Canadian Heritage Committee on May 12th, 2016

[Paul Godfrey]

The Canadian Press has existed as long as I've been either in public life or in the newspaper business, because we just can't put people in every location for stories, so it's really a pooling by all papers in Canada. We all belong to Canadian Press to get those stories. In fact, it's helpful to us, because otherwise people would ask why we hadn't had a particular story. We all face that. We have looked for every way to save money, so we have consolidated office space. When we put two companies together, the goal definitely was to have two separate newsrooms, one finance department, one advertising department, one HR department, one IT department, and one distribution department.

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

Mr. Nott, do you wish to add anything?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, Mr. Nott, but I have to cut you off. We have finished.

I just want to ask a particular question about something we've been hearing from other people. Everything you've said we've heard. We've been hearing the same thing. We've heard people talk a lot about the fact that journalism and journalists and the integrity of journalists writing news is a real problem.

Do you see any ways that we could help to ensure that journalists and journalistic integrity remain, because, as you say, as Google moves into news, Google will obviously put together whatever it can. It will take other people's content and put it together. You mentioned in your presentation that journalism and journalists are very important if you want to look at the integrity of reporting in the stories that are being told. How do you see us dealing with that? If print media is going to go downhill and if you're fighting for only a small piece of the pie in terms of the advertising on digital, how do you maintain a pool of journalists, the integrity of journalism, and the quality of journalism one is accustomed to? I think that is very important.

[Gerry Nott]

Let me start if I may. Your point is one that journalists, editors, and academics study and worry about very much. The challenge for us is that everybody can be a journalist today. Everyone is a publisher and the standards are very different across any digital platform or print platform that's there.

The integrity issue, the need to double-check, and the need for enterprising, investigative reporting have never been greater in that environment, and I can say only that the kind of thing you have heard from us today to help sustain the health of the business in the longer term will lead to better journalism. I would also argue that the journalism schools can help us here by continuing to raise the bar as the evolution moves from print to digital and multiplatform in the world where everyone is a publisher.

[Paul Godfrey]

We realize that the quality of journalism is extremely important. If we let the quality of journalism slip, we're going to lose readers quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I want to thank Mr. Godfrey, Mr. Nott, and Mr. Lamb for presenting to us. It was a very interesting session, so we would like to thank you.

This is the end of the session.

[Paul Godfrey]

Thank you for being so attentive and thank you for all your questions.

We shall give the witnesses a moment to leave.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We're not going to go in camera right now because we were dealing with Mr. Nantel's motion. I will remind you that we had passed his first motion, the one about bringing in the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee. That was fine and we're going to do that on June 7 if I understand correctly.

Now we're dealing with Mr. Nantel's current motion:

That the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage invite the CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Mr. Hubert T. Lacroix, for a televised one-hour meeting, to update Members of the Committee—

If you recall, Mr. Nantel made that amendment himself, moving the time from two hours to one hour.

—on the plans and strategies of the Crown Corporation, in light of the most recent reinvestment announced in the latest federal budget, and that this meeting be held before Friday June 17th, 2016.

We were dealing with an amendment by Ms. Dabrusin that proposed to replace replacing the words “before Friday June 17th, 2016”, with the words “on October 4, 2016”.

We will now entertain Ms. Dabrusin to speak to her amendment.

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

As I had the opportunity to mention to some of my colleagues, I would like to withdraw that amendment, just so there are no surprises, with the intention of introducing a new amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is everyone in agreement that that's fine?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Then go ahead, Ms. Dabrusin, and introduce your new amendment.

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

My new amendment would be that the motion be amended by replacing the words “before Friday, June 17th, 2016” with the words “before October 31, 2016”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

This amendment is up for discussion.

Mr. Nantel.

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

So you are saying before October 31? I don't have a calendar in front of me. Does the committee have a meeting scheduled for that day, Ms. Dabrusin?

Is October 31 a sitting day for us?

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

It's the last day of the month.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It is in fact a sitting day. It's a Monday, so one may have to look at the 27th, which is a Thursday.

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

Okay. I don't know what you guys think about this, but I think that CBC/Radio-Canada has a very important mandate and has received the proper parliamentary credits to do this job. I am completely at ease to say that I switched from two hours to one hour to make it earlier rather than later. Since we're moving on later—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You want your two hours back.

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

I think I would bring it back to two hours. I don't know what you think about this, but if it's okay with you.... Are we in camera or are we not in camera?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We're not in camera because we didn't deal with this in camera. We're public with this one.

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

We are in public now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes.

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

Good. The poor public. They left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We have to deal with the date change of the amendment, and after we've decided on that amendment, then you can bring in your amendment about two hours again.

All right. We're discussing the date change at the moment.