Canadian Heritage Committee on May 30th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Good afternoon.

We are now starting the 161st meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Today marks the beginning of our study on the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada as it relates to the Broadcasting Act.

We are welcoming Catherine Tait, President and Chief Executive Officer of CBC/Radio-Canada, Barbara Williams, Executive Vice-President of CBC, and Michel Bissonnette, Executive Vice-President of Radio-Canada.

Ms. Tait, you may begin your presentation.

[Catherine Tait, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

Thank you very much for that welcome, Madam Chair.

And thank you to the members of the committee for inviting us to meet with you today.

We have been looking forward to this conversation. It is an important time to speak about public broadcasting in the context of Canadian culture and democracy.

CBC/Radio-Canada is a vital part of a $55-billion Canadian culture industry made up of both public and private players, each doing their part. Remember, every dollar invested in the public broadcaster generates $3 in economic activity.

Over the past few years, thanks to the talent of our employees, and an important investment from Parliament—thank you, again—our digital transformation has been showing results.

Today, over 20 million Canadians use our digital platforms each month. We are Canada's number one podcaster and have become a global leader on this emerging audio platform. We have more programs reflecting more of Canada, including shows like Unreserved with Rosanna Deerchild on CBC Radio, Pour l'amour du country from Halifax, and the recently announced The Cost of Living, a new weekly business show out of Calgary that will cover the country's most compelling business stories.

We play an essential role, knitting together our vast country through celebratory events like the Olympics, the Paralympics, the Junos, ADISQ and, of course, the Bye bye.

Our digital content platforms like CBC Gem, ICI TOU.TV, Espaces autochtones and CBC Indigenous are reaching more Canadians in new ways, ways in which they want to consume content.

While news coverage in Canada has been shrinking, particularly in many local communities, we have maintained journalists in 60 locations across the country. At a time when disinformation is undermining trust in our institutions and democracy, we remain Canadians' most trusted source of news and information.

We want to build on that trust and on our success for the benefit of all Canadians.

Our new three-year strategy, launched last week, is about putting the audience at the heart of everything we do. Thus, the tag line: Your Stories, Taken to Heart.

That plan also focuses on the following objectives: preserving the trust Canadians have in us, which we never take for granted; deepening our engagement with Canadians; and leveraging our leadership in digital service delivery. Those are all reinforced by our steadfast commitment to showcase the best Canadian stories.

We are focused on the following five priorities.

First is more customized digital services. We'll serve people's needs more directly, especially on our streaming services, ICI Tou.tv and CBC Gem, as well as our audio services.

We'll build lifelong relationships with Canadians. By engaging children and youth with content that connects them to each other and their country, we aim to grow social cohesion and pride in our nation.

We'll strengthen our local connections. This is our core strength. Our proximity with Canadians is what really sets the public broadcaster apart.

We'll do more to reflect all of the richness of contemporary Canada—multicultural, indigenous, urban, rural and regional. We'll do this in the stories we share on our airwaves and through our digital services and, very importantly, through our hiring, so that Canadians will see themselves in their public broadcaster.

Lastly, we'll ensure that great Canadian stories are seen and heard by Canadians and find audiences around the world.

We know our industry is facing real challenges. We want to work with Canadian partners, both public and private, because today our competition is not with each other. That competition is Google, Facebook, Amazon and other foreign digital giants. They are part of our lives now, capturing our attention and our information.

These giants know the economic potential of culture. For example, Netflix, Apple and Amazon together will spend $18 billion U.S. in content production this next year—nearly 90 times what we're able to invest at CBC/Radio-Canada.

lt is the globalization of information and entertainment content that has fundamentally disrupted the Canadian media landscape. The challenge is to ensure that Canadian stories and Canadian shared experiences are available and discoverable in this sea of foreign content choices.

Let's be clear: we're not against these companies. They've helped us all discover incredible films and series such as Roma, Transparent, or The Crown. They can give Canadian stories global visibility, as Netflix has done with Anne with an E and Kim's Convenience, or as Amazon has done with Annedroids.

They, however, are not devoted to supporting or nurturing the development of Canadian artists and creators, Canadian amateur athletes, or Canadian perspectives. That's our job.

This is what our strategy is about.

We want to build partnerships with media in local communities across the country to strengthen news and democracy. We want to deepen our engagement with Canadians and connect them with each other. We want to create more content for young Canadians on all platforms. Finally, we want more programs that reflect the richness of Canada.

We also want to strengthen Canada's voice in the world and ensure that Canada's creators have a place on the world stage.

lt's a strategy that will benefit Canadian businesses, support jobs and our creators, and strengthen our culture here at home for Canadians.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to taking your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you for that.

We will now be beginning our question and answer period, beginning with Mr. Long for seven minutes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Madame Chair. Good afternoon to my colleagues, and thank you very much for coming in this afternoon. It's very much appreciated, and it was a very interesting presentation.

I have a confession. My background is hockey and sports as part owner of the Saint John Sea Dogs, the hockey major junior team in Saint John. I grew up in a sports culture, and I remember as a young adult—I'm dating myself here—my father making me watch Tommy Hunter on CBC and Hockey Night in Canada, of course. That was my early experience of CBC.

I will say this. When I started campaigning in 2015, going door to door and seeing a lot of “Save the CBC” signs on different lawns and attending a few events, I quickly became aware of the unbelievable significance of CBC coast to coast to coast and of how it ties our country together, how it brings communities together and how it is somewhat of a unifying organization for all of Canada.

Certainly in New Brunswick I'm a fan of Harry Forestell, on CBC News New Brunswick; I'm a fan of Julia Wright, the new host of Information Morning on CBC Radio; and I recently have become concerned because, literally a couple days ago, the leader of the opposition made a statement that CBC should stop covering international news.

He seems to think that international events don't affect us as Canadians, that Canadians do not care about what's happening abroad. Obviously, we're not alone in this world. Maybe he doesn't realize that Brexit and the humanitarian crises all over the world and wars in the Middle East can have an impact on our society in Canada and our way of life.

My first question for you, Ms. Tait, is, do you think the CBC should stop covering international news?

[Catherine Tait]

Thank you for the references to New Brunswick. We're also very proud of our people across the country, and you absolutely nailed it when referring to our importance in local communities. It really is the case, and we hope that in our new strategy, we've underlined that very strongly.

When I said in our remarks that our proximity to Canadians makes us strong, the key strength of this public broadcaster is in a world of global competition.

To your question on international news, everybody has something to say about the news and CBC/Radio-Canada's role in news. We are the most trusted media brand in the country, both in English and French. This trust is built on the journalistic standards and practices that our journalists and reporters adhere to, separate from government, separate from any political process, and as a result, we have earned that trust. As I said earlier, it's a trust that we don't take for granted. We work on it every day.

So if news is happening around the world, our journalists will continue to report on it because it's important that Canadians have the Canadian lens on what's going on around the planet that could affect our lives as Canadians.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you for that.

Can you also give me your thoughts, at 50,000 feet, as it were, on government's job to tell a broadcaster what and what not to cover?

[Catherine Tait]

As you well know, the Canadian public broadcaster was founded on a pretty profound principle of independence. It's enshrined in the Broadcasting Act, and pretty well the history of this organization has been about maintaining that independence. It's fundamental to the difference between a public broadcaster and a state broadcaster. As a result, we live that independence and we protect that independence every day. So to the point about political interference or government interference, we are obviously respectful of the democratic process that we live within, but independence is core to providing Canadians with fair and balanced news and points of view. Plurality of opinion and diversity of opinion is extremely important, and that, again, is enshrined in the journalistic standards and practices of the organization.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Just on that point, how does CBC ensure that you protect that independence?

[Catherine Tait]

As you're well aware, we've made a number of recommendations on the revision of the Broadcasting Act to strengthen the legislation to ensure there is that protection of the independence of the broadcaster, specifically on how our board is comprised and how the CEO could be appointed, but those issues are on the public record. I invite you to refer to them.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Okay. Thank you for that.

Certainly, something that I became very aware of during the 2015 campaign was the cuts to CBC under the Harper government.

Again, I want to go back to a couple of days ago when journalists asked Mr. Scheer if he'd reduce government funding for the CBC if he got elected. He wouldn't answer that directly.

We all have in mind this promise to axe the news division of CBC. Our government, on the other hand, has reinvested $670 million in support of the corporation. Would you say government funding is essential to the functioning of CBC?

[Catherine Tait]

Yes, it is essential to the functioning of CBC. It represents the majority of our funding, as you well know. We depend on public support for the organization, and ongoing public support allows us to do more of the good work that we do.

I mentioned 60 local communities. Is every community in this country being well served by CBC/Radio-Canada? No. There are communities where local papers have retreated for all sorts of reasons, and we would love to be in more communities, doing more of the great programming that we do.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We will now go to Mr. Dreeshen for seven minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

Certainly, I too grew up on CBC. I'm from Alberta. While driving the truck when I was hauling grain, I'd be listening to programs all night.

Coming from the Red Deer area, I will say that we were very disappointed when CBC decided to pull out. That was decades ago, but we did listen to some of our local people, such as Ron MacLean. These are folks who have had and continue to have a great passion for CBC, but a lot of us have felt that perhaps the focus has changed. In shows like As It Happens and so on, the things we grew up on, and with the people we had, we could see the difference between reporters and editorialists. I think that's one of the issues. That's one of the things we see right now.

With the 24-hour news cycle, there's not a lot of opportunity to deal with the specifics. It would seem counterintuitive that you couldn't do that, but that isn't the way it looks on news shows. It used to be that there would be half an hour of news and then something local that was presented. When you lose that.... As was mentioned, you are in 60 communities, but you've had to pull out of a lot of them.

In terms of some of the issues, some of the things I've seen, this is why sometimes you're going to take a bit of a rap on this. I've been up to places like Fort McMurray when there were big stories there. CBC would roll in with a couple of trucks and six or seven people. All of the other newsgroups would have their one truck and their one person or maybe two. People look at that and say, “Well, I guess that's our tax dollars at work.” It's a perception that you have to realize is out there.

On the other thing that was brought up by the honourable member, I don't think the quote was exactly what he said, but he did talk about CBC's sometimes being too carried away with American stories and not focusing on Canada, or at least the way in which Canada is affected. We've seen that. We don't hear the stories about how Australia, for example, had a carbon tax and decided to get rid of that because it had lost all of its competitiveness. We don't hear the stories about how Germany has had to make major changes because of the issues it has had with its renewable resources and how that has fit in.

We don't hear the stories about the disastrous trade decisions that have taken place. We know what happens. I'm a farmer, and I'm also on the ag committee, so when you talk about the durum wheat in Italy and how that non-tariff trade barrier has affected us, or Saudi Arabia, where an errant tweet by a government has caused major disasters as far as a whole commodity is concerned.... South America has similar types of concerns and, of course, there was the disastrous trip to India, and the pulses and the opportunities to have done something. People are starting to see this in terms of, “Where's the reporting on that?”

We hear about Donald Trump. We hear about the associated issues there and how the Democrats and the Republicans are back and forth with each other, but who cares? What we need to be talking about is how Canada ties into the world. Yes, the United States is an important part because they're a major partner, but they're not the only partner, and we have to make sure that story is being told.

I'm wondering if, when you look at this, there is a way forward, where the corporation could be looking at more of the Canadian component of these national stories instead of simply saying, “This is what was said in the U.S.”

[Catherine Tait]

That's a multi-faceted question. Let me take a moment to reflect upon it.

I will say on your point about Fort McMurray—because that one touched my heart—that our teams from Edmonton spent a lot of time at Fort McMurray, and we were sharing news with our colleagues. It was an incredibly important story. Quite frankly, if we could have sent more people there, we would have, because they worked around the clock, so—

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Yes. I'm sorry. If I could just mention it, this was actually prior to the fire. I do understand that.

[Catherine Tait]

Oh, I beg your pardon. That was a very special event.

To the point about representation in Alberta, we talked a little earlier about the importance of local and government funding, and if there were additional funds supporting CBC/Radio-Canada, I assure you.... We have a map of where we would like to be but where we had to pull out in the past because, just to be very clear, even though we did have the reinvestment from government, we had ongoing financial pressures at CBC/Radio-Canada because we are not indexed to inflation on goods and services, and we have declining ad and subscription revenue. That is compounding every year despite the reinvestment of about $20 million per year, and that adds up year after year.

We're constantly working under that kind of pressure—just to give you the context. It's not that we want to pull out. We would put much more into local...if we had the means to do so.

To your bigger question about our coverage of world events, again, from our point of view, we are covering the planet with very few resources. We have eight foreign bureaus, and—again you can correct me—I think our budget is probably in the range of $10 million for the entire world that we cover.

We are not in Africa, a continent that profoundly affects the future of Canadian economics—just some of the issues that you raised. We're not in India. We're managing the news coverage of those very important issues as best we can, oftentimes with what we call “pop-up bureaus”. We'll have our people in Paris or London fly in to try to cover a story.

It's not for want of trying to give Canadians the most fulsome world view. We're working on it each and every day. There is no denying that the United States holds a very important role in the Canadian reality, and not to report on what is going on in the United States would also be an oversight.

Again, as I said earlier, balance and fairness are core to our journalistic standards and practices, and our journalists understand that. We have an ombudsman in both English and French to ensure that they do. I think we respond very well to that challenge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Monsieur Nantel, vous avez sept minutes, s'il vous plaît.

Mr. Nantel, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to our three guests for being here.

Concerning international coverage, at the beginning of every year, I look forward to watching the round table show with all the foreign correspondents. I assume you do the same thing at CBC. On countless occasions, I have found that Radio-Canada, contrary to the rather dusty picture painted of it by the Conservatives when they were in power, is very modern. Its platform ICI TOU.TV has opened the door for catch-up television.

I think that Radio-Canada remains a standard in many respects. We all remember Bernard Derome, who never wanted to hear that the “Canadian radio” way of doing things in terms of information was to be questioned, and he was right.

Ms. Tait, I had the opportunity to hear your presentation on the current paradigm shift. You hit the nail on the head when you said we all had to work together. We are all facing people's new viewing habits, which lead to tremendous amounts of content importing. This has never been seen before.

You talked about your budget. Obviously, the bidding has started to determine who likes you the most or who hates you the most. What I know is that the Liberals have brought the budget to a level where it would be without the previous Conservative government's cuts. In reality, your operating budget has been higher in the past, right? How are you managing this situation? Your budget is lower, but salaries must increase and you must maintain quality standards. You are still the standard in many respects. In addition, inflation must be taken into account. How are you managing?

[Catherine Tait]

I must say that it is a major challenge. I would add that we are managing two different services.

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

Of course.

[Catherine Tait]

We are managing linear television and radio services at the same time as digital services. We always try to reach out to Canadians, especially young people, for example through Snapchat or YouTube. That is a tremendous amount of work.

Mr. Bissonnette, do you want to add anything on the way we are managing the problem?

[Michel Bissonnette, Executive Vice-President, Radio-Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

I often joke that it is easier to manage growth than downsizing. Unfortunately, we are in a downsizing environment, and we have to maintain our service for all our audiences. So linear services are still important. Digital services are also very important if we don't want to skip a generation. As a result, we reinvent ourselves every year to try to find new ways to do things because we have to offer more, but with a smaller budget. So that requires visionary talent.

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

You put your finger on the issue I am most passionate about, but that is at the very end of my questions. So you are forcing me to jump several pages.

Your are taking about skipping a generation. Millennials rarely watch live television. That said, in her presentation, Ms. Tait mentioned Bye bye, which has once again broken world records, I am sure of it.

Allow me to take a few seconds to remind the committee members that all the Numeris surveys on television shows in Canada and in Quebec more or less confirm that, from week to week, 25 of the 30 most popular shows in Quebec are produced in Quebec, while the situation is the opposite in English Canada, where at least 25 of the 30 most popular shows are not Canadian. In both cases, these are world records. It is always good to remind people that, as much as there may be no interest in local content on one side, there may be a great deal of interest in it on the other side. However, the next generation will change that.

You have made a few announcements concerning children's television. I think that we have already lost the current preschool generation—children who will soon be entering kindergarten. In fact, chances are that they are watching the same shows little ones in Connecticut are.

[Michel Bissonnette]

May I answer, Ms. Tait?