Canadian Heritage committee  You can put it in whichever order you want. Part of my argument is based on arguments made by Pierre Karl Péladeau at Quebecor and TVA. They recently laid off a number of journalists and put a good deal of the blame on the fact that—

Canadian Heritage committee  —it was difficult for them to compete against a subsidized SRC.

Canadian Heritage committee  We don't have that. You know, broadcasters complained about having the CBC use their taxes to compete against them for years, and we saw that when I was at the CRTC, but it was okay, because everybody was still making money then. Everybody was still making lots of money, so it di

Canadian Heritage committee  I think that could be part of the discussion. It's not a recommendation I've taken up myself. Like I said, I think the first step is getting the CBC to become a public broadcaster again. There's a lot to say about how it might be funded, how it might sustain itself and how it mi

Canadian Heritage committee  There is a bunch there, but I'll start with the fund. In the paper I mentioned that Konrad and I authored, we did suggest that there could be a Canadian journalism fund. We also suggested that the CBC should be excluded from that, because it would be double dipping, and also tha

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. Unfortunately, one of the things that didn't get addressed in the way Bill C-18 ended up was the power imbalance issue. I had quite a bit of sympathy for that. Phillip Crawley used to raise that issue quite elegantly before this committee and before the Senate transportatio

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. I hope I can provide some constructive remarks that you can take forward to help Canada's news organizations flourish once again. First, though, I wish to clarify a couple of points. I represent only myself. The blend of my experiences of three decades in journalism

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, I think if you get into, first of all, links, I don't understand how there can be a value to links, particularly given, albeit a different situation, that the Supreme Court has already spoken on that—that there isn't a value to links—and then you reserve it only for newspap

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not sure it will make them more partisan. It will make them be seen to be more partisan. Once you're dependent on somebody other than yourself, whether you're dependent on Facebook, on Google, or on the government in power.... Let's face it, governments do change and the peop

Canadian Heritage committee  The point I was trying to make here really is that the current playing field is not level. It perpetuates an unlevel playing field. Really, what Canada needs.... Bill C-18, very broadly, is a reaction to a particular situation. It's not part of a broader policy framework, which i

Canadian Heritage committee  I do. In terms of Bill C-18, the fact that it directs any money from this commercial agreement to have to go to news is certainly well intended, but if this is a commercial transaction between two willing parties, what business does the CRTC or the government have, for that matte

Canadian Heritage committee  First of all, the CRTC is going to be a very busy place these days. There's a search on for a new chair. The initial search had to be extended, so the incumbent has been extended for four months. It will take that new chair a year to organize the place the way he or she wants. Yo

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for this opportunity. For the record, I am appearing as a private citizen and I'm not a member of a political party. I worked in the newspaper business for close to 30 years and served as a CRTC commissioner for almost 10 years. I am familiar with how things work. I c

Canadian Heritage committee  The CRTC has a lot of talented people there, but I don't think it has the structure yet to be able to regulate this. It needs to learn about issues like user-generated content, which is why it would be a good idea to take it out of the bill. If you wanted to carve out just a si

Canadian Heritage committee  I think it would probably unfold over about five years, particularly with all the other legislation that's coming forward to it. It's going to be doing newspapers and it's probably going to be doing online harm. I'm assuming why clause 4.2 is there. It has all kinds of things com