Canadian Heritage Committee on May 30th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Two and a half minutes.

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

I'll share with my friend Shaun.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Mr. Chen.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you very much to our witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Tait, I know that you were appointed to the CBC in 2018 and that what I'm about to raise is something that happened before your time, but it's important because there's the saying that we can always learn from the mistakes of the past.

In 2012, the previous government cut $115 million in funding for the CBC. Although I know you were not at the helm of the organization at that time, what would be the consequence if that type of cut were made to CBC? How would that affect your organization?

[Catherine Tait]

It's something I, of course, ask myself and my colleagues here today. We are very cognizant that history can repeat itself. Hopefully, it won't in this instance.

There are a couple of things. Most recently, in our strategic plan that we launched, we talked about the need for the public broadcaster to maintain its diversified revenue model. I'll bring that right upfront to say what it means. Every public broadcaster in the world has a diversified revenue model and seeks commercial revenue to balance their government revenue, whether it's a parliamentary allocation, a licence fee or whatever model their funding from the public might be. For us, we consider that to be a key insurance policy for the vicissitudes of the future, whatever they might be.

To your question directly on what we would have to do, we would have to cut, we would have to look around all elements of our business and we would have to reduce service. Just so you understand, there are parts of our business where, perhaps in our television schedule for example, where we make money, with a show like the Bye bye, but there are services that we deliver to minority communities, francophone communities outside of Quebec, that simply would not be business ventures at all. They're entirely dependent on the public dollars we receive. It's the same on the English side and for certain services to the north. The reason we're the only ones there is that the privates would never go there because these services simply don't make any money at all.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

One of the great services—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

I'm sorry, but you're out of time. Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here today. This is a really interesting conversation.

I hear from you time and again that you're non-political, yet our colleagues across the way seem to be making this meeting very political.

I want to get back to the purpose of the study as it was laid out here, which is to review the mandate of the CBC and Radio-Canada as it relates to the Broadcasting Act. In the brief that we received, it specifically mentioned paragraph 3(1)(m) of the act and the subparagraph 3(1)(m)(i) that says that it “be predominantly and distinctively Canadian”. In this changing world of digital accessibility, where media outlets are having to reinvent themselves—private media in particular basically reinventing itself daily, weekly and yearly to keep up with the changing access to information from all over the world—can the CBC both continue to be competitive for listenership and fulfill its current mandate driven by the Broadcasting Act?

[Catherine Tait]

One of the reasons I believe the government invited a review of the act is to address the issues of digital media and to modernize the act. Our submission is pretty clear about that. We're not just a television and radio broadcaster anymore. We are obviously trying to reach and serve Canadians where they are through digital media.

If your question is: Do we think the act should be modernized? Absolutely. Do we think the CBC and Radio-Canada can maintain its competitiveness? As to competitiveness, we don't think of ourselves in those terms because we exist not to compete; we exist to serve.

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

But you are competing. You're competing with private broadcasters in the same service areas; you're definitely in competition with them.

[Catherine Tait]

If you're talking about competing for advertising dollars or audience share, those are different things. What we do is provide services across the country to Canadians who would otherwise, in many cases, receive no information and no programming, because the privates have simply had to retreat in the face of a whole lot of financial pressures, and we understand that.

We do not want to be the sole voice in those communities. We're working hard with private media to try to figure out ways to work with them to solve that particular problem.

With respect to advertising, it's important for you to know that we represent, on the digital side of the equation, less than 1% of the digital ad dollars in the Canadian system. Google and Facebook are hoovering up 75% of those dollars, and we represent less than 1%, so that's—

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

That's why I ask my question. Can the CBC continue to be competitive under the current mandate?

[Catherine Tait]

I would say that as long as we are given the flexibility and maintain the independence and flexibility to serve Canadians the best way we possibly can, yes, we can continue, but we're going to have to be creative and smart about how we fund those activities.

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

Thank you.

Again, getting back to this quickly changing world around us, with the assimilation of global markets and global connectivity, we are seeing Canadian companies being bought up by foreign entities, absorbed into U.S. firms and so on, simply because of the size of our market being 10% or less than that of the American market. In fact, in one industry I know of we're less than 2% of the world market. We're being pushed more and more to be assimilated into that U.S. culture. How can CBC or Canada stand up against that? How do you see that being possible?

[Catherine Tait]

One thing we say in our buildings across the country is that the best antidote to fake news is real news—truth. I believe, and I wouldn't be here and I don't think my colleagues would be here either, if we didn't believe as an organization that as long as we're focused on truth-telling and serving Canadians in their communities and reflecting Canadians in their local communities in the regions, no international company is going to be, I don't think—not yet, anyway—interested in delivering services to Iqaluit or to Red Deer or to Fort McMurray, or to any of these small communities. There's no business in it.

As long as we stay focused on that, I believe that Canadians will continue to want to support us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Picard, go ahead for five minutes.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Good afternoon, Ms. Tait.

My comments are somewhat along the lines of what was brought up in the beginning. You are making efforts to diversify your platforms, for example, with TOU.TV. On the one hand, is the obligation to diversify leading to additional costs, as it compartmentalizes your services? On the other hand, has this enabled you to reach a broader audience, or is your audience simply more segmented or more specialized, depending on the medium?

[Michel Bissonnette]

That has increased our viewership. The programming we offer on platforms does not really vary from one platform to another. There are just more broadcast windows. Very often, a televised show has its first broadcast window on TOU.TV and ends up on ICI Radio-Canada Télé six months later. We are seeing that the conventional television audience has not decreased. We are reaching more people than before by offering products on a number of platforms.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

I assume that the segmentation of the offer leads to higher costs, and thereby an increase in public investment.

[Michel Bissonnette]

Exactly.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

You said earlier that you were not a competitor like other television networks or other media. You still provide all kinds of news programs. You're not the ones investing directly in that. The public is, and it wants to know how the return on investment is assessed.

When a service is provided instead of bargaining, how is the return on investment assessed?

[Michel Bissonnette]

As the public broadcaster, our objective is not to make money, but to provide a service and fulfill our mandate. As I was saying earlier, our criterion concerning the return on investment is not that we have to do something else, but that we absolutely must do it differently.

For example, a private broadcaster may not have taken the risk of producing a show like Unité 9, which takes place in a female prison. Producing Les pays d'en haut, a historical show that costs more than a regular show, is also a risk taken by the public broadcaster.

For us, return on investment is the ability to offer programming that is different from the programming private broadcasters can provide.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Since more platforms make it possible to access a broader audience, do you plan to add platforms for which new investments will have to be made?

[Michel Bissonnette]

No, not in the short term.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

I will discuss something else now.

In entertainment, we have choices: television, cinema, outings, bars, and so on. The situation is a bit more restricted in terms of current events. We need to watch the news.

In Canada, is there a trend in news delivery? In the United States, some networks follow certain directions more than others. There are trends. However, it seems that some networks in Canada provide news that, if not skewed, is at least biased.

Are you noticing that kind of behaviour? Is that reflected in your news?