Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Mr. Thomas, welcome today. We're glad to have you here.

I want to ask you a few questions quickly. I have a little bit of experience with what your organization does. I read the bulletins and newsletters that you guys put out, which helps me to keep in touch with some of the common people we both represent—you through your organization and I as a member of parliament.

In the correspondence and feedback you receive from your membership and from donors to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and in response to the various surveys and questionnaires you put out, how much direction do you get from that base to look at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?

[Gregory Thomas]

It's definitely on the list of things that many of our supporters believe should be....

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Is it a top-five issue or a top-ten issue? Where would it fall?

[Gregory Thomas]

When I thought about this visit, I honestly didn't consult the last survey as far as the funding goes. It's up there. It's in the top twenty, I would say.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

So it's on the radar screen from the organization's perspective?

[Gregory Thomas]

Yes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

As a result of that, the question has been asked. You've done half a dozen or a dozen access to information requests to the CBC. You've received one response—which was very generic, to prove your point. The other ones are still outstanding or pending. Is that correct?

[Gregory Thomas]

No, we did one and appealed it to the Information Commissioner. We won, and they still refused to comply.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

But you're not going to go through the courts or anything like that?

[Gregory Thomas]

No, we file hundreds of these things, and we don't specifically target the CBC. The CBC isn't a big project of ours.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Fair enough.

As a general principle, it has been discussed, and other witnesses have brought it up, and I'd be curious to see whether or not the Taxpayers Federation has a particular stance on this.... We've heard through lines of questioning and so on that the difference that sets the CBC apart from other broadcasters is the fact that they receive a direct public subsidy from the taxpayers of Canada, as long as they also provide a mandate that is different from that of the other broadcasters. We've heard from the regulator this morning.

At the same time, though, we've also heard from other witnesses who say that in some form or another, whether it's through a tax credit or a check-off fee for subscribers, as the regulator said this morning, that money is collected or given as a tax credit to the industry in some form or another. Other witnesses have said that because of that, all public or private broadcasters should be subject to access to information on the same playing field.

What's the stance of the Taxpayers Federation on that? Do you think that if somebody receives a tax credit, they should somehow be subject to access to information? Or should access to information stick to a level where there are direct taxpayer subsidies or cash transfers or cash injections directly from the Receiver General to their accounts?

[Gregory Thomas]

No, I think that's ludicrous. Obviously programming is a commodity that has to be paid for somehow, just like anything else, either through subscriptions or advertising.

If a broadcaster incorporates, gets a licence, begins broadcasting, presents programming to the public, and arranges with cable providers or satellite providers or over-the-air providers, or whomever, to get the signal into people's homes, that's just a commercial transaction. I think the idea of making private citizens subject to access to information legislation is over the top.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I would agree with you. I was surprised to hear some of this comment from previous witnesses, because virtually every business owner in this country would qualify for a tax credit of some kind or another. To have their records open to access to information requests by anybody in the public, I think, opens up a whole new can of worms.

What does set the CBC apart from the other private broadcasters that we have in our country is the fact that they also have a different mandate. But given the fact that the taxpayers contribute on an ongoing basis to the tune of $1 billion-plus every year to CBC, and have done for quite some time, it does raise the whole question of what the public broadcaster should be using that money for and whether they should be disclosing other information.

Do you think it's reasonable that the CBC should be providing information if they're hosting something or entertaining somebody, or if they have travel and meal expenditures? Should salaries be disclosed not only of executives but also of any celebrities, for example? What about the top-paid celebrities that may work and be on the air? Or does that cross a line in terms of competitiveness? What about boards of directors and so on? What do you think? Should that be public information, or is that going to put CBC at a competitive disadvantage?

[Gregory Thomas]

I think it depends on your world view. If you accept the premise that the existing model of the CBC is viable, that you should have a hybrid organization that bids on the Olympics, that bids on NHL hockey games, that competes for commercial audiences, and that runs American movies, and that it will be a commercial operation and the taxpayers will give it $1.16 billion, then you don't want to screw it up by forcing it to disclose proprietary information, that is, how much it's paying Peter Mansbridge or how much it's paying Strombo. You don't want to handicap it so that it loses in the marketplace and is an even bigger burden on the taxpayer than it already is.

If you accept the premise that you ought to have a commercially competitive CBC, then you have to let it compete commercially. You don't go out and shoot it in the foot so that it does a bad job of that.

I guess the broader question is whether this particular model makes any sense in 2011. You guys didn't invite me here to hold forth on that topic, so....

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Well, actually—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins. Your time is up.

That ends the first round.

We'll now enter the second round.

Monsieur Boulerice, please, for five minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good morning, Mr. Thomas. Welcome to the committee.

Before I ask my first question, I just want to say that I thought what Mr. Del Mastro said was interesting. According to him, when we try to evade a question, it means that we are not comfortable with it. I hope that he will pass on the message to the President of the Treasury Board who has been refusing to answer our questions for 130 days now.

I want to defend CBC, since some pretty harsh things were said earlier about its cooperation. We are generally in favour of increased transparency regarding CBC, as well as the federal government. We have reservations about the journalistic activities, as we told the previous witness.

Nevertheless, do you not find the fact that CBC, as of 2007....

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Perhaps you could slow down just a bit. The interpreters are having trouble keeping up. Thank you.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Okay.

Once CBC became subject to the provisions of the Access to Information Act, it received 434 requests from a single requester in the first two months. Considering that, could we not assume that CBC was overwhelmed by requests and that, wanting to cooperate, it tried to do what it could?

Today, we can see that the backlog has mostly been eliminated and that additional resources have been put in place. Earlier, Mr. von Finckenstein said that there were no cooperation issues with the people from CBC when he tried to obtain information.

So, don't you think we could give CBC the benefit of the doubt, as it seems that it was targeted by a direct competitor who wanted to overwhelm it with hundreds and hundreds of requests?

[Gregory Thomas]

Yes, that's a possibility. CBC may have been in a difficult situation, but I should point out that, in our specific case, we had to get the information commissioner involved.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

[Gregory Thomas]

We won our case in court, but despite that, CBC refused one of our requests again.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Okay. You're talking about your specific case.

The information commissioner has raised a number of issues regarding a black hole in several departments of the Conservative government when it comes to accountability and responsibility obligations. If there's time, I think that some of my colleagues will ask you questions about that. Some departments' grades in terms of transparency are appalling.

Mr. Calkins said the following before this committee:

We've got a taxpayer-funded organization using taxpayers' funds to put up a defence, versus a taxpayer-funded office of the (information commissioner), fighting each other in a court paid for by the taxpayers of Canada. This is not in the best interests of taxpayers.

We agree. However, that same Conservative government fought the information commissioner all the way to the Supreme Court in order to protect ministers and stop them from disclosing certain information. We are familiar with this government's habits, one of them being its ability to misappropriate $50 million through a hidden process enabling it to distribute the money in a minister's municipalities, away from the Auditor General's watchful eye. That money was distributed without any kind of a record or paper trail to speak of. In addition, the presence of federal officials was concealed. Don't you think that, generally speaking, this government has a problem in terms of its transparency and accountability obligations?

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

That's a good question.

[Gregory Thomas]

I think we're talking about a systemic issue here. Any political party that moves into the Langevin Building.... We need only think back to the sponsorship scandal. The Gomery Commission was created only after a decade of the previous Canadian government putting up roadblocks. Regarding the spirit of the Access to Information Act, I think that's an issue...