Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-7, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act to permit the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, to make regulations to establish criteria for the awarding of costs to interveners in broadcasting proceedings as it currently has the power to award costs in telecommunications cases.
I will start by thanking both Senator Finestone and the hon. member for Charleswood St. James--Assiniboia for getting this important bill before us today. The bill would change the Broadcasting Act so the CRTC could award costs to third party interveners in broadcasting proceedings.
The idea is not radical. It is done all the time in CRTC proceedings under the Telecommunications Act. The world would not end for our telephone companies. Adopting the bill would be no real threat to our private broadcasters.
I have been my party's critic for the CRTC for four years now. The need for the bill is obvious to me and should be obvious to others as well.
I will start by reading into the record the comments of the chair of the CRTC to the heritage committee last week as part of our study into Canadian broadcasting. Mr. Colville said:
Our job is a daily delicate balance of competing vested interests...Then there is the challenge of balancing those big strong national players and the local focus that one wants to have in Winnipeg or Halifax, where I come from. So I think it's going to be a challenge as to how best we can draw that balance.
I am pleased the chair of the CRTC is concerned about balance. The reason I am so pleased to support the bill is that our system needs balance and currently lacks it. One way to regain balance is to give more voices the ability to be effectively represented at public hearings.
The current public hearing process used by the commission is problematic. The public interest seems to be getting lost. Interests with deep pockets get preferential access to the system. This makes it impossible for the public to have meaningful input.
It is easy for well paid broadcast lawyers to navigate the shoals of the CRTC. However for people approaching their regulator because they are concerned about their culture, their cable service or their community channel the process is confusing and inaccessible.
Another impediment to the public is the language used by the CRTC. It is fair to say the CRTC's use of words is close to impenetrable.
Last weekend I was in Winnipeg attending my party's successful national convention. One of the speakers was Lorne Calvert, the premier of Saskatchewan. He related to delegates a Tommy Douglas story about language in government.
After one of his victorious elections Tommy returned to his office in Regina to meet with his senior bureaucrats. He pulled a constituent's letter from his pocket, put it on the table and passed it around. The letter simply said “The buggers broke my fence”. Tommy looked at the stunned officials. He said “Okay, let me explain this to you. The noun is buggers, the verb is broke and the object is fence. Why can't any of you write like this?”
Tommy Douglas was talking about clarity of writing in government, something not generally found at the CRTC. The CRTC is always referring people to one or another of its decisions, all of which are numbered, all of which are filed and none of which are understood. Its dictionary seems to lack words like watch, write, rules, TV station, evening, person or cable company. Instead it seems to rely on its own language code which consists of words like distributor, licensee, undertaking, designated viewing times and priority programming.
Last week the CRTC denied the request of a small Newmarket radio station for a programming change so it could compete with the big market stations in nearby Toronto. The decision said:
In view of the foregoing, the Commission is satisfied that the licensee does not need additional flexibility with respect to the level of hits it broadcasts to successfully program the “Oldies Dancing” format described in its application. Accordingly, it remains a condition of licence for CKDX-FM that the licensee broadcast, in any broadcast week, less than 50% hit material as defined in Public Notice CRTC 1997-42, as amended by Circular No. 445 dated 14 August 2001--
And so on and so on.
This is CRTC code language. In effect the CRTC is saying no. It is saying it agrees with the small station's big competitors who were at the hearing with their bank of lawyers. The saddest part is that the CRTC claims to have improved its language due to public complaints. That seems to be the way with the CRTC. Big broadcasters get their way while small players are overwhelmed by the process.
Another recent example was in television. The CRTC gave CanWest Global a seven year licence renewal and policy approval for cross media ownership even though the commission's own decision stated:
Global confirmed that CIII-TV, a station that serves an audience across Ontario, was broadcasting an average of 13 hours per week of regional news. This level is below the 17.5 hours per week of regional news to which the licensee committed for the current term of licence.
Was CanWest Global punished? No, it was rewarded. If one is Global one can break the rules and get a seven year renewal.
Vision TV recently applied for a similar seven year licence. Vision is a small, non-profit, multi-faith broadcaster. It does not have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on the process. It has no bank of lawyers and has admitted to poor record keeping regarding its Canadian content logs. The CRTC came down hard on Vision TV. It granted it a limited 33 month renewal with harsh restrictions.
The rules seem to be that only big players get their way. Bill S-7 would help change this. It would allow a countervailing opinion to be heard at the hearing table, one that has the resources to penetrate the process and the language.
Until we can get cabinet to change the process so it is understandable and accessible Bill S-7 is the next best thing. In the interest of the public and the future of Canadian broadcasting I am pleased to support the bill.