Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Tait, you have 30 seconds.

[Catherine Tait]

Madam Chair, may I address the untrue accusations of the member?

Every media company in the country is cutting jobs. Our industry is in crisis. In our case, we forecast 800 cuts. In the end, we worked hard to make sure that the lion's share of those were vacancies, so 205 vacancies were cut.

I believe that we're talking about the wrong things here. Digital revenue has tripled since I began at CBC/Radio-Canada. Viewership is in fact up on digital platforms, because, with all due respect to the member, television viewing in general is down.

I would just say, let us focus on the facts. I provided all the members with this excellent document prepared by my staff on the facts around CBC/Radio-Canada. I really urge you to spend the time to learn about Canadians' viewership behaviour. They are online. Canadians are watching CBC on YouTube and on connected TVs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Tait.

I'll now move to Anju Dhillon for the Liberals for six minutes, please.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I thought Ms. Gainey was picking up this round, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, I have a list in front of me, Mr. Noormohamed, and it says Ms. Dhillon.

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

You can put me in, Chair. I'll jump in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. Go ahead, Mr. Coteau.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Tait. As mentioned, it's been five times, I believe, that you've joined this committee. We appreciate your being here.

The Conservatives have constantly looked for any angle possible to justify the cuts they would propose to CBC if they had an opportunity. They've been very clear. Their heritage critic—

[An hon. member]

I don't think anybody can hear Mr. Coteau.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Coteau, people are saying they can't hear you. We're just going to figure that out.

What is wrong with everything today?

Will you try again, Michael?

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

Can you hear me now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I can hear you well. I don't know if anybody else can.

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

Who said they couldn't hear me?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It was everyone except me.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Maybe Mr. Kurek could take back the comment he made about our playing games, because there is an actual audio problem.

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

We know that Conservatives have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry. We're going to have to suspend until we fix this.

Michael, no one can hear you but me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We had Mr. Coteau.

Mr. Coteau, I'll let you restart, as I did with Mr. Kurek earlier on.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Again, thank you to Ms. Tait for joining us today.

As mentioned in her testimony, she's been here five times. It's quite obvious that every single time she appears, the Conservatives want to carry forward an agenda they have put forward to Canadians to get rid of the CBC.

We know that the CBC plays an important role in French Canada, in rural Canada and right across this country. In addition to that, it's a big part of, I believe, our heritage in this country, and it supports that heritage.

There are a lot of misconceptions. I would say that they're lies that Conservatives put forward when it comes to CBC. They want to create the illusion that the CBC itself is an organization that is losing viewership every single day. In fact, I've asked you this question, I think, twice now. The fact is that viewership is up when you look at the way people are consuming media today.

I guess the question is, where are we today? Has the CBC increased its viewership because of the transition into more of an online presence?

[Catherine Tait]

Yes, and I'll take the example of The National, because that's often cited as where we have declining television viewership. In fact, maybe 10 years ago, there were 1.2 million people tuning in on television, and today there are about 1.3 million people consuming The National, but only half of them consume it on television. There's still a solid number of people who watch linear TV, and the remainder—in fact, an increasing number—are watching on YouTube, on CBC Gem or on connected TVs.

Just to be very clear, so people understand what a connected TV is, it is not a linear television box. It is a connection to the Internet. That's why you can get Netflix, YouTube and Crave, as well as CBC Gem, the CBC News Network and all the other wonderful Canadian channels on connected TV. People need to understand that Canadians have moved online. That does not mean they have moved off CBC.

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

Thank you very much.

I hope the Conservatives are paying attention to that answer, because for some reason.... I don't know what it is, or where the block is—not the Bloc here but the block of absorbing the information that's being presented. For some reason, this question is constantly being asked about ratings. We know that the ratings are up, and we know that CBC is doing quite well when it comes to connecting with Canadians.

It's interesting. The Conservatives are okay with the fact that a lot of our media now in Canada has been purchased by American companies. Here we have, like many G20 countries, a public broadcaster that is owned by the people of this country and supports Canadian content.

I said at the first meeting you ever came to that I grew up watching CBC. A lot of the characters from my childhood were from CBC and TVOntario, which I'm a very big supporter of as well. It's our heritage in this country. TV shows from the 1970s and 1980s wouldn't have had a chance on American networks if they hadn't been supported by the Canadian taxpayer.

I cannot understand why Conservatives are so anti-CBC, one of the last true Canadian national networks that works directly with Canadians, that's funded by taxpayers and is publicly owned. I just can't understand why they would be so against it, yet, when it comes to the trend line that's taking place in this country, when it comes to media as a whole, for some reason, they seem okay that American corporations can own Canadian companies and media now. It's very challenging.

You know, one of the misconceptions they put out there is that they can keep Radio-Canada and get rid of English CBC.

I guess the question to you is this: Are these stand-alone organizations, or are they interconnected at many different levels? Can you separate the two sections of the broadcasting and just hope they survive or hope one survives?

[Catherine Tait]

Thank you for the question.

As I've said here before, CBC/Radio-Canada receives a single parliamentary allocation. Those funds are then deployed, with 56% going to CBC English services and 44% going to CBC French services in Radio-Canada. That's where the division stops, because the services are connected and interdependent in terms of shared station locales, shared equipment and shared technology.

I'll use the example, because I failed to mention it earlier, of the Olympics. The Olympics were produced absolutely collaboratively between the CBC and Radio-Canada. In fact, the CBC assumes about 80% of the costs, because it drives about 80% of the revenue associated with the Olympics, so without the CBC, Radio-Canada would not be able to show Canadians the Olympics.

There are many programs that we work on together. I'll just take an example of, let's say, one of our regional stations in Edmonton, where a CBC journalist may be going out and a Radio-Canada cameraman may be working with that CBC journalist. The two of them may, in fact, file stories together in their respective languages.

Let us be clear that these are not two separate companies. They are one. They obviously have a very profound editorial independence, but they have a shared infrastructure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Tait. Your time is up.

Thanks, Michael.

Now we'll go to Mr. Champoux for the Bloc for six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being with us once again, Ms. Tate. I'm starting to believe that you're beginning to like it and that you'll miss us once you're gone.

Like more than 80% of Canadians, I want to preserve our public broadcaster. In the current climate, it's essential that we have a business that presents the news in a serious manner, even though some dispute the current state of affairs. We have to save the news at all costs, and CBC/Radio-Canada is one of the tools we must use to do it.

However, some users—and we've been able to call them users since the advent of online platforms—the viewers and listeners, are legitimately frustrated. Last weekend, for example, I wanted to watch the Vanier Cup final, and I congratulate the Rouge et Or on their brilliant victory. When you open the app, you're asked to log in to your account, and advertisements are run during the broadcast of the match. These things eventually become frustrating because people wonder why they have to create an account—even though it's free—to access the content they're already paying for with their direct and indirect taxes. You know how it goes.

If we want to keep a public broadcaster in healthy condition—and that's true of 80% of Canadians—and if we want it to prosper in the changing environment in which the news and media world now finds itself, the solution could be to make those quite frequent frustrations disappear. I know my Conservative colleagues dispute this, but as you yourself said, investing more money in our public broadcaster would help moderate the need to resort to advertising and subscriptions. That would go a long way toward eliminating some of the frustrations that are used as an argument by those who want to cut funding for CBC/Radio-Canada.

First of all, have you estimated the additional cost per Canadian to remove advertising from news programs? We can all agree that, if we suddenly deleted all advertising and substantially increased public funding, that could be a big help but wouldn't be accepted as easily as that, at least from a perception standpoint.

What do you think of that? Do you have any idea of the money we could expect to pay, as Quebeckers and Canadians, to eliminate the frustrations that most often arise with our public broadcaster?