Canadian Heritage Committee on Jan. 30th, 2024

[Catherine Tait]

No, I don't agree with the premise. Seventy-nine per cent of Canadians say that it is important for the country to have a public broadcaster like CBC/Radio-Canada. Eighty-two per cent say—

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Who commissioned that poll?

[Catherine Tait]

Those are our public perception surveys that we conduct—

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Oh, you conduct them. Okay, so your polling tells you that Canadians like what you're doing.

[Catherine Tait]

—by using the third party Leger survey firm.

I'm sorry, but if the argument is to try to say that we're no longer of value, all I would say is that's not what I hear from Canadians, and our numbers—

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

What I'm asking about is the bonuses.

With all due respect, Ms. Tait, when you give someone a bonus—and we've just agreed on the metrics that should be used to judge a broadcaster—and those metrics are down, how do you justify giving people, executives, big bonuses when they haven't achieved success according to these metrics that we've agreed on?

[Catherine Tait]

As I pointed out, the metrics that we measure are public and tracked, and they're in all of our reports, so I'm afraid to say that trust is down. Trust is down across the entire media section, and it also affects politicians. It affects all of us.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

When you misrepresent the truth, it does affect politicians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. Excuse me. The time is up, but at the same time, I wish that we would stop talking over each other. If someone asks a question, we should listen. If someone's going to give an answer, we should listen.

The time is up, Mr. Scheer. Thank you.

I will now go to Michael Coteau for five minutes.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you so much.

You know, on the comments made by the member opposite around the 100 corrections, to me that just says you're a good media source. If there is a change in the news, you issue a correction. I think that's good policy. I wish more media actually issued corrections, because that's a sign of good news.

In regard to viewership, there's no question that on Ms. Williams' numbers and the data they provided, yes, the fact is that TV has declined, but viewership has increased. I watch CBC through my Google cast. I ask it, “What's the news today?” and CBC comes on. On my television, it's through YouTube, a tech giant, but it's delivered in many different forms. Sometimes I just go directly to the website. I can't imagine that the impression rate has declined in any way. It's actually increased.

I wanted to say that, because I think there's a false narrative constantly projected out there by Conservatives that the CBC is on the decline. It's not. We know that. I don't think we even need to argue that point anymore. They're talking about television, a technology that was popular in the 1960s to the 2000s, and it's in a decline—like many of their policies.

I'd like to ask a question on behalf of the children of Canada, because you play a huge role. I was just thinking about and wrote down a few great shows: The Friendly Giant, Today's Special, Mr. Dressup and The Magic School Bus. I remember watching some of them and then my kids watching some of them. It's incredible what CBC Kids does.

I'd like to ask this on behalf of the children of this country: What is CBC doing for them? What is part of your strategy to help children in this country when it comes to good content in media?

[Catherine Tait]

That's a great question. When I joined CBC/Radio-Canada, I had the distinct privilege of being part of the team that green-lit CBC Kids News, which is real news by real kids.

A year later, we launched MAJ, Mon actualité du jour, on Radio-Canada.

It's a similar situation in that kids are learning about the news and media literacy.

To your question, what do I say about kids? Get smart about digital. Understand what it is to identify fake news and disinformation. That's what Kids News and Mon actualité du jour, or MAJ, as we call it, do for Canadian kids.

In addition, there's all sorts of programming still on television, but I have to be honest: Kids are watching on Gem, and they're watching on their devices. The reality is that we have fabulous shows. Oftentimes, CBC and Radio-Canada co-finance kids programs. We also deliver our programming and archives to kids in classrooms through a platform called Curio. That platform is educational. The programs and the archives are designed to help kids understand the world they live in.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Children are part of your mandate and they are a big part of your stakeholder base.

[Catherine Tait]

Absolutely.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I appreciate that.

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one minute and 30 seconds.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you want to ask a question, Lisa?

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Lisa.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thanks again.

We've been talking a lot about misinformation and disinformation being spread. I'm wondering how difficult it is for the CBC to manage stuff that we've even heard in this committee today. We've heard the viewership metric being misrepresented. We've heard the ad numbers being misrepresented. We've heard the Leader of the Opposition say that he will take over the CBC building on Front Street and turn it into housing. I think that's the only reason we would have heard anything about CBC real estate today.

Would you respond to how difficult it is as a public broadcaster to have elected officials at your throat all the time?

[Catherine Tait]

I will speak on behalf of not only my management team but also the 7,500 people who work at CBC/Radio-Canada. It is extremely difficult to not have the love and support for the work that we do. However, we continue to do it, because we believe that serving Canadians, English and French and indigenous, is worth it. It is a pillar of our democracy. Everything we do, exactly to your point, is to combat disinformation. It's why we have something on our website that's called “Get the facts”. When somebody says something that's inaccurate, we correct it.

It is absolutely critical that Canadians can count on us. We saw the numbers during the COVID years. We had 25 million Canadians visiting our digital sites, because they knew they could depend on us. As I said before, we are the only service coast to coast to coast. We're running transmission towers, hundreds of them, across the north. Without CBC, you lose that connectivity, which is essential to our democracy and to our sense of belonging and social cohesion in this country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Tait.

That's it, Lisa.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm just going to see what the committee thinks.

We have until 27 minutes after six—a hard stop. Do you want to go another round or are you good? You're good?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

We want to go another round, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You want to go another round. Okay, then. I will begin the fourth round.

It's going to be Marilyn Gladu for five minutes.