moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the provision of a locally or regionally produced news service must be part of the operating conditions for general interest television licence holders.
Mr. Speaker, first, I wish to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Honoré-Mercier. I also want to thank the House for proceeding with this debate.
Obviously, this is not the only place this debate has been held. There has been debate in other committees, and there have been question periods as well. I want to recognize and congratulate all the political parties that have worked on this issue with honesty and in a non-partisan way.
As a matter of fact, this is a non-partisan situation. First, it affects the employees of TQS, and we are all concerned when there is a loss of jobs. Second, there have been meetings with the unions. The Bloc Québécois, the NDP, the minister, myself, everyone has met with the unions. Now it is time to move from words to action.
We made some headway yesterday in the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We know that the Bloc moved a motion to this effect. I proposed some amendments, and there was unanimous approval. This is therefore a debate on the substance. It is an important debate. We are talking about the future of our airwaves, the future of our own general interest television. This will have an impact on all the regions of Canada. Nevertheless, the specific objective of this first motion was to discuss, in particular, the future of TQS.
It is not up to us to assume the role of the CRTC. We understand that it is a completely independent agency. We also understand, in the light of the CRTC decision, that after June 2 the government does have one power; the minister has the power to overturn a decision. Our role is to set out a direction and to send a clear message. Our role is to hold a debate on the future of general interest television but, above all, to define the role of general interest television.
For us, general interest television means having a news service in which there is local production and regional impact. In the case of TQS, local means Montreal, Quebec City, Saguenay, Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke. It may be that, in the future, decisions will be made to that effect and they will have an impact on the rest of the country.
Let me be clear. It has nothing to do with playing the role on behalf of CRTC. It is about discussing it among ourselves and defining the orientation of what should be conventional TV. From the opposition's perspective, it is clear in our minds.
The leader of the official opposition said clearly for TQS, but also for the conventional TV as a whole, that we could not think about conventional TV without having news services and news services means at the same time that we will have local services and regional services.
It is not only about only Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. We need to ensure we will also have a taste on the ground, on the field, of what goes on through that, and we clearly need journalists to make it happen in those regions.
Surely we will all say that we met the unions at some point and supported the people from TQS. For my part, I want to send a very clear message today on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada. On behalf of our party and our leader to all the unions and the people of the Trois-Rivières area at an important meeting on April 26, the Liberal Party of Canada, which forms the official opposition to this government, said it thinks that TQS, a general interest broadcaster, would no longer be TQS without keeping a certain amount of news.
It is important to talk about this today. If we were to make a decision, I would want us to define together what the basic direction of general interest television is.
It is also important to us to ensure we send a clear message. When it comes to general interest broadcasters in the field of television and the sale of their licences, we do not think that the news should be considered just another commodity. We cannot allow ourselves, in the name of diversity and the very future of the regions, to send a message that if a broadcaster is losing money, for example, it can get rid of the news to cut costs. It is also a matter of diversity.
This goes back to 1999 and the new television policy. We must ensure that consideration is given to a news service reflecting what is happening in the region or in a community. It is not just a business decision. That is what worries me about all this. I have a feeling that when people talk about the news in those terms, they only think about financial matters.
I myself used to host a radio show on CKVL and I saw the loss of the news service. It is not easy for the journalists and their families but it is also not good for the future of the news itself.
That is why we decided to have a debate today in much greater depth on what general interest television should be. At the same time, we want to send the message that what really prompted all this was obviously the decision about the future of TQS.
Our thoughts are with the employees. What we want is not very complicated. We want Télévision Quatre Saisons to survive. That is important. At the same time, we also think it is important to send a message about the importance of keeping a certain amount of news.
In English it is like a basic level of information. One cannot think about conventional TV without thinking about having news service.
Whether I am in Sudbury, Winnipeg, Brandon or anywhere in New Brunswick, in Quebec, in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, Trois-Rivières or Sherbrooke, then for sure when we have what is referred to as general interest television, we would like to have an idea of what is going on around us. I find it hard to imagine constantly having a traffic report about the situation on the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Montréal when my friends in Roberval are watching television. People want to know what is going on in their part of the world. They are not going to ask the CRTC what the percentage should be and have them give us an exact number of hours. But they are going to say that the principle of preserving this regional aspect and this news service is important.
The government has done several important things. I want to congratulate the Minister of Labour. I also have a news release from the CSN here. The Minister of Labour could have made an exception to the Canada Labour Code and eliminated the requirement that TQS employees get 16 weeks’ notice, but he did not do that. That is entirely to his credit, and it is what someone who is a minister should do: make a decision.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing for the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages. She cannot just say that she has written a letter to the chairman of the CRTC, that she went and shook hands with the employees and she thinks this is regrettable. Our role, and I have been a minister in the past, is also to set the direction. We know there is a Broadcasting Act. We know that there are parameters that have to be abided by. But if there is a power to reverse a decision, there is absolutely nothing to stop the Minister from showing what the direction is going to be from now on.
She is being asked to do what our leader called for at the convention of the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec on April 29 at the Quebec City Hilton. We understand that the CRTC has a job to do, but we are asking that the minister take a position immediately. Does she think that a general interest television station should have a news service? That is what we think. Obviously we cannot talk about general interest television without having that service; otherwise, it becomes more and more of a specialty service.
On a more personal note, I hope that TQS will not have 24 hours of Bleu nuit and The Flintstones. First, because it is what it is and I do not agree with it, but second, and more seriously, a lot of young men and young women, journalists and technicians, are not sure at the moment whether they will be able to find new jobs, be it at TVA or at Radio-Canada or elsewhere. We have to think about how TQS has been an exceptional school for the last 20 years. TQS had chosen this regional niche to make sure that this kind of diversity had a showcase.
I therefore ask my colleagues to give this motion their unanimous support and show that we are sensitive to and aware of the future of general interest television, and that this includes a news service. Long live TQS with its news broadcasts.