Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2024

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

I'd like to ask you the same question, Ms. Pilon. Ms. Charette said that the anglophone side may not be as sensitive or be able to satisfy its clientele's tastes.

What do you think distinguishes Radio-Canada from the CBC? What are the differences between the two audiences, and how do you explain their success or lack thereof?

[Carol Ann Pilon]

As Ms. Charette previously mentioned, an incredible range of English-language media content is available everywhere for Canadians. That anglophone content is also available to francophones. We can see that the rate of bilingualism is increasing in Canada, particularly in francophone minority communities. That has always been true in our case. We live and work among them. There is therefore considerable competition between anglophone and the francophone production intended for francophone minority communities.

Since Radio-Canada operates in the regions, it can offer French-language content to francophones in minority communities. It offers news as well as entertainment that's produced, for example, by members of the Alliance des producteurs francophones du Canada. However, francophone communities outside Quebec nevertheless have access to far less francophone content than Quebeckers do.

In addition, thanks to its presence, which is required under its mandate, Radio-Canada ensures that it produces content that mirrors francophone communities. This is becoming more important than previously, particularly among young people, because we know how much content they consume on platforms such as YouTube. Many of them are bilingual, and they can therefore consume increasing amounts of media content in English. That's why it's important to continue supporting French-language production and to offer—

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

Ms. Pilon—

[Carol Ann Pilon]

—the budgets required for those productions so they can compete—

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

Thank you, Ms. Pilon. Here's my final question.

Ms. Martin-Laforge, I want to congratulate you. You've made a lot of progress, and you've been working in your organization for a long time. In any case, we've known each other for nearly 20 years.

You said that the CBC should also have more regional content. Would you please tell us more about the advice you gave to the CBC? I hope they consider it. If they had taken it into consideration, we wouldn't be here discussing this problem today.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Martin-Laforge, I'll give you time for a short answer, because we've run out of time for this round. Go ahead.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Mr. Gourde, thank you for your question.

I have to say that in Quebec, CBC is managed from Toronto.

Unfortunately, we believe that paying more attention to the English-speaking community in Quebec, certainly in the rural areas, would be very productive for our community, for our young people, and for jobs in Quebec, so more investment in Quebec would be necessary.

I hope that somebody else will ask the same question, so that I can continue my observations.

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I ask members to please try to keep within the time, because we've gone over time a lot on this round. When I give you 30 seconds, it doesn't mean you can ask a 30-second question. It means you can ask a 15-second question for a 15-second answer. I'm sorry.

All right. Now I'm going to go to the Liberals.

We have Ms. Lattanzio, Patricia, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will take advantage of giving Madame Martin-Laforge the opportunity to continue with her answer. However, I will also ask the following question to her.

According to Stats Canada, as of 2021, Madame Martin‑Laforge, there are over one million citizens in the province of Quebec who identify as having English as their first language. Today, we understand that it is now at 1.3 million. Your organization, as we all know, is dedicated to ensuring that the community of English-first speakers in Quebec remains well served and supported, since, of course, they too deserve to know what's going on in their communities. Can you talk about the importance of providing these services and information to Canadians in both English and French, and how the Conservatives' promised slashing of the national broadcaster, CBC/Radio‑Canada, would put these two minority language communities at risk?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Thank you for the question.

We are very interested in keeping CBC and Radio-Canada working together, because, as other people have said here today, working together is the magic of this public broadcaster.

I don't know if the committee members know of this, but there's a study from StatsCan that is upcoming, the survey on the official language minority population. This postcensal survey was conducted by StatsCan in 2022 to gather detailed information about English-speaking populations in Quebec and French-speaking populations in other provinces and territories. The survey aims to understand various aspects of this community, including access to education and health, and the language practices of every day. This will be incredibly important for CBC/Radio-Canada in the provision of services to the communities.

Also, official language communities don't live just in official language communities. We live with Mrs. Kolt; we live across Canada, so we need to work together to offer official language minority communities access to services in the service of linguistic duality for the public broadcaster.

I would like to say that, Ms. Lattanzio, and that this is a very important survey that I understand will be coming out just before Christmas.

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

Okay.

I wanted to know your opinion. Do you think that anyone is better served by more foreign-owned media covering Canadian stories? For example, would CNN cover the Canadian wildfire season or linguistic issues, as we've seen in the last couple of years, as well as CTV or Global News?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Well, let me give you an example of a story that happened in Chelsea, Quebec, a couple of years ago around a young woman in the school system who was, because of the hijab, moved to an administrative job. That was very local. I'm not sure this would have been covered in the French media in the same way as in the English media, whether it be Radio-Canada, TVA or anything else, or whether it would even have reached the rest of Canada if CBC and our QCNA local papers had not been on the ball. We need the combination of media, electronic media and written media, to tell our stories to the rest of Canada. To CNN, no....

People are mostly interested in bad news stories, not good news stories. That's the other part of this. We count on CBC to tell the good news stories coming out of our communities to the rest of Canada—not in an echo chamber, just to ourselves, but to the rest of Canada.

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

Thank you, Madame Martin-Laforge, for all that you and QCGN do.

My question is for Ms. Charette

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

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

You've heard the Conservative members say they're concerned about the layoffs of slightly more than 100 employees, including some whom you represent. You've also heard them say they want to defund CBC/Radio-Canada, which would result in the firing of thousands of people.

What do you think about those two contradictory ideas that come out of the same mouths?

[Annick Charette]

Is that question for me?

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

Yes, it is.

[Annick Charette]

There was a lag, and I didn't hear the question.

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

Madam Chair, may I ask my question without my speaking time being docked?

[Annick Charette]

I heard the question, but I didn't hear my name.

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

All right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes, you can repeat the question, Patricia. Go ahead.

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

I'll repeat it, Ms. Charette.

You've heard the Conservative members say they're concerned about the layoffs of slightly more than 100 employees, including some whom you represent. You've also heard them say they want to defund CBC/Radio-Canada, which would result in the firing of thousands of people.

What do you think of about those two contradictory ideas that come out of the same mouths?

[Annick Charette]

First of all, you have to have grounds for dismissal.

I know that happened in a state of panic. In addition, inaccurate information was circulating about the number of positions to be cut. No firing is ever pleasant. We obviously defend all the people we work with. We still wonder about the effect the loss of a job can have.

As I told you, it has an impact on the teams and the ability to want to invest in them. I work in the cultural sector, not just in that of Radio-Canada. If Radio-Canada were defunded, that would have an incredible impact on productions and the capacity of the production ecosystem in Quebec and Canada.

As I also mentioned earlier, Radio-Canada triggers funding processes and generates productions that meet various standards, and commercial standards, fortunately.