Evidence of meeting #22 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
For a final offer arbitration process.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Is it 55 or 65 working days from the outset of negotiations to final offer arbitration, or—
Chief of Consumer, Research and Communications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
No, that's for the final arbitration process. So when there's a conclusion that a deal cannot be reached in our domain, then one of the parties would claim and ask for final arbitration. That's when it starts ticking.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Thank you. That's helpful, but for the mediation process then, what is the ballpark the CRTC is looking at?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
As long as the parties are making progress, it's not time delimited in that sense. Obviously the legislation speaks to legitimate efforts to reach agreements. Our experience on the broadcasting side is that mediation can take a long time, particularly if they're making progress. If they don't make progress, it's shorter, and one of the parties moves to ask for binding arbitration.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Would it be fair to say you'd be looking at a six-to-eight-month process for negotiation, mediation, final offer and arbitration?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I think it will vary depending on the complexity and the the size of the players. The first premise of the legislation is that hopefully that there will be very little arbitration and that most of it will be driven to commercial agreements.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
The chair has been very generous, so I'm going to come back on that, and that is—
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
You spoke too soon. Sorry, Mr. Julian.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I'm sorry, your time has ended.
Now, Mr. Nater asked, because I goofed—I'm sorry, I was distracted and I goofed on this round—so perhaps we can have Mr. Nater and then a Liberal, and that we will end this particular meeting with the CRTC.
Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC
Okay, Madam Chair, thank you. It's going to be Kevin for the Conservatives here.
Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC
Mr. Scott said that broadcasting has been a successful sector, and it's for the public good. The CRTC, I think, on the Rogers-Shaw deal, the initial one.... And here I'm only going to talk of broadcasting, not about the spectrum and all the industry.
Did you think it was a good deal?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The issue for the commission in our policy is whether or not the transaction ultimately makes a positive contribution to the objectives of the Broadcasting Act, and with the concessions, if you wish to call them that, that we drew from the participants, yes it was. Otherwise we wouldn't have rendered that decision.
Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC
Does it bother you that the Competition Bureau on the other side, the industry, did not like the deal?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I don't—
Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC
Just for your sake, we also submitted in Parliament that we did not like the deal. The heritage committee did a study on Rogers-Shaw and the chair presented it on Tuesday in the House of Commons and said that we did not like the deal between Rogers and Shaw, just to be upfront.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I'm aware of that. I did look at the recommendations.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The committee heard witnesses and formed a view. A number of them related to prospective proceedings. We don't deal with things in theory or hypothetically; we deal with those as they come. But the fundamental view, that there's not enough benefit, I disagree with. It is fundamentally a horizontal merger on the broadcasting side. The parties did not compete directly with one another, so the issues were largely related to how to ensure that independent news, independent broadcasters, would be successful, along with measures to protect programmers because of the increased size and market power of Rogers, protections for local news and so on, and we did address those.
Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC
I think that around the committee we thought, to be honest with you, that Rogers did cherry-pick with extra resources, people, in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and even here in Ottawa, but there were no resources for the middle- or lower-class stations like Halifax, Peterborough, Lethbridge, Kelowna, Saskatoon, Regina and so on. Those are the stations—and you've mentioned that here—are the ones that are really in trouble in this country right now. It's not CTV Toronto. It's not CTV Calgary. The ones that are in deep trouble right now—and, I'll tell you, I've worked at CTV Saskatoon. We have one stringer now in Prince Albert. We once had 85 people in Prince Albert. We had a television station in Yorkton with 50 people. They have one person now. Swift Current is dark, and this is in my time—in my own province I've seen it.
You can see why I was really concerned in this case for Global/Corus because I can see what's going to happen to the so-called middle and lower class.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
As we indicated, you are speaking about Global, Corus's property—
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
—and Corus will not receive certain funding.
We've indicated in that decision that there will be a review of the availability of further funds, because if all of the money went to Corus, that would be a very negative outcome for some of the smaller players who are currently deriving a significant benefit from the fund. That will be reviewed by the commission. We've indicated that in our decision.