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
No. As we said earlier, no, we do not tell broadcasters what to broadcast.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Yes—
Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC
—and if they don't follow the licence, you should be able to step in on a five- or seven-year deal and say, “Look, I didn't get my news out of Toronto and Saskatoon.” Global Saskatoon should have a TV station servicing the community of Saskatoon instead of getting our news out of Toronto at 10 o'clock, which they say is local.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The regulated firms have to respond to and abide by their conditions of licence. The conditions of licence are set when they are granted their licences and we enforce them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Mr. Scott. You may want to continue that thought with the next witness. It will depend.
For the Liberals, for five minutes, we have Mr. Bittle.
Chris Bittle St. Catharines, Lib.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Would you like to continue that thought, Mr. Scott?
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
If I've answered the question...we set conditions of licence when we license, whether it is radio or television, public or private. Those conditions are public. They're published and they're enforced. We don't add to them or change them midstream. We take complaints. We review them comprehensively when the licences are renewed, and we enforce it through those licence conditions.
I'm sorry, Scott. Did you want to add something?
Chief of Consumer, Research and Communications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I think, having chatted with Mr. Waugh about the situation in Saskatoon a couple of times at committee here, too, I think that's what you're referring to. Since that time, the commission has taken certainly a lot of actions with respect to local television news. It's undeniable that the revenues of these stations have been declining over the years and that the market has changed.
We cannot generate those revenues for them, but what we have ensured and what we have put in place is that, certainly considering the companies and their ensembles, we have introduced a group-based licensing approach, so that we can look at all of their revenues and ensure they make contributions to all of the markets across the country. We have imposed specific requirements as to—
Liberal
St. Catharines, Lib.
I know that with people asking questions, we don't have a good sense of how long we've been going, but I don't think that was five minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I had you on the two-and-a-half-minute time slot.
You have another two and a half minutes left.
I'm so sorry. It was my fault.
St. Catharines, Lib.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Could you discuss the independent news fund and what the CRTC is doing with respect to that?
Chief of Consumer, Research and Communications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
That was probably where I was going with my previous response.
We've also found ways to ensure that smaller independent stations that operate in markets that are not the major metropolitan markets receive a contribution. This is essentially paid by distributors that help subsidize local news. There are requirements imposed on them to ensure that they deliver those requirements.
We have created the independent news fund, which contributes about $20 million towards those objectives.
We've also ensured that for part of the cable company local contributions there is some flexibility that also allows for another $60 million to be contributed towards local news in the major markets that the large companies serve.
St. Catharines, Lib.
Ms. Thomas talked about the endless supply of websites. I do agree with her that the Internet does have an endless supply of websites.
Would you agree that in terms of how Canadians absorb their content there are really only a handful that represent the bulk of what Canadians consume? In many cases we have monopolies or near monopolies in those types of products being produced.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I appreciate the sense of the question.
Obviously, there are certain platforms that are dominant or much larger than virtually any Canadian domestic player, but I think that's not the issue.
Ms. Thomas is right. Canadians have access to an absolute plethora of content, and that's a good thing. No one is disagreeing with that. We did the report “Harnessing Change” going on three and a half years ago, and one of the first points made was that we are in the wonderful situation of having sources of entertainment, news, sports and so on from around the world, but fundamentally the Broadcasting Act is about ensuring that those Canadian stories get told, distributed and found, and perhaps that's the definition of broadcasting that Ms. Thomas was looking for rather than a technical one. I'm not sure.
