Evidence of meeting #21 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cbc.
A video is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Absolutely, because, madam, as you know, the model for funding should be—
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Sorry?
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
“Contribution costing” is what we used to call it.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
What we have at CBC Radio-Canada is a hybrid model. For years, government has said and the CRTC has said that if you want to continue, we're not going to provide you with more dollars, but if you want to continue delivering new services to Canadians, then you have to do it on your own, and that's what we have gone out and done.
There's about $400 million to $500 million of commercial revenues generally, and subscription revenues, and revenues from rental of our facilities, and from all other initiatives that come to add to the billion dollars in order to deliver in this environment, in a complicated environment, services to Canadians. That's the business model.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Now, speaking of complicated environments, I want to ask a few questions about CBC's mandate and where it comes from.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The act.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Perfect. The mandate regarding official languages, what is it? Do you have to give equal—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The words are exactly that: “de façon équivalente”. It's not “equal” but “équivalente”.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Very well, thank you.
How does the CBC interpret its mandate regarding the promotion of both national languages, or does it?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
It is the DNA of your public broadcaster. We deliver our services in both official languages across the country, from one ocean to the other and up to the top, and it's so embedded in us that now we are more and more one corporation. We share services in the regions, at the network level.…
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Absolutely. We share their expertise.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Absolutely. The regions means in every—
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Yes, it’s across the country because we have two levels. We have a network program that goes across the country, and then we have programs that come from the different regions where we are present, and in there we have sometimes CBC and Radio-Canada and, more and more, CBC and Radio-Canada work together.
We can give you a whole bunch of examples of how incredibly close and tightly knit our operations are right now.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Absolutely.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
What importance do you give to official languages in the distribution of your budget, percentage-wise or—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
We look at the services we have to render to Canadians, and we then look at how we best serve them, what services we must fund. We look at the resources we have and we allocate it based on one corporation. That's what we do.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
It shakes down—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Ball park? Right now, close to 55% of our budget goes to CBC and about 45% goes to Radio-Canada.... Not on budget, I should say, but on
the government's attributions.
We just looked at this right now, but in the last 15 or 16 years it will vary between 60:40 to 55:45. Right now it's much closer to 55:45 than it is to 60:40.