Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today.

From the outset, I'd like to repeat a clarification I've made, I think, at every meeting we've held on this study into the possibility of holding a national forum on the news media. This committee is in no way recommending that the government pay for, organize, finance or coordinate this national forum. I would like to reassure the stakeholders who have expressed concerns in this regard. The purpose of this study is precisely to see how the community can organize itself to hold such a national forum. We also wish to see how the government can support this national forum, but certainly not by directing it, meddling in it or predicting its conclusions by directing the discussions. I wanted to be very clear about that.

Ms. Andrews, thank you for the data you can provide. How many members are there in Friends of Canadian Media? How many members do you have right now?

[Sarah Andrews]

We don't have members as such. However, we reach over 300,000 Canadians by mail, email, phone or through petitions and the like.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You usually get a rather good response from them, because they are people who like the media in general, the news media. I know you've been working hard for years in this area, and it's interesting that you have brought some numbers.

You told us earlier about the Gandalf Group study and the question of public trust in the media. We can see that trust hasn't completely disappeared. There's still a lot of hope, there's still a way to turn the tide in the relationship between the public and the news media. What do you think the media industry should do? How should it behave to regain the public's trust? As a follow‑up question, if governments were to have a role to play, what should that role be, and what should it be limited to?

[Sarah Andrews]

These are very good questions.

Is the problem coming from the media, or rather from the presence of disinformation and misinformation on social networks, which people are seeing more and more of, especially on their Facebook or Instagram feeds? As I mentioned in my presentation, we want to tackle the programmatic advertising market, which finances disinformation and misinformation. This is one of the ways parliamentarians can tackle the problem.

We also need to encourage media models that retain the trust of Canadians. I'm thinking, for example, of La Presse. As you may have seen in the Gandalf Group survey published in January,La Presse is the French-language news medium in which Quebeckers place the most trust. Radio-Canada ranks a close second. Among anglophones, CBC is the most trusted medium. So investment in the public broadcaster is very important. CBC/Radio-Canada needs to have a presence across the country, especially in smaller communities, where we've tended to withdraw. You need to make sure that CBC/Radio-Canada is adequately funded.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Jolly, I'd like to hear your opinion on something I know is of concern to professional journalists, many of whom you represent.

Comments are coming from people who are often former journalists who have chosen a new business model by turning to digital and are doing a kind of new-style journalism, as they describe it, which often approaches commentary or news with an angle, so to speak. This business model inevitably means that the advertising side is perhaps a little too close to the newsroom, if you know what I mean. These people make comments about or criticize the state of traditional media and news, and one of their frequent comments is that it is traditional media's fault for not adapting, keeping up with technological evolution.

What is your reaction, and that of the entire journalistic community, to these comments?

[Brent Jolly]

I'd like to answer in English, because it's quite a technical question.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

That's no problem at all, Mr. Jolly.

[Brent Jolly]

I think what we need to understand about content in the grand scheme of things is that opinion is cheap. It doesn't cost a lot to produce. I can rip off an opinion column in an hour and a half about an idea I have.

I think what is really more important is something that the witness from the FPJQ mentioned. He cited some information around the costs of production of a simple story or a slightly more complex story or an investigation. I had a chance to look over that information over the weekend and was quite surprised by it and thought it was a really good piece of research to actually identify for Canadians that good news and quality journalism cost money.

As for opinion, I'm interested to hear what people think, but I don't surmise that it is the be-all and end-all, because there's a lot of context that often gets omitted in opinions and people aren't properly informed by just thinking about what an opinion columnist says.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

When we hear, for example...

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I am sorry; you have five seconds.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Now I'm going to the New Democrats and Niki Ashton. You have six minutes, Niki.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you. Thank you to our witnesses.

My first question is to Ms. Andrews.

We've heard a lot about the role of government in the media. We know that government in recent years has allowed and approved the buyouts and mergers we've seen in major media conglomerates: Rogers-Shaw, the expansion of Bell Mobility, etc., etc. As I've referenced before, we can describe the media landscape in Canada as three media conglomerates in a trench coat. The reality is that this kind of oligopoly has been allowed to exist with government support and approval.

What we've also seen is that these major media conglomerates only turn around to cut hundreds of jobs, if not thousands. The recent Bell Media cuts are an indication. They are leaving regions without news outlets and contributing to media deserts and leaving Canadians on the hook.

Do you think that the current media oligopoly is a problem in Canada, with the fact that so few major media conglomerates are running the show?

[Sarah Andrews]

I will give you the short answer first, which is yes. Then I'll expand a little bit on that.

When you are part of an oligopoly, you expect oligopoly margins on all of your business lines. The margins on news content can't remotely compete with what companies like Rogers and Bell are seeing on their wireless and Internet revenues, particularly when it comes to local news. One of the reasons they're earning these high margins on wireless and Internet is that they are an oligopoly and there is very little competition. This creates a totally unrealistic expectation that news, particularly local news, can or should earn similar margins, so it's like a bad feedback loop.

Notwithstanding this, private media companies have acquired and merged their way to a position of dominance in broadcast news, a critical public resource. Then, when they still don't get the same astronomical margins they get on wireless and on the Internet, the result is cuts and closures.

What is equally concerning is that giant corporations like Bell and Quebecor are now trying to completely get out of their current regulatory obligations to provide news. In fact, just after Bill C-11 passed, they started to make the case to reduce their obligations through the implementation of the Online Streaming Act.

The fact that these companies have been allowed to become an effective oligopoly and earn these high margins actually creates a corresponding obligation on them to protect and preserve news and journalism, given the critical role these things play in preserving our democracy.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Okay. Thank you for sharing that.

I want to go to a specific question on the CBC. I appreciate the note that you and Mrs. Henley made around reviewing the mandate of the CBC. I represent a part of the country that's been abandoned by the CBC. Despite commitments to greater coverage for indigenous communities and regional representation, it's been years since we've had a stable presence from the CBC, which is something that is part of their mandate, particularly here in Manitoba.

I want to get at the question of cuts to the CBC more broadly. It seems like we regularly open the news to find that another major media company is shutting their doors and shutting down local coverage. Recently the CBC announced that due to the Liberal 3% cut across the board, it would be forced to cut its workforce by 10%, reducing CBC/Radio-Canada employment levels to lower than even the Stephen Harper years. It's deeply concerning.

Can you discuss what these job losses will mean for the media industry moving forward?

[Sarah Andrews]

I think you touched on a point that hit a nerve with a lot of Canadians. Everyone was very frustrated by the job cuts we heard back this fall. We were particularly angry because we felt that these were avoidable. This is part of—and I mentioned this in our opening remarks—the fact that the CBC has been chronically underfunded. That chronic underfunding has been compounded by the 3.3% budget freeze.

If you look at where Canada ranks among similar OECD countries, you see that we rank 17th out of 20 when it comes to funding for the national public broadcaster. That breaks down to about $33 per person per year. That's not a lot of money. Along with the Bell job cuts, when it comes to journalism, we're really at risk of seeing the kind of news deserts in broadcast journalism that we're already seeing in print. That really will impact smaller communities, because private broadcasters are increasingly abandoning them. In many cases, the CBC is the only broadcaster when it comes to local or regional news. I think, for example, of Prince Edward Island, and the CBC is all they have.

We really need to start talking about long-term, sustainable and predictable funding for the CBC so that it can live up to its public service mandate to Canadians. That conversation has to happen in tandem with the mandate review to ensure that the CBC does live up to the local news requirement.

As you may be aware, Friends of Canadian Media filed for a review of the CBC's broadcast licence conditions, because the CBC had requested to lower its requirements when it comes to local news. We've challenged it on those grounds. We're waiting for the hearing from the CRTC. We're hoping that it's going to happen in the next little while. We really want to push the CBC to provide Canadians in all the communities with the local news that it's supposed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Niki, you've gone over time. I've let you go a little bit.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

There were a few seconds, but there you go.

We're now going to the second round, which if a five-minute round.

We'll begin with Jacques Gourde from the Conservatives. You have five minutes, please.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Gormley, would you like to finish your answer to my colleague Rachel Thomas's question?

[John Gormley]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde. I was in the midst of saying that I am an unrequited fan of Tara Henley and that I have followed her work in the last two or three years. What you hear from Tara, in many respects, moves us to where I think we're heading.

At the risk of sounding alarmist and apocalyptic, I'll say that we may well be in a position here that buggy whip makers and farriers were in when Henry Ford rolled the first Model Ts off the assembly line. There could well be, for example, a large corporate broadcast ownership. There has to be a compression between senior management and content. I see a world where there is hyperlocal website-based networking. Many weeklies are doing that now in smaller western communities that have a multimedia product. I see a Substack-type model of network providers. The old idea of the radio broadcasting station may work if it's hyperlocal. CTV knows nothing about running radio stations, and recently even less about TV. I mean, how do you cut your noon news package and cut other things and leave only your supper local news?

We may well be into the kind of corporate and content reorganization that has to be bold and has to be dramatic, and unless we're prepared to get government out, I just don't think news is going to adapt and innovate as it has to.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Gormley.

Ms. Andrews, you talked about the paradoxes between CBC and Radio-Canada. I'm more familiar with Radio-Canada because it's in French and we listen to it. But CBC seems to be struggling with its ratings. Is this a programming issue, or more a question of competition from other media?

[Sarah Andrews]

That's a good question.

It's safe to say that in the French-language market, there are really only two or three broadcasters: Quebecor Media and Groupe TVA, Bell Media's Noovo, and Radio-Canada. The latter has succeeded in establishing itself as a very present voice in the lives of francophones, particularly those outside Quebec, for whom it is really the only broadcaster that is present.

Regarding CBC, many of our supporters have told us about the programs they have historically held dear. Lately, however, CBC has had to compete for advertising revenue, in large part due to the public broadcaster's underfunding. Because of this, we're seeing programs that are a little more commercial in nature, that are less in keeping with the traditional nature of CBC and perhaps less popular with the public.

That's why revising CBC/Radio-Canada's mandate is so important. We need to refocus CBC/Radio-Canada on its public mandate of reporting the news to the public. CBC/Radio-Canada's mandate can be described in three words: inform, enlighten and entertain.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Andrews.

Mr. Jolly, you talked a lot about how journalists suffer from poverty and lack training. But training is a luxury. You also said that the exercise we want to carry out, organizing a national forum, comes 10 years too late. Can you explain to me why it would be 10 years too late?

[Brent Jolly]

It's getting to the point where something needs to happen. We need some action. Otherwise, I see a generation of journalists coming out of journalism school unsure about the future. I was talking to a colleague who is the same age as I am. We couldn't believe what we were hearing from some young journalists currently in journalism school or running community newspapers about the challenges of getting a job. I think that creates an ultimate brain drain, and it creates a democratic deficit.

Mrs. Henley was talking about the number of people citing Cecil Rosner's book and the number of PR people who are going in that PR direction with their careers instead of journalism. I think that creates a huge problem for our democracy in the long term.