Official Languages Committee on May 1st, 2014

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Mr. Nantel, I'm not going to interpret the minister's words; rather I will go back to the questions asked by Mr. Godin a few minutes ago, as well as the other questions of committee members about our level of service.

There is a direct relationship between the public broadcaster's funding level and the quality of the service it provides. The more financial resources are given it, the greater the repercussions on its mandate. In New Zealand there is no public radio and all television, practically, is commercial. In that case you have a $21 per capita contribution. Is that what we want? However, if we want something that resembles the whole range of services the British receive, we have to know that there the contribution to public broadcasting is $97 per person. There is clearly a direct proportional link between the funding public broadcasters receive and the level of service they provide. All of the that comes under an umbrella we call the mandate.

If we have $5 per person to provide a service, we have to decide if that service is intended to inform, enlighten or entertain, for instance. And we will only have five dollars' worth of that. Then it will be up to us as a civil society to decide whether that is sufficient, to evaluate whether a reduction in service compromises our democracy, to see whether our information programs are less relevant, and so on. That is the debate.

We have a very broad mandate that has not been adjusted since 1991 and does not even mention new digital platforms. The mandate only refers to television and radio. Mr. Daniel was talking earlier about a transition toward digital. There is indeed a transition to digital. However, allow me to say that over 85% of the people who listen to us are still watching our television programs sitting in their armchairs, at the precise time when these programs are broadcast on television.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Allow me to intervene. What you have just said corresponds perfectly to what most people concerned by the fate of CBC/Radio-Canada or engaged in this file feel.

However, you concluded your statement by mentioning that in 2020 you will have to be a more flexible public media organization that will be better able to adjust to changes in the habits of consumers of media. That seemed very relevant, but you also stated that you had to be a smaller and better targeted media organization. That concerns me. I feel that your slogan for 2015-2020 may have to be “Everywhere, a Little Bit” rather than “Everyone, Every Way”.

You seem to be turning your back somewhat on that problem, which is very worrying. As you have just said there is a direct link between public funding and the services that are provided. However your statements seem fatalistic to me.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Mr. Nantel, it is not fatalism, but simply an observation.

The message I want to leave with you is the following one. On the one hand there are expectations from the public broadcaster; on the other hand, it has a mandate entrusted to it under the law. In the current economic environment, all of the actors who are players in the Canadian media ecosystem have access every year to a certain number of millions of dollars. We are sharing a publicity pie that is increasingly migrating to other platforms. The public broadcaster has an enormous mandate but its funding is constantly decreasing. That is where we have to make choices and that is why we have chosen to abandon sport, or just about. I find that deplorable because personally the sports service was my favourite.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Is that not precisely the nature of generalist television? That is why I agree with you entirely when you defend your variety programming. The objective is that a program like La semaine verte, which is about agriculture, can be broadcast just before a game show about popular music, for instance.

The CBC/Radio-Canada problems we sometimes discuss and outline are the lot of any generalist broadcaster, are they not?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

The answer is yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Williamson, you have the floor.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Lacroix, it's nice to see you again. I thank you and your colleagues for being here today.

I have a couple of comments, and mine will be a shotgun approach of a few questions. But I'll say off the top that I do appreciate the work that CBC and Radio-Canada do, particularly when it comes to minority language communities, in presenting a national platform for news so that we don't live in silos in our respective provinces across the country. I think one of your strengths is bringing news from different regions to different parts of the country. I see that in my home province of New Brunswick. I'm also aware of the good work you do in bringing news from western Canada right into Quebec. I don't believe your competitors do that nearly as well.

Turning to a couple of questions, I'm curious to get your thinking around the mandate to connect Canadians, but at the same time you obviously have commercial pressures when it comes to programming. How do you determine which programs are going to make it to air when it comes to looking at changes and cutting them? For example, Arctic Air is one that I have recently noticed is being phased out or cut, but for a while it seemed to be getting some pretty good promotion on your network. That's just one example. I'm curious how your commercial mandate meshes with the need to connect Canadians globally.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Mr. Williamson, that is the most important question that our programmers ask themselves every day: Heather Conway, who leads our English services and Louis Lalonde, who leads the French services, and their teams. When they look at their television schedule, they have to contend with trying to balance a television schedule that is clearly differentiated or trying to differentiate itself from the commercial broadcasters, which means Canadian programs in prime time, which means Marketplace in prime time, which means public affairs.

If you look at what we do in French, you have Découverte on Sunday nights, you have public affairs, but something like Enquête now works with Marketplace more and more in developing stories that nobody else actually investigates because that's what we do. We look at the international piece because, as you probably know, we are the only ones who actually have a window for Canadians on the world, and the world on Canadians through Canadian eyes, so we look at this.

We then look at the cost of that particular slot, that particular program, that particular show, and what it will bring. We then balance that with respect to the resources that we have. People make calls on the interest that audiences have, whether those shows differentiate CBC enough, and whether they are still at the centre of our mandate.

Patricia, you are much closer to that than me. What would you add?

[Patricia Pleszczynska]

I was going to add that the choices about what to keep on the air, once they're on the air, are exactly as Hubert was describing.

One of the issues however is getting them on the air. As you certainly know, we don't produce drama in-house. Drama, and all fiction in fact, is produced with the contributions of the Canada Media Fund or the FMC en français. So that process in and of itself is a complex one, and it's an extremely complicated set of criteria that we have to follow in order to get our projects approved.

Even sometimes with programming that we are convinced would be a really good reflection of our country or would be a really good story line, if it's not accepted or if it doesn't factor into the criteria and the point system, we may not get that on the air because we are not using exclusively our own funding and therefore our own decision-making process to put those programs on the air. That certainly is attached to performance because one of the very important criteria in the CMF is performance on the air. It's a bit of a vicious circle in that, if you put programming accepted by the CMF on the air and it is not performing and you keep it there, then the following year your envelope is reduced in consequence. So that's where the fine balance between quality and popularity is a factor in our decision making.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

Turning now to the local programming improvement fund, which I believe began in 2008, wasn't that meant to be phased out at some point? Is that correct? Can you provide some background on that?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

I think it was supposed to be a bridge. I think the CRTC saw a hole in the way that local programming was done in the country. I think the people who actually had access to the fund, because it was not only us, it was anybody.... The criteria were there and if you met the criteria you were actually able to trigger some funding. I think it suited exactly what we did, so that's why I think we were successful in triggering funding from the local programming improvement fund.

The life of that fund was not determined at the beginning, and Jean-Pierre Blais knows this because I've repeated it many times. Jean-Pierre Blais is the chairman of the CRTC. For us, this was a really big disappointment and I think it was a very negative decision on what we and other broadcasters brought to support programming in the communities when they decided to get there. Frankly, it was a pass-on. On your cable bill you saw $1.22 or something charged to Canadians to support programming in the different communities.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

With the challenges, with some of the budgetary pressures you've seen, whether it's from some of the decisions that have been made in Ottawa or some of the market decisions that are much more recent, have you examined alternate funding models that don't involve either a tax or a forced levy, like the British TV tax for example, that you could consider as a way to boost revenues?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Monsieur Lacroix.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

The funding models to which CBC could have access involve changing the model for everybody who is in there, because if you decide that we have access or a different access to the Canadian media fund, you're immediately impacting everybody else who has access to that fund.

If you decide that we are going ad-free, and let's say that the public broadcaster should be going ad-free, that's $250 million to $300 million a year. We give that back to the privates and the privates then have access to those advertisers and we don't. How are you going to then allow the public broadcaster to get those dollars back in a stable way? Is it going to be a government incentive, is it going to be a tax on your television set as in the U.K., or is it going to be something on the new Internet providers so they'll have to pay some portion, as they did in Europe--in France and in Spain--a portion of some line in your P&L? All of these are available, but they involve having an open conversation and rethinking the whole of the model. This is not only a CBC/Radio-Canada situation, but is one in which we're directly involved.

When we went with the private broadcasters and sat for the first time—frankly, for the first time in our history, Mr. Williamson—with CTV and with TVA and with Rogers, we told the CRTC that this makes no sense, that value for signal is going to be important for the conventional broadcasters to live. That was a very strong signal.

Keith Pelley,who heads Rogers, was in front of the CRTC on the license renewals of Omni and of Citytv two or three weeks ago. The numbers he threw at the CRTC as to how much money they were bleeding on their conventional networks, he said, showed that this is not going to work and that the next people who were going to show up in front of the CRTC—CTV and Global—were also going to tell the CRTC that their conventional model doesn't work.

This is why this is something that needs to be addressed. As an industry, we're there, we're involved, and we're stuck in the middle. We don't have the platforms that the other broadcasters have, nor the integration that they have to support the conventional broadcaster.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay, thank you, Monsieur Lacroix.

Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I must not forget to point out that today is May 1, International Workers' Day. I want to wish all workers a good day wherever they are in Canada. Without them, we would not have a country.

I'd like to go back to Ms. St-Denis's question. Hubert, I know you're not going to like the question, but I would like you to answer me about Mr. Ron MacLean. Is he going to continue Don Cherry's habit of insulting francophones? Since you are the big boss I'd like to know what you intend to do. As a public broadcaster you represent the country's taxpayers. It is becoming tiresome to see our communities and our people divided up in this way. It is unacceptable. Mr. Lacroix—and here I am going to call you Mr. Lacroix— it is your responsibility to call this person to order.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Out of all of this fuss around the comments made by Ron during the first game of the series, I have retained the fact that his comments were immediately corrected during the second game. He explained what he meant and mentioned that he had used the wrong words to express his thoughts. Everyone here has probably at one time or another spoken words that did not exactly match what they were thinking. That is what happened there. I read and heard Ron's apology in that context, and as far as I am concerned the matter is closed.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

We just don't want to go through—again—what Don Cherry put us through throughout his career.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

In a few weeks, Mr. Cherry will no longer be working at CBC. Rogers, which bought the broadcasting rights, has built its own crew and has invited Don Cherry and a few other members of the team to join. So the environment will be different.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I want you to understand the point I am trying to make. We are two peoples that have to get along, and these comments are inappropriate and don't help keep us united. It's unfortunate we had to wait for someone to retire to no longer have to hear their comments against francophones. We saw what just happened in the United States sports world. The league did not wait for that 80-year-old man to retire before doing something about his behaviour. That's all I will say about this, since we have other fish to fry.

As this is the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I want to discuss programming cuts again. I am looking at the table you submitted to us. Cuts in regions with official language minority communities are hurting us. Nothing further needs to be said about this, as you know what is happening and understand it. A Radio-Canada group, which includes Céline Galipeau, even sent a letter that states something along these lines:

Over the years, we have perfected and reinvented our methods in order to become more efficient. However, we are reaching a breaking point. These cuts will definitely affect our programming and our news bulletins.

It's clear. People can see it, and they know how much the cuts are hurting.

Let's look at the table you distributed and see what groups are affected. In Saint John, New Brunswick, one francophone is affected, but no anglophones. In Moncton, seven francophones are affected, but no anglophones. In Victoria, one francophone is affected, but no anglophones.

Let's now consider the overall cuts. On the anglophone side, at CBC, 334 positions are being eliminated. On the francophone side, at Radio-Canada, 323 positions are being cut. Among the 33 million to 35 million Canadians, there are probably 8 million francophones, but the number of francophone and anglophone positions cut are the same.

I want to make sure that you understand my point. I didn't want there to be any cuts at Radio-Canada. My anger, my defence of Radio-Canada and my opposition to the cuts are due to the fact that this is my favourite television station. That's what I watch. That's what we in Acadia care so much about. Without Radio-Canada, we would have had precious little. This means that I really care about it very much.

However, I see an imbalance in these cuts. Doing away with seven francophone positions in Moncton will hurt the programming. I could spend all my floor time stressing how much that imbalance in the cuts made by the crown corporation is hurting us.

Céline Galipeau, a very respectable individual, and 17 others who signed the letter said that they are reaching a breaking point. Are they wrong? Are they not telling the truth? Is that not what the future holds? Your duty is to defend the crown corporation. You are trying to do two things at the same time. On the one hand, you are in charge of a crown corporation. On the other hand, you are complaining about the government cutting part of your funding, which comes out to $29 per person, while that amount is higher in other countries. That really hurts. The situation is bad, not only for Radio-Canada, but also for Canada's public broadcaster as a whole. Where is all this headed?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

I'm pleased to see that you watch our programming. I invite you to continue to do so.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Don't worry, I am watching.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

I will start with that.

Mr. Godin, the table does indicate that seven positions will be cut in New Brunswick. However, I don't want to start saying that five positions are being cut in Toronto or elsewhere. In fact, they are many more than that. An important point about the environment we are currently facing is that the cuts will hurt CBC/Radio-Canada. Cuts of $82 million are being made at CBC, and the Radio-Canada budget is losing $42 million or $43 million.

The number of positions affected is indicated. You say that practically the same number of positions are being cut on the French side and on the English side, and that seems like an imbalance to you. However, that is explained by the production models and the choices we are making. For instance, at Radio-Canada, we do more production in house.

Don't forget that 60¢ on every dollar invested in CBC/Radio-Canada is used to pay wages. If we have to make these kinds of cuts, full-time positions will clearly be affected. We don't have machines that make glasses or chairs. Our employees are highly talented individuals involved in programming. On each dollar invested, 60¢ is used to pay wages.

I want to come back to what you said. I remind you that the cuts at CBC amount to $82 million and those at Radio-Canada amount to $42 million. We are talking about significant cuts. I repeat that we have a very broad mandate and are increasingly underfunded. The mandate will be negatively affected by that lack of funding. However, we think that our mandate is behind the cuts we are making.

When Patricia sits down with Louis Lalande, who tells her that she needs to come up with x millions of dollars and asks her how she will do that, she takes into consideration the minority communities and the regions. The same goes for Shelagh. Maybe she can talk about the process that leads to these decisions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you. I must now turn the floor over to Mr. Gourde.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Okay. We will use another question to give you that information.