Official Languages Committee on Nov. 1st, 2011

[François Côté]

No, I'm just a member.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

With respect to the newspapers, I was able to read La Liberté on the Internet. However, I was unable to do so in the case of L'Eau vive. There is a website, but the newspaper is not available.

Can you tell me how many community newspapers offer online subscriptions? How many of these newspapers can you download?

[Francis Potié]

Are you talking about legal downloading?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Yes.

[Francis Potié]

There aren't many. I believe it's possible for L'Express Ottawa, La Liberté and Le Franco. Four or five of them publish their full version of the news for online subscribers. In other cases, they may publish excerpts and other items that do not appear in the newspaper on a database.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Is there a strategic reason why all newspapers are moving in that direction?

[Francis Potié]

Yes. When it comes to the Internet, newspapers are proceeding by trial and error. I believe there is a strategic aspect to this, in that we want to be available via mobile technology, but we are not there yet.

So, there is a strategy which is taking us in the direction of providing electronic subscriptions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Galipeau.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, would like to welcome all our witnesses to the committee.

I have a fairly unique rapport with community radio. When I was a child, I was the host of a program for children. It was broadcast, not on community radio, but on a commercial radio station with a 1,000-watt antenna. I also did some radio when I was a teenager.

When a francophone movement in the National Capital Region called on me to get involved, in the summer of 2008, following a refusal by the CRTC to grant a licence to a francophone community radio station in the region, I went on the offensive. Now we know the results.

I have been in the House of Commons for 2,110 days. I must admit that, despite my devotion to the cause, I only went to see you once. Perhaps I should have gone more often. But you came to see us.

I would like to talk to you about culture. How can we ensure that community radio stations, and perhaps even community newspapers, can become a better mirror of minority linguistic societies? How can we help you along the way?

[François Côté]

First of all, I would like to thank you for your proactive support of francophone radio in Ottawa.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

I am still waiting to read your letter in Le Droit.

[François Côté]

In any case, I wanted to thank you.

To better reflect the communities we serve, we created a platform for artists. I will let Simon tell you more about it, because he is the one who developed it.

The service we provide to the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada consists of a programming exchange. Our server has a bank of programming that we make available to all of our stations. That way, you are able to hear a program produced in Chéticamp in Cornwall, Victoria or Yellowknife.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

But not in Iqaluit?

[François Côté]

Yes, you can also hear it in Iqaluit.

That gives us an opportunity to disseminate the culture of all of our communities across all communities. Obviously, we still have some ways to go. Indeed, we would like our radio stations to better reflect our communities, but given our lack of resources, that is quite difficult. It's a problem.

The platform is one of our initiatives. It is one of the jewels in the crown of ARC of Canada.

[Simon Forgues]

About two or three years ago, members of the Association des professionnels de la chanson et de la musique franco-ontariennes attended our annual general meeting, which was taking place in Ottawa, to talk to our members about what could be done to create closer ties between community artists and community radio stations.

At the time, artists expressed a desire to be heard more often, and benefit from better promotion. The people representing our radio stations answered that it is not always easy to have access to music created by community artists. Some of the reasons for that are the fact that distribution is a challenge, that staff turnover in radio stations can be frequent, and that the inherent costs of promoting artists are high. For example, it's expensive to send compact disks through the mail. We came to the conclusion that the best solution would be to create a national platform where music files from our community artists would be downloaded. That way, it would be possible for people to quickly, even instantaneously, access these files for free in cases where a station was connected to the server when the song was added.

The idea was to ensure that the music created by an artist from Western Canada—for example, Manitoba or Saskatchewan—would be broadcast in the Atlantic provinces, and vice versa. That way, songs by Acadian artists would be broadcast over the airwaves of radio stations in Western Canada or Ontario. That project was completed this summer, without additional financial support; in other words, the ARC of Canada paid for the hosting, implementation and maintenance of that platform. Artists now have a platform for disseminating their musical works. And radio stations are now able to more quickly and more easily access the work of our artists.

Even better, our colleagues from the Association des radiodiffuseurs communautaires du Québec have thus far said that they are very open to this service and inclined to pick it up. It is not yet a reality, because we want to test the platform. There are still some adjustments to be made, but we hope that, very soon from now, the 30 off community radio stations that are members of the ARC du Québec will also have access to this material. Not only will artists from our communities be able to travel to provinces outside Quebec, they will see their music played by radio stations in Quebec.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

I want to commend you for that initiative.

It's very important because the major broadcasters do not provide access to francophone artists from elsewhere in Canada. They are not part of the secessionist messaging coming out of other politically polarized groups. They are not serving the message—

[Simon Forgues]

The purpose—

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

If you manage to do that, you will help the overall francophone community in Canada, not only in the nine provinces outside Quebec and the three territories in Canada, but Quebec as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

How much time do I have left?

I had enough questions for an another 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Your time is up.

Mr. Lauzon, please.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

No, I have no questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Trottier, please.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank you for being here this morning.

I have several questions about youth. As I see it, our youth represent the future of the minority language communities. I spent a good part of my life in Alberta. I used the French language media in that region, as well as in Ontario.

Now I live in Toronto. Once again, the French-language newspapers and radio stations are very important for the survival and development of the francophone community in those areas.

Do you have any particular projects or initiatives underway with a view to attracting young people? As you were saying, the platforms aimed at young people today are different. They don't really use traditional radio, television or newspapers.

My question is actually addressed to all the witnesses. Do you have any programs, projects or initiatives that target youth? Are you changing direction, in terms of your activities aimed at attracting young people?

[François Côté]

There is no doubt that they represent the future of our radio stations. It is extremely important to involve young people in our stations. Often, student radio stations in the schools record programs that we broadcast on our radio stations.

Also, we invite young people to come in and produce programs in our radio stations, either in the evening or on the week-ends. That way, we are able to introduce them to culture and to radio. Often, these young people remain involved in our radio stations and make a career there.

For us, it is especially important to develop an even greater number of projects that involve young people. However, as you know, there are not many avenues available to us to present projects for funding, because we are broadcasters. We do not easily fit into any particular programming slot. That is the problem. There is not necessarily any avenue for us to present our projects.