Canadian Heritage Committee on May 30th, 2019

[Daniel Bernhard]

Absolutely. I just wanted to be clear about what we're referring to.

I think that when you look at some of the leaders around the world with more authoritarian tendencies, you will notice a consistent distain for facts and for the journalists who work tirelessly to produce and disseminate those facts.

Platforms like Facebook are extremely helpful to people who would like to escape scrutiny and deliver their version of the truth or their preferred narrative directly to people, as though the truth and these untruths were somehow just different opinions that should be regarded equally. We've seen this not just around the world; we've seen this in Canada as well. The fact that platforms like Facebook have no standards and no responsibility of quality, of truthfulness or of integrity in the same way that, for example, Canadian broadcasters do....

I'll just give you one little example. Can you tell me what you think would happen if CBC or CTV live-streamed a mass murder in progress? There would be a riot, but Facebook did exactly that with the Christchurch shootings.

These tools, I think, are very dangerous for a society that requires people to be informed.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I understand you've launched a campaign called #WeChooseCanada #WeChooseCBC to help make Canadian journalism and support prominent issues, perhaps even in the coming election. Can you tell me a little bit about that, and what your intent is with respect to that?

[Daniel Bernhard]

Absolutely.

As Mr. Thompson said, support for CBC is very strong across the country, and that support extends to people of all political persuasions, and the numbers really support that. Our job is to put that support on prominent display.

Right now, whether it is leaving open the loophole in section 19 of the Income Tax Act or foot-dragging on having Netflix declared a broadcaster for the purposes of Canadian programming expenditures, the government has demonstrated a strong preference, perhaps through inertia or by default, for foreign companies that make negligible or even negative contributions to our society and democracy over Canadian broadcasters, especially the CBC, that exist to enrich us and serve us.

We've also found that some of the opposition parties have not made their positions on these things known publicly. Our attempt is to serve this clear public desire for strong and credible Canadian journalism and storytelling, including in small and rural communities, to get politicians in key ridings to come clean about their views on these subjects, and also their party's views. We're hoping to extract strong and clear commitments from all the parties to make their positions known. Canadians expect it, and I think Canadians deserve it.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

You have [Inaudible—Editor].

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

My buddy, Shaun.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you.

Our government chose to do things differently, and in 2017, for the very first time, individual applications were accepted by an independent advisory committee on appointments, which was then tasked with making recommendations for new board members. You did raise in your testimony a concern about partisan appointments to the board. Can you speak to whether or not this new process has made a difference? It sounds like you might have other suggestions as to how to improve that process.

[Daniel Bernhard]

I think that's a great question. Thank you for that question.

I think the new process is definitely a step in the right direction. What we would like to see is for that process to be enshrined in the law so that it's not just a choice of the current government on how they will choose the board and the management. That's the first thing. The second thing is that the government should have no say in who the CEO of the corporation is. The CEO was chosen through the same process as the board. We think the board should be appointed by this independent process, and that board, like any corporate board, should have the sole authority to hire and fire the CEO at its discretion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

That completes the end of your time, in fact, so we will not be going to Mr. Arnold for seven minutes.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here today. Those were great presentations. As Ms. Wagantall mentioned in the previous hour, all three of us are actually not regulars on this committee, but it's always very interesting to take part and sometimes bring in another outside view.

Your organization is obviously very supportive of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I grew up in a rural area where CBC Radio and CBC television were the only choice we had for many years, and I still listen in occasionally, especially in the morning to get the early morning news, so it's very important to me.

Mr. Bernhard, I want to bring up a quotation of something you mentioned in your early presentations. You referred to the online or the digital social media organizations as “spying” on us.

Could you qualify that as spying, or are they really making their business model exploit information that is freely given to them?

[Daniel Bernhard]

Do you have a Gmail account?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Yes.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Did you ever sign on a dotted line to say, Google can read all of my email in order to sell me stuff more efficiently?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

You click on the terms of agreement.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Okay. I would challenge you to read the terms of agreement of all of these services and see whether you're still alive by the end. It's an incredibly long process that I think people are not.... We cannot reasonably expect people to agree to those things.

The other thing is that companies like Facebook and Google will follow you around the Internet even if you don't consent. If you've been to any website that has a Facebook “like” button, for example, on it, Facebook will take information about you. They'll be able to digitally fingerprint you and determine who you are and create a data profile on you even if you have never signed up for a Facebook account, never consented, never opted in.

This is called surveillance capitalism by Professor Zuboff from Harvard University. She has a fantastic, albeit thick, new book on the subject, and it is very aptly named. This is about surveilling you and turning your private experience into raw material for profit.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I believe you said you were here, either taking part in or observing the testimony in committee earlier this week. The owners of Facebook have refused to appear and ignored the subpoena to appear.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Yes.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Would you care to comment further on that?

[Daniel Bernhard]

When representatives of countries containing 400 million people ask a very important company to explain itself and its impact on democracy and that company decides not to appear, I think that speaks volumes for their respect for the people's will.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

I want to get back to the study motion, as I did in the last hour. The study is to review the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada as it relates to the Broadcasting Act. I'll quote again from that act, out of the briefing note that was provided to all the committee members today: “Canadian Broadcasting Corp’s legislative mandate is outlined in sections 3(1)(l) and (m) of the Broadcasting Act”, and from out of paragraph 3(1)(m), item 3(1)(m)(i), which says that it should “be predominantly and distinctively Canadian”.

I'll ask the same question of you that I asked of the CBC representatives who were in during the last hour.

In this changing world of digital accessibility where anyone anywhere who is digitally connected can receive news or information almost instantaneously from anywhere else in the world that is connected digitally, can the CBC continue to be competitive in that market? That is what it is. Even though CBC says they're not trying to compete with other broadcasters and so on, everyone in the media business competes for listenership, readership, followings and so on.

Can they continue to be competitive and remain predominantly and distinctively Canadian, when we have such minimal content to provide compared with the rest of the world?

[Daniel Bernhard]

I would say they can, and more than that, they have to; they must. Entertainment programming and news programming are not like other industries. They shape our sense of what's possible. They teach us who to empathize with. They help inform our ideal of what the normal society looks like. I don't want my children to be informed about what a normal society looks like by a country where it's okay to take a gun to a preschool. I don't think that's a good idea.

If we want to maintain our independence and our independence of values, we need to have a strong Canadian voice that expresses our culture and our society. That's what independence looks like.

However, that's not free. With such a small per capita budget as Ms. Tait said, the CBC broadcasts in six time zones, with one sixth of the budget of the BBC, which is only in one time zone and one language.

That stuff is not free. If we want to have it, we need to find ways to pay for it. The independent methods of financing that I'm referring to are really important for the committee to consider not only because of pressures on public finances that currently exist, but also because of the need to ensure that the corporation is fundamentally independent of government. That will allow them to be distinct, because they're not depending on advertising.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Can I interrupt? I have only one minute left for a further question here.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Sorry. I apologize.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you. We always run out of time.

I just want to make sure that we're open and transparent here. I believe you said you're a not-for-profit organization.

[Daniel Bernhard]

Yes, that's correct.