Evidence of meeting #20 for Canadian Heritage in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Regulatory Law, BCE Inc.
Just to be clear, we're not asking for any—
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I only have so much time; thank you. You've asked for it.
Unifor, you're also asking for taxpayers' money and support. You have 80% of federal advertising dollars now going to foreign giants, and you're looking for more taxpayers' money to support local news. Now, advertising supports local news. Why aren't you advocating for the federal taxpayers' money to be spent in local advertising?
Director of Media and National Representative, Unifor
Mr. Shields, it's not taxpayers' money that we're proposing to go to local news; it's industry contributions from all the broadcasters, foreign or otherwise, [Technical difficulty—Editor] point.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
The point is that 80% of the federal government money is going to international foreign giants' advertising rather than being spent.
In my riding, the local media is really suffering, and it's the advertising that pays for that local media. Why wouldn't you be pushing for that as well?
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
But you didn't mention it today.
What are you actually doing, then?
Director of Media and National Representative, Unifor
Do you mean in terms of our proposal today? I hope I made it as clear as I could—
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
No, I got that clear, but you said you are working on the 80%, lobbying for that 80% of federal dollars. I haven't heard that today.
What are you doing to do that?
Director of Media and National Representative, Unifor
We'll certainly send our previous materials to you, sir.
To the extent that you've raised this point and it's been discussed, I think the minister addressed it in his previous appearance before the committee, that the [Technical difficulty—Editor] was starting to turn around the direction it had taken on spending most likely too much money advertising on Google and Facebook, and it was going to look at redirecting to Canadian publications.
That's good news. I hope they follow through, and I guess you'd have to address any further questions on that to the minister.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
But I'm addressing it to you, as you represent people who work in local media, and it's the advertising that pays for those people.
Are you lobbying...? I know what the minister said, but are you lobbying for that change as well?
Director of Media and National Representative, Unifor
In terms of what our emphasis on lobbying has been—and I guess we haven't been loud enough about it—it's that the government needs to move very quickly from this bill to the next bill that they've promised, which is a bill modelled on the Australian model or otherwise, which will see Google and Facebook make a significant contribution to Canadian journalism, and we're hoping that the government and the committee—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
We have to wrap up that point there.
Thank you, Mr. Shields.
Mr. Housefather, you have five minutes please.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all the witnesses for being here today.
I am very pleased that Ms. St-Onge was able to resume her remarks without any technical difficulties today.
I'm going to start with BCE.
Mr. Daniels, I'm not here to beat up on a corporation. I used to be the general counsel of a multinational before I was elected.
I think Canadians are a bit puzzled. BCE took at least $122 million from the wage subsidy. BCE paid out dividends last year on a quarterly basis, yet Bell Media cut 200 jobs of local journalists in February. As I understand it, some of those cuts were done in quite a heartless way, where people were informed after a public announcement. People were informed during a radio commercial. Of course, those communities that suffered—CJAD, which is the main English-speaking radio station in Montreal, being a prime example—lost local content, regardless of your claim that the television journalists will now substitute.
I question how you asked today—and I understand that—for less regulation with respect to broadcasters, not to give too many powers directly to the CRTC to specifically govern your actions and not to make it more restrictive. How do you reconcile that with how Canadians feel when they see cuts to local journalism right at a time when your company is both paying dividends and accepting subsidies from the federal government?
Vice-President, Regulatory Law, BCE Inc.
Let me break that down into a couple of different things, because you covered a lot there.
On the first point, in terms of the reference to receiving subsidies for.... I think you're referring to the CEWS funding that we received last year. I want to be clear that we took that money strictly for its intended purpose, which was to ensure continued employment for workers in business segments that were extraordinarily impacted by COVID-19, like The Source and Bell Media, for example. That CEWS funding enabled us to avoid job losses, which would have happened without CEWS funding.
Let me come back to the question you're specifically asking, which is about Bell Media. There were some losses this year at Bell Media. We had to take certain actions that were necessary to adapt to our transforming media landscape. I think you've heard a lot about what's going on in broadcasting; it has been talked about in terms of the reductions of revenues. We had to take action to basically streamline our organization. These changes were needed even before COVID happened. What you saw is that they didn't happen last year, because we were able to take the CEWS funding. I think the CEWS funding actually achieved its purpose in that regard by having no losses last year.
For us to come to you saying that there's going to be no impact for all time or in the future because of that funding, while we have to right-size our business because we're facing all of these competitive pressures that we just talked about.... You heard about the declining revenue streams, both on the broadcasting side and.... We're seeing it going down everywhere.
When you say that we've come before you asking you to streamline regulation, that's right, but let's be clear. We're talking about proposals that would reduce the amount of funding that we'd have to make only as, at the same time, you grow the whole pie to be bigger. You'd enable us to compete and have a business model that's more sustainable. It's not sustainable under the existing regime.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Again, I do understand. I think it's a question of how Canadians perceive things. I think the cuts came at quite an unfortunate time.
I'd like to go to the Alliance. Thank you for telling me ACTRA is not the right acronym anymore. I want to get into the concern that you have with paragraph 3(1)(f). Could you please succinctly give me the major concern of why paragraph 3(1)(f) should remain as is?
National President and Performer, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
It's definitely to support CanCon and not water it down.
Let me pass it over to our general counsel, Raj Shoan, to get into the minutiae of that.
Raj Shoan General Counsel, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
Thanks, David.
We think it's absolutely crucial to maintain the principle of “maximum [but not] less than predominant use, of Canadian creative and other resources”. In our view, the language presently contained in Bill C-10 is simply too weak. In the long term, it will only result in the degradation of truly Canadian content in the system.
Our proposed language—which we understand is also supported by the Writers Guild of Canada, the Directors Guild of Canada and the Canadian Media Producers Association—ensures that Canadian programming in the system will make maximum but not less than predominant use of Canadian creative and other resources.
For everything that's not Canadian, the regulator can discuss a lighter standard, but it's important that Bill C-10 hold a hard line with respect to the Canadian content produced by traditional or online undertakings. That standard should be the same as it has been for the last 30 years, which is maximum but not less than predominant use. That's the standard we hold to.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
No, Mr. Housefather. I'm sorry. Your time is up.
We're now going to go to Mr. Aitchison.
We're off to our third round. That's something we seldom say at this committee.
Mr. Aitchison, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for the folks from BCE.
Can you speak to the role that the traditional method of broadcasting will play five years from now? It seems to me as though the traditional media of broadcasting are fading because of streamers. Mr. Waugh pointed out that sports are moving to the streaming giants. Will the regulations that we have in place right now for the traditional broadcasters make any difference five or 10 years from now?
Vice-President, Regulatory Law, BCE Inc.
I think you're absolutely right. Things are changing in terms of what the model is going to look like in a few years. Those are a couple of things we're trying to achieve in this, by getting a level playing field and being able to compete with the streamers.
Let's be clear: We're streamers ourselves. We have to move into that in the way we transact. However, to have a whole bunch of historical and anachronistic rules in terms of regulatory rules that require us to do it, we think those are the kinds of things that need to change as we look forward and deal with it, to reflect the market reality that we're going to be competing with streamers for the rights to a whole bunch of sporting events and so on, whatever the future is going to be. I don't have a perfect crystal ball to tell you what that is.
At the same time, our other key message is that there's going to be an impact on local news. That's why there needs to be special funding. The way to do that is by taking the money that's contributed into the system and directing some of that new money to that, to make sure that all broadcasters, both radio and television, have access to be able to provide professional journalism, the kind that really matters to Canadians.
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Could you speak for a second about local news? We've talked a lot about the threat that local news is under. It's real. There's no question about that. Is there something precluding local news from being streamed on streaming services?
Vice-President, Regulatory Law, BCE Inc.
No, I don't think so.
Maybe I can hand it over to Alain to elaborate on what's going on with local news.
Assistant General Counsel, BCE Inc.
There's nothing that precludes that, but the issue with local news is not visibility or interest or, in fact, viewership. Viewership for local news is quite strong. The issue is really the financial model.
Before, we were talking about “an advertiser”; the issue is “advertising”. There's only one source of revenue that sustains and supports local stations and local news. There needs to be a dual source of advertising, because money and resources are shifting from advertising to subscription or [Technical difficulty—Editor] local news. The problem is the revenue.
We've talked about the COVID-19 impact. The problem is, when you have declining advertising revenue and you have a seismic shock that has happened, when advertising dropped 40% in Q2 of 2020 overnight with COVID, how do you bring that back up to levels you had before? It really is that the model is not working for local news, but it's the financial model and we've been trying to resolve that issue for quite some time.
We've talked very quickly about the NFL. The NFL deal has a lot in it for broadcasters as well, on NBC, Fox, CBS and all the other broadcasters. It's a mix of different platforms. People do watch live television. There's mixed viewing, mixed opportunities, linear and non-linear. It's a new consumer behaviour.