Mr. Speaker, I was unprepared for this debate. The member decided that he was going to move this concurrence motion presumably with the approval of his House leader. I will restate that I consider this debate unfortunate and untimely in that things are moving along and there are so many other issues that we could be discussing. Seeing as the member wants to debate the issue of the CBC, I am prepared to do that.
The intervention from my friend from the NDP was spot on. The Liberals for a long period, 13 years, kept on strangling the CBC, taking away its ability to make any long term plans. The Liberals continued with whatever their vision was of a mandate for the CBC without giving it the ammunition and the resources to do the job. Most of us vividly recall what the CBC was. What it was and what it is today are significantly different.
The Liberals have consistently had a pie in the sky approach to things. They declare they are in favour of status quo but they starved the CBC of resources. They claim that they have a vision of where they want the CBC to go and yet, they never actually brought it to fruition.
It is very interesting that while the current Minister of Canadian Heritage was on the heritage committee in the last Parliament, it was she who actually led the opposition against the then Liberal government with respect to the CBC and many other issues. Whether we are talking about copyright, other broadcast media or whatever, it was she who led the charge to get the kind of changes which the Conservative government now has an opportunity to move forward on.
One of the difficulties is that it was not only the CBC that the federal Liberals ended up imperilling by virtue of their lack of understanding of what was happening within the marketplace, it was the entire broadcast industry. The broadcast industry does not work in a vacuum. Its stakeholders are the people who own the companies, the people who produce the shows, the people who are the creators. Its stakeholders are many, in the tens of thousands literally, but they are completely dependent on those in the marketplace who are looking for entertainment, looking for education, looking for news, looking for public service announcements. Those people now have a broad range of opportunities that simply did not exist as recently as six months ago.
There is an entire generation of people now who likely will never access radio and television the way you and I have, Mr. Speaker. I may have a couple of years on you, Mr. Speaker, I am not really sure, but we are of a generation that is catching up with the idea of time shifting. There is an opportunity through Bell ExpressVu or Star Choice of watching a program that is viewing in this time zone on a Halifax channel. With time shifting and with a VCR, we have discovered this wonderful new way of accessing the information and entertainment that we want.
I have a couple of grandchildren who are of an age that it is unlikely they will even know what a VCR is. With the whole concept of time shifting, why would they need VCRs? There are devices that use the ordinary television signal and people can make choices that simply were not technically available even a matter of months ago.
People are also using the Internet to download things onto their iPods and other devices. I do not know what iPod stands for, I regret to say, but these devices are completely revolutionizing the broadcast industry. They have the ability to completely bypass the ordinary broadcaster. The broadcaster's corporation gets revenue from advertisers which then flows through to the people who are actually providing those services. For television, there are so many eyeballs, and for radio, there are so many ears that the broadcasters want. If they are not getting those eyes or ears, then the advertisers say that they will find another way to reach their target market. That is how the industry supports itself.
If we look at the whole issue of simultaneous substitution as an example, it is very simple and straightforward. In the time zone in which I live, Spokane will broadcast Law & Order. CTV will make sure that Calgary, although it is in a different time zone which is the one I am in, will broadcast Law & Order which is being broadcast out of Spokane, Washington at exactly the same time.
Interestingly, if Law & Order is broadcast on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Spokane time, it will be on CFCN out of Calgary at 9 p.m. Why? They do that because they know they are going to get half a million eyeballs, whatever the number is, by broadcasting Law & Order in Canada. They buy the rights for that and thereby are able to pay for all of the people and all of the services, all of the technical capacity to continue in business and hopefully for the broadcaster to make a profit at the same time.
Simultaneous substitution is something that has actually created generation of revenue for Canadian corporations that are in the broadcast business delivering entertainment to Canadians. Whether it is that program, Prairie Giant on the CBC, Corner Gas, or whatever the program is, Canadians make the choice of what they want to see by delivering those eyeballs. The broadcasters then collect money so that they can stay in business.
With the advent of satellite about six years ago and my ability as a consumer to time shift, I no longer care. If I want to see Law & Order, I will simply watch it on the Toronto CTV affiliate at the time I choose to watch it. I can shift things around. Therefore, for the advertisers that are paying to advertise on CFCN out of Calgary, I am one pair of eyeballs less, and if my wife is watching the same show, that is two pairs of eyeballs less that are watching the show. That was the thin edge of the wedge.
In spite of the fact that it is through simultaneous substitution that we have been able to create a revenue base for the advertisers, now with personal video recorders, PVRs, people are not only time shifting, but they are able to cut out the commercials. Now people can watch the shows and the eyeballs are on the television screen but it does not make any difference to the advertiser.
We are into a situation where product placement becomes a very important issue. For example, on Law & Order, somebody may be drinking a can of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, or whatever the commodity is. We can bet that the confection company will have paid money because the star of the show is drinking Coca-Cola, or driving a Ford, GM or Chrysler, whatever the case may be. It is through all of this that there is a complete change, a complete alteration, to what happens.
Within that context, is the idea of moving forward with a review by the CRTC, which is ideally suited, being an arm's length organization to the government, a review that the government has requested so we can look at where we are now and where we can go in the future.
I mentioned that the Liberals are very famous for desiring to either stay with status quo or believing they can maintain status quo. We are prepared to take a look forward to see where iPods, the Internet, satellites and satellite radios fit. Once we are aware of the potpourri available for Canadians to choose from, in my judgment, it would make sense then to go ahead with a mandate review of the CBC.
It seems to me that there is a sequence here. I have no knowledge of what the timing is on the CBC mandate review, but by doing things in sequence, it makes a whole lot more sense than to do something in a vacuum by itself. As a public broadcaster, the CBC does not exist in a vacuum. The CBC exists in a marketplace. Within that marketplace, people make choices of what they look at, what they see, what news they consume and what entertainment they take in.
The CBC has done an outstanding job of certain public broadcasting events. When I was formerly on the standing committing, I asked if there was a place that was exclusively the CBC's place for us to broadcast the Olympics, for example. What occurred, subsequent to my time on the standing committee, was that CTV ended up outbidding the CBC. My question at that time, and I am on the record so we may as well talk about it, was if it made any sense for a public broadcaster, with almost $1 billion in subsidies from the taxpayer, to get into a bidding war with a private broadcaster, namely CTV. That ended up sorting itself out.
Yesterday I happened to notice on Canada AM that Brian Williams has moved from CBC. He said that it was with regret, and I am sure it was, that after about 30 years with the CBC, he decided to move over to CTV to anchor its Olympics coverage. There is a motion, a movement, within that.
Where does the CBC mandate work with respect to things like professional sports, NHL hockey, the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Olympics and so on? There is a very logical way of looking at what is happening in the marketplace.
The minister committed to hearing the views of the committee on any type of review the CBC may or may not undergo. In response to a question from the member for Ottawa—Orléans, and I think he might recall this, on June 1, the minister said:
--I am looking forward to the fact that this committee is eager to take a very positive and contributory role to our review of looking at this, and the opportunity that CBC will have as a corporation to put before the Canadian public--and to hear from the Canadian public--the role and the mandate they believe the public broadcaster should play in the future.
As you know... through your chair, I have discussed various options on the ways and the means that this committee may participate and provide its input to this government for consideration in a very positive, effective, and time-efficient manner.
Although the member is clearly motivated with respect to the CBC, and I am very pleased he is, as am I and the minister, but, with the greatest respect, are there not other things on the order paper that need to be handled? This issue has already been handled.
I look forward to the fact that the committee is eager to take a very positive and contributory role in our review of CBC. I look forward to it going before the Canadian public to hear what they believe the role and mandate of the public broadcaster should be in the future. I regrettably do not comprehend what part of yes the member is having difficulty understanding. It is only three letters, y-e-s. Yes, we are ready to go. When the time is right, the minister has committed that the committee will be involved. What is left to talk about?
Our government is taking a look at this entire issue in a sequential manner. We are looking at the fact that the CBC does not operate or exist within a vacuum. While a debate on the CBC, Canada's national broadcaster, is a very worthy topic for the House, perhaps there might be a more efficient use of our time than discussing it at this particular point.
I refer again to my friend from the NDP. He talked about service in remote areas. One of the challenges the CBC is faced with at this point is what will it do with respect to high definition television. Countless billions of dollars will be required to completely upgrade broadcast antennae. That is not only for the CBC, it is also for the other broadcasters. When we take a look at that, is there a more creative way that we could make use of satellite broadcasting? The fact is signals are presently covered on the two transponders in outer space. Is there a more efficient way doing that and is there some way of engaging the existing satellite signal providers?
I cite that as an example of all the possible questions. Taking a look at things in sequence and taking a look at the CBC mandate review within that sequence, once we have the table set, is undoubtedly what my minister has in mind.
