Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 16th, 2022

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I gather, then, that you still recognize the importance of making traditional broadcasters contribute financially, beyond the need to lighten their load.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Martin, I'm sorry that your time is up.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Péladeau.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I will go to the final questioner. That's Monsieur Julian for the NDP.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here today, and for your work. This is extremely important information that you're giving to the committee. We hope, during this pandemic, that you and your families are staying safe and healthy through this entire period.

I'd like to start with OpenMedia, Mr. Hatfield and Ms. Knight.

You've stressed that allowing this merger would be a real disaster. I'd like you to talk about the implications in terms of the loss of jobs. This has been flagged by Unifor and others in terms of the loss of jobs that this merger could represent.

Also, on the cost increase, what is the potential, in terms of costs going up? Canadians already pay more than pretty well any industrialized country. What are the implications there?

Finally, we've all seen the dysfunctional corporate boardroom that Rogers has playing out in a stunning way over the last few months. To what extend should that be considered when we talk about this takeover?

[Matthew Hatfield]

In terms of the consequences, I think they're pretty obvious. This is going to mean less of everything for Canadians, everything we value. Companies don't do this—they don't consider mergers like this—in order to invest more. They do mergers like this to cut their costs and invest less. Sooner or later, that's going to lead to cutbacks on the local news available to people and in jobs in telecommunications as well.

In the short term, of course, people have rightly flagged that Corus could cause a knock-on effect, where, if they're forced to go to independent journalism funding, that will lead to their absorbing a bunch of that funding that should be intended for some of the smaller outlets that are here with us today.

The consequences are really much wider than that. It's an opportunity for a national conglomerate like Rogers to be serving people national news, instead of local news, or news from eastern Canada that doesn't speak to their local news.

It's really coming from a long history of broken promises in decisions like this. If you look at Bell and MTS, that was a merger that was justified with all these flowery promises about great value that was going to be delivered to consumers. That's not what happened. Prices went up. That's why Bell bought MTS, because they would be able to leverage their market power for higher prices.

I'll defer to my colleague, Erin, for a little bit more on telecom.

[Erin Knight, Digital Rights Campaigner, OpenMedia]

Thanks, Matt.

Yes, I'd love to talk about how this buyout is going to make connectivity more expensive in Canada.

Foundationally, I really need to stress that Canada has a massive affordability problem when it comes to internet and cell phone bills. We've seen study after study that have shown that Canada already pays some of the highest prices in the world for these services, as you mentioned. Just this week, we actually heard reports that Rogers has yet again raised prices on some plans by $5 to $10 per month.

With that in mind, it's clear that we, in Canada, need telecom prices brought way down, in line with our international peers, but the Rogers-Shaw merger is set to do the exact opposite. It's going to be a disaster for affordability in Canada. That's mainly due to the fact that it's going to deal a massive blow to competition in a market that is already dominated by just a handful of companies.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks very much. I'm going to move on.

Thank you for your answers, Ms. Edwards, Madame Hinse and Mr. Freedman. Thank you very much for your work in maintaining community television and radio. It's absolutely essential. The radicalization that we're seeing manifest on Parliament Hill is in large part because stories aren't being told to people at the local level anymore. This is a fundamental issue that we need to start addressing.

I did want to shout out to NewWest Television and all of the community television providers right across the country that are making such a difference.

To what extent do we need to change direction for community television and community radio? Do we impose conditions to make sure that the telecom giants are actually paying their fair share so that we can stimulate and have the community television and the community radio—the community reporting that Canadians want and need?

[Catherine Edwards]

Can I answer that?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Yes.

[Catherine Edwards]

Before 2017, when the independent local news fund was created, there was—on paper, at least—supposed to be $150 million spent across the country on community TV, but it's being spent on a handful of big-city stations because all the small ones had been closed. We've been asking for a community access media fund that communities themselves could apply to and then run community TV stations on the community radio model, by not-for-profit, locally accountable boards of directors.

We've reapplied to certify an independent production fund for that purpose at this time.

We've recommended that if the merger does go through, instead of all of the money being pocketed by cable companies or moved around with a lack of public scrutiny—because none the data is ever published; the CRTC keeps it—that a portion, at least, be put into this fund to ensure that we can roll out community TV in communities that have lost it.

[Alex Freedman]

Through you, Madam Chair, you ask a very good question, Mr. Julian. If you'll indulge me, right now, the government gives $1.4 billion to the CBC/Radio-Canada. For radio alone, it gives more than $450 million. We, through community radio, receive not one cent of operational dollar support for this incredible network of stations and for the work that we do.

There are a number of mechanisms that I mentioned in my opening statement and I'm more than happy to go through a variety of other mechanisms.

We need support. We need support to ensure that our stations can continue to operate, continue to do incredible work they have been doing so far, and continue to expand their capacity to make sure there is more local news, more coverage, more talk radio and more connection with the community. That is something that all Canadians are desirous of.

I'll leave it there. Thank you Dr. Fry and Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I will go to Mr. Saras—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, Peter, that's it. I'm sorry. You've run out of time.

I just need to quickly ask the committee about an issue. We were supposed to have a hard stop for a committee business meeting at five o'clock. It is now about 11 minutes after five. We could use this room until six o'clock.

How many people can stay until then to finish the business meeting? This is an important and urgent business meeting with a timeliness about it. I want to ask you, because we will have to end the witnesses here, go in camera and deal with this. We many need to go an extra 10 minutes or so.

Could I get a sense from the committee? I will entertain, eventually and quickly, a motion to adjourn this part of the meeting to go in camera. It's going to take a couple of minutes to get in camera.

I don't know—

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I move, Madam Chair, that we move to committee business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I will ask everybody to please remember that you all have to log off and then log on quickly to the in camera part of the meeting. There is a new ID for you on that one. Thank you very much.

Thank you witnesses. I am sorry. I think votes and stuff got in the way of having a really nicely planned meeting.

You made your points clear. Thank you very much.

We will log off now. Thanks.

[Proceedings continue in camera]