Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 1st, 2021

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes.

I have so many questions to ask about OLMCs because they are so important to my community. Knowing how short we are on time, Madame Messier, is there anything else that you'd like to add as the last takeaway for this panel?

[Hélène Messier]

We haven't talked much about the CRTC's oversight. We think that it's important. The CRTC has a great deal of power. It's necessary to restore the possibility of appealing the CRTC's decisions to the Governor in Council. This possibility was removed in the current bill regarding the terms and conditions for orders that will be issued to programming undertakings, whether they're online or traditional.

We believe that the political community must have the final say to ensure that the objectives of the act are fulfilled by the CRTC. This is one point that I wanted to make.

Thank you for the question, Ms. McPherson.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Messier.

Folks, before I draw to a close, I had one minute and a half for Mr. Housefather.

Mr. Housefather are you there? Do you want to try this one more time?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Yes, I'm trying again with the headset that I can't hear from.

I believe maybe they will be able to hear me better with the House of Commons headset that they wanted me to use.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have a minute and a half, sir. Go ahead.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I don't think I took up three and a half minutes, but thank you.

I want to come back to my question to Mr. Hirsch. Can you give me an example of where the CRTC has made a ruling that has had a negative impact on the English-speaking community of Quebec?

[Kenneth Hirsch]

I'll defer again to Mr. Bossé for specifics of law, because I'm not a lawyer.

In general, and I know it may or may not be explicit in Bill C-10, quotas are very helpful to our production community, so we ask that CBC spend a minimum of 10% of its English language production content in Quebec.

We would ask the same thing of the big streamers that sell content to Canadians as well, and 12% of their development budget, but I'll leave specifics of how CRTC changes have hurt us to Maître Bossé.

[Darius Bossé]

I'll quickly add that this is the whole point of the provision, the amendments that are being put forward. It's to regulate the exercise of discretion by the CRTC, for example, by explicitly having in the statute that broadcasters have to promote the vitality of official-language minority communities. Other submissions, for example, that QEPC, ELAN and QCGN are putting forward is a duty to be consulted when a decision can have harmful impacts. By doing that, we are prospectively trying to avoid harm instead of having to fight down the line.

Mr. Housefather, you're a lawyer, so you know how that works. If you can avoid the harm, then you avoid litigation altogether.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Agreed.

The other question I wanted to ask, and I think it's a very important, is on the duty to consult. You have asked for the official-language minority communities to be consulted not only when there's a CRTC issue but also when there's a CBC issue that could potentially impact the official-language minority communities.

I know that in your first reference on the Broadcasting Act, you mentioned that the Immigration Act had a similar provision requiring us to take into account the linguistic duality of Canada.

Mr. Bossé, can you point to any other examples where this is found in legislation?

[Darius Bossé]

The duty to consult is jurisprudential. There's definitely a legal foundation for this, but you have to find it in case law. You have to read, for example, the DesRochers or the Haida Nation decisions made by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The amendment is drafted to reflect what the Supreme Court of Canada explained in those decisions. It's not invented. It definitely has a legal and constitutional foundation, in fact, but it's novel in the sense that there is no amendment of this type elsewhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you to our guests who came here today. It's been very informative.

We've got to suspend very quickly, and get to our next group.

Godspeed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We have to move very quickly as we are extremely pressed for time. We will go into overtime, past one o'clock Eastern. I'll try to keep that to a minimum.

Once again, there have been some issues with simultaneous interpretation, and should anyone encounter a problem, please wave your hand or say something. If you say something, please don't raise your voice as this is a very sensitive interpretation issue.

We have three guests with us. I'm going to introduce each of you guests and then get right into your five minutes. I'm going to be very strict on time. I apologize in advance if I interrupt you.

First off we have, from Alberta Newspaper Group, Ryan McAdams, group publisher.

Mr. McAdams, go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Ryan McAdams, Group Publisher, Alberta Newspaper Group]

Good morning.

I want to thank everyone on this committee for inviting us to speak today. I think it's an important factor that we all face and are challenged with. I look back on my 35 years of working in and consulting with media. I am quite concerned with where we sit today but, more importantly, with the public perception of media. What was once a respected and fact-based pillar of our past generations is now not much more than a punchline in pop culture. To illustrate that point, I'll speak to a comment that I heard yesterday, which was, “I'm now old enough to remember when the only fake news around was the National Enquirer.”

I'm here today, with respect, in an effort to try to appeal to the common sense of this committee's members with respect to my desire to stop this slide into a more out-of-control media sphere. My talk today is really about the lack and loss of local journalism. We have seen the decline and erosion of this over the years, and that has been escalated obviously in the last 12 months because of COVID. We've seen many newspapers, broadcasters and radio stations alike disappear in recent years. That's concerning and it's creating areas of news deserts. There are vast and growing areas in which local news is no longer represented, and we are losing the ability to communicate to our communities. It is essential, I believe, that we have a functioning broadcast act and CRTC, with controls over what is replacing what we once knew as the news.

We sit in a shifting media landscape in which the function of local news production has been narrowed, as I mentioned, by the erosion of advertising dollars. We look at the impacts of the tech giants and how they siphon off local and national advertising. You don't need to look any further than at what the federal governments used to spend on newspapers, TV and radio stations. Those dollars are now spent largely on digital and media campaigns that are Internet-based.

The problem with that is that the Internet giants, the tech giants, are all U.S.-based. That money leaves the country. It doesn't get reinvested. It doesn't employ local people or Canadians, and the tax dollars themselves go away.

This loss of fact-based communication and reporting began with the disappearance of all of our local stations and written newspapers. I think one of the things we need to understand is that the majority of local journalism is produced by community sources, not the national media. We owe our nation and citizens better. The communities across Canada and your constituents want assurances that Canadian content will be available and that the digital players will be as responsible for their contribution to the creation of homegrown content.

We've seen recent decisions in France and Australia that began the process of holding tech giants accountable by regulating them and putting in place penalties and costs for them to do business. It's important that we as a newspaper industry feel that the Broadcasting Act is holding social media and the Internet giants accountable for what they produce, what they distribute and what they disseminate. I know that the act is looking to make more inroads with respect to the Internet but I also realize and agree that it is not taking on any proactive statement with respect to social media. Social media is becoming a greater player in terms of information, particularly. That is, in my opinion, a very big, severe concern with respect to where people get what they want to call news from. The fact that social media is really unpoliced is my biggest and strongest concern.

I have provided attachments for the members to read, and that ends my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. McAdams.

We now have Mr. John Petrie, retired broadcaster.

Mr. Petrie, you have five minutes. Thank you for joining us.

[John Petrie, Retired Broadcaster, As an Individual]

Good morning. I'm John Petrie and I worked in local radio for over 40 years. My theme will be focused on radio and regulations affecting it as it evolves into new platforms.

I know the importance of local radio and connecting to the community from reporting local news, covering local sports teams, doing play-by-play, and especially during critical times such as winter blizzards, knowing which roads are open and closed and what schools are open. It's the same in the summertime when there are tornado warnings or thunderstorm warnings.

While you can get a lot of that information on your cellphone, people still turn to traditional media, which gives them assurances of credibility. I know the importance of local radio or media for local business and non-profits to get their message out and to advertise. I want to cite you a few examples of the importance of local radio. Back in December, the radio station in Brooks here raised $36,000 in one day for the food bank, and over the last 30 years, the local station has held a Rotary Radio Day helping the Brooks Rotary Club raise $300,000.

Local radio gives us a sense of community. When I say community, that doesn't necessarily mean just people, but it's more of a feeling of common interests, goals and supports. You can translate that provincially and nationally, too.

The CRTC has controlled the licences of radio stations, which has limited the supply. Unfortunately, the supply has been taken over by larger companies. That might produce a better product, but in most cases now the cutbacks have reduced the amount of local programming and jobs.

Radio delivery is moving to the Internet and other formats. I still listen to a lot of traditional radio but I listen to it in a new way, either through my cellphone or Bluetooth. Norway, by the way, is a nation of five million people and has become the first in the world to phase out analog signals in favour of digital audio broadcasting, which means the FM and the AM signals are gone. Switzerland and Britain are both considering a switch to digital networks. Norway claims the move will free up some cash for broadcasters to invest in programming, while providing a clear and more reliable network.

Canada will eventually get there. We don't know when that will happen, but it will eventually go that way. What happens with our traditional radio stations that are broadcasting through transmitters, especially when cars no longer carry an FM or AM radio? Will anybody be able to start up an Internet radio station and not worry about a transmitter or call letters or frequency? Will they need a licence or can they just start it up on their own?

Traditional radio, as you know, has to follow certain rules, such as playing 35% Canadian content, paying SOCAN fees, following the Canadian broadcast standards and playing the music that they're licensed to play. Of course, they have to have a logger and they have to keep everything for 30 days for music audit or in case somebody is slandered.

As radio moves to the Internet, and most stations now stream through an app such as the Radioplayer Canada app, what will the rules for the Internet be? Will they still have to play 35% CanCon? Does Spotify or Apple Play or Google Music play 35% CanCon?

What about standards for announcers or talk show hosts? On traditional radio, they have rules, but a broadcast on the Internet has no rules and few regulations. On the Internet, if you listen to podcasts, crude language sometimes has no restraints. Who's going to monitor this and who's going to control this? Is it even necessary to do so?

Governments like to think they're the arbiters of regulations and rules, but we saw in the U.S. election big companies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were making up the rules, deciding what content could be shared. Also when a rival to Twitter came along, the major tech companies would not allow them to operate on their platform. Then who decides what can be talked about or played on Internet radio? Do we need controls or do we let people decide for themselves what they want to hear and listen to?

If you have an online radio station, you need to run it through a provider such as Rogers or Bell. Could they shut you down if you were becoming too competitive to them, reduce your bandwidth or up your price? What will the rules be if I run an online radio station through a platform such as Facebook or YouTube? Who would own the data coming from that, and what would the rules be on foreign ownership? What about paying into the Canada Media Fund? Would there be any requirement for Canadian employment, or could these companies operate outside of Canada?

In the end, though, the question is this: What do Canadians want from the media? They want to be informed. They want to be entertained. They want the freedom to choose where they get their information and entertainment from. Now, if you pay for it via a subscription, should there be rules imposed? If you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Petrie. I apologize for that. You can probably work the rest of your speech into the questions and answers.

Now we go to Global Village Centre.

Mr. Ahmed Kassem, you have five minutes, please.

[Ahmed Kassem, Executive Director, Global Village Centre]

Thank you very much to the committee for inviting us. I fully agree with both Ryan and John.

My name is Ahmed Kassem. I have been producing and hosting cultural community television shows for many years in the past decade. In addition, I am the host of a local community radio show that focuses on intercultural relationships in rural communities. All programs are intended to increase awareness and understanding of many cultures and languages in the Brooks area, to indicate to newcomers their rights and responsibilities in Canada, and to increase newcomer knowledge about the community they live in through interviews with key community leaders and service providers.

BIll C-10 is helpful to that if it goes hand-in-hand with the Canadian Broadcasting Act, [Technical difficulty—Editor] broadcasting. At the same time, we should impress the [Inaudible—Editor] digital world. It's more difficult than it used to be for families to come together to watch one TV screen; you can all watch the same thing on different devices. The online world should pass the same scrutiny as the Broadcasting Act, in that the contents should not be produced by someone from their home, which enables individuals and groups to spread misinformation, which can be harmful and sometimes dangerous.

The bill also helps visible minorities be a part of the broadcasting world because the voices of all Canadians matter, not where they come from. It could be said that the bill seeks to even the playing field, so to speak, for content disparities all over Canada. The bill would have them all operate under the same regulatory guidelines.

I believe it is critical to ensure that any legislation does not result in earlier streaming services pulling out of Canada. The proposed heightened guidelines as to what they are required to follow could drive the services out of Canada, therefore narrowing the scope of media and content available in the country.

I am personally in favour of the bill, with the caution that I mentioned before: Having all media providers in Canada under the same guidelines makes it fairer for smaller broadcast hosts to operate. It also safely [Inaudible—Editor] and ensures Canadian content availability in Canada, keeping us close to our roots—while also avoiding promoting harmful content—to ensure the protection and support of local broadcasting and newspapers, especially in our rural communities throughout Canada.

The discussions on this topic raise four main questions for me. One, how exactly will this be protecting Canadian content? Two, how will the content be vetted? Three, where will it come from? Finally, will this create any new employment opportunities for Canada?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Kassem.

I'm sorry for the difficulties there.

We're going to go straight to questions now. We're going to start out with six-minute questions from the Conservatives.

Mr. Shields, you're up first.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate all three witnesses today.

Mr. Petrie, you were about to expand a little bit at the end. Would you like to complete that?

[John Petrie]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Shields.

I just wanted to finish off. When we're making rules, we have to have a level playing field. What I mean by a level playing field is we have to make sure whatever happens online happens with traditional media as long as it's around here.

If we start to license Internet radio stations, I think it would be nice if they were licensed to Canadians, and there's no limit on that. Take our community, for example. We're a community of 100 different voices. With larger cities, you could have an ethnic radio station. You could have several ethnic radio stations in Toronto or Vancouver.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is content rules. Who decides on content? If you bring in content rules, does that stifle any creativity?

The bottom line is taxing streaming services like all other businesses. I think we're all in agreement with that, because there are big giants from the United States and they're using our infrastructure. We're paying for it and they're getting off scot-free, so I think most of us are in agreement that there should be a way they are taxed.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Kassem, in the sense of this bill and it has to do with ethno, how critical has it been in the community, to the messages that you are providing to a wide range of ethnic groups within this region, in rural Canada?

[Ahmed Kassem]

It is very critical.

Brooks is the “City of 100 Hellos”, and we do have a large number of different ethnic groups from all over the world.

It is a very big challenge when it comes to a lot of messaging. That has been proven during the COVID-19 pandemic, a public health nightmare. As well there's the difficulty of racial conflict, anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobia.

The messaging, as John just mentioned, the way that we broadcast through the podcast, we reach out to every community through their own language, through their own culture. That reaching out helps the communities to stay in the rural area with their families, and to work and be part of the community they are in.

It is very critical to have that voice from newcomers, and the value added to the economic development of Canada in general, and all rural areas of Canada. It's very critical to have the voice of small services. It's very important to have the voice of every Canadian added to the value.

I would encourage the committee to look into community radio, or any other means so that every voice from the Canadian perspective can be heard in a very effective manner.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Petrie, if there was one recommendation that you think is most important above others, what would it be?

[John Petrie]

I don't really know, but I'm just going to deviate a little bit here.

I was listening to the last hour here, and one thing people haven't talked about is the collection of data. When Facebook and Google or.... This data becomes so important for advertisers. Who owns that data? Who owns the information about me?

I think we have to look at that as a nation, because right now Google or Facebook owns that data, which is important for their advertisers. They can target their advertisers in Brooks or Chicoutimi or Saint John.

I think we need to take a look at that. I don't know where this all fits into this area, but I think that's key too.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's a good point, thank you.

I'll go now to the newspaper association.

You moved into local media, and you talked about where the closest media is, and probably the most factual in a sense, because it has to be local. How are we going to do that in rural?