Evidence of meeting #8 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was media.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Moving on to the group from Quebec, you've mentioned the challenges facing quality local news. I imagine you're talking about quality English local news in Quebec.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Could you expand on that and give me a little more detail on what exactly the problem is?
Board Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network
There are numerous problems.
In the first place, with the cutbacks to the staff in Quebec City, the staff cuts represent basically no reporting in English on legislation in Quebec at the municipal and provincial levels. Also, the reporters who did local reporting no longer work in the regions. They are very few and far between. What we are seeing is the almost complete disappearance of any kind of professional, reflective journalistic considerations shared with the English-speaking public, particularly in the regions, but it's true right across the province.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
So you represent the English-speaking minority of Quebec?
Board Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network
We speak on behalf of the needs of the English-speaking minority of Quebec, yes.
Liberal
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
I would imagine that most of the English speakers are in urban centres, not the rural areas.
Board Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network
Some 80% plus are in Montreal, but there are 210,000 living in the rural areas, spread out across the entire province.
Liberal
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
For quite a bit of time last night, I was on the website of the Quebec Community Groups Network. Maybe you can just talk about your organization.
More than anything, you send out emails. I see here all of the groups you represent. It's a big umbrella, but it's more about the emails that you send from your organization. You have a lot of educators in your organization. I know that you've talked extensively about CJAD radio, the Montreal Gazette, CBC, and so on, but maybe you can just talk about your organization and the emails you send out for information for the English.
Board Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network
The organization is an umbrella organization that, at this point, brings together 48 different groups. By and large, the groups provide services directly to the population. Many of them are local. Many of them are also regional in scope. The kinds of activities they cover range from the arts to health and social services and to education, so there is a wide swath of expertise and a wide swath of information that is covered.
The mechanisms that are in place include the use of the Internet services, the use of the website, and the use of information accessible on the website of the QCGN. We have a daily news feature that regroups all the activities that impact English-speaking Quebec in terms of news locally as well as nationally. Weekly news is sent to the member organizations and brings them up to date on issues, particularly those that perhaps affect policy considerations. There is an annual general meeting to which the community is invited. We organize different activities to encourage the participation of different groups and individuals from around the province. The email is an important aspect of our communication tools, but it's one of many.
The QCGN is also actively involved in expanding the number of its member organizations. If I'm not mistaken, we currently are awaiting something like 18 new organizations to join our community. Basically, the QCGN is becoming a voice for the English-speaking community. It works on collecting the evidence of what is happening and what the issues are. It has a standing mechanism of identifying the kinds of activities that take place within the framework of a set of priorities that were identified by the community some five years ago. It surveys the community on an annual basis, and it reports on the kinds of activities under each of the six priority areas that have been established.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
I only have seven minutes here, so we're going to tighten this up.
You're a not-for-profit, so how do you guys get your funding? Also, how much funding do you get from Canadian Heritage?
Board Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network
I'm not sure what the exact number is, but we get less than a million dollars from Canadian Heritage in core funding, and then there is project funding that the organization is involved in with the member organizations.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Talk about your “evidence-based expertise”. What's that all about?
Board Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network
We have a director of policy. We engage friends from the community who are academics, who are experts in their field, who do work for us, and support us in the work we do. We ensure that we have people engaged in looking at all of the reports that are developed by Statistics Canada, for example, and other agencies. We are in contact with the federal agencies that are engaged in providing services to the minority language communities across Canada. We ensure that the kind of information we have is objective, well-founded, and validated before we put forward any sorts of recommendations and policy statements.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Good. Thank you very much.
I'm going to move now to Mr. Miller and Mr. Morrison.
We all know the small markets in this country. There are 33 of them and 23.... We'd talked about them.
There's just one thing I would point out. When Bell Media talked to the CRTC, they estimated their local TV stations lost $12 million last year, I would refute that. When you bundle stations now, you know that CBC, Global, and CTV stations have to be included in that $25 bundle. While Bell can say all local stations lost $12 million, as a total of CTV, I would say that when you do buy the bundle, you also get their TV stations from coast to coast to coast.
Spokesperson, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
We are about one month into that skinny basic, and the best estimates I've seen, Mr. Waugh, are that about 4% of Canadians will go for it. I think that whether or not Bell is making or losing $12 million on something—and Peter can give you some decimal points—my overview would be to say, please keep your eye on those small markets. I know you're familiar with the situation in Lloydminster, for example. Think of Lloydminster, think of Thunder Bay, and think of the stations that are not affiliated with the large integrated companies as the priorities.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Well, you challenged the CRTC, if you don't mind, Mr. Miller, that there's not enough money in the system to adequately finance local TV right now.
Can you elaborate on that?
Expert on Local Broadcasting, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
I'd be happy to.
Can I go back to your previous question, just to be clear?
Liberal
Expert on Local Broadcasting, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
I'll be very fast.
The stations in that bundle, the Global and the Bell, don't get any of that $25.
Expert on Local Broadcasting, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
In terms of whether there's money in the system, what we looked at are projections for the profitability of local TV. We looked at what we call the “revenue gap”, or in other words, what kind of gap we have in the system for conventional television. We compared that to the money the CRTC was looking at reallocating to local TV. We predict that within four or five years, there won't be enough money.
What the CRTC does, in our view, would be a short-term solution to a bigger problem, which is why I think Mr. Morrison is recommending that you look at things like advertising and tax deductibility, because there isn't going to be enough money in the system to solve the problem.
