Thank you very much.
My name is Richard Stursberg. I am the head of English services for the CBC, including television, radio, websites, and so on.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to come and talk with you today. I understand that you've invited me here as head of CBC's English services to discuss our March broadcast of this year's Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame gala.
In order to do that, I think it's important to provide you with some context about how we at English services contribute to Canada's shared national identity.
First, as you know, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an arms'-length crown corporation. Its mandate, as well as the independence of its programming decisions, is spelled out in law in the Broadcasting Act.
I want you to know that, as Canada's public broadcaster, I believe we have a special role to play providing opportunities for French- and English-speaking Canadians to share their culture, their views, and their experiences. No other broadcaster is this country does this. At CBC we do it every day.
I'm not talking about symbolic or token gestures to put one culture in front of the other. I'm talking about sharing cultures in a meaningful way. I'm talking about taking creative ideas from one culture and adapting them for the other in a way that works for the audience and in a way that respects both cultures and the broadcast medium.
That why CBC and Radio-Canada work together in joint projects of deep cultural significant to both cultures: Documentaries like Hockey, a People's History, or the mini-series on Trudeau, and Lévesque. These are not some cheap translation of another language's programs. They are created together, from inception to broadcast.
When we produced the sitcom Ciao Bella!, a lighthearted look at the experiences of an Italian-Canadian woman living in Montreal, we shot every episode twice: Once in English, once in French. The completed series run on both CBC Television and la télévision de Radio-Canada.
Every day our foreign correspondents give a Canadian perspective on international events—filing their reports in English and French. No one else does that. On election nights, and for significant nation-building events, CBC and Radio-Canada work together to offer the best national perspective Canadians can get. In the last two years alone, we have jointly produced over 200 specials.
At CBC English services, we continually look for new ways to bring French culture to English Canadians in a way that will resonate with our audiences. In 2004 we launched the half-hour weekly show Au Courant, with Mitsou Gélinas. This show is dedicated to telling English-Canadian audiences about what French Canadians were talking about that week.
In fact, I had the pleasure of being President of Telefilm Canada and when we produced Denis Arcand's feature film, Les invasions barbares, Mitsou was part of the film cast. That is how I ended up having the pleasure of meeting her. It was therefore my idea to invite Mitsou to be the moderator of this show.
We chose Mitsou because she is an artist some English Canadians are at least a little familiar with from her career as an actress and as a pop star.
On CBC television in the past three years alone, we have broadcast French-language hits like Les Boys, Grande Ourse, and Seducing Dr. Louis (La grande séduction), as well as 36 other French-language titles representing almost 70 hours of programming.
Since 2002, our Newsworld documentary stream, The Lens, has commissioned and broadcast more than 30 documentaries with our colleagues at RDI or with other French-language broadcasters. We co-produced the award winning Culture-choc/Culture Shock, where emerging anglophone and francophone journalists share their perceptions of the experiences of other Canadians as they travel across the country.
On our English web radio service and on Sirius Satellite Radio we offer a segment called The French Connection. On this show our host, Craig Norris, holds a music exchange with our colleagues at Bande à part at Radio-Canada; they introduce new music to each other and to our audiences.
Several times a year, CBC Radio 3 and Bande à part host live events together, bilingual concerts with musicians performing in French and English. We did this last month during Canadian Music Week.
On CBC English radio, the successful C'est la vie continues to offer English Canadians a window into the lives of French-speaking Canadians from across the country. It has celebrated the career of diva Diane Dufresne, talked to a new wave of young, political filmmakers, traced the origin of poutine, and celebrated French love songs. One of its most popular segments is Word of the Week, which introduces anglophones to distinctly Canadian French words and phrases. The English radio program À propos broadcasts nothing but French music and French artists from Canada and around the world.
Last fall, CBC Regina and Radio-Canada put together Mon pays, My country, a bilingual evening of country music featuring Brad Johner, Donny Parenteau, Véronique L'Abbé and Louis Bérubé.
We have broadcast Marco Calliari performing at Festival du Bois in British Columbia; Brigitte Poulin and Silvia Mandolini, two of Montreal's hottest new artists, performing the Canadian premiere of Le souvenir de l'oubli by Montreal composer François Rose; and Terez Montcalm singing in French and English at the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre. The list is extensive.
Canada Live broadcasts live concerts from every region of the country; one-third of that content features French artists. It was Canada Live, in fact, that broadcast the entire Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame gala.
Now let me say a few things about the songwriters' gala. CBC has hosted the gala for the past three years. The actual program is long—over three hours. Every year, we have broadcast the entire three and a half hour program on CBC Radio 2—you can do that on radio. It was also broadcast on CBC Radio One. Every year, we also take an edited version of the show—cut from three and a half hours down to 44 minutes—to broadcast on CBC Television. That edited program features artists that are popular with our audience. That's what we did this year.
Now, I understand that songwriter Claude Dubois was upset that he was honoured at the gala but was not part of the broadcast on CBC English television. I'm sorry he feels that way. And I'm sorry for the perception in the Quebec media that we at CBC English services were insulting French artists. That was not our intention. For all of that, I am really sorry.
But frankly, to call us racists and anti-French is outrageous, and I am a little surprised that members of Parliament, who were quick to express their desire to investigate our broadcast, did not speak out against that kind of attack. It is beneath us as a country; it is insulting to the people across CBC's English services who work in all the ways I have described, to try and find ways to showcase the Quebec culture to our English audiences in a way that works. That's not an easy task, and to call them racists is wrong and unfair.
Remember, we at CBC English services are making programs that are by definition for English-speaking audiences. If they don't understand our programs or can't relate to them, they won't watch them. It's as simple as that.
So we find ways to adapt French culture in ways that they will watch: stories like Rumours, our version of the French hit comedy Rumeurs; or our current hit Sophie, set in Toronto instead of Montreal, as is Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin.
We will continue to look for those kinds of stories, for ways to showcase French artists, for ways to tell English Canadians about what's going on in French-language communities, for ways that CBC and Radio-Canada can work together to bring the best to Canadians. We do it because we believe in it.
Now I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.