Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise on behalf of the Minister of Canadian Heritage and speak on a motion from the opposition concerning significant and continuous support of the CBC by this government.
Discussions about the CBC cannot be but emotional, undoubtedly because the CBC is so dear to Canadians.
Each night Canadians tune in to CBC news to keep up to date with the new challenges facing the country and the government. As Canada's first source of public information and as a source of national pride, the CBC is acutely aware of the challenges that must be met for Canada to achieve a sustainable level of prosperity.
The CBC is Canada's largest cultural institution. It is the guardian of the Canadian experience. The voices of Canadians echo through its history and its archives. For most of this century Canadians have sought their reflection, which they found in the CBC.
Since it was founded in 1937 by the then Liberal government,the CBC has been the main instrument of the Canadian broadcasting policy. As a true reflection of our country's growth, the CBC has adjusted to the new realities with the passing decades.
Reflecting the Canadian situation at the time, the 1968 Broadcasting Act conferred a far-reaching mandate to the CBC: to broadcast everything, in fact, so as to please everybody. This
mandate was quite appropriate in 1968, since the CBC, particularly the CBC television network, was the only service many Canadians had access to in a world where broadcasting was still made through waves.
Nowadays, the conditions are drastically different. Apart from technological progress, among them the multichannel broadcasting, Canada can now rely on dynamic and innovative private producers. This means that the CBC does not have to produce all its own programs, particularly its entertainment programs. Thus, the CBC now buys about 46 per cent of its English-speaking and French-speaking programs from independent Canadian producers. These programs complete its in-house programming.
In recent years the CBC has been focusing increasingly on bringing Canadian programming to Canadians. To counter the dominance of U.S. mass culture, the CBC's primary concern has been to attract large audiences to Canadian programming. That is just what the CBC has been doing.
Witness the success of CBC productions like "Road to Avonlea", "La Petite Vie", "North of 60" and "Scoop", to name only a few. CBC programming, especially in drama, has achieved excellence over and over again.
The problems and challenges of the French language network are not those of the English-language network. Indeed, the French-language market is more limited and concentrated than the English-speaking market. This creates conditions and an industrial structure that are quite different than in English Canada. This government recognizes that these two different situations call for different policies.
The French network of the CBC has done an excellent job in Quebec, where it is very important to French-speaking viewers. The province has its own star system and many artists from Quebec are well known in all French-speaking households. The network has been a useful springboard for French-speaking artists and has contributed to the creation of a strong Franco-Canadian identity.
Not since the advent of television has the CBC been asked to accelerate its evolution to the extent that technology and finances are demanding today.
However the public must never be the missing link in the CBC's evolution. Last fall the public joined the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in its journey toward a new future for the CBC that will be more than brave new words. It will be a future that will ensure the survival of the fittest source of Canadian content, the CBC.
The road to CBC's success was paved with new definitions, new ideas and new ways of dealing with the realities of the time. The most recent exercise of this kind dates back to 1991 when one of the elements of the CBC's mandate was reaffirmed: "to contribute to a shared national consciousness and identity".
The funding provided to the CBC accounts for more than 60 per cent of the total federal funding provided to cultural organizations under the Department of Canadian Heritage. The CBC could be compared to an orchestra that provides a showcase for all the cultural instruments.
The CBC has allowed the community of Canadians to develop regionally and nationally while always being in tune with each other's concerns. The CBC can legitimately take credit for being the link that allowed the far flung communities of the second largest territory on earth to define themselves as Canadians. The CBC is the lenscrafter of Canada's vision of itself and the world. It magnifies our cultural sovereignty and helps us see our way clearly through many challenges ahead.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage thinks that the present context, characterized by all these challenges and changes, gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate the role that public broadcasting plays and must continue to play, given the increasing globalization and the existing social and economic situation.
The epicentre of the first tremor of challenge can be found in the realm of technology. Consider the multiplication of television channels which is already considerable and which satellite and digital compression are about to render astronomical.
One may ask what purpose public broadcasting serves when services and choice proliferate and the line between public and private television, once clearly defined, seems to be blurring. The response to that challenge is that the role of the public broadcaster has never been greater, nor the need for it more urgent.
These multiple choices, coming for the most part from outside Canada, will be dictated essentially by the logic of commercial television, which is different from that of public broadcasting.
If public television is to survive it is in its best interest to flaunt the characteristics that distinguish it from commercial television. It is by firming its difference that public television justifies its social values.
Public broadcasting cannot be guided solely by commercial considerations in so far as it has quite a different mission to bear witness to society's progress to affirm our national identity. The true mission and values of the CBC form the source of its appeal to many Canadians.
Public broadcasting is an instrument designed to democratize culture and information and showcase the Canadian contribution on the world stage. That is the public service in public broadcasting and one important reason why it should not be sacrificed entirely to the demands of commercial advertising.
We understand that as a public corporation facing low tide fiscally, the CBC needs to launch itself as a cultural vessel custom built for these leaner times. We are confident that CBC management will be able to navigate through uncharted waters ahead.
In the 1995 budget funding for the CBC was set at 4 per cent below previously scheduled levels. This will amount to a savings of $44 million for the coming year.
As the opposition speculates about the contents of the 1996 budget, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been hard at work laying the foundations for a stronger CBC.
We already know that important changes are taking place within the broadcasting industry. Fundamental changes beyond budget reductions and advances in technology leading toward greater diversity are expected to translate into more competition, fragmented audiences, a major investment in technology and potentially higher costs for Canadian programming.
In television the advent of digital video compression will make direct broadcast satellite distribution possible and increased capacity for cable undertakings will make the 500-channel universe a reality.
The government must ensure that the private and public Canadian broadcasting system is ready to compete at the national and international level, on the information highway and in all the mega-networks of the future.
The review by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage of the role of the CBC combined with the other supporting initiatives of the government, the information highway advisory council, the examination of the direct home satellite issue, the mandate review of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the National Film Board and Téléfilm represent the comprehensive integrated approach that will result in sound government policy which will take Canada and Canadian cultural products successfully into the information age. The approach will allow Canadian broadcasting and Canadian culture both English and French to thrive.
As the opposition speculates about the contents of the 1996 budget the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been hard at work laying the foundation for a stronger CBC.
According to the Bloc Quebecois, it is a threat that can only be eliminated by the publication of speculative projections for the next two years.
The hon. member's motion refers to some ominous threat looming over the CBC's French language network. The motion wrongly attributes this threat to a decision of the government to publish only the precise funding level of the CBC for the coming fiscal year.
By speculating on the possible number of people that will have to be laid off by the CBC, the opposition does nothing to help the cause of our public broadcasting system and adds to the climate of uncertainty felt by employees affected by the cuts.
I would like to end on a curious note. It seems strange to me that the entire basis of the motion is the hon. member's concern over the contents of the 1996-97 federal budget which should only matter to her after the separatists lose the referendum. Her heated comments are evidence of a referendum campaign gone stone cold.