Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[Brandon Gonez]

What are they left with? They're left with blogs run by people who do not care, who do not have ethics, who do not have any form of care for how news is presented and who can put anything online.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Gonez.

I will now go to the next witness, Monsieur Tousignant, from the Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs de Radio-Canada.

You have five minutes, please.

[Pierre Tousignant, President, Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs de Radio-Canada (FNCC-CSN)]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for inviting me.

The Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs de Radio-Canada, or STTRC, has approximately 3,000 members in Quebec and Moncton. The members we represent work in more than 200 jobs, ranging from administration and the technical sector to production. We are the second-largest communications union in the country. The STTRC belongs to the Fédération nationale des communications et de la culture, or FNCC, one of the nine federations that make up the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, or CSN.

Even though our primary responsibility is to negotiate and uphold employment contracts, the STTRC has always fought for adequate, stable multi-year funding for CBC/Radio-Canada. We support its mission to inform, enlighten and entertain, and we embrace its values.

Beyond their employment relationship, the vast majority of our members share a special bond with the organization. They are committed to ensuring that Canadians have access to accurate verified information, in English, in French and in several first nations and Inuit languages.

The STTRC, in co‑operation with the FNCC and CSN, has participated in at least two campaigns in support of the public broadcaster. The most recent was in 2016, with the Tous amis de Radio-Canada campaign. It met with tremendous popular success in Quebec and Moncton, with as many as 12,000 people answering the call of organizers and marching in the streets of Montreal. A series of performances were put on throughout the province and in Moncton, demonstrating people's commitment to CBC/Radio-Canada.

The work of CBC/Radio-Canada is vital in the North American landscape. For francophones, who are—and will always be—a minority facing extinction, Radio-Canada is the tool of choice to showcase who they are and how they live. It is thanks mainly to Radio-Canada that francophones right across the country are able to see themselves, hear their voices, tell their stories, debate the issues they care about and nurture their connection to a strong community, fragmented though it may be. For anglophones, CBC is an essential tool to support and promote what it means to be Canadian.

While not alone, CBC/Radio-Canada is a beacon for understanding regional, national and international realities from a Canadian perspective. CBC/Radio-Canada is worth protecting, and the government must ensure its growth and development.

The current media crisis is, at the outset, a financial crisis. CBC/Radio-Canada's business model is helping it to weather some of the storm, but not all.

We are calling for a media summit, which would give the government an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to the public broadcaster. It is essential that the government not only ensure CBC/Radio-Canada's independence in producing content, but also provide the public broadcaster with financial support. The two go hand in hand. There is no such thing as a relevant and independent public broadcaster without adequate, stable and consistent funding.

The public broadcaster is not immune to the turmoil in the media sector. CBC/Radio-Canada announced that it was cutting 800 jobs, which will undermine its ability to fulfill its mandate, especially in francophone communities. In order to bring reliable, verified information to Canadians, the public broadcaster must maintain a network of stations across every province and territory with adequate staffing and resources. Credibility is the CBC/Radio-Canada's trademark, but the flood of fake news weakens and diminishes that credibility.

The work of CBC/Radio-Canada is not something to be measured strictly in financial terms. It is about more than ratings. It is a collective effort to help us know and understand one another better, while helping us better understand the world we live in. It is fundamental to the vitality of our democracy.

The last thing I will say is this: now, more than ever, CBC/Radio-Canada is you and me. It is us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Tousignant.

I'll now go to Unifor.

I understand, Ms. Payne, that you are speaking for the group. You have five minutes, please.

[Lana Payne, National President, Unifor]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. It really is a pleasure to join all of you today. I would like to thank my fellow witnesses for their excellent opening remarks.

Our union represents more than 10,000 media workers across the country in broadcast television, radio, newspapers, digital news and film production. I can tell you that they are dedicated and passionate about their work, and they are tough and principled. They care about the important role they play in our democracy in telling stories, in holding the powerful to account and in making sure that we as Canadians have the information we need every day to make the decisions we have to make in our lives. They understand their responsibility.

Our members face a number of very tough realities at the moment. You've heard it here. It's a media sector in crisis, with widespread job loss, the destruction of local news in so many places across Canada, harassment and violence on the job and a concerted effort by some in the political class to erode trust in journalism itself. The sector's integrity is called into question, as they are accused of all kinds of things, including the latest, which is being a tax-funded mouthpiece for the PMO.

I'd like to provide some context on the state of local news in Canada at the moment. In just the last 14 months, the media sector has undergone a brutal list of cuts and closures: Postmedia cut 11% of its editorial staff; BCE cut 1,300 jobs and closed radio stations last year; Nordstar Capital eliminated two-thirds of Metroland's workforce, converting more than 70 weekly papers to digital only; Corus/Global, just this month, cut more jobs; and BCE just last week announced the layoff of 4,800 employees in both telco and media, including 800 Unifor members. On the media side, the cuts included all but one noon-hour newscast in Toronto and weekend newscasts in most major markets across the country, as if the news stops on Friday at 5 p.m.

BCE also killed W5, the longest-running investigative news program in Canada. Apparently, we are told, it will be replaced with reruns of the American comedy The Big Bang Theory.

I don't have time to list all the cuts, because we'd be here all week. It's almost impossible to measure the impact that this is having on local communities, where so-called news deserts are leaving Canadians, especially those living in small towns and rural areas, without access to meaningful, relevant local news.

Canadian telecommunications and media companies have a responsibility that is bigger than to shareholders. They have a responsibility to Canadians, to Canada and to journalism. Fact-based journalism matters, and the truth, as you've heard, has never been more important. Fake news has infested the fabric of our society, sowing distrust in the media, in government and in institutions. In the middle of that chaos, we need the media to tell our stories, to uncover truth and to hold the powerful to account.

We understand that no single piece of legislation, fund or subsidy will be enough to solve this crisis, but there are things we can do. We can renew and expand the local journalism initiative, a program that supports the creation of original civic journalism in under-represented communities across Canada. It's slated to expire in April. There's also the Canadian journalism labour tax credit, which was recently extended and expanded in the fall economic statement, an important move that Unifor called for and supported. Governments, both federal and provincial, can earmark bigger portions of their advertising budgets for local news: local TV, radio and newspapers, and, as you've just heard, Canadian digital media.

Now I'll say a few words on the other crisis: increased harassment and violence. Employers, workers and their unions, including Unifor, journalism schools, governments—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have nine seconds. Can you wrap up? You can expand later.

[Lana Payne]

—and even members of the public all have a role to play, as do political leaders.

In closing, I stress that the layoffs, downsizing and closures that I've highlighted today cannot continue if we actually want to have local news in this country. Also, journalists deserve to work harassment-free, no matter where that work is—online, a protest in downtown Ottawa or even in the foyer of the House of Commons.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. You can expand on some of that when we get into the question-and-answer section.

We'll now go to the question-and-answer section. It begins with a first round of questions from all the parties here. It's a six-minute round. I want to stress that the six minutes include questions and answers, so please be as terse as you can in your answers—maybe not terse, but as short as you can in your answers. I don't want you being terse.

We'll begin with the Conservatives and Rachael Thomas.

Mrs. Thomas, you have six minutes, please.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Mr. Gonez.

Mr. Gonez, you started out serving in legacy media. You then left and started something on your own. It's been very successful. You're digitally-based. I believe you've hired 10 employees, if I read that correctly. Obviously diversity is something very important to you. Clearly you have an audience, so you've gained the trust of the Canadian public—kudos to you.

Your company seems to be going in the opposite direction of the legacy media. This government made the determination to go ahead with Bill C-18 even though it knew that the bill, supposedly for the benefit of legacy media, was to the detriment of digital media providers like you.

You just made a statement that, because of the legislation, Bill C-18, your revenue has gone down by 40%. That's a pretty big cut. Obviously what that represents is not just a financial cut to your company. It also means that Canadians aren't able to access the news they want to access, which is, of course, to their detriment.

My question for you is this. Clearly Bill C-18 didn't work and isn't working, so what is the answer to make sure that Canadians have access to quality news and independent journalism in a sustained fashion going forward?

[Brandon Gonez]

I understand the intent of Bill C-18. We're all hearing, obviously, about the crisis that's unfolding, and of course, we don't want to lose any more journalism in this country. Any way to sustain that is a good thing. I always believe that an expanded industry is a better industry because the more stories that are being told, the better for all of us.

It's unfortunate, though, that with the implementation of this bill, one of the largest tech giants, which owns two of the biggest social platforms that each and every one of us in this room uses.... We are no longer on those platforms, so what is on those platforms? If the mission was to stop or try to slow down the amount of disinformation out there, it's only gotten worse because trustworthy folks are no longer on there.

When I look at this, I say thank goodness Google didn't walk away from the table, or else all of us would have been effed. I don't mean to use that lightly, but it is the truth. Thank goodness Google did stay at the table, and I truly hope that Meta comes to its senses and comes back to the table.

If there are new funds coming into the ecosystem, I truly hope that everybody in this room will advocate for the people who took a risk to create innovation in this country so they will have a specific stream allotted to them where they can access some of those funds to continue to do the amazing work they're doing. I also hope that everybody in this room will advocate for racialized owners of media in this country so they also have access to a specific stream to continue to do the fine work and the hard work they're doing to tell the stories that they've been left out of.

I want everybody to understand that even before this crisis was unfolding, we had problems in the legacy sector. We had problems with diversity. We had problems with the diversity of storytelling. That's not to diminish the hard work of everyday journalists across this country, but we have to acknowledge the gaps that need to be filled. People like me took a risk and said that we were going to leave this legacy sector and try to fill those gaps, and we were doing a darned good job. It really is unfortunate, because I believe that if this block didn't happen, we probably would be about 50% bigger than we were before it happened.

We can't go back in time. The bill is here and I'm a realist. However, what we can do is try to, again, make people who have been affected whole. We can also try to foster an ecosystem where we can see other players, like GMI, emerge across this country in places like B.C. and Saskatchewan, in provinces that suffer from news deserts. Also, hopefully, we can have less impact...to what's happening in the legacy sector. I just don't want digital-first voices to be left out of the conversation, because we have been the most severely impacted by all of what's been transpiring.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have a minute and 27 seconds left, Mrs. Thomas.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I'll take that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

We've heard a lot about trust. I'm sensing from what you're saying that you had trust in what you were building. Legacy media has lost trust.

We heard that only 13% of Canadians trust legacy media. What did you do differently to build that trust?

[Brandon Gonez]

The loss of trust in legacy media is very complex and layered. There have, of course, been political attacks against the media industry; this is not fair and should never have happened. There's also an onus on legacy media to fill the gaps that I identified, with storytelling and making sure that we're reflective of the populace across this country.

We've tried to be a voice for people and to deliver information the way people speak on the streets. Not everybody speaks in the uniform way you see on CTV National News. Some people have an accent in this country and it's okay if they hear content with an accent. The mayor of Toronto has an accent, so why can't the news presenter who's delivering information also have an accent?

There were issues at play, and I think a lot of Canadians across this country never felt represented or reflected. What my company and the journalists—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Please wrap up.

[Brandon Gonez]

—I've hired under me have done—we have about 10 journalists, but we have about 10 other people who are not journalists who sustain the company—is tried to be a proper reflection of the people we serve.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Gonez. I admire your passion. You can expand later, on another question for you.

Now we'll go to the Liberals for six minutes with Mr. Coteau.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Gonez, I remember when you were on TV and the work you did. You were an outlier, a young Black man holding the microphone, an anchor talking about the issues on the street, talking to people. It was very impressive; it was different and refreshing.

I remember when you left to start your own company, because there was a bit of buzz around that. I asked myself, “How could a guy on top of his field leave and go into the wilderness?”

I just want to say that I appreciate—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Please be careful, Mr. Coteau. He went to B.C.; we're not the wilderness.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I'm talking about going into digital and starting brand new, Chair. Leaving an established media company and starting a new company is a big risk.

I noticed what you and a lot of people did, and I just want to say thank you for your work and for your advocacy here today. Many people are obviously paying attention to the work you're doing. You're rewriting the entire business, so thank you for being here today.

I want to turn my attention to Ms. Paradkar.

I found your opening very intriguing because you talked a lot about trust. MP Shields talked about trust as well.

I think you brought up some statistics on politicians and reporters, so I started to think about politicians. There's been a massive movement to subsidize politics over the last couple of decades. If a person makes a political donation in this country, that person gets a subsidy. If they donate $400 federally, I think they get 75% back. Then I believe there's a movement in many different places.... In Toronto, for example, there's an allocation from city coffers back as a direct rebate to the donor. Even political parties get federal subsidies.

They did this because back in the old days, really rich people controlled politics. When you were talking, I started to think about the fact that in media there are big interests involved. We've gone from back in the old days when the news barons had control, to these super-companies—Apple is three times the size of the Canadian GDP—that control narrative. They have a lot of influence.

I think we need to revisit the entire way we do things.

You talked about looking at the not-for-profit model and you brought up AI. Not only are these companies using AI to create content based on old content and sources that reporters like some in the room have written before, but they can take the content and put it on different platforms and profit off it as well.

Do you have any other models you can share with us? I'm assuming if there was a forum on media, this would be a place where new models of doing business would come forward. Beside the not-for-profit sector, have you heard of any other models that have come forward to revisit the way we do news in this country?

[Shree Paradkar]

Thank you for that.

The only other model I know of is the donations model that The Guardian has. I believe those donations are also publicly subsidized by governments. If there is separate funding or tie-ups, as I mentioned, with AI companies, then that's a viable option.

People don't value what comes for free, but they will value and take in something they pay for. Unfortunately, we are in an ecosystem where information is free, but information is often conflated with news, which it is not. The newsgathering process, which is amplified, distorted, shorn of context and then distributed for free, is often itself an expensive process, as Brandon Gonez has just testified to as well.

Donations from individuals, donations from local companies to maybe fund local investigations, and donations from big companies could come with the idea or absolute condition that they have no editorial say, because it can get dicey when you have big companies coming in. There is a way to do it with people having no say in the independence.

Those are some of my suggestions.

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

If this forum was to come forward with different types of models.... There are tax incentives and things like this that could obviously play a role in putting in incentives.

I want to speak to Ms. Payne.

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 14 seconds, Mr. Coteau.