Canadian Heritage Committee on May 3rd, 2016

[Denis Bolduc]

We are talking about people who have no protection and who are more likely to be influenced by the employer. So this has an impact on the quality of the information.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Hence your idea to create a tax credit for individuals working in media.

You also spoke about a 20% credit for local advertisers. Is that what you said?

[Nathalie Blais]

We didn't give a number for the credit, yes, but we did speak about a tax credit for advertisers. There's this trend right now. Advertisers choose targeted advertising on the Internet, even if they don't know what the outcome will be. But 20% of people in some regions still watch the news every night and, when they do, they don't go from one channel to another. However, advertisers seem to have decided on the Internet, where revenue is much smaller.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

What comes to mind immediately is the 15% that is exactly the same as the sales tax and which isn't collected by these out-of-province advertising suppliers.

[Nathalie Blais]

Yes, that would be an excellent idea.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Do you think it would be good to bring to the table some of these big players who have so far refused to reveal their statistics? Do we need these statistics to work better and make informed decisions for your industry?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madam Blais, I am sorry. Perhaps you can answer that when you have a moment with another question. We have ended our seven minutes.

Now we go to Ms. Dabrusin, from the Liberals.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

I was happy to receive in writing an answer to a question that I had asked of the CRTC at the beginning of our hearings about the diversity of voices policy from 2008. They have written to advise us that there have been no updates on the policy. It hasn't been reviewed, and there is no review planned for it.

I was wondering, Ms. Edwards, if you could tell me what your thoughts are about the diversity of voices policy, and whether it requires any updates. If it does, what do you think those updates should be?

[Catherine Edwards]

I can comment in an informed manner only from the point of view of the community sector. The 2008 diversity of voices hearing occurred before the most recent mega-mergers—before Bell bought CTV, before Shaw bought Global. We are, as you heard from Professor Winseck, in a much more media-concentrated environment, even more now than we were then, when it was of concern to the CRTC.

From the point of view of the community media sector, it's meant to be like a grassroots safety valve of last resort in a democracy. For example, when nobody would report in an unbiased way on Stephen Harper as a young Reformer in the west, he was on community media in Calgary when I was the volunteer coordinator there. When Elizabeth May can't get on a big platform, she can go to community media.

It's extremely important in a really media-concentrated environment. That's when you need community media the most, to provide a diversity of voices and an ability...even for professional journalists. We had a town hall in Toronto last year to talk about having a community media platform in Toronto. To our surprise, in addition to the usual suspects, so to speak—minority groups, the disabled, and Ethiopians who came and said that they're not seen on mainstream media—half the room was full of professional broadcasters who said, “We just want our voices to get out anywhere. We can't even have our documentaries seen anywhere if we have an important topic. And we can't find training.” As Nathalie was saying, it's very difficult. At the CBC you're not allowed to touch an audio cable if you're an editor. It's hard to get those skills.

For all those reasons, community media is the place where we can make sure, at least at the grassroots, there's a diversity of voices. That then percolates up and serves as a creative underpinning for our professional production industry.

So yes, we think it needs an update. Community media has a big role to play there.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

The other thing I was going to ask about concerns something I saw on your website. You have a commentary about Digital Canada 150 that I believe you wrote yourself. It seems you were disappointed with what you found in that policy.

Do you have any suggestions for what you'd want to see when we're reconsidering the digital shift?

[Catherine Edwards]

Are you talking about the Canada 150 spending plans and celebrations for next year?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

No, this was Digital Canada 150 from Industry Canada. This was from 2014, but it was written by you.

[Catherine Edwards]

Right.

We met with Industry Canada a couple of times, when we knew that they were in the process of creating their digital economy strategy that was published last year. I think a lot of parties felt that it wasn't very specific. There were broad generalities. But certainly one of their important recommendations was that Canadians needed digital skills training. There needs to be somewhere we can go for lifelong learning.

Libraries are taking a little step in that direction, but it's not far enough. They need help. There are community partners and organizations willing to do it, but there needs to be a coherent strategy to make sure that skills training is available to Canadians wherever they live, however small the community. There again, that's where community media can step in.

It's consistent to what we recommended and what this committee recommended in 2012.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

In one of our last hearings, we heard from Telus. They spoke about Optik TV as one means of getting community voices out. I was wondering what you thought about that model and if you had anything to add.

[Catherine Edwards]

Cable companies, as I was describing, originally had head ends in every little community, so it was convenient and cost-efficient to have a studio there. What has happened with satellite companies and some of the ITP TV services like Telus is that they get licences over huge areas. Telus has licences for all of British Columbia and Alberta. They can't possibly, with their market share, open production centres or training centres in all those places, and yet they're required to spend 2% of their gross revenues on offering community television. It makes no sense. They have nowhere to offer those services. So what they're doing and Bell's doing is they're expending this huge budget, which countrywide is $151 million, by writing cheques to independent producers.

The Optik TV community producers that came to the CRTC hearing were all paid. They're all receiving cheques. It's professional, commissioned, independent productions. Every one of those producers has a production company and a website. It's not the ordinary person who's supposed to be able to access community media to develop their voice and have a voice in the system.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those shows, per se, but it's not the use of the money that was intended by the regulations.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Okay.

Another witness, and I believe it was Rogers, just because we're talking about the 2% now, suggested that they would like to see the ability to shift around money, under the 2%, from one area to another. What are your thoughts on that?

[Catherine Edwards]

There are two issues with it.

One is that for CRTC community channels right now, the companies are supposed to spend 50% of their schedule and budgets facilitating citizens to have a voice. That's to try to encourage cable companies to provide community access. What Rogers is asking is whether they could move money from their big-city community channels, such as Toronto's, to some of their smaller channels. I say “smaller”, but they've shut down the really small ones, so we're talking about mid-sized communities, which are generally the same communities in which we already have other private and public broadcasters. Rogers just wants more money to compete in those markets.

They want to reduce the access percentage in those markets to 30% and use the money to hire professional journalists to do news. Again, this is not the use of that money that was intended under the legislation. Really, they're looking for more flexibility to spend that 2%, which is supposed to serve community media, however they want on professional production, which is what they've been doing over the last 20 years anyway. They've tended to professionalize these channels in order to compete with satellite, as per my presentation.

For us, it's more of the same. It's not going to bring more service to small communities. It's just going to enable Rogers to compete head to head with other private and public broadcasters in mid-sized markets that already have broadcasters. It's not going to bring new news coverage or open new stations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Dabrusin.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards.

I don't think we can do a second round, so I want to thank everyone for being here. We're going to move to business of the committee in a few minutes. Perhaps we could end the session now and move on.

Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Bolduc, Ms. Blais, Ms. Edwards, and Ms. Desrochers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Order, please.

I am suggesting that we have a motion from Ms. Dabrusin that we do not need to do in camera, so we will bring forward Ms. Dabrusin's motion. Then we will also look at a letter, which you all have, from Elizabeth May. Those two are in some way related, and that is one of the reasons why I didn't want to put Ms. Dabrusin's motion in camera.

Ms. Dabrusin's motion reads:

That, in relation to Orders of Reference from the House respecting Bills,

(a) the Clerk of the Committee shall, upon the Committee receiving such an Order of Reference, write to each Member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee to invite those Members to file with the Clerk of the Committee, in both official languages, any amendments to the Bill, which is the subject of the said Order, which they would suggest that the Committee consider;

(b) suggested amendments filed, pursuant to paragraph (a), at least 48 hours prior to the start of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill to which the amendments relate shall be deemed to be proposed during the said consideration, provided that the Committee may, by motion, vary this deadline in respect of a given Bill; and

(c) during the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.

That is the motion.

You will see in the letter of Ms. May that she feels this motion has implications that would be of concern to her. If you've read that letter, I'm going to ask that we discuss this. We're not discussing Ms. May's letter. We're just giving it to you for information. Now we're going to discuss Ms. Dabrusin's motion.

Ms. Dabrusin, would you like to speak to your motion? It's pretty straightforward.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It is pretty straightforward, so there isn't really that much to add to what you have before you. It's a chance to ensure that MPs from non-recognized parties are able to move amendments during the committee process. Originally, following a ruling of your predecessor, the independent MPs couldn't propose any amendments to committees. This is a change that would allow them a greater voice and an ability to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is there any discussion on this motion?

Mr. Van Loan.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I have much sympathy for this motion, and I will support it. I would have preferred that we do each particular reference separately as it came in and then were able to provide 48 hours' notice for each, but the principle remains the same and is a good principle.

Ironically, Elizabeth May, in her letter, speaks to this being a motion to restrict the rights of MPs. It's actually exactly the opposite. This is a motion that gives independent members the right to make amendments that they would otherwise not be able to make at committee.

What it prevents is one member of the House of Commons, as has happened in the past, namely Elizabeth May, tying up the entire House of Commons for days, and literally overnight, with endless voting on motions that are brought about not with the objective of having them seriously debated but rather that of simply tying up the House in endless voting through the nights. The basis for that was that those amendments were not able to be made at committee. That was the basis for them being compelled to be voted on at report stage.

This gives the opportunity for independents to participate fully through proposing those amendments at the committee level and, as such, it is a sensible approach for the orderly management of our business here and in the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Van Loan, who is speaking in favour of the motion.

Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to the motion?

Mr. Nantel.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I read Ms. May's letter, and I am wondering about Mr. Van Loan's proposal and his support. Clearly, in Ms. May's case, it is very difficult for her to sit at the same time on all the committees when a bill will be debated because she is her party's only member.

Ms. Dabrusin, the parties that are not recognized are the Green Party of Canada and the Bloc Québécois. Have the Bloc Québécois MPs heard about this motion, as Ms. May did?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I think so, and I think that everyone had the same information.

I'm just saying that I don't think Ms. May received any special notice of discussion.