Wendy Lill

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 19th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this week the president of the CBC announced a new look for English television news: a vision of times zones, not communities; a homogenized confederation. Is this the vision of Canada that the government wishes to portray through our most important cultural institution, or will the government actually start giving the whole $1 billion in funding to the CBC, like the Prime Minister suggests is taking place, which will allow the CBC to keep supper hour shows across Canada?

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 19th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this week CBC's president admitted that the mother corp cannot keep local news on the air due to 16 years of government cuts. He finally admitted that it has been made very clear to him on several occasions that the CBC is not a priority of the government. His plan will eliminate 17 CBC local news shows in favour of a Toronto based supper hour show with five inserts, one per time zone.

Our most important cultural institution is redefining Canada as a country without communities but instead time zones. This homogenized confederation does not reflect the Canada I know.

The Prime Minister says it is okay, that $1 billion of stable funding goes into the CBC every year. If only it were true. Sadly, the CBC has not seen that kind of money for over five years. The Prime Minister's figure is over $200 million too high. This may seem like a small chunk of change to the PM but it is a serious amount of money to the number crunchers at the CBC.

I urge the Prime Minister to put his money where his mouth is and actually give the CBC the—

[Proportional Representation, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the House today on the issue of newspaper concentration.

On February 15 of this year, based on a query by the House leader of the New Democratic Party, the Prime Minister said that the government would study the concentration of newspaper ownership in response to Thomson's announcement that it would sell off most of its newspapers.

On May 1, given that Hollinger announced that over 300 community papers and over 50 daily papers would be up for sale, I asked the Prime Minister what the progress of his study was. I was stunned to hear him say at that point that he really saw no need whatsoever for a study any longer because it seemed that the problem had cured itself. He said that if Mr. Black was selling his papers, someone else would buy them and there would be less concentration rather than more. The Prime Minister said that it would be better to wait and see what Thomson will do with his newspapers.

I would suggest that the government abandon its wait and see policy on newspaper concentration and act now to re-establish a healthy environment for Canadian and community owned newspapers. I want to tell the Prime Minister that there are alternatives to his wait and see policy but they have to happen quickly.

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of hearing Tom Kent present to the industry committee an ongoing review of the Competition Act. Mr. Kent headed the royal commission in 1980 which recommended legislation to curb media concentration. That was 20 years ago. He said then and says now that the reason newspaper concentration is dangerous to democracy is, quite simply, that owners choose the viewpoint that rules their papers, that they in fact are the ideological masters of their papers. This is fine if there are dozens or hundreds of owners running hundreds of newspapers, a wide teaming forum of diverse views, but that is not the case in this country.

We have instead a spectacle of very few owners in control of all the papers. Two companies, Hollinger and Thomson, have a stranglehold on newspaper ownership, both weekly and daily. Lo and behold, something happened. We are not exactly sure what but some kind of economic force has intervened and newspapers are once again on the block and up for sale.

I would like to join with Mr. Kent and urge the Competition Bureau and the government to do something ambitious right now. The government should amend the Competition Act to allow the review of any purchase that would give a buyer more than 10% of the Canadian circulation of a newspaper owned either in English or French.

I would urge the government to create tax incentives that will assist community groups, institutions, co-ops and groups of investors to reinvest and rebuild community ownership of our means of expression, rebuild the diversity of opinion which is in fact democracy's oxygen and what we need to have a healthy citizenship.

I urge the government and the Prime Minister to make the necessary changes in the Competition Act during this very brief window of time that it has to actually cause some real change in the balance of ownership in our newspapers. I strongly recommend that the government act quickly so that we can re-establish a balance of diverse opinions in Canada.

[Points Of Order, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House that the record show that the MP for Dartmouth was in fact not in the House for the first vote last evening. She was in fact approaching it at a run but was not in her seat and the hon. member realizes that was not good enough.

Ironically the hon. member was late for this vote because she was in the West Block at the launch of a new book about M. J. Coldwell, a parliamentarian with such honesty and integrity that it has reached legendary proportions.

I apologize for my error in judgment and any difficulty it may have caused. I will work harder to keep the standards high in this important public place.

[Division No. 1319, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be recorded as having been opposed to the motion.

[Competition Act, May 16th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand tonight and speak about the future of CBC regional programming. It seems like a never ending story. On April 6 I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage whether she would commit to intervene with cash to save regional TV news programs if the corporation decided to kill supper hour shows.

That was on April 6. Today coincidentally the president of the CBC came before the heritage committee to talk to us on that very subject. The heritage committee had expressed a great deal of concern about rumours about impending cuts to regional programming. We asked if he would come before the committee to discuss it.

What we heard today from the president of CBC was a confirmation that due to 16 years of Liberal and Conservative cuts, 17 local supper hour shows are to be reduced, quite possibly to one per time zone, each one co-hosted from Toronto. The president made a very glossy presentation, a video of what these new shows would look like. Peter Mansbridge would co-host with a host from each region. The news would be recycled through Toronto, Peter Mansbridge being the mainstay of the program.

I do not think there was much appetite in the room for that kind of treatment of local and regional programming. I think it would be quite fair to say that the committee en masse, both sides of the House, every party, had passionate statements about the importance of regional programming and local programming to Canadian culture, to the survival of people's political knowledge of their area so that they would be able to understand the actual governance of their own region.

The member for Fredericton talked about the fact that there was no other programming that was available other than the CBC. The member from Windsor talked about the fact that Windsor is a tiny little enclave surrounded by American production and was very concerned. The leader of the New Democratic Party came to the heritage committee specifically to talk about the importance of regional programming to the Atlantic region.

We have four local supper hour news shows in Atlantic Canada and all of them have excellent ratings. For example, the percentage audience share for the May 10, 2000 ratings compare the supper hour shows with Hockey Night in Canada , Royal Canadian Air Farce and The National .

The proposed changes which were alluded to by Mr. Rabinovitch and by Mr. Redekopp last Friday while speaking to the regional staff talked about beaming one supper hour show through Toronto with various inserts. This is not something that people in Atlantic Canada want. We want to see our own talent. We want to hear our own stories. We do not need it recycled through Toronto. In every market the supper hour news is more popular than The National . In three out of four markets the 6 p.m. news beats hockey during the height of the playoffs.

Where the New Democratic Party is coming from as always over the years is that it is important to maintain stable and secure funding for the CBC. At this point in time, this quite historic day when the president finally acknowledged the fact that the CBC is underfunded, we ask the Prime Minister to reinvest in our national broadcaster.

[Division No. 1310, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be recorded as having voted in favour of the motion, please.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

The president of CBC told the heritage committee today that due to chronic underfunding the CBC would be cutting local supper hour shows. After the president left, the committee passed a unanimous motion asking the federal government to provide adequate and stable funding to the CBC to provide enhanced regional television capacity.

Will the Prime Minister intervene and save local television?

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today the president of the CBC confirmed to the heritage committee that due to 16 years of Liberal and Conservative cuts, 17 local supper hour shows are to be reduced to one per time zone each co-hosted from Toronto. The president believes that the only way to save our public broadcaster is by eliminating local English television shows.

Government members were upset about this but I wonder why. They ran in 1993 on a promise of reinvestment in the CBC and then cut the CBC's base budget by hundreds of millions, about as much as is needed to preserve local TV.

Now the Liberals have a decision to make. Either come up with the very significant ongoing funding to rebuild the integrity of local journalism in Canada or endorse the planned cuts through inaction.

I compliment the CBC on having a vision, but I do not share its belief that the private sector will pick up the slack in the 12 abandoned communities. It is a sad day for local television in Canada.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, May 8th, 2000]

A black comedy, absolutely.

I have visions dancing in my head of a whole new industry being put together in Cape Breton by the Government of Canada because it believes in patronage first. First it announces call centres. Hundreds and hundreds of jobs all over Cape Breton for former coal miners to sit behind desks and explain to callers from Alabama how to fix their washing machines or how the good people of Mississauga can order their lingerie in the right size or colour.

Then a problem surfaces. The call centre company's quality control police at head office in Dallas or Singapore notice that these call centre workers have Cape Breton accents, probably in both languages. This greatly offends their sense of global commercial homogeneity and the companies are not happy. The government believes, above all else, that companies be kept happy.

I see a group of concerned ministers and a legion of advisors huddled around the Prime Minister discussing accent problems. What is the result? We have a whole new private sector industry being subsidized by HRDC to train Cape Bretoners not to have accents. The Prime Minister himself will give the final exam because he believes in hands on patronage for Cape Breton, and according to many comics I know, he is an expert on accents.

I see the Prime Minister personally flying into Sydney and Glace Bay on each and every graduation day to congratulate the new accentless Cape Bretoners.

I also see problems with some of the companies accounting for all the money they were given, but that would be another story, a different story.

Eventually, the government, for the benefit of Cape Bretoners, will encourage them to leave the island, after all they no longer had accents and the call centre business was now moving farther offshore due to newly signed trade agreements negotiated by the Government of Canada.

I admit that some of this has been in jest, but less than one would think. The underlying theme, that this government is destroying Cape Breton, its culture, its lifestyle and its soul with this bill, is not a joke. It is forcing people in industrial Cape Breton to make a choice: accept less and maybe not be forced to leave or leave and maybe not be forced to accept less. This is no real choice at all. It is torture. It is cruel, cynical and unjustifiable.

Even at this late stage of debate, even during the tyranny of closure, I call on the Liberals to think about what they are doing and pull this bill.