Finance Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2006

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I have 30 seconds? Oh, gee.

Stanley, we fought a big fight in August to try to get this year's funding decisions. Can you tell me, is this a perennial problem that native broadcasters across the country are having, this trouble of getting their decisions late in the year when they have to start paying bills on April 1?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Sorry, Mr. James, you've used up the time.

Our next questioner will be Mr. St-Cyr. Mr. St-Cyr, you have six minutes.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I will be talking in French, so I encourage you to use the translation if you don't understand French.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to meet with our committee. I can appreciate how very frustrating it must be for you to have only five minutes to make your point, but you have to understand that it is equally frustrating for committee members to have so little time to put questions to witnesses.

I'd like to discuss the subject of climate change with you. More than likely, there are two or three organizations here who could speak to this topic. When discussion arose in the House about meeting Kyoto targets, the Minister of the Environment stated that meeting our commitments would be far too costly, that Canada did not have the means to meet its targets, that it would lead to economic disaster, that it would spell the demise of the transportation industry, and so on and so forth. I found it all rather amusing, this coming from the Conservatives who are a sympathetic lot and always manage to make MPs smile a little.

What's not funny, however, is thinking about the rather devastating impact of climate change in the North, where the initial effects are now being felt. My question is for Ms. Baltgailis from the Yukon Conservation Society. However, it is also directed to the representatives of the Yukon Tourism Industry Association and the Yukon Council of First Nations.

Does global warming have some concrete repercussions for northern communities, from both a social and an economic standpoint, and if so, will the impact be so significant to warrant action?

[Karen Baltgailis]

Thank you very much for that question.

Yes, absolutely, there's a huge economic impact from climate change, as well as a social and an environmental impact. The forest industry is a perfect example. In the southwest Yukon we have an enormous spruce bark beetle infestation, which has certainly changed what the forest is like. And that's not only in terms of financial benefits from the logging industry or that kind of thing, but also in terms of traditional lifestyles. If the whole forest ecosystem is changing, that can really affect traditional lifestyles. Then you get things like melting permafrost and what that does to highway infrastructure, buildings, and those kinds of things.

So there's no question that investing the money into Kyoto, or Kyoto or better kinds of initiatives, has economic benefits as well as environmental benefits.

[Rod Taylor]

I can give you an example of the economic costs of this that really hit home for me. I have an adventure travel company and for the first time in 2005 we were unable to do winter trips in the Whitehorse area. There just wasn't enough snow. It was the first time.

On average, for the sixteen or seventeen major winter tourism operators in this area, the increased costs to find snow and keep going north were in the neighbourhood of about a 20% increase to their bottom line expenses. It was absolutely enormous. In fact the truth is, for the majority of these businesses, that's the margin; that's what we're talking about. We lost the margin because of that, and it's only getting worse.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Carvill?

[Grand Chief Andy Carvill]

Thank you for your question and concerns.

I think for the Council of Yukon First Nations, it's had a very heavy impact upon our people. We have trappers who have trapped for generations and their livelihood is slowly being taken away from them, if it's not already been taken away from a lot of them. Because of the warmth and global warming, the quality of fur isn't the same, so it drives the prices down. People are starting to get out of the industry.

When it comes to the health of our people, our people utilize many medicines off the lands, and those medicines and whatnot are starting to be depleted. You've heard mentioned earlier the spruce bark beetle, the pine beetle, and all of that, and it's having a very negative impact. We've got to look at ways to start to increase funding in that area instead of decreasing it.

Thank you.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I can imagine how frustrating this must be for you. It would appear people who live in the south are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions, given their lifestyle. However, your communities are the ones most affected and you're the ones paying the price.

Regarding the Kyoto Protocol, in your opinion, are the targets Canada has set as part of its international commitment absolute minimum targets, or do you believe they are far too unrealistic?

[Karen Baltgailis]

As I mentioned in my presentation, we're spending a lot of money subsidizing, say, the oil and gas industry, or the mining industry, and these industries really contribute to climate change a lot. So I think you could actually make improving our climate change initiatives a lot less expensive if we were to cut down on the subsidies to these sorts of things, and, for example, get into renewable energy or recycling metals. This takes a lot less energy and also has much fewer environmental impacts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We will continue with Madam Ablonczy. You have six minutes.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you very much. We really appreciate all of you being here. We know you have some unique situations. That's one of the reasons we wanted to come and hear directly from you, and you've been very helpful. We appreciate it.

I want to first of all turn to Northern Native Broadcasting. This is a very exciting success story. You must be very proud of yourselves and the progress your organization has made. I note that you particularly want to entrench aboriginal broadcasters in the Broadcasting Act and to provide for adequate funding that you can count on and multi-year agreements.

I was very interested in this initiative. Do you have any studies on how many Canadians access your broadcasts? Are you able to tell how wide your listenership is?

[Stanley James]

We haven't done that yet because we don't have the funds to do it.

What I'd like to request is that the full presentation of my report be incorporated into this whole discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

That will be done, Mr. James.

[Statement by Mr. Stanley James]

Good morning, Mr. Pallister, vice-chairs, and members of the standing committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

I'm Stanley James, chair of the board of directors of Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon.

Thank you for the invitation to make a presentation to the Standing Committee on Finance regarding Canada's place in a competitive world.

The standing committee wishes to hear how citizens and business can prosper in the future, can be healthy, have proper skills, and be given incentives to work and to save. The committee also wishes to hear how program spending measures should be implemented to meet those aspirations.

In 1979, recognizing that aboriginal northerners had serious concerns about the lack of representation of indigenous languages, customs, and cultures, the CRTC established the extension of service to northern and remote communities committee. The committee recommended that federal funding be provided to develop aboriginal broadcasting networks in order to meet Canada's obligation to provide indigenous people opportunities to preserve our languages and culture.

In March of 1983, the northern native broadcast access program was created to support the production and distribution of relevant aboriginal programming to the northern indigenous population. The access program funds thirteen non-profit communications societies, one of which is Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon.

In 1984, Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon was incorporated as a non-profit society governed by the fourteen first nations of the Yukon.

Following a two-year training program, Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon staff, consisting of five aboriginal individuals, began broadcasting radio programming on CHON-FM on February 1, 1985, to six Yukon communities, seven hours a day, five days a week.

In 1986, Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon carried out a one-year television training program. The following year it produced its first season of half-hour programs broadcast across the Yukon and Northwest Territories on the CBC North television system.

Shortly after that, on February 1, 1991, Television Northern Canada went on the air. Television Northern Canada was created as members of northern aboriginal communications societies, including ourselves, took on the challenge of providing television services from the north to the north.

In 1999, Television Northern Canada underwent a change. It became the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Canada's national aboriginal broadcaster.

Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon currently provides 26 hours of original programming to that network in a variety of languages, including English. We also broadcast original radio programming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our radio signal streams over the World Wide Web.

The majority of Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon key and support staff are members of first nations and are intimately familiar with the languages, cultures, and communities of Yukon, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, and Alaska.

From the beginning, over 150 individuals have been involved in the organization in some way or other. Employees, directors of the board, contractors, consultants, and independent producers all have had a significant role to play in the growth of Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon and its contribution to the social, cultural, and economic fabric of northern society.

Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon has played, and continues to play, a role as an economic generator. Since its launch, Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon has injected approximately $21 million into the Yukon economy. It has been the main trainer and employee of aboriginal people wishing to enter into a career in electronic broadcasting in the Yukon.

The northern native broadcast access program is administered by the aboriginal programs directorate of Canadian Heritage.

Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon submits an application annually to the department for core funding. A contribution agreement provides just over $1 million to the organization per fiscal year. The organization in turn must provide the department with quarterly activity and financial statements to trigger payments. Each year the department has been late in advising recipients of the status of their applications.

This year Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon did not receive written notice from the department until September 18 that our application was approved and a cheque for the first quarter only was appended. That's six months into a 12-month fiscal year.

This arrangement creates and maintains a false sense of economy and is designed to ensure that non-profit societies are always only a step away from failure.

The program has not kept pace with the needs of the societies it helped establish. Core funding has not increased to match the cost of living, which means our paycheques are worth less each year.

In an era of rapid technological change, funding to replace and upgrade aging and obsolete equipment is not factored into the program.

In spite of these challenges, Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon is a first nation success story. We've established ourselves as a credible communications operation from the production and distribution of radio and television programming from a first nations perspective.

We train and employ first nations people in all aspects of the industry. We play a key role in protecting, encouraging, enhancing, and perpetuating the language and culture of Yukon first nations people on the local, national, and international level.

Against that backdrop, we see ourselves as being a player in Canada's pursuit of a place in a competitive world.

To that end, to help us achieve that goal, we have recommendations for your consideration. These are not new. We've made these recommendations to other standing committees, and to federal government policy researchers, and we'll repeat them here for you.

We recommend that the federal government recognize that aboriginal broadcasting is an integral part of Canadian public broadcasting; that it strengthen and entrench the position of aboriginal broadcasters in the Broadcast Act, federal policies, and regulations.

We recommend continuing to invest in the societies and provide adequate funding for (i) operations and productions, (ii) the upgrade of transmitting and production equipment, and (iii) training and capacity development.

And we recommend modifying the funding process to enable multi-year agreements.

Mr. Pallister and members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, this concludes our presentation to you.

The CEO of Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon, Ms. Shirley Adamson, is here with me today. Together we'll be happy to address any questions you have of us.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Now to Ms. Ablonczy's questions.

[Stanley James]

I'd like to leave it up to the chief executive officer, Shirley Adamson, to respond to most of these questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

That would be quite permissible.

Welcome, Ms. Adamson.

[Shirley Adamson, Chief Executive Officer, Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon]

Thank you very much, and we appreciate your indulgence. With regard to that question, we have never been funded to do the necessary surveys required to support our program. However, informal surveys show that our listenership is very wide. We get requests for information and music content from as far away as Germany and as close as North Dakota, and of course from all of the areas within Canada's north.

Because we are a founding member of Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, we have, through that organization, just concluded a survey that is now being analysed, and we intend as well to do a survey north of sixty, so it would give us a much better appreciation of what our listenership is at the moment.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How many different aboriginal languages do you broadcast in?

[Shirley Adamson]

We broadcast in as many aboriginal languages as are available to us. However, in the Yukon there are eight aboriginal dialects, with two aboriginal languages overall, and we use as many of those languages as possible. But there are a couple of languages that don't get as widespread a broadcast because the speakers are few. One of those languages is Tagish and the other is Han.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

It's very interesting. And congratulations. I really appreciate your brief.

[Shirley Adamson]

Thank you so much.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I had a quick question for Chief Carvill.

I am really very interested in your emphasis on increasing education, Chief Carvill, and also on building good working relationships with all levels of governments, and I agree with you that's very important.

I noticed your concern about cuts to the program to discourage smoking among aboriginals. On the basis of your experience--since we have an expert witness here--I wonder if you could tell us what measures you have found to be most effective in reducing dependence on tobacco in the communities that you're aware of.

[Grand Chief Andy Carvill]

The only measures that I am aware of are the educational tools. They're for educating the people, educating the youth about the harms of smoking. There are many measures out there. We can get the message across to students.