Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2024

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Don't you think that's contradictory?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Madame Charette.

[Annick Charette]

You pointed it out—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to Mr. Champoux for two and a half minutes, but before I do, we have to be able to get everyone across for QP. I'm hoping the Conservatives and Liberals will agree to remove the last two questions at the end of this round.

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

Can we just shorten them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You could shorten them to two and a half minutes each.

Martin, you have two and a half minutes.

I'm holding you to it, guys.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Given your generous treatment of my colleague earlier, I'd also appreciate some generosity on your part since two and a half minutes is very short.

That being said, Ms. Charette, you partially answered a question that I wanted to ask you about the impact of the CBC cuts on Radio-Canada and on the high-quality content production ecosystem.

Consequently, I'd like to ask you what you think of the report that the Quebec government has in hand concerning the public broadcaster's future.

[Annick Charette]

I don't have it with me. Would you please tell me about the recommendations in question?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I thought you'd been consulted on the preparation of that report.

Some of the recommendations may be considered in a future study on the renewal of CBC/Radio-Canada's mandate.

How do you think the Quebec government would perceive its involvement in developing the public broadcaster's new mandate?

[Annick Charette]

The Quebec government is quite concerned and has struck another committee on the future of the audiovisual sector for that purpose. It's quite concerned about potential denaturalization, a potential lack of room for francophone production and the addition to our ecosystem of players such as Netflix and Disney. Those companies will obviously have product preferences and will want to maintain products with universal content. I'm thinking, in particular, of anglophone productions whose social approach is more consistent with what's being done in the United States.

Quebec society has particular characteristics. We like a number of things. We want certain values to be reflected in audiovisual productions. I doubt that major producers like Netflix view matters in the same way, and I imagine the Quebec government also has doubts in that regard. So its position is based on certain values.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I'd like to ask a final question, since our time is limited.

According to the surveys, the Conservatives have a good chance of coming into power in 2025. However, they're threatening to defund CBC/Radio-Canada. That will probably also be the case of culture-related content. We're familiar with their legendary fondness for culture, especially when it comes to cutting budgets.

Do you think that the cultural sector, the media in general, and even businesspeople have been mobilized enough and that they're aware of the danger that a Conservative government may present for culture in Quebec?

[Annick Charette]

That's what I hope. They should mobilize and be aware of the threat to culture. We will work on that aspect because we take the threat very seriously. Our existence and specificity are at stake, as is our vision of Quebec and Canadian society.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

The fact remains that, even if you talk to those people, I don't get the impression that resonates outside the circle of people who are directly concerned. Society in general should really be very concerned about that possibility, but we aren't hearing much about it.

[Annick Charette]

I hope we can make our voice heard more in the future.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

We'll join forces and keep each other informed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

Ms. Ashton, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Kolt, you've spoken about how having a CBC presence helps us share the information we need in terms of world events, politics, arts and culture. It's also important in terms of public emergencies. Significant fires raged in northern Manitoba this past summer, a number of them around Flin Flon. The one by Cranberry Portage, as we know, also very close to Flin Flon, forced a last-minute evacuation. That fire was so intense that it also burned fibre optic lines going to Flin Flon, leaving Flin Flon, one of the largest communities in our region, without Internet for days.

We know that Arctic Radio did heroic work in informing local citizens of that reality, but the reality is that we didn't have a CBC presence here in our north to speak to this public emergency, to speak to the domino effect of what these wildfires meant to our communities in terms of losing Internet service and telecommunications. More importantly, it didn't give voice to this crisis out of our north.

How critical is it to have locally and regionally based media like the CBC to speak to this reality, this precarity, especially as we know that public emergencies like wildfires risk being a more serious part of our reality here in northern Manitoba?

[Crystal Kolt]

I was deeply involved with that particular situation within the city of Flin Flon when that happened. What ended up happening for those three days when we had zero connectivity with the rest of the world was that the little Flin Flon Arts Council had purchased three portable Starlinks. One went to the fire station, so they could communicate among themselves. One went to northern affairs for the evacuees, and one went to the airport so that the planes could land. Other than that, we were completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Arctic Radio—you're right—did an amazing job of helping us communicate. Otherwise, we were literally running from house to house and from office to office to try to find out what was going on and going to happen.

We need to be able to communicate further with the rest of the country and the rest of the province when things like this happen. These things are going to be happening more often than not. It was essential. It was an amazing eye-opener that, in our day and age, this could happen and that we could be so lost without that kind of support. It is critical. We need to be able to communicate with each other and across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

I will now go to Mr. Kurek for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for their contribution to the discussions that we've had today.

Madam Chair, in the last block I mentioned something that was revealed through an access to information request, that the Liberal Government spent over $970,000 for StatsCan to produce a podcast that garnered a total of 229 subscribers. That was an unbelievable waste of tax dollars, with a return on investment that is dismal at best but truly a colossal waste of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.

Madam Chair, I would like to move the following motion that I put on notice on Friday. I hope that it can be passed expeditiously as a clear statement from this committee that this sort of spending is not acceptable.

Given that, at a time when Canadians are facing the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, recently obtained documents have revealed that the Liberal government has spent over $970,000 for Statistics Canada to produce a podcast show with only 229 subscribers, the committee call the chief statistician and senior officials from Statistics Canada and report to the House that it condemns this outrageous abuse of taxpayers' dollars.

Madam Chair, I move that motion here today, and I hope that this common-sense motion can find support from this committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Kurek.

I have a question. Can you clarify the motion? What do you mean by “call the chief statistician”? How do you want to call him—on the phone? How do we call him? What are we doing here?

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

I am confident that our very capable clerk would be able to arrange, at a future meeting, to have the chief statistician.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Do you mean you want to call him to the committee?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'll just put that in, then. It will be “the committee call the chief statistician to”.... “Invite” is a better word.

Thank you very much.

I think we now have a motion on the floor, but before we deal with it, I would thank our witnesses very much for having attended, giving us good information and being so passionate about the study we're doing. I want to thank you very much while we move into discussing the rest of this.

Is there any discussion?

Mr. Noormohamed, go ahead.