Canadian Heritage committee  I think the Canadian Television Fund, as it was, offered a happy balance between the audience reached and the quality of the licences granted by a broadcaster to a producer. If the licences were minimal, it wasn't very profitable for it, but if the licence was improved and enhanced, you could go get more money from the Canadian Television Fund.

Canadian Heritage committee  To sum up, APFTQ is concerned about the future of our broadcasting system if the difficult economic situation becomes a pretext for relieving corporate broadcasters of their obligations. We continue to believe, very sincerely, that Canadian content must remain central to the broadcasting industry so as to meet the requirements of the Broadcasting Act.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. Mr. Chairman, committee members, my name is Claire Samson and I am the President and CEO of the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec. With me today is Brigitte Doucet, the Association’s Executive Vice-President. We want to thank you for inviting us to appear before you today and voice our views on the situation of the Canadian television industry.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's done, since it's always been done. To date, I believe Radio-Canada has largely managed to remain independent over the years. Perhaps there have been some attempts at influence, but, in the years when I worked there, we didn't feel any jolts internally, obviously. However, that's part of CBC/Radio-Canada's history.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's an option; of course it is an option. In the ideal world, the broadcasters, producers, and rights holders would be successful in establishing among themselves what they feel is fair treatment. If we start with the fact that everybody is reasonable and of good faith, fine. But to do that, we have to look at the whole economic...or at every step of the exploitation.

Canadian Heritage committee  None at all. Vincent can confirm this; I can produce a show that will generate a million viewers, and—

Canadian Heritage committee  That's true. If we wanted to revisit the whole system, it would be a huge job. Who could arbitrate that for the next 10 years? I don't know. But it would be a huge challenge. Everybody is quite open to revisiting it, but right now we're faced with a way of doing business that has not adapted to the new technology.

Canadian Heritage committee  I guess somewhere there is a solution. A year and a half ago, the APFTQ started working with a committee on new rights and new platforms. We've done our homework. We've had some research done and so on as to what the models in the world were and how they were working. We tried to look outside the box.

Canadian Heritage committee  Vincent and I are former Radio-Canada employees. I don't know whether that's the case of Lise and Jean-Pierre. There are 12 of us around this table. If each of us went off on our own and prepared our own optimum programming schedule, the result would be 12 or 18 different proposals.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. We hope that these few simple but basic principles can help the Committee clarify the role of our national public broadcaster and convince the Canadian Parliament to provide it with adequate financial resources to carry out that role. We believe that the implementation of these four principles is essential if Canadians want to maintain a broadcasting system that is dynamic, effective and open to diversity.

Canadian Heritage committee  Good afternoon. I am Claire Samson, the president and CEO of the APFTQ, and I am accompanied by the chairman of the association’s board of directors, Mr. Vincent Leduc, who in daily life is vice-president of Zone 3, one of the largest independent television production companies in Quebec.

Canadian Heritage committee  I agree with you. I don't think there is much to negotiate right now. If there is anything to negotiate and if it's going to be solved by negotiation, I'd like to know where to call to renegotiate my income tax payment, because I disagree with some regulations of the government.

Canadian Heritage committee  In my opinion, it would not be wrong to talk about a historic war between the private sector and the public sector. I've been working in this industry for 30 years. This competition existed back then. Relations between private and public broadcasters were extremely difficult, and that has not changed 30 years later—far from it.

Canadian Heritage committee  Of the cable companies, so far Cogeco and Bell have said publicly that they would be continuing to support the Canadian Television Fund. Rogers has not made any comment so far; at least we have not seen any. Nevertheless, it is clear that if Shaw and Videotron are left free to comply with the regulation or not, I imagine that, just as in any company...

Canadian Heritage committee  We made these recommendations public on Tuesday. We have not yet had any reaction.