.

10:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Moore

Thank you, Mr. Simms.

Mr. Calandra.

October 25th, 2011 / 10:30 a.m.

Conservative

Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON

Thank you again for coming. I appreciate that. It was very enlightening.

I have just a couple of really brief questions. It's more again back to the regional aspect of it.

My riding is larger than Prince Edward Island in terms of population. The region I come from has over one million people in it. It's just north of Toronto. I'm wondering if there's a way or if you've given thought to how our communities might be able to use your platform, the web. We have some pretty vibrant community radio stations that reach a small group of people. Have you thought of encouraging or allowing some of the smaller community radio stations, communities outside of Toronto to the northern part of Toronto that don't necessarily make the regular Toronto news cycle, so that they can actually cooperate with you in delivering that news?

10:30 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

Christine just wrote down “Stay tuned”.

Yes, it's about partnerships. It's about expanding the scope of the resources we have in partnering with people on the ground. It's about communities, and we're very aware that in some areas that's what we're going to do. That's why we're experimenting. We're experimenting around Montreal. We're experimenting in New Brunswick, where we actually put a camera in a radio morning show to see how it sounds, how it looks. Other people are doing it. We don't like what it looks like. We need to make sure that the quality of the program remains. The answer is that we're very aware of this, and as we expand our services and try to get to more communities and more Canadians, partnerships of this kind are not excluded.

10:30 a.m.

Conservative

Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON

The final question, for now anyway, is about CBC archives as we move towards Canada 150. There is an enormous amount of material there. Not long ago I was on the website and I was looking at some of the seaway coverage, and it was just remarkable stuff. I'm wondering if there's going to be more of an effort in how we can get easier access to that. I can imagine there's just tons of it, obviously, but in the context of Canada's 150th birthday, perhaps we can make it more easily or more readily available to students, to educators, to municipalities who are impacted by this. You've done a lot of work on it, but it would be nice to actually have it easier to find.

10:30 a.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Hubert T. Lacroix

A lot of it, sir, starts and ends with rights sometimes. It's not all our material, and when we make it accessible to other players, then it's a question of cost. It's not our cost. It's the cost of the people who contributed to the content. We're aware of how important those archives are. Radio-Canada is looking at certain projects about trying to see what we could do with them. Again, you're putting your finger on something we are aware of and would like to use even better.

Louis.

10:35 a.m.

Acting Vice-President, French Services, CBC/Radio-Canada

Louis Lalande

Three years ago French services launched a program entitled Tout le monde en parlait. If everyone talked about an event at least 20 years ago, of course Radio-Canada would have been talking about it as well.

It's a wonderful idea to revisit an event. We add testimony from those who witnessed the event and who can talk about it with a certain distance. It adds up to an extraordinary series. In fact it is the program schools and universities request the most, so that their students can find out about recent history; it's really exceptional.

I'll give you an example. When it was confirmed that the Jets would be returning to Winnipeg, we prepared a program on the return of the Jets. The program was not focused so much on the return of the Jets as on everything the arrival of the Winnipeg Jets had caused in terms of changes in the hockey world.

You will recall the first million-dollar salary, that was given to Bobby Hull, and the arrival of players from Eastern Europe. These were events that changed the nature of professional hockey and they happened in Winnipeg, with the Jets. We heard from former players and the former owner. There were a whole series of elements that put that page in our history in perspective.

That is one example of what is happening currently at Radio-Canada.

10:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Moore

Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

We have time for two more questions.

Mr. Benskin has a question.