Canadian Heritage committee  I'm happy with it too.

Canadian Heritage committee  What with dinners and comp tickets, I'm going to get examined by some kind of parliamentary watchdog. By the way, anyone else on the committee is invited for dinner or tickets any time they're passing through. Speaking on behalf of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and speaking

Canadian Heritage committee  I would like to disagree with Gene, if I may. I think the government has actually stood by that Canada Council and been very supportive of the arts in this community. The program that was announced last week for youth training in dance and music and other disciplines I think is e

Canadian Heritage committee  If I might, having worked for the BBC and the CBC, I can tell you that the BBC has five broadcasting orchestras. All of them are actually much, much larger than the CBC Vancouver orchestra. Also, as the member already noted, there are different FM channels devoted to different st

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't have any official statistics, but I did see the figure of 3.5% of market mentioned in a recent response from one of the vice-presidents of CBC. Including illegal channels or channels I'm not supposed to get, I counted 18 different channels on my FM dial in the car; if you

Canadian Heritage committee  Might I respond first? I think you have a direct line into the CBC, and they're compelled to listen to what you say. When they're censoring their own blogs and when dialogue is taking place on Facebook and on independent websites because CBC doesn't want criticism, it becomes mu

Canadian Heritage committee  Might I echo that point? At the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, we're federally funded--very well, as a matter of fact--through Canada Council, the B.C. Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver. There's no direct censorship on the kind of programming we do, but there is certainly

Canadian Heritage committee  Speaking to the first part of your question about classical music being on the Internet, I don't know about you, but I don't have the Internet in my car. When I pick my kids up from school, I don't have my laptop going. When I'm going for a drive out in the country with my childr

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not sure that anyone in this room feels they have the expertise to answer such a question. But might I raise one particular red flag here, and then perhaps dive under the table for cover? At the moment, we have Radio-Canada playing on our airwaves, which is a wonderful thin

Canadian Heritage committee  Dr. Fry, I see you every Christmas Eve, and I've been waiting for my chance. I'll take it now!

Canadian Heritage committee  If I may, Dr. Fry, I think that last point is absolutely crucial. There must be some public consultation. There was internal dialogue. There were management consultants brought in. I was actually consulted privately by these management consultants about the state of the network—

Canadian Heritage committee  Actually, I'm a qualified no, the reason being that I want you to recommend to CBC that they listen to the public, because if they listen--if there's a format and a means of listening--then they can do their job. I don't think you're actually able--and by the way, I enjoyed that

Canadian Heritage committee  The difference between an independent orchestra like the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra or a broadcasting orchestra is quite clear within the profession, and I'm glad to have this opportunity to underline it, because for the layperson or for people involved in the broadcasting indu

Canadian Heritage committee  I think it's very important that the CBC blog sites are kept open for people to express their opinions. Censoring them is a pathetic way to listen to your stakeholders. Unless they're inflammatory or obscene, every single comment sent to the CBC should be on a CBC blog site.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much indeed for the opportunity to speak to you today. I'm the music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. I've been a music director of Canadian orchestras since 1989. I'm also the principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood