Canadian Heritage Committee on March 2nd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is it 20 minutes then, or are you fine with 15 minutes? What are you fine with, 15 or 20?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

We are fine with 15 minutes, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. Mr. Waugh is okay to come off the question.... Thank you very much.

Now we go to this round, and it's Ms. Leslyn Lewis, for five minutes, please, for the Conservatives.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you very much.

For many years, the industry analysts have sounded the alarm regarding Canada's very high and increasing concentration of media ownership. This proposed merger, which would be the sixth-largest merger of its kind in Canada, has been criticized from all sides of the spectrum. People are saying that this would be bad for news media and also for diversity of voices. It would also be bad for employment in local broadcasting and bad for competition, and ultimately also bad for consumers.

How would you address those concerns, specifically the one about diversity of voices?

[Colette Watson]

Shaw does not own any local TV or radio stations, so there will be no consolidation of radio and TV by combining Rogers and Shaw. There will be no consolidation and no reduction of the diversity of voices or reduction of voices.

We're quite proud at Rogers to have one of the best track records with respect to diversity on air on our CityNews stations, as well as being the proud owners and partners of two independent ethnic organizations on Omni Television. [Technical difficulty—Editor] newscasts in six different languages. We offer programming in 40 different languages and we have 30 community channels with different languages based on the communities they serve. We have a variety of radio stations that offer opportunities for a diversity of voices across the country as well.

With respect to merging Shaw and Rogers, there will be no reduction or consolidation of actual TV and radio stations, just a wonderful enhancement of the amazing track record we have today on diversity of voices.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I also received the overview sheet you presented prior to the commencement of this session. It stated that you will have 43 new local news positions.

How will this work? Is this on top of the existing positions that are out there?

[Colette Watson]

Yes, on top of the positions there will be at the time of the close of the two companies, these are net new jobs. We're creating an indigenous team and some support staff for that indigenous team, along with a documentary team. Two reporters from western Canada will be added to the parliamentary bureau in Ottawa to bring western perspectives. There are 43 net new journalism jobs.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I'm a bit confused about a statement I believe I heard from Rogers, that it would redirect money that Shaw spends on local news, which is about $13 million annually. There was a quote from Matt Hatfield with OpenMedia. He told this committee that the merger would put one man, Ed Rogers, “in charge of the Internet and broadcast service of nearly half of English Canadian [network] users.” The end result is that in Canada, the top four companies will hold an astonishing 53% of the market share.

With respect to that, we're very concerned about the impact of this merger on the Canadian news market and the long-term impact on the quality of diversity of voices.

What can you say to reassure this committee that our concerns about this merger and the concerns of the majority of commentators, experts, community and ethnic media associations are not warranted?

[Colette Watson]

As I said, we are the smallest of three television networks; Citytv is not CTV or Global. This merger is about two cable companies, so it will not impact television stations at all.

Yes, $13 million of Shaw cable money will be redirected to Citytv from Global TV stations. Global's news budget per year is $120 million, while Citytv's news budget per year is $21.9 million, so we believe it will enhance our good role as shepherds and stewards of diversity and will increase diversity in local news.

We hold the gold standard on diversity in local news. I will say that, bar none.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Watson.

I'm going to go to Anthony Housefather for the Liberals for five minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Ms. Hepfner is taking my time, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Hepfner, please go for five minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to return to the question I ended on the last time in terms of incentivizing news through broadcasters.

You had a couple of ideas, like expanding the labour tax credit to television news. I'm wondering if this means that local news has to be supported by government. Other than our public broadcaster, are we saying that we need government funds to support news, or are there other ways to incentivize broadcasters and other news producers?

[Colette Watson]

There are other ways. There's a regulatory framework that outlines and dictates how each television station should spend what we call CPE, Canadian programming expenditure.

It's a really tight sandbox. There are rules for everything. There is an amendment we are proposing on Bill C-11 that would allow those monies to be redirected within the pool of money that we are obliged to commit to the Canadian broadcasting system, and there's a way to change that to have the CRTC allow us to move that money around to bolster local news.

The tax credit is the easiest one to implement right away. The government already allows print broadcasters to access a tax credit. Our journalists on TV stations are just as important as print journalists at local newspapers, so we are asking for that tax credit to be expanded to television stations so that local news, especially in small and medium-sized markets, can access that tax credit.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I would like you to expand on that and clarify for me exactly what you're talking about.

Is it the definition of Canadian content that we want to address, or is it the amount that broadcasters like Shaw and Rogers have to spend on other types of content like dramas?

Is that what you're saying?

[Colette Watson]

In Bill C-11, yes. I will let Pam talk to you about that.

[Pamela Dinsmore]

On the one hand, we would like to see a category that would allow us to spend our Canadian programming expenses on local news and programming. That doesn't exist today. We would like to see that added, because as Colette was discussing, as a broadcaster, one has to spend a certain amount of money every given year on Canadian programming. That would then allow the addition of that category, and we could allocate some of that money to local news and information programming. That's step one.

Step two is, as we look at our giant tech friends, that we recognize that they are at the same time acquirers, producers and distributors of programming. To the extent they are regulated, they are regulated as one entity. We at Rogers are regulated as numerous different entities. We're regulated as a cable company; we're regulated as a broadcaster; we're regulated as specialty services, and we're regulated as radio stations. What we want is to allow the commission to have the flexibility to look upon us as one and for us to be able to come forward to the commission with proposals around how we might move money from one side of the company to another in order to support local news and information programming. Right now we can't do that because we're regulated in silos.

Again, our friends will not be regulated in those same sorts of silos; they will be regulated as one entity. Unless things change, we are going to be regulated as different licensees, ergo with different regulatory requirements, ergo unable to do exactly what we would like to do, which is allocate part of our BDU contribution to fund the local news that our media arm is producing. That would be an example.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

To finish up that thought, do you think the legislation should mandate that more money be put into news, or do you think the broadcasters should have more flexibility in what they put their money into?

[Pamela Dinsmore]

We think that it should be a category that provides that option, because you might have a broadcasting group that thinks drama's the most important thing for it to put its money on, whereas for us at Rogers certainly local news and information programming is one of our major calling cards, ergo we want to bolster it and ensure that we can continue to do it as well as we do today and even better.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Can you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Lisa, I'm sorry. You have only 10 seconds left.

I would like to move now to the Bloc Québécois. It's going to be Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Chair, I would like some information.

At what time do you want the committee meeting to end? Will the NDP member be entitled to his two and a half minutes of speaking time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We were given 15 minutes by the committee. We are using that 15 minutes. We've had five, and 10 more minutes are left, so you can begin, please. That will give you enough time to get there.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We know that Shaw provides funding to Corus Entertainment for the news programming that it broadcasts on television stations worldwide. Rogers, the owner of Citytv and CityNews, has announced its decision to cancel Corus' funding and use the money for its own news programming, particularly in the cities of Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

In Quebec, Corus Media operates specialized francophone television brands such as Historia, Séries Plus, Télétoon and the Disney Channel. By controlling 50% of the subscribers and revenue from subscriptions, Rogers will therefore decide which shows will be broadcast, to whom they will be broadcast, and who will be able to broadcast them. In my opinion, that is problematic.

Ms. Watson, how will you be able to encourage the broadcasting of French‑language content in Quebec?

[Colette Watson]

You have asked two questions: the first concerns local news, and the other, the amount that Corus receives from Shaw. That has no relationship with the distribution of specialized services in Quebec. In fact, these services are provided by Bell Fibe, Videotron, Cogeco and the other cable companies in Quebec. Rogers and Shaw do not have a permit to offer cable television services in Quebec.

Concerning the amount that Shaw pays to Corus, I explained earlier that the money that went to Shaw will from now on go to City, which has a station in Montreal. As I mentioned, the budget allocated to Global is $120 million, and the budget allocated to City is $21.9 million. I believe that the $13 million for the addition of news programming will be well spent by City.