Evidence of meeting #27 for Canadian Heritage in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was journalists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba Liberal Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
When I arrived in Canada, I had a dream of becoming a journalist. I had worked in print media in my country. Once I arrived here, I faced some challenges. I turned to other professions that helped me to integrate better. Today, I'm a member of Parliament and I have no complaints about that. However, I have a question for you, Ms. Carignan.
Should we review or expand the regulations governing the journalism profession? Should we even create an order to regulate these professions?
Full Professor, UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual
It's a big question. I know that the journalism community has two points of view. Some believe that an order could really provide protection by giving journalists a status. In their view, it would prevent people who disregard the ethical standards of the profession from claiming to be journalists. It would also provide a measure of credibility that could boost public confidence at a time of crisis of confidence. Other journalists are concerned that this type of structure could prevent journalists from doing their job freely when freedom of the press and freedom of expression constitute fundamental freedoms.
We also have the fact that no compulsory training is required to become a journalist. The fact that people can study in any field and become journalists raises questions about how an organization could regulate the profession. I think that we can find a middle ground. People who practise journalism would come under the authority of a body responsible for ensuring adherence to ethical standards and overseeing the profession, in order to help build trust.
I'm currently quite concerned by the fact that people on social media, for example, whom my team follows, claim to be journalists. Yet they clearly don't adhere to ethical standards or any well‑understood and rigorous journalistic practice. This is a matter of great concern. It undermines public confidence, creates confusion and fuels distrust of all sources of information, including professional sources.
Liberal
Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba Liberal Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Omelus, you spoke a bit about media ratings. When it comes to measuring ratings, can you share your ideas on how to ensure credible ratings?
Executive Director, Content and Programming Strategy, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
The current system is quite complicated in terms of audience measurement. However, audience measurement should be equal across Canada. In my opinion, the lack of measurement in Canada's territories and the lack of measurement for people who access satellite television services is unacceptable.
It's really necessary to have proper ratings to know who is watching, where they're watching and what they are watching. We don't have that system right now. There's an inequality.
Also, we need to get into discoverability of content. I have a Samsung TV, and there's a big issue on my TV remote. I can get Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Where is Canada?
Canada is not there. That's a big issue.
I think Joel wants to add something.
Joel Fortune Legal Counsel, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
Looking forward as well, people have said that data is the new oil. Fair access to data from streaming platforms and digital services is going to be increasingly important. We're only getting into, these days, how the online world is going to be structured and regulated in the public interest in Canada.
Obviously, access to data is going to be critical for Canadian media to understand their audiences and to perform better in the market. Ultimately, the market is important for the success or failure of all media, so you have to have fair access to underlying data, respecting privacy at all times, of course. You need to have that data access.
Liberal
Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba Liberal Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC
Mr. Errington, how would you assess the effectiveness of the current federal programs to support inclusive media? Would any additional measures be particularly helpful in ensuring the accessibility of information in Canada?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Accessible Media Inc.
From AMI's perspective, the thing that makes us unique in the Canadian broadcasting system is the fact that no other network like ours exists in the world. We're providing accessible content with respect to captioning and description. We're looking at adding ASL and QSL to our content, going forward. From an accessibility standpoint, Canada is a leader throughout the world. AMI has played a critical role in putting that out there and making sure content in Canada is accessible. I first started in 2009 with AMI-tv, and we later added AMI-télé in 2014. Now all content in prime time needs to have description. I don't think that would have happened without the lobbying efforts, advocacy and things we did at AMI-tv. Canada is a leader because we have networks like AMI to promote and foster that.
What is needed, and you're going to hear this over and over again, is long-term, sustainable funding so we can continue to do the things we do really well. AMI is a leader with respect to accessibility of content, but we're also a leader in accessible content. We create over 100 hours of original content per year, half and half between English and French. It's award-winning content. It's being recognized throughout Canada. In order for us to continue to do that in the future, we need long-term, sustainable funding from government, cable and the Online Streaming Act. Those three mechanisms would help us.
Thank you.
Liberal
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
I found it quite intriguing when Mr. Omelus spoke earlier about discoverability. We talked about data. I think that discoverability is a challenge for all Quebec and Canadian media. A number of our studies have focused on this issue. We've also heard about it in Quebec City. It's a major concern. However, are there limits to our approach to discoverability?
Ms. Carignan, I would like to talk about the news that caught our attention. Radio‑Canada decided to make its programming available on the Prime Video platform. Prime Video is owned by Amazon, one of the GAFAM companies. Remember, this American company systematically refuses to comply with any tax or regulatory regulations when it comes to broadcasting.
From your perspective as an observer, which I imagine is as objective as possible, what do you think of Radio‑Canada's decision to provide RDI programming on an American platform even before providing it on its own platform, ICI TOU.TV, when the English version, CBC News Network, is available on Gem?
Maybe I want to know whether I'm completely off base in thinking that the decision makes absolutely no sense. However, I don't want to put words in your mouth either.
Full Professor, UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual
As an expert, I always try to cover the different sides. I know that the committee asked to hear Radio‑Canada's position on this. I think that it will be useful and important to do so. I think that it's a good initiative.
I gather that certain economic aspects explain the decision. All media outlets, including the national media, are having trouble generating revenue, even if they have certain privileges that others don't have. It's really an economic problem for everyone these days. The challenge is widespread.
The RDI channel reports the news for Radio‑Canada. It's an important channel. There are fewer and fewer cable subscriptions. It's necessary to find other ways to fund RDI. I understand that. We're hearing that a situation supposedly explains the choice to go through a provider that isn't ICI TOU.TV and that the agreements with the cable companies prevent this content from being made available for a fee on ICI TOU.TV. Nevertheless, that doesn't stop us from asking big questions about the chosen platform, Amazon Prime. It isn't necessarily a good player in terms of labour relations or its approach to setting up shop in Quebec. We've had all kinds of discussions about this.
In terms of the discoverability of Canadian and Quebec content, I believe that these major platforms have a long way to go to make our content more discoverable and accessible and to open the door to Canadian media. In that sense, I find it hard to understand why a public broadcaster chose to go with Amazon Prime.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
It seems that, once we've firmly established our foundations here, we can ultimately still look for other distribution methods to reach as many people as possible. I think that this was clearly the intention. Still, I find it particularly questionable to maintain that the first step is to turn to this platform. Quebec‑owned or Canadian‑owned platforms could have provided this service.
Isn't this a type of breach of the ethics required of the public broadcaster? It seems that the public broadcaster should set an example and serve as a role model for these practices.
Full Professor, UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual
I agree with you. The Canadian broadcaster has an ethical and professional responsibility and it must set an example. I think that doing business with an American giant such as Amazon really isn't setting an example. I can't understand this decision.
I understand the financial considerations. However, I also already have a hard time with the idea of making a large part of ICI TOU.TV's content available for a fee. This content should be accessible to all Canadians when it comes to access to information and our cultural production. For example, I find that Télé‑Québec makes its content much more accessible to Quebeckers, free of charge. Radio‑Canada should follow suit. It shouldn't choose an American platform, especially not a giant that fails to comply with our regulations and that doesn't co‑operate much. It should try to make its content available for free as much as possible. If you're a public service, you need to provide your services for free as much as possible.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC
[Inaudible—Editor]
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
He tries to push me every time.
Mr. Waugh, you now have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Thank you.
It's an interesting panel we have here today.
I must say that CBC's mandate was not answered when APTN was formed, and I remember your coming on the air in 1999 because CBC did not fulfill their mandate.
I just want to say to APTN, don't worry about Numeris ratings. When the president of CBC was here, I asked her about the ratings. I knew they were very poor, but she wouldn't give them. Don't worry about it. They only want to talk about it during the Olympic gold medal game that 13 million Canadians watched. Don't worry about the ratings, because our national public broadcaster couldn't give a damn about the ratings and only when they're in their favour.
It's interesting, because I've been a broadcaster for over 40 years. Bill C-18, which was brought in by the Liberal government, was supposed to be the answer to broadcasting. It was supposed to give funds to small players and local voices. Have any of you received any money out of Bill C-18?
I'm going to start with AMI. I'm old, and I got called out on closed captioning. I ad libbed a lot of my sportscasts. I got called out by the CRTC for not using closed captioning when it first came in.
David, thank you. You started this in 2009. I got called out shortly after.
Have you received any of the funding from Bill C-18 that was supposed to go to the group that we're seeing here today?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Accessible Media Inc.
We have not received any Bill C-18 funding.
That being said, we have had to make substantial changes to the way we operate at AMI. We had a daily morning live show called AMI Today. We had a host, and we would talk about disability issues across the country. That was a live show that we produced in-house. We had to cancel that show two years ago and lay off almost 35 people because we could no longer afford to sustain that programming.
Now we've moved to an outsourced programming model where all of our content is produced by third party production companies. We've had to scale down our in-house production. It's meaningful. Things are happening. Changes are being made. Hard decisions are being made that are not fun and are not allowing us to reach the mandate that the CRTC licensed us for in 2009.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Yes, the other issue is the CRTC. They're not listening. They're not listening to you guys when you go there. Now you're $4 million short, and you're cutting programs because of it.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Accessible Media Inc.
Yes, we were $4.4 million short for 2018. Our high cable subscribers are declining at a rate of 5% this year, up from 2.5%. That represents about a $1.4-million loss of revenue for us per year. If things don't change in three years from now, we will not be sustainable.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Well, you're the same as APTN. They used to get 35¢ per person when it was cable. They're up to 38¢. That's a whole three cents.
Cheryl, I want you to talk about it. Your budget has decreased. At one time, you were at around $11 million, and now you're down to $8 million. You've added a newscast. Now you have two local newscasts a day. You're doing more with less but, eventually, that catches up, and maybe it has already.
Executive Director, News and Current Affairs, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
We are beneficiaries of the Online News Act. There is a fund dedicated for indigenous publishers and broadcasters. As you know, it definitely will help in the short term. We know how volatile that piece of legislation is for the future. I hope it stays, because it definitely is helping.
To be transparent, I'm also on the board of the CJC. I was elected in a by-election. I didn't put my name up at first, but when there was a by-election, I knew I had to step forward and put my name forward. After I was involved, a seat on the executive committee opened up, and I was asked if I could serve for the executive committee. It was accepted by the group, which is a great group of really smart people. I do have some inside knowledge of how that's going.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Congratulations on your appointment, by the way.
I want to go to the Ethnic Media Association.
Ethnic media is a growing medium. I saw the footage from the city of Toronto rally where there were well over 100,000 people. We never had anything like this in Canada in all my time in broadcasting. You said there were 150,000 people. I watched the news that day. There was maybe a maximum of a minute on CTV and Bell Media, and there was a little bit on CBC.
It's frustrating, because when we got into Bill C-18, I thought it was about small players, local voices. Over 100,000 people took to the streets in the largest city in this country, and there was no balance in media whatsoever.
I would like you to talk about that, because I think ethnic media has received little or no funding, and it's disturbing when I see and hear these stories not being told after Bill C-18 was passed.