Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 4 - Evidence for December 14, 2004 (morning meeting)
TORONTO, Tuesday, December 14, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 8:37 a.m. to examine the current state of Canadian media industries; emerging trends and development in these industries; the media's role, rights and responsibilities in Canadian society; and current and appropriate future policies relating thereto.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chairman) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we are continuing our second day of public hearings in Toronto on Canadian news media. The committee is studying Canadian news media and the role the State should play to ensure that the Canadian news media remain healthy, independent, and diverse in light of the tremendous changes that have occurred in recent years, notably, globalization, technological change, convergence and increased concentration of ownership.
[English]
Our first witnesses this morning are people we are very glad to welcome. From TVO we have with us Isabel Bassett, Chair and Chief Executive Officer; Blair Dimock, Director of Strategic Planning; and Ingrid McKhool, Senior Advisor, Regulatory Affairs. Thank you all very much for being here this morning. I think you understand the format. We ask you to make a brief ten-minute presentation, and then we get to ask you questions.
Good morning, welcome. The floor is yours.
Ms. Isabel Bassett, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, TVOntario: We are absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to talk to you today about TVOntario and the role of educational broadcasters in Canada, and the contribution to the Canadian public, as well as to where we fit into the Canadian broadcasting system.
As you said, my colleagues, Blair Dimock and Ingrid McKhool, are here, who are well-versed in a lot of details and points that you may want to ask later on.
I am going to give a very brief presentation, and then we have left you with 15 pages outlining some of the highlights of what we do and some of the significant points so you can look at that after or as I talk.
First of all, I want to say that I am pleased to point out to you strategies and what we do at TVOntario, because it is distinctly different, and plays a valuable role in the Canadian media sector as an educational broadcaster.
I want to address three of your questions that are relevant to TVOntario today, particularly. I also want to highlight two key issues that public policy must address if our unique contribution to the Canadian broadcasting system is to continue on a sustainable future.
I would like it if you left today's hearing from us with three messages stuck in your minds. One, as an educational broadcaster, TVOntario plays a unique, valuable and distinctly different role in the Canadian broadcasting system, which is different from the role played by public broadcasters such as the CBC.
Two, educational broadcasters have succeeded in Canada, to the envy of the rest of the world, I might add, due to the supportive public policy and regulatory environments that have recognized and encouraged us to be different.
Three, given the major trends underway in the Canadian media sector, which this committee has documented in its interim report, our future success requires, A), stronger recognition of our unique needs within the Canadian broadcasting system, and B), equitable access to the funding available to other broadcasters.
Before I go into responses to your questions specifically, I want to say that we have three distinct business lines. We operate TVO, which is the English broadcasting network; our French language network, which is TFO; and the Independent Learning Centre, ILC, which used to be affiliated with the Ministry of Education. The Independent Learning Centre is Ontario's distance education branch, and it offers high school credits to Ontarians. The ILC has 24,000 students in high school, and it offers a series of online curriculum resources and learning supports. The three of them are all part of TVOntario. TVO produces 900 hours of unique educational programming every year, and TFO produces an additional 400 hours per year.
Now we can go to the questions, and fill in details later. I want to answer questions 1, 3 and 10, because those are the ones where we feel that we have the most significant and relevant information.
Question 1 asked if Canadians have appropriate amounts of quality information about international, national, regional and local issues, and you are looking at notions of availability, relevance, lack of bias and inclusiveness. Question 3 asked, are communities, minorities, and remote centres appropriately served?
TVOntario provides viewers with a non-commercial, universally-accessible alternative in an environment largely dominated by commercial broadcasters. We provide more Ontario-based and Ontario-focussed programming than any other broadcaster in Ontario, including signature series presented in the peak viewing times.
For example, Panorama airs on TFO weeknights at 7 p.m. and Studio 2 airs on TVO weeknights at 8 p.m. Probably you have all been on. If not, we should get you on. It is the best way to get to know about TVO and TFO.
These current affairs and information programs, which are distinctive from traditional news broadcasts, provide balanced, intelligent, informative programming that is a unique blend of in-depth analysis, interviews, commentary, and phone-ins that provide insight into the events that shape the lives of Ontarians from an Ontario perspective.
It is certainly far more than the ten-second news clip. We do not go in for that. We do not do news. We focus on various issues of interest to Ontarians.
In terms of accessibility, we make a unique commitment to provide the greatest opportunity of access to the greatest number of viewers in Ontario. Our off-air broadcasting is available free to 97 per cent of the province, despite the significant costs in investment attached to it. You just push the button on your TV set, and you can get TVO. TFO, a satellite-to-cable service, is available to 75 per cent of the province via cable and transmitters.
TVOntario's programming responds also to Ontario's growing diversity. The diversity issue is hugely important to us. The increasing diversity of Ontario's society is reflected in TVOntario's on-air hosts and guests, the subject matter, the design of online resources and independent learning courses, and the makeup of our workforce. Our web-based and distance education resources are all designed to ensure easy access for those facing technological or other barriers.
TFO provides an essential service to Canada's large Francophone community outside of Quebec. It is the only Canadian French-language broadcaster based outside Quebec. TFO plays a unique and distinctive role in the Canadian broadcasting system in these ways.
It furthers the commission's objectives in support the Broadcasting Act. It supports the federal government priorities in the areas of official languages and the advancement of the French language and culture in Canada, and it achieves essential provincial educational and cultural objectives in Ontario.
Since TFO was licensed in 1986, there have been many historic developments in education services to Franco- Ontarians, including the creation of 12 French-language school boards and the establishment of Francophone post- secondary institutions throughout the province.
TFO plays an integral role as an adjunct to the formal education system in Ontario, and we are really connected to the 12 French school boards in so many ways.
Question 10, what should the role of the CRTC be in the regulation and supervision of the Canadian news media? We feel this is a significant area to look at, certainly, where we are concerned. The unique role that educational broadcasters play in the Canadian broadcasting system is enshrined in principle in the Broadcasting Act and other legislation and distribution policies, and has been consistently recognized by the CRTC.
Under the terms of the Direction to the CRTC Respecting Ineligibility to Hold Broadcast Licences 1985-1001 (SOR/DORS), TVOntario's broadcasting role as an educational broadcaster in Canada is to deliver educational programming, defined in the Broadcasting Act as:
(a) Programming designed to be presented in such a context as to provide a continuity of learning opportunity aimed at the acquisition or improvement of knowledge or the enlargement or understanding of members of the audience to whom such programming is directed and under circumstances such that the acquisition or improvement of such understanding is subject to supervision or assessment by a provincial authority or by any appropriate means; and
(b) programming providing information on the available courses of instruction or involving the broadcasting of special education events within the education system, which programming, taken as a whole, shall be designed to furnish educational opportunities and shall be distinctly different from general broadcasting available on the national broadcasting service or on privately owned broadcasting undertakings.
Under the priorities established in section 17(1) of the Broadcast Distribution Regulations, designated provincial educational television programming services receive favourable treatment.
Educational broadcasters must be distributed as part of the basic service following, in order of priority, second only after the programming services of all local television stations owned and operated by the CBC, and before the programming services of all other local television stations.
This favourable legislative framework, notwithstanding attention to the unique role played by TVOntario and other educational broadcasters, has suffered as the media landscape has transformed over the last 20 years.
Federal policies supported by CRTC decisions have increasingly served to enable the growth and maintenance of the private broadcasting industry, with less attention paid to the unique circumstances facing educational broadcasters, such as TVOntario, whose uniquely non-commercial focus means not having access to advertising revenues.
Given the massive changes to the broadcasting landscape in the past 20 years which this committee has documented in its interim report, TVOntario has become increasingly distinctive, but our challenges have also intensified.
There are two key areas where public policy attention is needed to ensure our long-term sustainability. One, we need stronger recognition of our unique needs within the Canadian broadcasting system. For educational broadcasters like TVOntario to be successful over the long-term, the category of educational broadcasters, as recognized in the Broadcasting Act, must be maintained and enhanced. The CRTC must play a more diligent role in supporting the unique needs of this special category of broadcasters.
Broadcast distribution policies must continue to ensure special status for educational broadcasters. The CRTC must continue to take educational broadcasters into special consideration when developing new broadcasting policies that have cultural, social, linguistic, and accessibility implications.
Two, educational access must be given to the funding available to other broadcasters. If TVOntario is to continue to compete and thrive in the markets that we serve, and if we are to continue to be successful in providing a unique educational service, we must be provided with more equitable access to the production funding available to commercial broadcasters and the CBC.
The Canadian Television Fund, CTF, and other federal funding or cultural initiatives should expand their focus and support provincial educational broadcasters' initiatives in educational, children's, and regional programming.
We are forced to compete unfairly with the private sector or with the CBC for funding, while the CRTC mandates us to be ``distinctly different'' from any other broadcaster in the system.
The current Canadian Television Fund processes give unfavourable treatment to educational broadcasters like TVOntario. Both TVO and TFO face challenges in accessing funding from the Canadian Television Fund under the current funding process.
One of the most important criteria, for example, for the CTF funding this year was how much broadcasters committed in licence fees and how much money over the licence fee was committed to projects. Given the small budgets that educational broadcasters have at their disposal, this requires us to reduce the number of projects we can fund, which therefore reduces the number of projects for which we might receive funding.
A second key criterion used by the CTF is audience measures. By 2005, the CTF will base 30 per cent of the selection criteria on audience levels. As a regional educational broadcaster, TVOntario must compete with national broadcasters or with specialty services that have access to multiple channels on which to repeat and cross-broadcast their programs to maximize their audiences.
Another point is that this process requires broadcasters to double-check CTF figures for audiences and how they are calculated by the CTF, which places a heavy administrative burden on smaller organizations like TVOntario.
TFO, unlike other Canadian French-language broadcasters who are all based in Quebec, has limited access to Quebec viewers and subscribers, by far the largest francophone audience in the country. This limited access to the Quebec market, therefore, has a direct impact on TFO's ability to receive Canadian Television Fund funding.
We believe that a better approach to the allocation of CTF funds for French-language programming would be to reflect the regional distribution of the francophone population in Canada, or else the minority viewpoint will continue to be underrepresented in the Canadian broadcast system.
Given that some 15 per cent of Canadian francophones reside outside Quebec, no less than 15 per cent of the francophone funding envelope should be reserved for francophone producers and broadcasters in minority markets.
In conclusion, federal funding policies must be reconsidered to give special consideration to the unique circumstances facing educational broadcasters.
The CTF is interested in providing funding to programs that will garner the widest possible audience, but TVOntario's mandate, enshrined in federal policy, is to provide distinctly different provincial educational broadcasting. The combined effect is that we are not competing on a level playing field with other broadcasters, and have less access to CTF funding.
Madam Chair, I thank you for your time and consideration today, and I would be happy to respond with my colleagues to any questions.
Senator Tkachuk: In the conception of networks like yourself — and in Saskatchewan we have your equivalent, I think they call it Saskatchewan Television — educational channels, were they creatures of the Department of Education? Were they conceived to be for children? In its conception, what was the purpose of the network itself?
Ms. Bassett: Well, in fact, going back in history, when I was not here, I can say each has evolved differently and separately over the years.
In terms of TVO, we were conceived 31 years ago, and the object was to be an adjunct to the education system using media, which in those days was television. Most of the work we did, in terms of educational programming, was in the classroom. Now we are using multimedia, and we are not in the classroom so much.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you seen as an adult education network as well as one for our young people, for children?
Ms. Bassett: Totally.
Senator Tkachuk: You have these three, TVO, TFO, and the ILC which is distance education and much like what we call a correspondence school, right?
Ms. Bassett: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: But TVO and TFO, one is more for young people and one is for adults? Excuse my ignorance of your network, but I am not from here, so...
Ms. Bassett: No, no.
Mr. Blair Dimock, Director, Strategic Planning, TVOntario: The schedules for TVO and TFO are quite similar, but TFO has some unique differences. More than half the broadcast schedules are devoted to non-commercial, educational children's programming. From six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night, with a small break during the middle of the day, it is all children's programming; no commercials, all educational, and that is true of both networks.
In the prime-time schedules, the emphasis is on current affairs, highlighted by Panorama and Studio 2, which Ms. Bassett mentioned earlier, and documentaries. The big difference is that TFO provides a more cultural service in the evenings, with a focus on cinema from around the world, and so on, in the French language.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you get funding from subscribers, per household?
Ms. Bassett: No, we do not do it that way. We do have members, and we get funding. We are funded by the government, and so three-quarters of our funding comes from the provincial government. TFO, the French network, gets a small portion for services from the federal government. Then we are a few bodies short of 100,000 members, who pay to join TVOntario and to support the programming we do, and we have corporate sponsors.
Senator Tkachuk: Like public broadcasting in the United States?
Ms. Bassett: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you go to these members for donations, and stuff?
Ms. Bassett: We have three on-air fundraisers during the year. We just finished one, as a matter of fact, where we run programs, and we stand up and say in the time that was usually between programs, ``Please support this kind of programming.''
The idea behind it is to bring in money, but secondly, to show that this is the kind of service that the public values, that they feel very strongly about. You cannot put something down the throats of people if they do not want it.
Senator Munson: I have to plead conflict of interest here. I send $100 all the time. That is it. I am in a special place now. Of course, there are conservative friends too. I give $100 a year to TVO, and that is as much as I can afford right now. It is good.
Senator Tkachuk: As you said earlier this morning, that is — considering you are on a fixed income...
Senator Munson: That is it. It will not go any further than that.
What percentage of funding do you get from the Canadian Television Fund? You talk about it not being an equal playing field, and you mention that you are forced to compete unfairly. What is the percentage, in comparison to CBC?
Mr. Dimock: It is a very small amount. This current year we have projects totalling about $1.7 million that are funded with CTF money. That is our budget for those productions, and that is against an overall budget of about $70 million.
We are a very small player, in terms of the CTF funding that we get. It is largely because it is increasingly costly, in terms of the licence fee requirements and other threshold requirements, for us to compete for those dollars.
Senator Munson: Who is making those decisions on controlling that funding? Is it bureaucrats in Ottawa?
Mr. Dimock: The CTF has a process that is public and open, and it is very competitive.
Senator Munson: What would you consider fair?
Mr. Dimock: From our point of view, the fairest arrangement would be to actually establish an envelope for educational broadcasting which would enable us to maximize the benefits of what makes us distinctly different in the system.
For many years, prior to recent changes in the way the CTF operates, we were forced to compete either for a commercial broadcasting envelope or the CBC envelope. It is more differentiated today than it was then, but we still feel like educational broadcasters are swimming upstream.
Senator Munson: I know there are a lot of questions, but we have heard a lot of witnesses talking about bias in the media. Some witnesses feel the CBC it too left-wing. Some people feel CTV is just America-centric, making millions of dollars and so on.
I would like to know, where does TVO fit? Studio 2 is lively and interesting, and it garners a lot of debate, but you seem to be able to walk down the middle. How do you feel about yourselves as an entity?
Ms. Bassett: Personally, I feel very strongly that we should walk down the middle, and I watch it very closely. I am not supposed to be involved, telling them, ``Do not do this,'' or, ``Do not do that.'' Certainly, if I saw something — and it has happened, I think, twice in the five years I have been there — that might have leant one way or the other, I would talk to the head of English programming.
I think they do a wonderful job, in terms of balancing everything. We have a phone-in show during the day too, and they try and do the same kind of thing. It is not a news thing, but it looks at issues. We try and balance the issues in ethnic groups. There are many balances that you can have.
Mr. Dimock: Could I just add, we also have an opportunity to take on controversial issues, for example, through some of our documentary programming. We have a dedicated strand of documentaries called The View from Here, which are point-of-view documentaries that we commission from independent Canadian producers.
We can do things, or we can pursue those kinds of more controversial subject matters. We will pursue balance over the course of the year in those kinds of programs, as opposed to within a particular program delivered on a given evening.
Ms. Bassett: Yes, let me just add to that too. We have another show that we started. It is sort of a thinking person's alternative to sports on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we have a program called Big Ideas, and it really is lectures from around Ontario, such as one at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which focuses on a narrow band of interest, but things that people cannot get out to see themselves. It has become very popular.
Sometimes, somebody will phone and say, ``You have had too much of this on or too much of that on.'' It tends to be maybe a religious issue or something, but then we try and balance it with something else the next time, as Mr. Dimock has pointed out. We are very conscious of that, and I think we achieve it well.
Senator Tkachuk: How has the response been to the thinking man's sports show?
Mr. Dimock: It has been surprisingly good. It is one of those cases where the viewing times that we put it on are typically low audience rating times on the weekend, but we have had surprisingly positive response and feedback from viewers through e-mail, letters and phone calls. There is a tremendously loyal following that has developed in a very short period of time, and we are extremely encouraged by it. We have quite an interactive process with our viewers.
Senator Tkachuk: I wished I lived in Ontario, then.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: I would like you to tell us a little bit more about what TFO is doing when it comes to programming for children and its role in schools throughout Ontario. I find the fact that you have children's programming in Ontario very interesting. In my opinion, your programming could be equally beneficial to francophone children in minority situations in other communities. Are there initiatives underway with other provinces, such as New Brunswick and Manitoba, for instance? Would you be ready to play a larger role if funding were available?
[English]
Ms. Bassett: Certainly we would be. Mr. Dimock, do you want to talk on that because this is a very important issue for us?
Mr. Dimock: Yes. In fact, TFO has a very special relationship with all the school boards in Ontario. There are 12 French-language school boards in Ontario, and TFO would be considered an integral part of the French-language education system here, partly because there are very few sources of high-quality, curriculum-relevant resources, and specifically those tied to the Ontario curriculum.
Some of the things we do through TFO are, for example, all the children's programming presented during the day can be used in the classroom. We have cleared the rights for educational rights in the classroom. Programs can be downloaded overnight by teachers and taped for use in the classroom.
We have established a network of liaison officers in every French-language school in the province, so there is a direct relationship to support teachers and the use of our resources. Many of the materials are repackaged with teacher's guides and other print resources to support effective use in the classroom. I hope that answers the first part of your question.
We have had an initiative in place for a number of years to make the TFO broadcast service available outside Ontario. A number of years ago, with the support of the CRTC and the support of both the cable provider and the Government of New Brunswick, TFO was made available through the basic cable service in New Brunswick for that province. We are currently in the early stages of looking at the possibility of similar arrangements with the Government of Manitoba.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: If I understand correctly, you have to work with the provincial government?
[English]
Mr. Dimock: Yes, in the case of New Brunswick, we worked very closely with the cable provider, which in the early days was Fundy Cable. I believe it is now Rogers. We had strong support from them, in addition to the Government of New Brunswick and the Acadian community throughout New Brunswick. In Manitoba, our discussions to this point have been with the Government of Manitoba and for the support of their education priorities.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: What type of commitment do you need from a provincial government?
[English]
Mr. Dimock: We have been talking with the Ministry of Education in Manitoba. What we have specifically been looking at in the case of Manitoba is the possibility of provincial funding from the Manitoba government to enable us to make the service available in Manitoba and, in addition, to pursue local productions in Manitoba with Manitoba- based producers.
[Translation]
Ms. Ingrid McKhool, Senior Adviser, Strategic Planning and Regulatory Affairs, TVOntario: We must point out that we are talking about provinces where there is no provincial education network. These governments or these communities are the ones asking us to offer the service.
[English]
Senator Merchant: Is there anything in your mandate at all to deal with minorities, because in Ontario, particularly, you have a large community of newcomers, new immigrants. I know a lot of them have young families. Maybe they have more children than the Canadian family has now, so that is really where our future lies, with these new young people.
When I first came to Canada, I was put in grade 7 in school, but also, there was another program that I went to every morning where I learned English, because I could not fit into the ordinary classroom, and so in the afternoon I would go.
I am not sure now if that is how the education system works, but do you have something in your programming that is particularly geared to people who are trying to learn the language so that they can access your programs? Secondly, you said that you had current affairs. Do you give free political time to parties that speak, like the other networks do, and do you have a means of educating newcomers about our political system? We get very low turnouts, especially among young people. I think you may have a very important role to play in educating newcomers, because some of them come from systems where there is no democratic system. They do not understand, and they are afraid to become politically involved.
Ms. Bassett: Well, first of all, it is a very important area, and we feel that is the role of an educational broadcaster and TVOntario, in my view. Starting at the children's line of thing, we do not have specific English courses for children, and I will get to the English courses later on. If you look at the schedule, since we do not have commercials, there is usually a 15-minute block between programs, and we fill that with hosts that we have hired who are all multicultural, and all different colours, backgrounds and nationalities. They teach numbers which is very important.
We have something called Tumbletown Tales that we just have produced, which is all about counting and math. We do manners. We do voting. We do everything that you would want in shaping a young child's view of the world. In fact, our audience for TVOntario's children is so multicultural, it is amazing.
Then we try to buy programs that fill the needs that teachers say that kids need. For example, going into school now, Toronto schools, they lack self-esteem. The programs we buy that are produced elsewhere are programs that build self-esteem, so we are looking for things like that.
In terms of ethnic programming, we are now the Canadian co-producers of Spelling Bee, which is a game about spelling, if you haven't seen it. I would say 75 per cent of the contestants are visible minorities and it is absolutely amazing. It is spreading across Ontario, and we are trying to take it to the other educational broadcasters as we get the funding. It is the single most exciting area, in terms of attracting a new audience.
In terms of the adult audience, our daytime phone-in show from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., More to Life, has Mary Ito, as the host. We have a whole range of ethnic issues that we discuss, and people phone in about things such as how to get jobs. We discuss everything you could imagine and get phone-ins, and people know about that.
Secondly, on Studio 2 we try to discuss issues that are relevant to that. Our Independent Learning Centre has a language school, English as a second language, and you can get a course with audiotapes. People are taking that. Do you want to add to that?
Ms. McKhool: There is also a French literacy program for adults to improve and practice their French. The setup is dramatic scenarios in real-life situations.
Ms. Bassett: And Bisou, to the best of my knowledge —
The Chairman: Just to clarify, if I may, for adult francophones or adult second-language French students?
Ms. McKhool: Second language.
Senator Merchant: May I just ask you a different question? Are you concerned about TV ratings and listener ratings like the other networks are?
Ms. Bassett: Coming from the private sector originally, CTV, I certainly look at ratings because you do not want to do something that nobody watches. On the other hand, I am not concerned about ratings to the extent that I would not show something if I felt it was really important. I think we do very well, in terms of the specialty and private — or I should say educational — stations.
Senator Merchant: Do you need that in hand when you go for funding?
Ms. McKhool: That is part of the CTF challenge. It is tied to audience ratings.
Mr. Dimock: Yes, and it is always something that people ask, regardless of the fact that our mandate is very different and very specialized. People will always ask, ``Well, how many people are watching?''
Senator Merchant: What do you say?
Mr. Dimock: The good news is that, for example, on our TVO Kids children's programming, we are the second most-watched network in the province, despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact, that it is a very different approach to the programming.
And we have shows like Spelling Bee that Ms. Bassett mentioned. In prime time on a Sunday night, we attracted 200,000 viewers for that hour, which is, you know, quite —
Senator Tkachuk: That beats the Raptors.
Ms. Bassett: It is so exciting.
Mr. Dimock: Ratings are not what we are all about, but naturally we take great pride in attracting as many people as we can to the quality of programming that we offer.
Ms. McKhool: We should also say that because we are not commercial, we are not catering to commercial interests. We have an opportunity with the type of programming that we provide on-air to contextualize it in ways that you would never see on another network.
Yesterday we won a Gemini award for documentaries, the Donald Britton award, for Dying at Grace, which shows the ratings may not be as high as some of the more sensationalized programming that you see on another network, but we do it differently.
Ms. Bassett: We try to get funding, corporate partners, for things like Career Matters, a website where kids can track themselves and where to go to university and what courses to take. That is funded by one of the banks, not because of the ratings but because it is the right thing to do. It is a philanthropic approach but it has to be proven to be useful. I think that is what we have to show youth, and the value —
Senator Di Nino: I too have to declare a bit of a conflict. Isabel Bassett and I have known each other for a long time, and we have fought some battles together, and won a few and lost a few. I just want to comment on the passion that she brings to this job, as you can see this morning.
Probably Jim would be quite familiar with this, but of my colleagues, Ms. Bassett, I think I am the only one who is from this area, to a degree that I am a consumer of your product, especially Studio 2, which is a very, very good program. Yes, it does have to do with news, because they do deal with a lot of the current affairs and so forth.
I want to restrict my questions to programming, because of time. First, a clarification on your presentation: When you said that the initiatives include regional programming, could you tell me what that means?
Ms. Bassett: We mean TVOntario is an Ontario-based and Ontario-funded organization. We do not want to be Toronto-centric. We go all around the province. We look at, for example, Sudbury. In fact, TFO now has a little unit in Sudbury. We try to see what people are doing in farming, the North, the mines, trapping, and the Inuit. Whatever it is, we go there and that is unique because it takes a lot of money to do that.
Mr. Dimock: I would add, in the context of the Canadian broadcasting system and the way the CRTC looks at what we do, we are a regional broadcaster. Our broadcast signal for TVO does not go beyond the borders of Ontario, and so our focus is on Ontario-based issues.
Senator Di Nino: Yes, one of the things we keep hearing about broadcasting in Canada is that, particularly, a public broadcasting company has not reflected appropriately the changes that have taken place in our country. I am talking about the diversity, et cetera. You have talked a little bit about it but I would like to delve into it a little bit more.
How do you talk to the variety of communities that exist now in our wonderful province, where they speak 125 languages and there is maybe 130 cultures, if not more? How do you address that, or how do you deal with that?
Ms. Bassett: First of all, we have 52 regional counsellors, including Aboriginals and francophones, who are advisers to us, and they tell us issues in their communities that reflect what is important to them. Obviously it is broadcast in English or French — we cannot speak Italian, but we would look at issues that might reflect Italian communities.
For example, when the National Post did not carry or criticize the Korean soccer team, years ago. We covered how the Korean communities felt about that. We look at issues from a point of view inside the community, in English.
Senator Di Nino: Do you also go into the Indian community, the Chinese community, the Jamaican community, and do programs with them that you then project to the rest of the audience? Do you do any of that?
Mr. Dimock: It is a priority for us to work with those communities to the greatest extent we can, but we should bear in mind that we are not, for example, a multilingual broadcaster.
Senator Di Nino: I understand that.
Mr. Dimock: We tend not to develop customized programming targeted at those communities narrowly. Rather, we develop programming that responds to the educational needs or the educational priorities of those communities in a way that will also appeal to a wider audience.
It is a bit of a balancing act, but we have been working much more closely in recent years with those communities to look for partnerships that will meet their specific needs.
To add to the groups you have identified, we are also working closely with the Aboriginal community. For example, with native friendship centres around the province, we are working hard to move our educational resources out in ways that are accessible to their communities.
Senator Di Nino: Before the chair cuts me off, because I do not think we have time, I want to ask a question on programming costs. Where are the programs produced, or do you buy programs from other parts of the country or the world? Also, do the programs you produce have a commercial value? Do you sell them, not just to other provinces, but to other countries? Is there a way of recouping some of your costs there?
Ms. Bassett: First of all, we produce small segments like Tumbletown Tales, but there is no money in that, because you cannot get funding for programs to the same degree if you produce them in-house and show them in-house. We co- produce with people, such as Dying at Grace which was the one that won last night. That is a co-pro.
Then we buy acquisitions from all over the world. We try to fit them into strands that reflect what we feel the people of Ontario should see. Last year, we had several documentaries on people who went back to find their relatives in India, which could have been Italy, that kind of thing.
Senator Di Nino: That is what I was asking. We need more time, Madam Chair, but thank you.
The Chairman: It is the story of our lives.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Good morning. What a wonderful presentation. I just wish we had this in Atlantic Canada, but maybe one day.
Ms. Bassett: I am from Atlantic Canada.
Mr. Dimock: We are working on it.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I would like to start one. It would just be so easy.
You answered the question that I was preparing to ask, in part, but I wanted to ask you, and I know your interest in this, Ms. Bassett, because we have met a couple of times.
In terms of the newfound support, and certainly enhanced interest, for the very early years, let us say conception to age three, are you shifting down or can you find new corporate sponsors and do new things for that first year, when now so many mothers and sometimes fathers are at home? It seems to me that is a prime educational opportunity.
I know you talk about school preparedness here. I went through the list. Then you started talking about numbers, manners, socialization and so on. I wondered whether you could meet that new challenge, and how you are meeting it?
Ms. Bassett: First of all, it is very important. Margaret McCain is the honorary chair of our foundation so, needless to say, we hear a lot about the early years. In addition, Ms. McKhool is a mother and a mother-to-be.
Our early, early years, two and three, and probably sooner — I do not know what time — certainly two, kids watch TVOntario. The new head of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto has a daughter, 18 months, and he is absolutely thrilled because she is a devoted fan of TVOntario, so I know it starts at 18 months.
We are trying to have packages that we take out on various different formats, so that we can leave it at centres where mothers go, and they can learn more parenting skills. That is the direction we are going, à la Margaret McCain's report, which you are probably familiar with. I think that would be a great role that we could do.
Ms. McKhool: TFO currently has a resource kit that they send every francophone child to school with at age three. It is for the parents, to help them with the socialization and learning skills that they will need in school.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I was not suggesting that one-month-old babies watch television, but their mothers, fathers, extended family, caregivers do.
Is that not an opportune age for family education and child development education. Then, of course, we get into programming for children themselves. Probably by one year of age they are watching TV. I know that.
Ms. Bassett: We have a co-production Planet Parent. It is a half-hour program every week and repeated twice. It talks about various aspects of parenting, and it is tremendously popular. That is a key thing. On More to Life, we discuss this kind of thing, in terms of education, all the time. It is a matter of maybe putting the material on cassettes, as I think Margaret McCain believes we should do, and get it out, so there is more use for it.
Mr. Dimock: We also provide a wide range of support information for parents, for those children who are taking advantage of either our broadcast or our online offerings. The bulk of our children's audience base is from the ages of five to eight so we perform very strongly with the pre-school demographic.
For example, on the TVO Kids website, for every activity for kids, there is a corresponding explanation for parents. It describes the purpose of this activity, the learning process involved, and other things you can do once you take the child away from the television or the computer to further support their learning in those areas.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senators.
I just want to ask one thing. You say you do not do news, but you do do news.
Ms. Bassett: Not on a —
The Chairman: No, no, no. If you were a newspaper, Studio 2 and all these documentaries would be what in print are called features, and they would count as part of the content of the newspaper.
What you do not do is what in print we would call spot news; send reporters out to cover events. Why is that? Are you barred by the conditions of licence, is it too expensive, or what?
Ms. Bassett: I understood that we were not to be a news station per se, and that we were to be an ``educational station.'' That means providing the kinds of information that develops good citizenship, which means having a passing awareness of key issues in your community.
Mr. Dimock: Yes. To pursue your analogy, perhaps it would be more of the in-depth magazine than the newspaper feature. The big difference is we do not just cover the hot news items of the day with short sound-bite-driven coverage.
We look for issues that are of most importance to people living in Ontario. We try to provide the time and depth to thoroughly engage viewers in a learning process around those issues, using various experts, phone-ins and other techniques. We consider it very different from covering the news.
The Chairman: Many news organizations would say that is exactly what they are supposed to be doing, absent the headline news, but this is a choice on your part. It is not something that the CRTC has imposed upon you.
Mr. Dimock: We are not licensed to provide news. It is a separate category of programming, from the commission's perspective.
The Chairman: It is so interesting and we could indeed keep you here for a long, long time. Could we ask you to send us copies of your annual report, maybe the last two or three? I assume they have all the details about hours of this kind of programming, dollars from that source, and all those useful statistical things that are helpful to have.
Senator Tkachuk: Could I add one thing? Your point on educational access to funding, which is one of your two main points, and the federal basket of cash that is available, is there a constitutional question to all of that? Education is a provincial responsibility, but you want to access federal money to produce programming for educational purposes. Why should they give you any money at all? Why should it not come from the province?
Ms. McKhool: The province mandates us to provide educational programming for the province, but we also have a mandate enshrined in the Broadcasting Act to be a fundamental part of Canada's broadcasting system, as a provincial educational broadcaster. We are between a rock and a hard place, because we are being asked to fulfil a role at the national identity level as well.
Senator Tkachuk: Okay.
The Chairman: We are short of time. It is not that you are short of content.
Ms. Bassett: Do not hesitate to call if there is anything other than the report that you feel you need.
The Chairman: Include anything you think would be pertinent in the package.
Senators, our next witnesses, who have been waiting patiently while we ran overtime, are from the Association of Canadian Advertisers. We have Mr. Ron Lund, who is the president and CEO of the association, and Mr. Bob Reaume, who is the vice-president for policy and research.
The floor is yours.
Mr. Bob Reaume, Vice-President, Policy and Research, Association of Canadian Advertisiers: Honourable senators, we are very pleased to have this opportunity to participate with our comments in your committee's work this morning.
Your work, focussed on ensuring a continuing diversity of news voices in Canada, is indeed very important in today's media climate. We differ from most previous witnesses in that our interest is commercial only, not in the editorial voices.
The Association of Canadian Advertisers is the only association solely representing the interests of advertisers in this country. Our members, over 200 companies and divisions, represent a wide range of industry sectors, including manufacturing, retail, packaged goods, financial services and communications. They are the top advertisers in Canada, with estimated collective annual sales of close to $350 billion.
It is our hope that we can impart to you today just how important media is to advertisers in Canada, and at the same time show you how vitally important advertising is to Canada's media.
Advertising is a significant economic force in the world. In virtually all developed countries, advertising is considered an important and necessary component of the communications infrastructure. It is estimated that total worldwide disposable advertising expenditure topped $1.5 trillion U.S. last year.
Advertising is also a significant economic force in Canada. Advertising expenditures in 2003 were projected at $11.6 billion. Direct and indirect employment in this sector represents approximately 250,000, or about 2 per cent of all jobs in Canada.
Importantly, approximately 79 per cent of the total advertising expenditures in Canada remain in the Canadian economy as value added. Compared to most Canadian industries, this is a very high level of domestic content.
Advertising also increases government revenues through income tax derived from the jobs it creates and from the greater sales tax base that results from it. Clearly, advertising makes a significant economic contribution to our country. It is the fuel for Canada's economic engine.
Considering these substantial revenues, the role of advertising is critical to a healthy and robust media system in Canada. Primarily, advertising pays for content. This has been the pact between advertisers and the public ever since the early days of publishing.
Advertising pays for the news reports, articles and programs that entertain, inform, and educate Canadians. Without advertising revenues, Canada's media system could not survive in its present configuration.
However, advertising is more than just an economic stimulant adding dollars and jobs to Canada's economy. Advertising is the force that provides the connection between healthy competition among Canadian goods and services, ensuring the benefits of innovation, wider choice, lower prices, and better service. As well as being a powerful catalyst for competition, advertising provides consumers with the information they need to make knowledgeable selections.
Once again, honourable senators, we are very conscious that your important work here is focussed on the news media, and how to ensure that there remains a diversity of editorial voices in Canada. However, advertisers' interests in media are essentially a commercial one, our role being somewhat like that of a silent financial partner.
Advertisers' purchase decisions are made for the most part on a cold evaluation of audience size and composition, regardless of the cultural content or cultural orientation of the content.
As commercial undertakings with responsibilities to shareholders and others, we are charged with marketing our products and services to the best of our ability. As a result, we primarily concern ourselves with the efficiency and efficacy of media. We base our decisions on analysis, and for the most part we buy viewers, listeners and readers.
Because of this, advertisers favour universal access to media. We believe that all broadcasting, print, and Internet services should permit, and indeed would benefit from, commercial advertising. We believe this should extend as well to the CBC, both television and radio.
Advertisers have always supported the CBC, and we are proud of our role in its success. Advertising support of the public broadcaster allows governments to be fiscally prudent, while still advancing public policy goals.
CBC television, both English and French, currently supplies substantial amounts of commercial inventory to the advertising marketplace. This is significant, in that Canada's advertisers have had to cope over the years with increasingly restricted access to Canadian audiences.
Approximately one-quarter to one-third of all TV viewing in this country is of signals that cannot be commercially accessed by advertisers in Canada. Some have suggested that the CBC TV should reduce its reliance on commercial revenues, currently at some $350 million a year. This would greatly reduce necessary and healthy competition among broadcasters. It is our opinion that there are currently not enough conventional outlets operating, especially at the local level, to safely replace this market inventory.
Without replacement inventory and adequate competition, the cost of TV advertising would be driven up, and advertisers would naturally divert some portion of their spending to other media or to other marketing communications activities. This would only diminish overall advertising funding to broadcast and other media, thereby weakening Canada's media system.
Advertising in general and certainly the television media are and continue to be underdeveloped in Canada. Per- capita-total-ad-spend in the U.S., for instance, is three times that in Canada. In the U.K. it is 50 per cent higher. For television, per-capita-U.S.-ad-spend is two-and-a-half times that of Canada. In the U.K. it is one-third higher. Even Australia's per-capita-ad-spend on TV is almost a third more than Canada.
We frequently hear complaints from our members, advertisers, who cannot access sufficient effective TV commercial inventory during many times of the year. Innovative proposals to repatriate Canadian viewers by both the 49th Media company and the cable television industry would help address this problem, as would additional new conventional local stations. These proposals should be given a chance to succeed.
Finally, a word about media convergence, which of course is synonymous with media concentration: It has been suggested that larger media organizations can offer advertisers cross-media and integrated-media packages to better suit their needs. This is, in fact, not a new activity. Advertising agencies have been very adept at aggregating these different media into integrated packages for many years.
What is new and admittedly somewhat attractive for advertisers is the one-stop shopping convenience of these larger entities. That advantage, however, must always be balanced with the knowledge that higher levels of media concentration can be an invitation to market abuses, such as tied selling, abuse of dominance, and the like. It is in fact the same issue advertisers are watching closely as the advertising agency business itself continues its consolidation.
Senators, we wish your Committee well in your deliberations, and we thank you for the opportunity to contribute today. We would be pleased to answer any questions.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you saying that you want CBC television and radio to access more advertising?
Mr. Ron Lund, President and CEO, Association of Canadian Advertisers: Absolutely, yes.
Senator Tkachuk: And you are saying that to provide more competition in the marketplace, from what I gather?
Mr. Lund: When we looked at it, there are two things. One, we wrote CEO Robert Rabinovitch when he first took over at the CBC, when he was first talking about reducing the advertising component. We pointed out two things to him, that when you look around the world and Canada as well, there is a very responsible balance between public dollars or private dollars as well going into the public system, and the programming that it can actually produce.
In fact, we congratulated the CBC on very unique programming that will attract unique viewers for us, so it doesn't have to be reality programming all the time. In fact, the unique programming on CBC TV is very attractive to the advertiser.
As far as radio is concerned, we thought that the same model should be applied to CBC Radio, in that it does not have unlimited advertising, but the taxpayers' money can be balanced with some commercial interest.
As a matter of fact, when you listen to CBC Radio you do hear commercials, but you hear commercials that CBC Radio deems appropriate for them, whether they are cultural, et cetera.
There is commercialization. It is someone's interpretation of what commercialization is. They may say, ``Come to the theatre down on Niagara-on-the-lake.'' That is a commercial. We would like to have some access to that as well.
Senator Tkachuk: I am not opposed to your point of view. How would a public broadcaster price your product, when they get so much of their money from taxpayers?
Would CBC be unfair competition to the other networks, who price their product to survive? In other words, if they do not have the advertising dollars, they do not survive but CBC Radio can lowball their product, because what do they care? They get their money outside of the advertising dollars.
Mr. Reaume: I have never heard the argument from any media buyer that they get bargains on CBC. CBC has priced its product competitively, so the only question remains is, how you split up that advertising pie? You might make the argument that private broadcasters should get a larger portion of that. We look at the market as a competitive marketplace, and we will purchase where we can get the best, most efficient media time and space.
Senator Tkachuk: There was one more point you made. It seemed that on page 6 you were saying that there is not enough product out there. Are you saying that the CRTC is too tight with the amount of licences it gives? Would you like to see more TV stations out there?
Mr. Lund: Absolutely.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you saying that there is room for it, and the advertising market can actually allow that to happen?
Mr. Reaume: The commission has licensed a number of specialty channels over the last 10 to 15 years. They are wonderful products, and there are many advertisers who use the niche, targeted specialty channels for their products and services. Almost all of them, with very few exceptions, are national in scope. Advertisers plan on a market-by- market basis.
What we have now is terrific product choices on a national basis. What we do not have is terrific local choices on a market-by-market basis. We think markets like Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, yes, Toronto even, and others could use more local conventional stations.
The CRTC recently looked at applications for news stations in Calgary. The economy in Calgary for the past five to ten years has just been terrific. Demand for TV time out there in the fall and spring, high-demand weeks, is crazy.
There are times when some of our members say, ``We cannot buy TV time in those markets for love or money during certain weeks.'' This is our argument, that we need local conventional stations in many markets in the country. We have terrific national stations now, specialty and others.
Senator Tkachuk: This is good stuff.
The Chairman: Fascinating.
Mr. Lund: Senator Tkachuk, I was just going to say as a follow-up on one or more stations, the other problem we face is that over the last seven years now, U.S. specialty channels have been taking an incremental amount of the audience. This is not unduplicated. This is equivalent to the Bill C-55 issue, whereby somebody already buys People magazine, or someone buys some U.S. publication, Cosmopolitan, and we have no access to it.
What happens now is, Canadians watch the U.S. specialty channels. They do not get a chance to have Canadian information, products and services on those channels. That is a concern.
Senator Merchant: I know that newspaper readership is trending down, but we have had a couple of presentations from the ethnic media, and they are starving for a little bit of advertising. There must be a market there, because they are also consumers.
What do you do? Is there something you can do for them because they need some advertising?
Mr. Reaume: We do a lot for them. I was here yesterday when the gentleman from the ethnic media association made his presentation. His argument was that the federal government had cut back on its ethnic advertising.
Many corporate private companies produce separate ethnic campaigns. Beer companies, packaged goods companies, financial companies, all produce print, broadcast and radio ads in Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, et cetera, to target these ethnic demographics.
I do not believe they have cut back on their campaigns. It has been a federal government decision to cut back on its advertising that has caused them the difficulty this year.
Senator Munson: We heard from Ms. Bassett this morning and TVO. You are very proactive with more advertising on the CBC. Would the same hold true for TVO? There seems to be such a purity at TVO, not having any advertising. Would you like to get your hands involved with advertising on educational television?
Senator Tkachuk: Especially for those two-year-olds. You can never start too early.
Senator Munson: People have to go somewhere to have no advertising, but, I suppose —
Mr. Lund: One of the things I should bring to the senators' attention here is that, contrary to popular opinion, we actually do not believe in unlimited advertising. In fact, we have gone many times before the CRTC, complaining about the relaxation of the 12-minute limit, which virtually is non-existent with the ten exemptions to the rules. We feel that in fact it is very disrespectful to the consumers.
To answer your question, yes, we would love to have access. We do not believe in unlimited access. We believe, certainly, in complementing the programming that is there. I am a TVO watcher as well. The relaxation around commercialization of some of that can certainly help the problems they face in terms of funding, and will build their endeavours, as well as provide us some access to consumers.
However, we go to the CRTC at least once every 18 months, complaining about the relaxation of the amount of commercial time available.
Senator Munson: Newspapers survive on advertising, as we all know. We have heard stories of the death knell of the National Post. At one time it was giving away the paper, and yet it has survived.
In the present climate, are there enough advertising dollars to go around to sustain a competitive market in Toronto or in small markets? Is there a lot of money out there? I know the economy is strong, but a lot of newspapers are not.
Mr. Reaume: I am sure you have heard from the newspaper industry already that Toronto is one of the most competitive newspaper markets in the world. If you counted up the number of daily newspapers in this market, it might be eight or nine, believe it or not.
You have the large mainstream papers, but now you also have the so-called commuter papers. We heard from one yesterday. Corriere Canadese is a daily. There is a Chinese daily in this market too so it is an extremely competitive newspaper market.
Is there enough advertising money to go around? I do not know. It grows every year. The advertising pie grows every year. That is all I can offer on that question.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Perhaps I know the answer, but I am going to ask the question. Is there any effort or possibility or role for your association or somebody to maybe not control, but to influence the quality of advertising, the content? I think I asked this question more as a doctor than a parent or citizen. I am very concerned about some of the things I have seen recently with Viagra. The extent of it just seems to be in your face all the time. There is an example of the week or an example of the month.
Does this happen at all?
Mr. Lund: I am not going to get into this one.
Senator Tkachuk: You want to go here.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: It is in your face every night, every night, every night; quite a young couple too, and I just wonder why. Anyway, I am glad you all laughed.
Mr. Lund: One of the things Canada has, which I think we should all be very proud of, is an excellent self-regulatory system, which works through Advertising Standards Canada, ASC.
A complaint from a single consumer can set off an investigation. If somebody believed a Viagra commercial was offending them, they would go to the individual codes that are put out either by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, CAB, the pharmaceutical industry, or our own code at Advertising Standards Canada, in terms of taste, et cetera. In fact, they do ask people to take commercials off the air.
This is backed up again by the broadcasters or the individual media. If somebody said, ``No, we are not going to take it off,'' the broadcaster would take it off the air instead. Basically, it is a complaint-based system, and one complaint can set it off.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: The name of the —
Mr. Lund: Is Advertising Standards Canada.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Is that a separate association?
Mr. Lund: Yes, it is a multi-partied organization consisting of media agencies, advertisers, and consumer groups. Consumers are involved.
Mr. Reaume: I might also add that you may be reacting to a lot of U.S. advertising for this type of product. That is something that our association cannot do anything about. I think the CRTC cannot even do anything about that.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Sometimes it is beer for almost teenagers; not quite, but they look very young.
Senator Munson: The last line in it is, you will die happy.
Senator Di Nino: Senator, I think there are worse examples than the two you have mentioned about awful advertising. I am afraid I have to agree with our colleagues that most of it probably comes from across the border. Particularly in Ontario, we are inundated with it.
I want to concentrate on the question that dealt with the ethnic media, and I like to call it the third language. I believe there are seven daily Chinese papers in the Toronto area, and I think altogether, between weeklies, et cetera, there are probably more than 30. It is wonderful that we have that.
Is that a market that you folks look at on a regular basis? Do you see that as important? Do you see it as becoming more important?
Mr. Reaume: Definitely. There was a time, perhaps even just ten years ago, where it was considered peripheral.
Senator Di Nino: Exactly.
Mr. Reaume: However, there are many, many advertisers I can think of, for instance, RBC Royal Bank and the other banks, beer companies and car companies, who have realized that to talk to third-language target groups in their own language, in their mother tongue, can be a very strong and marketing-message-enhancing proposition. It can only grow in —
Senator Di Nino: Do you have any statistics —
The Chairman: Senator Di Nino, just for clarification, we have been buzzing up here. We all think we heard you say there are seven Chinese-language dailies in Toronto. Is that what you said? Seven?
Senator Di Nino: Exactly.
The Chairman: Chinese-language dailies in this city?
Senator Di Nino: There is an organization called the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada that I work with from time to time, and I believe that over a couple of dozen Chinese newspapers are published in this area. I am talking about the Greater Toronto Area; Markham, and Mississauga has some. I think there is a handful of, for instance, South Asian papers. There is really a large —
The Chairman: I know there are a lot. I just did not know there were seven Chinese dailies.
Senator Di Nino: I asked the question the other day, before I came to this. I thought it was more but apparently there are seven Chinese dailies in the GTA area.
Do you have any stats of how much of the total advertising dollars are directed to the third-language papers?
Mr. Reaume: The short answer is, no, we do not have stats. Also, on that point, a couple of expert ethnic advertising agencies have grown in the advertising community who are a great help to clients who want to take this path.
Specifically in the area of statistics, it is difficult also to measure the circulation of some of these newspapers and other publications. That has proven to be a bit of a struggle for us also.
Papers such as the National Post and The Globe and Mail have their circulation audited by a company called the Audit Bureau of Circulations, et cetera. Of course, there is a fee attached to that. Perhaps some of the smaller third- language publications cannot afford that, et cetera, but we have to consider that also.
Mr. Lund: It is not just third-language newspapers. It is very difficult to get statistics on the community newspapers in Richmond Hill or Markham, for example.
Senator Di Nino: I understand that. The reason I ask the question is because you hit the nail on the head when you said a few years ago it was considered a periphery. Even with the Corriere Canadese and some of the other ones, there is a huge market. I just wondered if they are getting their fair share of advertising dollars, particularly when you are telling me that there are not enough places to advertise. That was my point, and I agree with you.
Now, there are all kinds of small ones, but there are Chinese newspapers that actually have a larger circulation than the National Post in the city of Toronto.
Madam Chair, I just wanted to make that point on the record.
Senator Tkachuk: We have had representations from the ethnic media on a 30-per cent commission that they claim was being taken by a buyer of advertising from the federal government.
Have you received any complaints or presentations from the ethnic community on this matter?
Mr. Reaume: No.
Senator Tkachuk: Are there brokers that charge 30 per cent to private-sector clients to place their advertising?
Mr. Reaume: We would not necessarily be privy to that transaction, because that is between the media themselves and the intermediary advertising agency. We are the product-and-service providers, so we would not necessarily be privy, but we have not heard anything like —
Mr. Lund: Mr. Reaume, we do enough consultations with our members — there is nobody paying 30 per cent for their media. The only thing I can suggest, and maybe this is part of it, is the advertiser does not know what the end price is, and the person is fooling around with the price in between.
However, the advertiser would not pay an intermediary 30 per cent. In the old days it was 15 per cent, when you created an ad. Most media buying is done at between 2 and 5 per cent. There is no large advertiser who would remotely consider paying 30 per cent.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: I would like you to clarify the following. In your document, you say that you do not have access to certain television programs. You state that the Canadian Association does not have access to a third or a quarter of these television shows. Why do you say this? Who has access to these shows?
[English]
Mr. Lund: Yes, if you look at U.S. specialty channels, which is what we are speaking about primarily here. On CNN, you will see U.S. commercials. You will not see Canadian commercials. The only exception to that is two minutes per hour — it is per hour, is not it? Two minutes per hour, the cable company who brings that in, such as a Rogers, are allowed two minutes to promote themselves; not sell their products, but to promote their programming, et cetera. That is only two minutes and the rest is all U.S. commercials.
For audience size, about a quarter of English-speaking Canadians watch those programs. If they are watching that program, they are not watching another program.
Senator Chaput: The decision is made by whom?
Mr. Lund: We do not have legal access to those programs. In our presentation, we noted two things. One, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association recommended to the CRTC that those two minutes be open equally to all advertisers, not just the Rogers of the world; to open at least the two minutes. Then Kevin Shea of 49th Parallel Inc. — maybe some of you know Kevin — said, why not purchase that programming, those signals, just like we do now on other ones. We will import them, strip out the U.S. commercial, and put in Canadian commercials, so that Canadians can hear about Canadian products and services and not U.S. drugs and things like that. We are supportive of that.
The Chairman: That is an important clarification.
I would like to ask you about a passage on the last page of your presentation, where you talk about larger entities and concentration, which brings advantages, in terms of one-stop shopping, convenience and all.
Then you went on to say:
That advantage, however, must always be balanced with the knowledge that higher levels of media concentration can be an invitation to market abuses such as tied selling, abuse of dominance, and the like.
Was that a theoretical statement, or have there been examples of trends in that direction?
Mr. Lund: I will not call them trends, but we have certainly made interventions on behalf of our members. Should we name the station? No.
It was not just because of this. It is tried off and on, where someone will say, ``If you want, we we will start off with just broadcast television right now.'' Then, when a station has a good line of a programming, they may say to the advertiser, ``In order for you to get this nice prime-time spot, you are you going to have to take five of these, two of these, one of those,'' which is tied selling.
What we worried about even more with this, and there was certainly at least one example, was, ``If you want this programming in British Columbia, you are going to have to use our newspaper as well.''
That advertiser may not use newspapers at all. This may not even be a retail advertiser.
We want to make sure that there is not that forcing of using a particular newspaper associated with a broadcaster or any other vehicles. If they have something good to offer and the advertiser wants it, that is fine. Then, the one-stop shop that we have talked about could be good. However, we also do not want to be forced to buy those from anyone, any more than tied selling is legal in any other area.
The Chairman: Tied selling is not legal, is it?
Mr. Lund: No, illegal, sorry, I meant to say.
The Chairman: Yes. You said you had laid a complaint. With whom?
Mr. Lund: We took it to the broadcaster. Our members — there were two of them — spoke to us, and we took it to the broadcaster and said, ``Do not do this, or we will go to Competition Bureau.''
The Chairman: And that worked?
Mr. Lund: Yes, very quickly.
The Chairman: May I ask when this was?
Mr. Lund: A year ago now?
Mr. Reaume: Which case are you speaking of? Oh, a year ago.
Mr. Lund: One year ago.
The Chairman: And you are not aware of other instances?
Mr. Lund: Not per se, no, but we watch price increases and things like that. You may recall from the press, two seasons ago now, there were double-digit increases in the broadcast industry, which caused an outcry in agencies. We did not have double-digit increases prior to that for many years.
It is something that we watch. It is one of those things where less competition does not necessarily lower prices. It is usually not that way, so we were very supportive of the CTV, Bell Globemedia integration because we recognized that some things you have to get the scale up but we looked at it very cautiously to make sure that these other things do not exist and do not come up.
The Chairman: The core distinction is, it is nice to be offered a package. It is not nice to be obliged to buy a package. You should be able to choose.
Mr. Lund: To very large advertisers, it is important this is transparent so that it does not seem to be tied or handcuffed, because they are buying so much of so many different things.
However, if you go to someone small who has a smaller television budget, they may not use multimedia so we have to make sure they are not affected. It is not just the big person. It is the medium and small person as well.
Mr. Reaume: Mr. Lund has mentioned that the larger entities and lessening competition almost never leads to better, less costly product prices.
Advertisers are being hit from two sides these days. I am sure this committee has heard about fragmentation.
The Chairman: Oh, yes.
Mr. Reaume: With fragmentation, our average audiences are reduced, and that is on an annual basis. They drop 1 or 2 per cent every year, yet costs go up 3 or 4 per cent every year. My numbers may be low on both ends, but this is what I mean by, the effective cost to the advertiser is doubled and tripled every year, because we lose on fragmentation and average audience size, and we lose on price increases from broadcasters, newspapers and others. This is constant, continual, and every year.
The Chairman: Yet you think there is room for more stations, which would mean more fragmentation.
Mr. Reaume: It would mean more competition too, and I think that could settle the market down.
Senator Merchant: Technology has changed the way we receive the news, but it also has changed the ways we watch advertisements. I do not control the channel changer in my house, but I know that my husband can speak to that channel, the advertising part of the program. I think there is technology now that allows you to watch a program and eliminate the advertising so what are the challenges you face as these technological changes take place?
Mr. Lund: You have identified it right. There is fragmentation, as you say, and then the zipping, zapping and flipping. With TiVo, personal video recorders, you can in fact zip right past commercials altogether.
The challenge will in fact be a great one to television, frankly. Even though it does not reach 30 per cent, if you have one channel any more, it may reach 2 per cent or 3 per cent. That is still overall a very effective way to do that.
As far as challenge, we have to make commercials, as to your points there, Senators, less aggravating and more inviting. Two years ago we had a professor from Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley come to speak to a group. He had defined three periods of television advertising. The first one was the guy thumping on the desk, and you will buy, buy, buy. The next one was a little less aggravating, and we are moving into an era where in fact we have to relate to the consumer, because the consumer will turn you off in two seconds. Our big challenge is to have creative that consumers will want to watch.
The other thing that we worked on is to have fewer commercials but more meaningful time. We went from the 60 to the 30 to the 15, sometimes a 10 and a 5. We have squeeze-backs. We have all these things blasting out.
We say even on the U.S. time — because they have less programming content, and that is where a lot of commercials fill up — instead of having four 15-second commercials, why not have one 60-second commercial, so that we aggravate the consumer less, and we can interact with the consumer on something. If they still choose to switch, they are not switching because they see something in a split second and go to another channel. However, it is going to be very difficult for broadcasting indeed.
The Chairman: Senator Tkachuk, you wanted to clarify something?
Senator Tkachuk: I did. I am always impressed by the creativity of humankind, and so sometimes the commercials are more interesting than the programming itself, and so —
Mr. Reaume: Is that on the record?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, it is on the record. If it is a bad SuperBowl, everybody watches the commercials.
You mentioned the cost of advertising. I want to make sure we got this right. Are you talking about the cost of national advertising because of all the specialty channels being more expensive? It should also be more efficient, if you have specialty channels, right? In other words, men are watching TSN, NFL football, so —
Mr. Lund: The short answer is, theoretically it should be. Part of the problem with the specialty channels, as Mr. Reaume said earlier, is that they are virtually national in their orientation. You can buy a lot of actually very cheap spots. That is why in specialty channels sometimes — and we try to counsel our members not to do this — you see eight commercials the same in a row on a specialty channel, because it was $50 a spot or something like that.
When you actually calculate that out in terms of your cost per thousand against your target audience, that becomes very expensive as well, because there are no local cut-ins that allow you to target one region. You may not want British Columbia, or Alberta, or if you are in Alberta, you are buying the rest of the country. It is their national orientation.
In some markets — again, Calgary is a perfect example — if we have two minutes it might be worth speaking about. We were very specific on who we were trying to endorse to have a licence, so that not only would we have more stations to advertise on, but in that particular case that was a cross-over, because of who owned what and the number of voices.
Could you maybe speak to that?
Mr. Reaume: I think you have explained it in summary. The economy in Alberta has been so dynamic over the past few years, and the demand for advertising time, that we thought a new competitor in the market was the right way to go. We supported those two applications which were proposing brand-new TV stations in those markets, not the takeover of the existing stations by another owner. The CRTC disagreed with us. Anyway, that was the gist of our presentation there.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, gentlemen. Do not hesitate to send us any supporting materials, background materials, anything you have. I can see the researcher has already got a long list. We are very grateful to you.
Senators, we are fortunate now to welcome representatives of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. They are Karen Mock, who is Executive Director of the foundation, and Patrick Hunter, who is Director of Communications.
The Chairman: Ms. Mock, the floor is yours.
Ms. Karen Mock, Executive Director, Canadian Race Relations Foundation: The Canadian Race Relations Foundation is very pleased that the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications is undertaking this study of the Canadian news media. We find that it is particularly timely, given the emerging issues and changing geopolitical context in which the Canadian news media must fulfil its role as a central vehicle and fundamental source of information and communication for Canada's diverse ethno-racial population.
We have brought you only a little teaser, a sampler, of some of our materials, and our mission and mandate are thoroughly described in the brochure. We hope that your researchers will go to our website to see the kind of research that we have done, commissioned, contracted and supported, to document some of the issues that I am going to highlight today.
Our participation here is in keeping with our mission and mandate, because we are committed to building a national framework for the fight against racism in Canadian society. We will shed light on the causes and manifestations of racism, provide independent, outspoken national leadership, and act as a resource and facilitator in the pursuit of equity, fairness, and social justice.
I am pleased to say that increasingly we are used as a resource by the media, and by the news media and by other forms of media.
We have undertaken previously documented work, examining aspects of the Canadian media industry. In your packet you have a summary of a study conducted by Frances Henry and Carol Tator, one of the research pieces that we have partnered in and supported, ``Racist Discourse in Canada's English Print Media.'' This study is a very interesting analysis comparatively of how news stories were covered, not only in different media, but when the topic of the news story was a racialized minority or when the victim or perpetrator was not a member of the racialized minority. That is a study that the researchers are going to want to examine.
In 2001, following consultations with a representative sample of community organizations working with racial minorities and aboriginal communities, we drafted a series of recommendations for domestic anti-racism policy agenda. That is included in the document that the Canadian Race Relations Foundation took to the UN World Conference against Racism.
The issues are highlighted on page 18 in that document, and on page 19, recommendations that we took to the world scene. Also, we are continuing to work with the Canadian government as they develop their action plan and program for domestic anti-racism activity.
I notice that you are asking others to submit further documentation, and we certainly will submit further documentation after our presentation.
In 2002, we presented a brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, on the state of Canadian broadcasting. That is on our website, but I am going to develop some of the themes also, as they apply to news media from that document.
We are a very interested party, with a mandate to affect public policies, ensuring that these policies are inclusive, do not subscribe to stereotypes, and, most importantly, do not perpetuate racism and racial discrimination.
Accordingly, we view our role in this process as advocating for the development and advancement of public policies in the news media that integrate anti-racist and inclusive principles, and that counter racism in the media.
We would like to highlight some of the key issues and two main themes that we have identified even in the past. One is the current under-representation of racial minorities and aboriginal peoples within private and public broadcasting. Two is the inability of the current broadcasting system to prevent racial misrepresentation of these groups and peoples, actually, in defiance at times of human rights legislation.
It is our view that these issues continue to be relevant today and remain at the forefront, not only in Canadian broadcasting in general, but in the news media, which would include, of course, print, electronic, and Internet as well.
I would like to highlight a third issue. We always want to, and we do, acknowledge where there are best practices and where strides have been made in some of the parts of the industry. However, in general there is still a reluctance of the Canadian broadcasting industry, including the news media, to acknowledge the existence of institutional racism within the industry. There is a tremendous need for the media industry to assume fully its key role and responsibility to combat racism and racial discrimination in the public interest.
This is not an indictment specifically of the media industry. Why would that industry be different from other, shall I say, mainstream industries? You have an executive summary of the unequal access study that was done to show the differential treatment in employment, for example, in society, and the systemic racism that exists in general.
The broadcast industry needs to fulfil its role as a watchdog on the policies and practices of government and other actors of civil society, because we find, of course, that racism is very newsworthy. Regretfully, we find that anti-racism is not as newsworthy, but we hope that there are strategies to tell the good-news stories at times, and this is something that we try to do.
The industry's own policies and practices, including promoting the fair, balanced, and equitable representation of the diversity of Canadian society in the content of its work, as well as the composition of human resources throughout their organization, needs to be foremost, at least from our point of view.
The issues that concern us primarily stem from problems which are systemic in nature. These include — and I am going to highlight them — media concentration in tandem with decreasing support for community broadcasting; the failure to acknowledge that community broadcasting makes an important and vital contribution to ethnic and culturally diverse programming; three, the lack of inclusion, real inclusion, of racialized minorities and aboriginal peoples throughout the full spectrum of broadcasting employment — in other words, not just on-air or tokenism, but the full spectrum of the industry; and four, an incomplete regulatory framework that has not put into place the necessary safeguards to prevent both misrepresentation and under-representation of culturally and racially diverse minorities.
I am going to direct you to some of our previous submissions, where we have documented these, and also the research references that direct you to the data on this kind of information. As I will mention later, if I get to that, but maybe in the Q and A, there is not the level of research and documentation in this area that we would like to see.
We do know that there is a need for more, so that people cannot continue to say, ``Oh, well, it is only your perception,'' or, ``This is only anecdotal evidence.'' We can direct you to the existing resources, and I am sure that your researchers have done the same.
Also, we do make a plea for funds to be allocated to further serious and systemic documentation of these issues.
In terms of institutional racism within the media industry, it is important to recognize that institutional racism is entrenched in the fabric of Canadian society and, by extension, in the media industry.
As our research has shown, it is the form of racism that is manifested in the policies, practices, procedures, values, and norms that operate within an organization or institution.
Institutional racism is demonstrated in the media industry in stereotypical portrayal and misrepresentation. You likely have heard this before from some of the different groups that have come before you — invisibility of people of colour, and racialization of people of colour, as social problems.
As well, the media industry plays a significant role in defining and promoting culture, in particular the dominant culture. Culture itself is a structural barrier to the full participation of racialized and aboriginal communities and peoples, in the shaping and promoting of particular values of the dominant culture — images and identities of the dominant culture — to the exclusion of others.
Consequently, this underlying context has implications for how the media undertakes its responsibility to promote the public interest as a watchdog. The news media is typically viewed as a source of factual information. I know it strives to be that source of factual information and as such it leverages far more weight as an educator.
One of our mandates is public education, but the news media for sure carries much greater weight than many of the mainstream educational institutions as an educator, and in the influencing and shaping of public opinions. As such it has tremendous impact on the lives of all Canadians.
As you yourself have indicated in your interim report, according to Statistics Canada, news and public affairs programming accounts for about one quarter of all television viewed by Canadians. That is a tremendous amount of power.
In terms of the representation of marginalized groups in the media, for communities that are marginalized, this huge impact of the news has significant implications in their quality of life. These implications include walking on the street to driving in cars, to what happens in classrooms, and in general, and certainly at the water cooler in their places of employment.
The information that is produced and communicated through the news media helps to generate, shape, and strengthen public opinion, positive or negative, for, in particular, marginalized and racialized groups of people.
On his mission to Canada, the visit of the UN special rapporteur on racism was facilitated, in fact, by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, so he had access to a great cross-section of civil society.
In his report, he cited that, and I quote:
Many members of visible minority communities have argued that most Canadian media are not balanced when it comes to reporting on issues concerning, or of particular interest to, specific religious/cultural/ethnic groups. Furthermore, the media have often been accused of being a vehicle for the expression of prejudice against certain groups, most notably in its focus on negative events and patterns concerning certain groups, with no corresponding focus on positive issues.
I should point out that the special rapporteur also met with media organizations, government bodies, regulatory bodies and so on. We coordinated the civil society component.
In his final report, the rapporteur pointed out that Canada has the legal legislative framework in place to counter racism and systemic discrimination. However, it is completely uneven in the implementation, regionally and federally, whether it is through implementation of the human rights codes or the kinds of, dare I say, diversity initiatives and policies that are imbedded right in some of the regulatory bodies and agencies that impact on the media.
The Chairman: Ms. Mock, I do not want to hamper you here, but we only have a limited time, and the more time you give to your presentation, the less time is left over for questions.
Ms. Mock: I am almost done. Can I summarize some of the recommendations?
The Chairman: We will circulate the whole thing. It would probably be a really good idea if you would go to your recommendations.
Ms. Mock: I will skip over a couple of the issues about ownership and so on, and some of the regulatory policies. I just wanted to give one comment here before I go to the recommendations, in terms of the regulatory policies and freedom of expression by the media.
This is an area in which we deal all the time, the call for freedom of expression or academic freedom and other areas as well, but the balance with freedom and responsibility in this area.
We support the position that adequate public policies must be developed, implemented, and enforced to regulate the media industry in the fulfilment of its role, particularly the integration of anti-racism policies and measures. We specifically recommend enhancing the role of the CRTC in this regard and actually implementing some of the measures that are there.
I will conclude with the recommendations. One, the Canadian Broadcast Act, Telecommunications Act, and regulatory policies must be enhanced to integrate an anti-racism lens and to counteract the racial impact of economic globalization.
Two, the CRTC mandate and role must be strengthened and enhanced to protect the rights of all Canadians and, in particular, the rights of marginalized groups and peoples. It must do this through the regulation and oversight of the media industry in the new and changing globalized content, as it relates to the regulation of policies and practices of public and private. This includes multinational media corporations, and the evolution of international conventions and agreements and their domestic application in Canada. Canada is a signatory to several international agreements, and again, it is our implementation that is lacking.
Three, the CRTC must incorporate a race and integrated human rights analysis in its policies and practices.
Four, the Canadian government and the CRTC must take steps to ensure that the provisions of the Durban Program of Action with respect to the role of the media in combating racism are implemented domestically. There are four articles, 144 to 147, that are in this document from the World Conference against Racism. Canada was part of that process, so they are on record.
Five, anti-racism human rights training are needed for media professionals and, I would add, schools of journalisms. We honoured John Miller's course at Ryerson's School of Journalism, a mandatory course for aspiring journalists on diversity in the media. We have a program that honours biannually best practices in anti-racism, and there is room for people in the media and the private sector now in different categories to submit best practices.
We would like to see much more training of journalists, but also for media professionals, to broaden and increase their knowledge and to develop and apply the anti-racism lens.
I will summarize the last four recommendations. Six, we would like to stress the importance of quality research, so we advocate conducting a systemic anti-racism audit of media organizations to review policies and practices within the organizations that perpetuate racism.
We are not saying this is intentional, but if it perpetuates racism and we can help people understand that, we know that those of goodwill will want to eliminate those systemic barriers to equality.
We would examine such areas as recruitment, pay equity, promotion, job segregation, training and development, working conditions, racial harassment, sexual harassment, employment equity measures and their impact, and the role and perpetuation of the union and determination of its role in combating racism in Canada.
We also advocate that such an audit should incorporate the collection of data dis-aggregated by race, gender, ethnicity, and other dimensions of identity. We know that there is a lot of controversy over whether one can gather race-based data, but we also know that one can get dispensation if you think that there is any kind of human rights violation. There is a tremendous importance of gathering this kind of data, because otherwise people get away again with saying, ``Oh, well, it is only your perception.''
Seven, develop and rigorously enforce measures in the media industries to ensure equitable representation of marginalized groups and their status within the organizations; hiring, retention practices, training, and promotion policies and practices.
Eight, there is a need for the media to reposition its approach to racialized aboriginal peoples, to see them as central to the composition of Canadian society, rather than the other. There is still the language of the other in policies or annual reports — ``Oh, yes, and then we have our diversity programs,'' as opposed to the complete integration and representation of all groups in Canadian society.
In this regard, the portrayal of racialized and aboriginal communities and their members need to be integrated as part of the mainstream, and not as an add-on or an exotic feature of Canadian society.
Finally, we urge that the Canadian government take measures to counter the racial impact of privatization of the media, similar to the privatization of public services.
I thank you for your time.
The Chairman: Thank you. It will be very important for you to leave a copy of your presentation with the clerk, so we can circulate it.
Ms. Mock: Yes. I would just like to edit it, check it against delivery, and we can forward that pretty well.
The Chairman: As you will, but we would like to have it.
Senator Tkachuk: When you talk about racial bias, what exactly are you saying? Are you saying that in the national news media, there should be a quota, or there should be a percentage of coloured people, and then a split of those coloured black, yellow and white? How should that all work in the implementation of this policy? Do you advocate it for all professions?
Ms. Mock: I will give a very simple answer to the last question first: yes, unequivocally, yes. We advocate employment equity, anti-racism, and inclusive policies and practices for all professions, from pre-service to in-service. You can tell I am an old teacher-educator, so we use that language, pre-service and in-service, but professional courses, continuing education and however you do it.
In terms of your first question, as soon as I hear language like ``quota,'' people's alarm bells go off. Are we speaking about somehow — now, I am only saying —
Senator Tkachuk: You are talking about a quota.
Ms. Mock: No, after 20 years of the employment equity commission, I am talking about the importance of truly understanding what the implementation of an employment equity policy is about. It is about not establishing quotas. It is about removing the barriers to equality for all Canadians to have equal access on the basis of merit.
What happens when employment equity policies are not effective is, we do not have a level playing field. I do not mean to use hackneyed expressions or jargon. We know it is human nature, and here I can put my psychologist hat on, for people to want to hire people who will ``fit in'' or deal with the traditions. We are all human beings, and we are subject to the same stereotypes in the media, education and everywhere else. We are raised with that; we make assumptions about people who come to us.
The foundation offers these kinds of services, not to be self-serving, but when we do really effective anti-racism, diversity, multicultural, equity education in the professions, it is as if a light goes on. They say, ``Hmm, we see that we are not using the qualified pool of applicants.'' In fact, there is an advantage for those who represent what we can call the dominant group in society.
This is not about quotas and saying, ``Oh, this is some kind of reverse discrimination, that someone is going to have an advantage over you.'' We are going to level it so that the dominant group does not have an advantage.
All other things being equal, yes, we would promote racialized minority above someone else, because we are anxious, according to our policies, practices and the law of the land, to ensure real equality and equity and human rights in this country.
Senator Tkachuk: Culture has nothing to do with what we want to be when we grow up or what we do as a society?
Ms. Mock: Upbringing and culture have a great deal to do with it. Let us talk about what I want to be when I grow up, since you raised it.
Children need role models if one is going to aspire to be the best one can be, a reporter on television, the owner of a broadcast company, Prime Minister of the country, a politician, a senator, or whatever; one needs to see oneself reflected.
Once, there was once a colleague of mine who was from Halifax. About 20 years ago we were doing some research in Halifax on people of colour and opportunity and so on. One of the people who had recently emigrated from the Caribbean and was in a group also with people who were actually from Africa, working with what had come to be called the indigenous black population, said, ``You know, you grow up very differently in knowing what you can be when you come from a country where the top job of the person who looks like you is the Prime Minister and not the Prime Minister's chauffeur.''
You are right; culture, background, and part of the culture is media and education, who we see we can be, so that we aspire to be the best we can be. In our view, every Canadian deserves equal opportunity to aspire to and be motivated to move into whatever profession or education —
Senator Tkachuk: No one disputes that around this table. No one will dispute the fact, and no one favours discrimination of any kind. I believe that.
Ms. Mock: I understand that, and we start with that assumption.
Senator Tkachuk: I come from Saskatchewan. We have a large aboriginal population in our province. They insist on the preservation of their land base to promote a lifestyle that they historically have enjoyed. That is what they insist and demand of society around them.
In other words, they insist on the trapline. They insist on hunting. They insist on fishing. Of course, in all those professions, they are almost all Aboriginal. There are very few white people involved in that any more in our province.
What is wrong with the fact that, of those professions, which are honourable professions, they are almost all Aboriginal? There are no black people hunting. There are no Asian people hunting. There are no white people hunting. It is only Aboriginal people who are hunting.
Ms. Mock: To be frank, I am not sure of your analogy. I am assuming we are just speaking about —
Senator Tkachuk: What I am trying to get at is, if we are going to solve the problem of discrimination in the news media — that is why I asked the question of quotas — how do you force people to do something that they do not necessarily want to do?
Ms. Mock: With all due respect, it is a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation. Perhaps I have not articulated clearly enough what employment equity is all about. It is about choices.
There are lots of family businesses. I assume that in Saskatchewan your family would like to maintain its land and its culture, and raise your children in the way you would like. There are different demographics in different provinces.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, exactly.
Ms. Mock: Employment equity is not about forcing people. Employment equity is about ensuring that every profession has no barriers to equality, if someone has the ability and the desire, the same as we speak about equity in education and access to education and what-have-you. This is not about forcing people into various professions. This is about ensuring, especially in the public sector, that there are no barriers to real equality.
I start with the assumption that people here are in favour of human rights. As you said, no one wants discrimination. Discrimination is not always deliberate. We have to look at the outcomes.
Just as somebody may want to maintain their rightful territory that has been inherited and passed down from generation to generation, and every one of us would want that for our children, at the same time, we also want the best for our children and the access and freedom of choice. There are many Aboriginal people in Saskatchewan who are also lawyers and teachers and educators and journalists, so I think —
The Chairman: A tiny example. I remember many years ago, when there were still a lot of men-only taverns in Montreal, the men with whom I worked tended to go out for lunch at the tavern. Since they were all working together, they would keep talking about jobs, and they would make decisions, from which, by law, all the woman working in the joint were excluded, not because the men wanted to exclude the women. It just worked that way.
One day we pointed out to them that if they were making decisions in areas where we were not allowed to participate, it actually had a negative effect on us. Bless their hearts, they stopped doing it, and I guess they talked about hockey and all that stuff, but they stopped making decisions about the workplace at the tavern.
I am sorry, that is a digression, but it was, if you will, an example of systemic discrimination. That is, a little, informal system had grown up, through nobody's ill intent, that had the effect, unintentionally, of excluding a certain group of staff; namely, women. There were some very, very bright women on that staff, people like Judith Maxwell. Somebody pointed out that this systemic difficulty existed. It was easy to fix.
Senator Merchant: I want to welcome Mr. Hunter and Ms. Mock. I worked for them for six years at different times with the foundation, because I was one of the founding members of the board. I know you do very good work, and I know you are very dedicated to this task.
I want to deal with two entities. First, TVO was before us this morning. They are an educational channel. How are they dealing with racism and equity? Are they availing themselves to you? Are they consulting with you? How are you working with them, because they are a public entity?
Ms. Mock: Our outreach is as extensive as we can make it, being a fairly small and, dare I add, underfunded organization. We partnered with the French-language branch of TVO, TFO, because there are several good anti- racism videos in English, mais pas en Français. A few years ago we did an outstanding video called Couleur Coeur, along with a teacher's guide. We partnered also with the Canadian Teachers' Federation to do the teacher's guide. This kind of a partnership which we try to seek with other media outlets or other professional sectors has gone a long way to bring about anti-racism education. That is just one example.
Senator Merchant: The school is very important.
Ms. Mock: Yes, exactly.
Senator Merchant: It is important to start with the young people, because you can mould the way that they think, and they are more colour blind, I think. With grownups it is a little more difficult.
Ms. Mock: I did not hear the full TVO presentation, but in my previous incarnation as a teacher-educator for more than 20 years, I know that they were among the first, many, many years ago, to try to bring in — at the time, we had no other language —multicultural education and diverse representation. They put out programs and brochures.
We tend to channel our energy, to the extent that we can, to institutions that are not as far along so we would not have worked as much with the English-language sector as with the French-language sector.
We are also attempting — it is hard when your office is in Toronto, and you are national, you have a national mandate — not to be too Ontario-centric. We really are attempting to do our outreach and bring our message farther a field, when there are organizations here that are doing a pretty good job.
Mr. Patrick Hunter, Director of Communications, Canadian Race Relations Foundation: Just briefly, I think there is a lot of room left for us to work in places such as TVO. One of the other areas that we just started to work with is the development of a training program, which Ms. Mock is very much involved in, with the Toronto District School Board. It can now be tailored to different parts of the different school boards and different parts of country so there is a lot of room for work to develop there.
Senator Merchant: Now let us just deal quickly with the CBC, because they are the national broadcaster. Last night, I was going to say that we need champions, and these are the people that we see in front of the camera but you also want to have people in every segment of the CBC.
We had a presenter yesterday appear before us who said that there were problems in getting a foot in the door. Now, last night we were at the CBC, and they told us, I think, that 37 per cent of their new hirings, apparently, are minorities. They also said that those are the very first people to lose their positions when there are cuts.
How do you get your foot in the door, how do you stay there, and how do you work within the system? These are the problems that you have. They say, ``Oh, yes, we have 37 per cent of minorities working for us,'' but then they are the ones that go.
Mr. Hunter: That is a tough one. I think that is one of the reasons why, in terms of employment equity, there is that process of making it so minorities are not always the first to go when there has to be downsizing, and that the quality of the work the person does is taken into account.
However, that is always the problem. I think journalism among racial minorities has started to pick up steam. When I worked with Global Television several years ago, there were very few people in television journalism in the city of Toronto. I think that has significantly changed.
The question is, are they getting absorbed into the process and being allowed to develop, to train, and to be mentored. I am not sure. I do not want to say categorically that they are not given the same attention, but it is a difficult thing, when the news organization is trying to trim, and they do not have enough time and personnel to be mentors as well to people coming in. I do not know if that helps. I do not really have an answer.
Senator Di Nino: Ms. Mock, you painted a very bleak picture. Your speech could have been given 25 or 30 years ago, and you are telling me, in effect, that not much has changed in the last generation, or maybe even more than that. Is that correct?
Ms. Mock: Sadly, yes. I have had to try to remain optimistic. However, lately, whether I go into schools or workplaces in the media or various other areas, I am hearing things from students and staff that I heard 25 and 30 years ago.
I believe that we did make some strides in the '80s and the early '90s. However, in the last decade or decade-and-a- half, perhaps because those of us in the human rights and equality seeking movements did make some really positive strides, there has been, for want of a better word, a backlash. People saw that this was not just about tolerance and letting people do their own thing, but really about having mainstream institutions reflect the diversity.
Certain global events have also exacerbated that. We used to say you have taken our field ten steps forward and nine steps back. In recent years I felt like we took 11 steps back and are hearing things very similar to what we heard 20 or 30 years ago.
Senator Di Nino: I know that time is limited. I wanted to ask a couple of specific questions. Mr. Hunter said a moment ago that there have been some improvements, and I thought there had been some improvements. Your presentation was very negative, and I do not dispute anything you are saying. It is just discouraging to hear that from someone as respectable as you and your organization are.
Two quick questions: One is, about three or four times in your presentation you talk about the Canadian government. What about provincial or municipal governments? What role are they playing, and are you dealing with them as well, because you did not mention them in your comments?
Ms. Mock: Certainly in areas of education and employment it is the provincial governments that really do have to take the lead role. In the province in which we are sitting right now, the employment equity legislation was repealed, the Employment Equity Commission dismantled, and the anti-racism division of the Ministry of Education and so on also integrated or dismantled and put into some other area. There is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done.
Senator Di Nino: Are you working with them as well as the municipalities?
Ms. Mock: Absolutely.
I guess I need to define our role here as presenting the negative side. We will submit the other side of the story too because, of course, it is so important to honour those that have made a significant difference. There are various media outlets that have, and we are encouraging those and working with those.
Senator Di Nino: Let me ask you this question specifically. Within those communities that we talk about, visible minorities or minorities of any kind, are some communities doing better than others? Are some communities affected less than others? If so, why?
Ms. Mock: I hesitate to draw a comparison. The constituent group of our focus is racialized minorities and Aboriginal peoples. By racialized I mean, discriminated against on the basis of race or even national origin —
Senator Di Nino: Exactly. I agree with that.
Ms. Mock: That changes with the context. Those groups that I was describing that are marginalized and racialized are not doing that well. Paul Winn, a member of our board from B.C., coined the expression many years ago, not only is there a glass ceiling but there is a sticky floor. If people do get in the door and are not let go, in the extreme, the environment can been poisoned, where people are made to feel not welcome. Even with the best of intentions, the job ghettos and the lack of retention mechanisms and progress through the ranks and mentoring and ways of ensuring that racialized minorities and Aboriginal people are represented right throughout the system, those programs are sorely lacking in most organizations.
Senator Di Nino: Madam Chair, it would be an interesting question to get an answer to, as well.
The Chairman: I think we need to hear from media organizations themselves about what they are doing.
Senator Di Nino: The stats that Ms. Mock was talking about before, it would be interesting to see if there are some that are less, and why, so that we could use it for the benefit of all the others who are not.
The Chairman: Right.
Senator Munson: Very briefly, it may be negative, but it is also a reality check, and it is a wake-up call, based on the company that I worked for for 25 years, that perhaps when they come they can answer to some of your statements today too. I think it is very serious.
Yesterday, a person from the Canadian Diversity Producers Association talked about the employment equity law, and he used the words ``appalling'' and ``shocking'' that there is no enforcement of it.
How do we get more enforcement, how do we push more enforcement, how do we push that law to make it work?
Your executive summary of 2000 report states: ``The corporatist nature of the media influences the kind of news that is produced and disseminated.'' Can you just explain that part to me as well? I know they are two separate issues, but I find them important.
Mr. Hunter: Could you restate briefly the first question that you asked?
Senator Munson: He had mentioned that there is no enforcement of employment equity laws, and he used the words ``appalling'' and ``shocking.''
Mr. Hunter: Here it is compared to what was set up in the provincial Employment Equity Act, that there was a commission that was about to set up specific targets that had to be passed through, and adjudicated by, the commission. I do not think that is necessarily policed in the same way at the federal level, which governs broadcasting.
One of the complaints was, CBC, for example, although it was a Crown corporation, was not doing the job. It was not following the Employment Equity Act and enforcement.
The targets, from year to year, were excused, if you will, and the promises to step it up. They can get away with it because there is nothing that says okay to the president or the vice-president, that your job is on the line if you do not meet those targets, and we had enough. It comes down to that sometimes. You have to actually make it part of the term.
Ms. Mock: It does come down to building in an accountability framework. The regulatory bodies or the licensing bodies and all can make those actual requirements.
We also find that in the human rights legislation, the Multiculturalism Act and compliance to these acts. There may be reports on what people have done to comply with them or not, but no consequences imposed.
We urge that that whole system be looked at. As the special rapporteur said, this country has on paper the most outstanding human rights, equity, diversity and anti-racism legislation, policies, et cetera. It is in the implementation and so we urge that kind of framework to be implemented.
Senator Munson: Yes, I appreciate that. I have the other question, but we can talk about that another time, on the corporatist nature of the media. It is an interesting —
Ms. Mock: I think it is just a question of when it is the bottom line and when racism sells and —
Senator Munson: Yes. That is what I am getting at.
Ms. Mock: Not others then, and so ever it will be unless we do something very proactive.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I cannot say that I am excited about your presentation. I was very saddened by it. A couple of things that you said just astounded me. You are an authority and I am not but I am a pretty strong Canadian.
One, institutional racism is imbedded in Canadian society. I think you said that. Then you talked about systemic racialism. Instead of our society being proactive towards the elimination of such worrisome factors, it almost told me that you felt that there was a movement to prevent the good from coming to the fore, the hope from rising in the morning.
I just wanted to ask you this. I believe you said that. It seemed to me if we looked back to June of this year, there were a couple of things that happened in the national election campaign that were negative and that perhaps did not speak to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Certain things came out, certain issues, and they immediately had to be retracted, that the Canadian public did not accept.
In your very last answer to Senator Munson you said that on paper things are exemplary, but in practice they are not. I just would like you to comment on my thought about all this, this morning.
Ms. Mock: In fairness to Canadians, we have done a pretty good job in raising awareness of what blatant and overt racism and discrimination looks like and sounds like. When you even think of what happened post 9/11 and the backlash against immigrants and refugees, primarily Muslim and Arab-Canadians and others who were thought to be them, the reaction of most Canadians to the overt incidents, to the hate-mongering, and to incidents of anti-Semitism that were perpetrated then and continue, is pretty swift.
When somebody makes a mistake and says something during an election campaign and a true feeling comes out that maybe has been submerged, you will get that reaction, and it will be retracted.
We are speaking about systemic bias and systemic racism. That is much less obvious. When people hear the term ``racism,'' and we say the structure or the organization is racist or people are perpetuating racism, they think we are accusing them of wearing their bed sheets out at night and burning crosses. This is not what we mean.
We mean when you analyze who gets the work, we have not done a good enough job in removing all of those systemic barriers to equality. I am using the title of a study that was done in 1985, 20 years ago — who gets the work, who gets the promotions, who has the education, how are we really doing when it comes to giving all Canadians access to the lingua franca, to French as a second language, to English as a second language, so that they can succeed and integrate in Canadian society and get the top jobs.
Mr. Hunter alluded to our Education and Training Centre, where we work with different institutions and industries in their own language, not to attack but to reinforce and say, ``Look, we know that this is what you want to do. Now, let us look at how we can do that in a very positive, proactive way.'' We still have a really long way to go in getting that message across.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I wanted to ask you about rising to the top. If I look at the RCMP in Canada right now or the Toronto Police Force, if I look at the Supreme Court, the Office of the Governor General, our Prime Ministers throughout a considerable period of time, does this in any way change what you say about the representation of Canadian society in top positions? I can also see many examples on CBC night-time news. I guess I am always looking for the good, but I can see people of different nationalities, different religions and different languages rising to the top.
Ms. Mock: That is why we say we should not denigrate the success stories. On the other hand — and there is always another hand — until we can get past saying, ``Oh, look, there is one of those on the bench,'' or smiling because there is a racialized minority anchor from time to time, and it becomes commonplace, we will not have achieved true diversity and diverse representations. Celebrate the successes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: How are we compared to other countries when thinking of the examples I have mentioned; Supreme Court, Governor General, RCMP and so forth?
Ms. Mock: I have not done the comparative analysis, but I can tell you that in the United States, when they speak about diversity training or diversity policies, they are looking at aggressive affirmative action or what we might call employment equity. It includes ensuring there is greater diverse representation right up the ladder.
We should be doing some comparative analysis. This is not the case in your case but I always like to remind people when we are doing training and there is resistance. Somebody will say, ``Well, you know, but what about over there,'' and they will name some country that is a dictatorship or something. I say, ``Yes, but we live here, and we have the most progressive policies. Let us really put them into practice and put some teeth into them.''
The Chairman: Ms. Mock, Mr. Hunter, thank you very much. I apologize for the very visible time pressures. You have to understand that we only get so much time to travel, and we try to cram in as many people as we possibly can. All the witnesses have such important things to tell us.
Ms. Mock: Please do not apologize. We are thrilled with the amount of time that you were able to give us. Thank you so much.
The Chairman: We are very grateful to you. You will give your presentation to the clerk, right?
Ms. Mock: Yes, and we are there as a resource for you across the country if you need us.
The Chairman: Senators, we are now pleased and fortunate to welcome our witnesses from the Ontario Press Council, Ms. Doris Anderson, chair of the council and famous journalist, and Mr. Mel Sufrin, executive secretary.
Ms. Doris Anderson, Chair, Ontario Press Council: I want to thank you for this opportunity. Our presentation, you will be glad to hear, is very brief, and we will be more than happy to answer questions afterwards.
When the Ontario Press Council was invited to appear before this committee, we were given a list of four subjects, but we believe the area in which we can offer the most objective comment is a question of what forms of self-regulation are appropriate.
It may seem to be self-serving to suggest that the existence of press councils in every province in Canada except Saskatchewan represents a legitimate effort by the Canadian newspapers to satisfy the criteria of self-regulation.
We are convinced that publishers of daily and community newspapers honestly believe that this form of self- regulation is an effective antidote to what they perceive as a danger of unnecessary government interference in the way they serve their public.
The hint of such interference in fact gave birth to the Ontario Press Council. A Royal Commission inquiry into civil rights in 1968 proposed that a self-governing council should be established in Ontario to discipline the news media with respect to publication of news that might tend to prejudice the right to a fair trial.
Beland Honderich, publisher of the The Toronto Star at the time, rounded up seven other daily newspaper publishers, and in 1972 they formed the Council. Today it has 39 daily newspaper members and 181 community and specialty papers. They finance the council through fees based on circulation.
The founding publishers did not give the council disciplinary powers. Although it is obviously wrong to publish material that would prejudice the right of an accused to a fair trial, they did not ask it to aim specifically at that goal.
Since then, the Ontario Press Council has received 3,438 complaints. It has adjudicated 490, upholding all or part of 249, and dismissing 240, some with reservations.
Newspapers, whether they win or lose, are obligated by their membership to publish a fair account of the council's decision. To date, none have refused to meet this obligation, although one newspaper recently chose to publish a decision on its website, an issue that the council is dealing with.
Another aspect of self-regulation is the ombudsman. There are 44 members of the U.S.-based organization of News Ombudsman, but only three are in Canada, one at the Toronto Star and one each at the CBC and Radio Canada.
In the past, there were ombudsmen at the Ottawa Citizen, the Montreal Gazette, the Edmonton Journal, and the Calgary Herald, but they apparently were sacrificed to cost-cutting. We feel this is too bad, because we think ombudsmen provide a useful path of communication between readers and the paper.
Still, publishers and editors can deal effectively with complaints from their readers. For example, one Ontario daily recently published a headline that read, ``Native Crook off to Prison.'' When the complaint was brought to the publisher's attention by the Ontario Press Council, he promptly ran an apology to the readers on the top right-hand corner of the front page.
A few words about the makeup of the Council: We have ten public directors, representing a cross-section of Ontario society; a chair not presently connected with newspapers; and ten journalist directors, ranging from reporter to publisher.
Committees set up to adjudicate the complaints that appear before us have a majority of public members, although that is not particularly important, since the journalists on the committee are often harder on their newspaper colleagues than the public directors. And that is our report. Thank you.
The Chairman: It is my turn to declare a conflict of interest, I suppose. I was the editor who abolished the position of ombudsman at the Montreal Gazette. You are quite right, it was entirely a matter of cost and a matter of deep regret. I could write a book.
Senator Di Nino: You have.
The Chairman: No, not books.
Senator Di Nino: The report card on the Ontario Press Council's work, if I can put it in those terms, by a number of witnesses including the two that were previously sitting in your chairs, is not quite as complimentary as the report that you have given us, Ms. Anderson. Certainly, when it comes to the media, and news, which is the area that we are dealing with mainly, from my own personal experiences, I think some of the criticism is warranted. The depiction, particularly of certain segments of society, certain groups within society, in the area of news reporting is extremely sensational. This is an opinion.
I have some sympathy with the comments and the criticism directed at the media for portraying certain segments of society negatively.
I bring it up because it is the Ontario Press Council that they have to refer to. It would seem from the comments made that the press council is not really responding, or at least that the results of their appeal to the press council have not improved the situation very much.
Witness Ms. Mock's comment in response to my question that things do not seem to have changed in the 25 or 30 years that we have been watching them. I wonder if you could tackle that tough issue.
Ms. Anderson: I would say a high proportion of the complaints that come to the Ontario Press Council are on that very issue. We have been dealing increasingly with defining how those cases should be treated in the press, and being tougher on them than I think we have been before, particularly on columnists. They have to print it, and I do not know what more we can do.
There are limitations about what the press council can do. You cannot force papers to run stories, and we cannot fine them. The fact that they do have to print our findings prominently within a very short time is, I think, the best we can do.
Mr. Sufrin may have an awful lot more to say on this. He has been there for, how long now?
Mr. Mel Sufrin, Executive Secretary, Ontario Press Council: I guess it is about 19 years.
Ms. Anderson: He is the executive director. He has seen most of these complaints.
Mr. Sufrin: The council was set up to deal with complaints that come from the public, but in only certain areas has it established policies that govern, that in effect try to tell newspapers what is proper procedure and proper behaviour.
Our annual report lists policies on opinion, policies and advertising. This is the approach of the press council to what we think are generalized difficulties.
However, we do have to sit and wait until somebody complains before we act on anything that is specific. It is a limited area, and this is what the council was set up to do originally, to react to complaints.
It is not proactive, except in certain areas that seem to become general. In other words, if there are complaints about the way minorities are treated in the press, the council ultimately may come up with a policy statement that outlines the approach to that kind of problem. But we are not in the business of telling the press every day how to behave.
Senator Di Nino: Is the self-regulating system working then, in your opinion?
Mr. Sufrin: I think the way newspapers react to the press council, and the way they react to readers is generally pretty healthy. I would not want to see government trying to impose any more restrictions on the press than what exists already.
We would be delighted, for example, if the government or the courts were to provide some protection for reporters who rely on sources that they cannot reveal. As you know, this has happened in Hamilton just recently. It is a great concern.
Sure, I think it is working up to a point. I think this is definitely something that I favour, considering if you are going to start to interfere with every aspect of the way the press covers the news.
Senator Di Nino: Having regard for time, I am going to stop here, although I could go on all day.
The Chairman: So could all of us.
Senator Merchant: There is no branch in Saskatchewan of the press council. Why would that be? You said everywhere but in Saskatchewan. I come from Saskatchewan, so I have to ask why.
Ms. Anderson: I do not know. I really honestly do not know. They just have never had a press council there. We —
Senator Merchant: Why would that be? What was it that gave rise to press councils everywhere else, but not in that province?
Mr. Sufrin: Newspapers are opposed to it, and they are the ones that would establish it if there was going to be one.
Senator Merchant: Are they the ones that are funding you? How are you funded? Is it a volunteer organization? How do you work?
Mr. Sufrin: The Ontario newspapers fund the press council fully. There is no government funding at all. Quebec relies to some degree on money from government, but other press councils are strictly based on newspaper contributions.
Senator Merchant: It is the news people that are funding you? It is the newspapers?
Mr. Sufrin: Exactly.
Ms. Anderson: It is based on their circulation. Anybody who appears before the press council, who makes a complaint, we pay for them to come and their hotel room, while they are making the complaint so there is no cost for people to come to us. I admit we have limitations about what we can do, but the people that appear before us go away satisfied, whether they win or lose, because at least somebody has listened to them. They feel they have had a fair hearing. Very few of them are mad when they leave.
Senator Merchant: I do not know. Freedom of the press is very important in this country, but that has to protect the reporters and other people in society too. Once a story appears, a retraction cannot ever erase the harm. While people do not hold reporters in very high regard, they believe what they read, and especially they believe what they see, because television is a very powerful medium. When you see it, it sticks in your head.
I have never seen a retraction on the front page. I think it would be very useful if you would insist that if a retraction be on the front page, because the story is usually on the front page. The retraction is a little blurb somewhere, ``We regret,'' so that people do not see it but they see the photograph; they see the headline. This concerns me. What can we do? What can you do?
Ms. Anderson: Most of our member papers run a logo about the press council to make sure that people know that there is a place they can go and they can complain. Quite often we settle disputes before they ever get to the council, because we get the complaint and we go to the paper. Mr. Sufrin does all this, and quite often the paper does a retraction or a subsequent story that settles the problem.
I do not think most of the complaints come about the story on the front page. Most of them come about some story, often by a columnist or an inside story, so they have to put the retraction within the first part of the paper but not necessarily on the front page. I do not think that would be a proper thing for us to recommend, that all retractions have to run on the front page myself. What do you think?
Mr. Sufrin: No, I do not see that as necessary. Most newspapers have a place on page 2, where daily corrections are run and so on.
It is a rarity that you need a retraction that is so serious that it need be more prominent than that. Frankly, most complaints that we get are not so serious that you are going to expect it to be on page 1. A year ago, The New York Times published a retraction on page 1. I think it is the first time they ever have done that. I do not really see the need for —
Senator Merchant: I am only saying this because you mentioned that the retraction was on page 1. I am sorry, I come from Saskatchewan. I can only speak from my own experience.
Mr. Sufrin: By the way, if you want to know, there have been efforts to create a press council in Saskatchewan. They have usually come from the universities of Saskatchewan. The papers — there are four dailies there — have generally said, ``No, thank you.''
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I would like to ask a direct question. I have been largely saddened by the presentations by various individuals or groups that have come before us regarding the state of the Canadian media, and I would like to direct this question exclusively to newspapers.
I know people who are unhappy are more apt to appear than people who are happy, at least that is my impression, from government, et cetera. However, would you care to offer us your opinions as to whether one can be generally optimistic about the printed media today? I think we should deal with newspapers. Do you share the care and worry we have heard repeatedly in these hearings, and do you feel Canadians are being generally well-served or not? I guess that that is what it comes down to.
Ms. Anderson: I certainly would be happy to speak for myself. This is my own opinion, rather than as chair of the press council. Of course we are not happy with the press. I think that is a very healthy position for any democracy to be in.
We are never happy with the press. We always want it to be better than it is. No people want that more than the people who work in it. The thing that has always impressed me about the press council is that the public members, the people from the public who come on the council, enjoy it. They really regret when they leave because they hold the same opinions you are expressing. They want the press to be better, and here is an opportunity for them to get on the council and put some pressure on it, and they certainly do. They come from every walk of life.
However, the thing that has always impressed me is, the people that are toughest on the press are the people that come from the press itself. They are very tough on each other, and that has impressed me a great deal. For a while I was on the law commission for Ontario, which also got complaints. They were very self-protective of their profession. The press is not. They are tough.
Personally, I am often in despair about the press, because there are many stories I do not see in the press that I think should be there, or the stories are not good enough or analytical enough or too sensational. Certainly today I think there is too much tabloid-style press.
However, as a member of a democracy, if you really want to be informed in this country, you can be, and you can get the news, and as close as I think you should, to sell the papers. They have to sell. They are losing money, and they are losing readers, particularly young people.
There was a report in the Economist just last week about Le Figaro and Le Monde both losing circulation. They are very worried about it.
That is my rather long answer. I think I share your concerns about the press, but I am not sure what you should do about it. The last thing I think that should be done about it is that the government get involved. I spent many years in the magazine industry when it was in dire straits, and the last thing I ever wanted to happen is subsidies from the government. I think that would be very bad.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I think the way you phrased that is beautiful, in the sense that we want things to be better. That is the eternal hope for many, and so thank you very much.
Mr. Sufrin: Could I add just something to all that? As bad as you might think they are today, they were a disaster in the early days. My old company is the Canadian Press. When it was founded in 1917, people in Parliament were dismayed at the thought that there might be an independent company providing news for newspapers, because at that point, virtually every newspaper in Canada was either in the pocket of one party or the other. There were two parties at the time.
The fact is, we have come an awful long way. The newspapers are not as good as they ought to be yet, but they are far better than they were going back years ago.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: It is good to hear something positive.
The Chairman: Should we ever repair to a tavern, I shall give you some of the horror stories from the old days.
Senator Munson: I was in the newspaper business in 1957. I delivered the Campbellton Graphic, The Tribune and the Saint John Telegraph, then The Gazette and The Toronto Star and so on.
We have some key questions, and you have extensive backgrounds in the print business. I would like to get an answer on changes and media concentration, whether it is a personal opinion or the council's opinion.
We have seen so much with media convergence and ownership, and one owner in Vancouver, for example, owning a television station, a radio station, and a newspaper. I would like your general views of where you see the media going with all this concentration and convergence. Is it a good thing?
Ms. Anderson: Again, speaking personally, I do not think it is, but I think as much diversity as possible would be a good thing in the press. As we know, it is harder and harder for papers to make money, but there are other ways. The blogs on the website are a new element where people can get information if they want. That is one thing that is, again, optimistic about the press. Certainly that has been true in magazines in my lifetime, that at one time it almost looked like the periodical press in Canada was going to disappear.
The government did pass a law that removed the advantages that Time and Reader's Digest had. They could bring in all their editorial material, strip out American ads, add Canadian ads, and make a lot of money and compete with Canadian magazines that had to manufacture their news from scratch. It was not allowed to happen in any other country in the world but this one, and it just about ruined the periodical press.
When they finally passed a law in 1975, the periodical press flourished. There are now 600 magazines. Every year about 100 magazines die and another 40 start again, and that is what should happen. It is healthy.
Personally, it is a concern to see newspapers and television stations become consolidated. I think everybody is concerned about that. At the same time, there are new ways for people to get information.
Senator Munson: What are your concerns? Is it because you feel there are less voices in a democracy?
Ms. Anderson: Yes, less voices, one point of view. In the past, I think you know, many of the chains in Canada have not imposed a particular point of view on their papers. The editors in various provinces have had a great deal of control over the position they take. They have not had some directive from a central office saying they have to tow a certain line. I think Mr. Sufrin has something to say on this.
Mr. Sufrin: You think so?
Ms. Anderson: Quite a bit.
Mr. Sufrin: Not really, but if it had not been for somebody like Roy Thomson and today Osprey Media Group and so on, I think it is a good bet that there would be a lot of small cities in Canada without daily newspapers that have them now. It is largely because if they do not make a lot of money, they are part of a group that perhaps is financially viable.
Further, I do not see much evidence that the owners of groups of newspapers are, as Ms. Anderson suggested, imposing their will on the editorial position of these papers. I think, for example, that Izzy Asper was obviously a very strong Liberal. When he bought the National Post, you might have thought it would become a supporter of the Liberal party, and there is no evidence of that. At this point I think it tends more to be a supporter of the Conservatives. In any event, it is highly critical of virtually anything it sees wrong in government activity.
Now, I do not really see that it is a terrible danger. I think economically it may be the only way that the newspaper industry, as wide as it is, is likely to survive.
The Chairman: One of the most entertaining elements of the National Post recently has indeed been the very visible squabble in its pages between Mr. Harper and Mr. Asper, Jr., about whether it is a real Conservative paper or just a pseudo-Conservative paper. The word ``Liberal'' never appeared in that context, to the best of my knowledge.
Senator Chaput: I understand that the council acts on complaints. You receive complaints from readers or the public and I am sure you want to be accessible to everybody.
My question is on accessibility to the council. How about people from a minority who have a serious complaint in regards to racism? There is always the freedom of expression on the one side and certain expressions on the other side which could make them think that there is racism.
Have you received many complaints or a few complaints from the minority groups? Do you feel that they have access to your council as easily as the majority has? Do you know what I mean? Can you answer that question?
Ms. Anderson: A great many of our complaints are about minorities or the way they are treated in the press. From time to time we have had special pressure groups from minorities who are very predictable. Every time a certain subject comes up, we get complaints, and we know we are going to get complaints.
I think we are very open to that, and we deal with it regularly, and it is certainly around the table and the discussion. We have this sort of jury, and people appear before the council, then the decision is made and it is reviewed by the whole council at the next meeting.
Sometimes in rare cases, it is changed because people sitting around the table do not agree with the decision that was made. Sometimes we have to hear a case that we thought we did not need to hear, because of the council.
I am fairly content that any minority that has a complaint is heard by the council. Is that fair?
Mr. Sufrin: That is right, exactly. About two years ago the press council adopted a policy on identifiable groups. It was tricky, because they accepted the rule of thumb that an identifiable group constitutes people who were born to a group, or a part of a group although not necessarily by choice. For example, it includes members of visible minorities, nationalities, ethnic groups, religions, and people who are mentally or physically challenged or have a particular sexual orientation.
The council then rules on attacks or criticism of identifiable groups — that is, complaints about that — taking account of the fact that these people are the objects of either ridicule or whatever.
It was interesting that in reaching this, it found that, for example, teachers are not an identifiable group. They cannot be slandered personally by a column attacking some of their colleagues. The council sees it as reasonable suggestion. People in the profession or calling such as lawyers, doctors, politicians, union members, journalists, and the like, are in the same category. They are not an identifiable group.
It is an exercise in trying to determine, when people who are attacked or otherwise the object of criticism in the press are being attacked because of their religion or whatever, any one of these are, and not because the person is a teacher; therefore if you criticize teachers you are criticizing individual teachers. It is an interesting study, and it has worked in a few complaints we received.
The Chairman: Avoid all generalizations, I seem to remember.
Mr. Sufrin: You know what they say about generalizations. They are generally untrue.
The Chairman: Yes. You have how many members?
Mr. Sufrin: Twenty-one.
The Chairman: Where do they come from and who chooses them?
Mr. Sufrin: They are pretty much from around the province at this point.
Ms. Anderson: We always have somebody from one of the religious groups, for instance —
The Chairman: Yes, I guess what I am driving at is, are these representatives of the proprietors? What is the proportion between industry and public? Do you have representatives of unions? I assume you would be geographically representative, more or less of the province.
Ms. Anderson: It is a balance. Half the members are from the press itself and half the members are from the public. We try to get a representative group of public members, ethnically and job-wise. There is always a union member. There is always somebody from one of the religious groups. We try to balance it so there are equal numbers of men and women. In the press group, we have everything from publishers, and always somebody from the business side, to at least a couple of reporters, editors, and —
The Chairman: Who chooses them? Who twists their arm to join is probably more like it, but who does that?
Ms. Anderson: The council does itself. We do not have a nominating committee as such, but there is an executive committee. People that have been on the council often refer somebody else.
The Chairman: Are there fixed terms?
Ms. Anderson: Yes, they can only be on for eight years.
The Chairman: I see. Are there any major newspapers that do not belong?
Mr. Sufrin: The National Post.
Ms. Anderson: The National Post has never joined.
Mr. Sufrin: The publishers of the Belleville Intelligencer and the Peterborough Examiner withdrew those two papers some years ago, and they refused to come back but the National Post never did join. I have a feeling that the cost must be a consideration.
The Chairman: What is the cost for the National Post to join?
Mr. Sufrin: It would be quite substantial, about $30,000 a year. However, considering what they are losing each year, I guess that is a trivial amount. Nevertheless, we would like to have them in —
The Chairman: $30,000 is a junior reporter.
Senator Di Nino: Used to be.
The Chairman: Used to be a junior reporter.
Is that your annual report you were holding, Mr. Sufrin?
Mr. Sufrin: Yes.
The Chairman: That lists all the policies that you have?
Mr. Sufrin: Everything is in there.
The Chairman: We would really like to have a copy.
Mr. Sufrin: I will leave a few copies, and if you need more I can provide them.
The Chairman: Do you ever publish collections of your policies in a handbook format for wide distribution to journalists or to members of the public?
Mr. Sufrin: These are distributed to all our newspaper members. They are pretty well all on our website as well. We have quite a list of people who are interested in the council, and they go to them every year. That is about it. We produce maybe 800 or 900, and every newspaper in Canada pretty well gets one as well.
The Chairman: You are a complaints-based organization, so if I understood what you were describing, you tend to devise a policy if you have had a significant number of very similar complaints. Then, it becomes comparatively easy for you to say, ``Here is what we recommend as an appropriate practice in this case.''
Ms. Anderson: There are press councils in the U.K. and the United States, and some of them have a code of ethics. Some of the provinces, such as Alberta, has a code. We never have. We operate like the Supreme Court of Canada on —
The Chairman: Except without decisional power.
Ms. Anderson: The decisions that have been made before have a great deal to do with the decisions that we are making, and it is constantly being changed and refined.
The Chairman: You are not likely to take a pre-emptive course of action to say, ``We see problems looming in a given area and we would like to get out ahead of the game and set out some suggested policies.''
Ms. Anderson: We certainly take a stand when we see things happening. Part of our mandate, which we are not talking about today, is the freedom of the press. We dealt with this a number of times in the last few years, that city councils have tried to shut the door to the press for parts of their deliberations. We have been very strong in objecting to that, and intervening when we have objected. As mentioned, this Hamilton case of a reporter being charged and fined because he would not reveal his sources, we intervened on that.
Mr. Sufrin: You may recall some years ago that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police invaded the Montreal Gazette.
The Chairman: Oh, yes.
Mr. Sufrin: They went into the newspaper offices and tried to obtain material. In a small way we participated. We wrote to the superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and suggested on behalf of the press council that we thought this was something that was objectionable. The superintendent did reply, saying that they felt they would do this only when it is absolutely necessary.
It was a curiosity that for four yours afterwards there were no invasions of newspaper offices anywhere in Canada. We would like to think that we had something to do with it, but I suspect there was just no good reason why they thought they should do that.
The Chairman: The council has been around for 30-odd years now, 32, did you say? You made it plain that the complainants frequently go away happy, which is in itself, one would think, a good thing. However, do you think in that time, the existence of the council and its rulings have changed the way newspapers do what they do in any way?
Mr. Sufrin: Probably in some ways. It is difficult to say. To be specific, at one time we had several complaints from The Canadian Polish Congress. I think one involved The Toronto Star where they described concentration camps as a Polish concentration camp. The council made a very clear ruling on that.
The fact is that although TV recently made that same mistake, newspapers did learn from it. How much else did they learn, I do not know. It is very difficult to say.
We do not receive a complaint of that sort any more, because you never see the error made. Chances are there are other rulings that were made that at least affected one newspaper, if not all newspapers. That one newspaper may be acting somewhat differently because a ruling by the council went against it. Whether we have contributed to the improvement of the industry, I would not even want to guess.
The Chairman: You do print. You only do newspapers. There is no comparable body for broadcasting. Should there be?
Mr. Sufrin: For private broadcasters you do have the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, and that operates much as the press council would operate.
The Chairman: I thought there were more distinctions than that. I stand corrected.
Mr. Sufrin: You send complaints to Ottawa, basically. They will ask the radio or TV station to respond. Then they will deal with the complaint further, if the response is not satisfactory to the complainant so really, a lot the same way.
Of course, CBC has two ombudsmen, one in Toronto and one in Montreal. I have not seen any of their rulings of late. I disagreed with a couple of them, going back years ago, but how effective they are I do not know.
Ms. Anderson: I believe the Quebec Press Council covers broadcasting and magazines.
The Chairman: We will hear from them later this week when we are in Montreal, and it will be very interesting to see the contrast because, I believe, there are some different philosophies at work there.
Thank you both. It has been extremely interesting. Please leave us your presentation and your annual reports with the policies, which will be very helpful.
Ms. Anderson: Thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.