Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 5 - Evidence for December 16, 2004
MONTREAL, Thursday, December 16, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 12:43 p.m. to examine the current state of Canadian media industries; emerging trends and developments 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.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we are resuming our study as part of our inquiry into the current state of the Canadian news media, and we are privileged to have with us representatives of the Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec.
[Translation]
Our witnesses are Ms. Fabienne Cabado, an independent journalist and secretary of the association and Mr. Jean-Sébastien Marsan, an independent journalist, a freelance, as we used to say, who is president of the association.
I think you are familiar with our format. You have 10 minutes to make your presentation, after which there will be questions.
Mr. Jean-Sébastien Marsan, independent journalist and president of the Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec: Madam Chair, I do not want to repeat what I wrote in the brief you have received. I have sent you some documentation on the Quebec association of independent journalists.
I would rather start using my 10 minutes to tell you a story, something that actually happened to me today.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a short article for a Montreal magazine called L'Actualité pharmaceutique. It is put out by Rogers Media, which also publishes Maclean's, L'Actualité, Châtelaine and other magazines.
L'Actualité pharmaceutique, as its name indicates, is read by pharmacists. I did an article, actually an interview, with a professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Marcello Otero, who has done postdoctoral work on drugs. He is a professor of sociology who studies our relationship with drugs.
Mr. Otero denounces the overuse of antidepressants in Quebec. In his view, these drugs create new social standards that will become transmissible. There is a pill culture in Quebec, and this is very disturbing when we realize that Quebeckers are the biggest users of antidepressants in Canada.
I suggested this subject to the magazine L'Actualité pharmaceutique, which had never heard of Mr. Otero or his research. I therefore had something new to suggest, a certain amount of value-added, to use the business terminology.
I prepared an interview with Mr. Otero, which I submitted to the people of the magazine. However, I did that all by E-mail, we never met, and I think we spoke once or twice on the telephone.
They were very pleased with the result. They asked me to send them a bill, and their rate suited me very well. This morning, in my E-mail, I was asked to sign over the copyright in order to be paid. This assignment of copyright applies only to the electronic rights, not to the material in a print medium.
If I sign over the copyright, I will not be paid unless my article is re-used in print medium. If I do not sign, I think this will be the last time that L'Actualité pharmaceutique will want to work with me.
This is a context in which press concentration reduces the opportunities to resell an article elsewhere. If L'Actualité pharmaceutique had eight competitors in Montreal, I would tell them that I no longer want to work with them, that I did not like their business practices, and that I would go to see their competitor, L'Actualité des pharmaciens or Les Nouvelles du monde de la pilule, or whatever.
Unfortunately, that is no longer possible. I have little or no negotiating power with them. So they asked me to send the assignment of rights back by fax, and to stall for time, I told them that I did not have a fax machine. That is one way of getting a few more days. However, it does seem to me that I am going to lose my business relationship with this magazine.
In my view, this is one of the main threats to the freedom of the press and the quality of information in Quebec. The freedom of the press is threatened in Quebec, but not in the same way as in banana republics. We do not have a big bad authoritarian government that wants to censure the media.
Rather, we have business practices and precarious working conditions in journalism that threaten and in some cases undermine the quality of the information.
At the AJIQ, the precarious working conditions of journalists is our main concern. You have seen our brief, but we have also brought you a document entitled Droits Devant, a magazine which was published only once in 2001, on the issue of copyright. However, the content is still relevant and valid today, because the legal context has not changed.
The precarious situation of independent journalists in Quebec and of all part-time, temporary, contract, on-call or other journalists is a great concern. We at the AJIQ think that this is one of the main threats to the quality of information.
In order to reverse this trend, the AJIQ thinks that there must be a single interlocutor to deal with those who provide the work, namely the media owners and the media generally. That could be the AJIQ, or any other association that journalists might want to establish. We have no monopoly on good ideas.
In order to do this, we have to amend our labour laws, because at the moment, they do not allow multi-employer accreditation, namely the ability to unionize an entire industry all at once. In the work world, as you know, companies are unionized one at a time, and agreements always have to be renegotiated.
There are some exceptions, such as the construction industry, which was a free-for-all in the 60's in Quebec, and one day the government got angry and said that in future the industry would have to comply with the regulations set out in emergency legislation.
We at the AJIQ are not necessarily calling for such legislation for Quebec. Rather, we would prefer the government to allow multi-employer accreditation. And we are basing our recommendation on a document that you must have heard of, the Bernier report, which we quote in our brief. This report was submitted to the government in 2003 and is about the social and legal protection of part-time, temporary, self-employed and other workers. We call this group atypical workers.
The Bernier report contains 53 recommendations, and I cannot summarize them for you today. But the one that interests the AJIQ the most suggests the government establish a broad law on independent work in Quebec, based on legislation governing the status of the artist.
In other words, in all industries, self-employed or independent workers should be able to establish a representative association in accordance with certain criteria. For example, they might represent 50 per cent plus one of all independent workers in the association.
And once this association is accredited and recognized by the government, the suppliers of work, the companies, and the clients would be obliged to establish an employer association that would negotiate a collective agreement with the accredited association.
For example, in journalism, the fantastic thing would be to have collective agreements that apply to all independent media and journalists and that provide for a base minimum rate, social benefits and legal protection. We might think of some sort of unemployment insurance fund for self-employed workers, to which we could contribute. With each contract, there could be a contribution to the fund, which would allow independent journalists to count on a small amount of money if there were a breach of contract or if there was very little work. There could also be provisions for group pension plans, and so on.
However, for the time being, it is absolutely impossible for the AJIQ to do this, because the labour laws do not allow it.
Our only negotiating power at the moment is a class action suit which was filed in June 1999 in reaction to massive violations of copyright on the Internet. The suit was filed in Quebec Superior Court and has not yet been approved. This is a very long process — some class actions take ten years.
This allows us to go and see the publishers and tell them that we do not like the class action any more than we do and that we do not want to drag the matter out before a court for ten years and that we could negotiate acceptable working conditions out of court for all their workers and our members.
We managed to do that in 2001 with the daily newspaper Le Devoir. We reached an agreement, a licence for copyright.
Since that time, people working for Le Devoir are assured that they will be paid the amounts the newspaper gets by reusing texts in media other than print, for example, the paper's Internet site, the Cedrom-SNi Eureka database and other non-print media.
Those are my introductory remarks, and I will now be pleased to answer any questions committee members may have.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: The copyright issue has come up many times, not only here, but also in Ottawa. Can the copyright issue be dealt with by federal legislation? Can we find a solution to the problem of work being reproduced onto web pages and becoming part of large corporations libraries?
I am not an expert in copyright law, but there are publishing rights and copyright law to protect publishers and recorders of music. The artists are to be paid their piece in perpetuity. There was a time when they were not paid by the piece but sold their work into syndication; a situation similar to television.
[Translation]
Mr. Marsan: I am not an expert on the Copyright Act and I am not a legal expert either.
I do know, and we mention this in our document entitled Droits Devant, that the Canadian act provides that copyright belongs to the author, to the independent journalist, for life and even 50 years after, regardless of the medium.
People can only assign their copyright over in writing. In commercial law, a verbal agreement has as much value as a written agreement. Of course, a verbal agreement is much more difficult to defend in court than a written agreement: witnesses and evidence are required.
Copyright is only signed over in writing. Theoretically, we should be protected as a result. In fact, we have no negotiating power with the huge conglomerates that own various media outlets. In the past, members of the AJIQ have been asked to sign forced assignments of rights, in other words, we had no negotiating power. We were told to either sign or find work elsewhere because we would no longer be working for them.
In the 1990s, beginning in 1996 and until 2000/2001, it was very common in the world of journalism, at least in Quebec, to force independent journalists to sign over their copyright, because publishers were obsessed by the Internet eldorado. They were convinced that there would be a tremendous amount of money to be made by endlessly recycling content in various digital media.
In 2000/2001, when the Internet's speculative bubble burst, there was a significant decline in this type of behavior. In the last two or three years, independent journalists are no longer being asked to sign unilateral assignments of rights. The contracts are more subtle, people are asked to sign over some rights, the electronic rights. And publishers are somewhat more open to negotiation, but it is difficult, as is clear from my adventure this morning.
I know that in the federal government at the moment, there is a review process of the Copyright Act underway. I have not followed that closely. What I have seen, however, is a preliminary document that talked about stating in the act that journalists would keep a life-time copyright for all media.
There is no specific reference to independent journalists as such in the act. It would be helpful if the act provided that independent journalists, and we emphasize this, keep their copyright for life and even afterwards for all media and assign their rights in writing only. However, we have to be careful: a non-negotiated and non-negotiable contract is not a legal contract.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Does the CBC or Radio-Canada require you to sign the same contract? Do they require that you sign all of your rights away when you do a story for them?
[Translation]
M. Marsan: I worked briefly at Radio-Canada in Montreal, last year and in 2002, and I never heard anything about a contract for assigning rights. CBC and Radio-Canada do not employ many truly independent journalists.
They have many casual workers, people hired for a specified period, either three or six months, and their contracts can be renewed several times, but it can also be cancelled without any kind of notice.
On the other hand, there are not a lot of purely independent journalists at the CBC and Radio-Canada, that is people who sell their work on an ad hoc basis. There are very few of them. I am told that there might be some abroad.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: When they work under contract to the CBC versus being an employee of the CBC are they freelance for six months?
Mr. Marsan: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Do they get all the rights to the material that the person produces during those six months?
Mr. Marsan: No.
Senator Tkachuk: They do not?
Mr. Marsan: They do not, no.
[Translation]
Mr. Marsan: Because the Copyright Act states that salaried employees sign their rights over completely to their employer. Under their work contracts, they sign over all their rights to their employer. All the journalists who work for Radio-Canada or the CBC, all the unionized journalists who work for La Presse or the Journal de Montréal, have no rights on what they write and this is quite normal. It's what the law provides.
The Chairman: We should add that this includes term employees who are there, as you said, for six months, one year or two years.
Mr. Marsan: Yes.
The Chairman: For the term of the contract —
Mr. Marsan: They have no rights on what they write.
The Chairman: — they have no rights on their own product, in other words.
Mr. Marsan: Exactly.
The Chairman: This is what is involved?
Mr. Marsan: Salaried work automatically implies that the employer owns all the copyrights. Freelance independent work, however you might call it, automatically implies that the worker retains all his copyright, just like an artist.
Ms. Fabienne Cabado, independent journalist and Secretary of the Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec: We should perhaps differentiate between the written and electronic press, that is radio and television, where things work differently.
Under the current review of the Copyright Act, I believe that press organizations are viewed as cultural businesses. Journalists are not considered artists and nothing protects them in the act. It therefore seems essential to me to add a paragraph to define journalists as artists, as people having rights which should be respected, and there should also eventually be a paragraph in the act forbidding media businesses from negotiating the signing over of basic copyright. They should not even have the right to ask us to forfeit copyright, or else this should be really well regulated. There also needs to be a look at the concept that information is not a commodity, or at the very least, not a commodity like any other. This is how it is viewed at this time and this is what we confront every day as freelance journalists.
I find this very serious because it jeopardizes not only an entirely group of journalists, and there are increasing numbers of them and we cannot say exactly how many for now, but in the long term, this very simply threatens democracy.
Senator Chaput: You say in your document that the Copyright Act is very clear on many points, for instance, by stating that the journalist is an author.
However, this does not recognize the fact that the journalist is a creator or an artist, but simply that he is an author. You also say this: “What is also clear is that everyone seems to forget that this right exists for freelance journalists.”
If the Canadian statute is clear, why is it that this right is not respected and what recourse do you have? Could you sue?
Mr. Marsan: As a matter of fact, the press conglomerates do not comply with the act simply because they view us as cheap labour they can take advantage of. We are viewed as simple providers of content, which is a commodity that the media businesses and conglomerates want to reproduce in various media and use as much as they can for commercial purposes.
Senator Chaput: And not an author?
Mr. Marsan: And not an author, much less a worker with certain rights. The only way that AJIQ and other associations of journalists in English Canada, the US and Europe have been able to have their rights respected has been to launch class action suits or other court proceedings.
Recently in Toronto, some Globe and Mail journalists won an appeal against Thomson and The Globe and Mail. The class action was filed in 1996, so the process took a number of years.
There is a reference to this in the document entitled Droits Devant. Throughout Canada, the United States and elsewhere, class actions or similar applications have resulted in lengthily battles, lasting a number of years, but the law has always acknowledged the right of independent journalist to defend their work, and this is the term that should be used, regardless of the medium. The work belongs to us, but unless we turn to the courts, we have no power.
Senator Chaput: Should the act be amended or should the way it is implemented be spelled out in writing, or should both of these things be done?
Mr. Marsan: I'm not an expert on the legislation.
Senator Chaput: Nor am I, not at all.
Mr. Marsan: It would be desirable to have the act state that independent journalists are authors and that it is not right to make them sign over their rights unilaterally. That is all the act needs to say. That would be a great service to us.
[English]
Senator Munson: Do you know if this is common practice in other Western countries, or are there lessons that can be learned from other Western countries in terms of regulation and protecting freelance journalists like yourself?
[Translation]
Mr. Marsan: In America at least, all copyright legislation is similar, and Canada has signed agreements with other countries. A journalist is an author. In the United States, there was the famous case involving Mr. Tasini from the National Writers Union. It is mentioned in Droits Devant.
Mr. Tasini sued The New York Times to have his copyright respected and won his case at every level. Wherever independent journalists have sewed their employer to have their copyright respected, the courts have upheld their case, because all the legislation is similar.
[English]
Senator Munson: It is happening slowly, one at a time. You talked about The Globe and Mail case. I think that is the Heather Robinson case.
Mr. Marsan: Yes, it is.
Senator Munson: That is only one case, and then it goes back to square one, and then there are more appeals. Am I correct?
Mr. Marsan: Yes.
[Translation]
Ms. Cabado: My background is French and I worked in France, a western country, where the legislation is very different. In France, the law is the same for all journalists, whether they are salaried workers or independent. So the situation is quite unique: once freelance journalists sign a contract, they have the same rights as salaried employees.
So they are independent journalists, but they become salaried employees each time they sign a contract. And when freelance journalists work in France, the company paying them contributes to a pension fund, which means that these journalists are guaranteed benefits.
In France, there is even a national union of journalists, which covers everyone. That is not the case here, where everyone defends his own turf, where salaried journalists are very well defended by unions within their companies. That means that in France there are no double standards, with differences from on company to the next.
I come back to the idea that information is not a commodity. I think it is impossible to negotiate, or more accurately, it is ridiculous to negotiate different rights depending on the company for which journalists work.
I am not a great specialist on this either, but if you are interested, I would certainly suggest you take a look at what is going on in France.
The Chairman: Yes, we do intend to go to France, specifically to study this issue. It is also my impression that copyright law in France is much stronger than it is here.
Ms. Cabado: No doubt.
The Chairman: So there may be some things we should have a look at.
Ms. Cabado: Definitely.
[English]
Senator Munson: You talked about your story. Obviously, there must be other freelance journalists who are desperate and probably starving in a literary way. Do you know of people who would just sign because they really need the money? Is that why these media empires are getting away with it, because they can grab the weakest and pay them? Do they pay them 50 per cent? Do you have any statistics?
[Translation]
Mr. Marsan: We do not know how many independent journalists there are in Quebec. There are no statistics on that.
According to the Quebec statistics institute, which often uses Statistics Canada data, there are some 4,000 journalists in Quebec. The institute does not distinguish between salaried and independent journalists.
The association of independent journalists has about 100 members at the moment. The FPJQ has done surveys of its freelance journalists in the past.
I know from personal experience that most of my members earn relatively little — between $20,000 and $30,000 a year. Most have to work in fields other than journalism in order to make ends meet. Many write for companies, and this can raise serious ethical problems in some cases.
Some go so far as to work in advertising, which is diametrically opposed to a journalist's job. Some do translation, which is less contentious, or work as something else entirely, such as cashier in a store, car salesman, and so on. Anything is possible.
The problem is that in order to have a good career as an independent journalist, people have to be available all the time. So working in another field results in a lack of productivity.
And the copyright income is not very high. Last year, I may have received $1,000 or $2,000 in copyright, but this was mainly reproduction rights, because my articles are often photocopied extensively by universities, colleges and government services that provide press clippings. All of this is tabulated by the Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction, Copibec, which sends me the checks. This is not a great deal of money, but it is very important to me, because it is a matter of rights. If we sign over our rights, we are abandoning our only source of long- term capital.
Ms. Cabado: Earlier, I was saying that democracy was in danger, but the same is true of the quality of the information people get, given that good journalists will refuse rates that have not changed since the 70s, in the case of some media.
Whatever the industry, when a subcontractor is hired because of a shortage of in-house staff, the subcontractor is generally paid much more than the salaried employees.
In journalism, it is the opposite. Good journalists are leaving the profession or turning to other areas of activity, and this opens the door to all sorts of people who call themselves journalists and whose work is substandard. Sometimes we are accused of putting too much emphasis on quality, something I find completely ludicrous in the context of information media. I do not think there can be any such thing as work of too high a quality, since high quality should be the basic standard.
[English]
Senator Merchant: With respect to some of the problems you are having with wanting a retirement pension fund, we have heard from the ethnic press in Ontario that they are having the same problem. We heard from a witness that has been in business for 20 years and at the end of it there is no security for him. That is a big problem.
Do you think that having to sign over the rights to ones work will trap a lot of young journalists? Perhaps they are not always quite as concerned about these things when they first start out, because they want to get in and establish a foot hold. Does this action become counter-productive to what you are trying to do, which is to gain certain rights for your organization?
[Translation]
Mr. Marsan: Personally, I advise students not to start their careers as freelances. That is suicidal. And I will tell you why.
In Quebec, unfortunately, there is not a culture of practical training. Media companies often do not offer on-the-job training programs. They do not have many resources for finding promising university or college graduates, taking on the most talented of them and providing them with on-the-job training in a team.
And yet, this is necessary, because when people are starting out in the profession, working in a newsroom is the best possible experience they can have. They are supported by experienced professionals, meet many people, make contacts and learn quickly. And if any mistakes they make are corrected quickly, so they advance relatively quickly in their careers as journalists.
However, a young person new to the profession who starts working as a freelance will be isolated at home, will know no one and will have few contacts. And making contacts takes a great deal of time and travel.
Beginners make mistakes without realizing it, and these mistakes are printed and appear in the media. They have very few contacts from whom they can learn and progress quickly. The working conditions of these young people are very difficult.
Many young students come to see us at the AJIQ. They work as freelances for a year or two after graduating. They make $10,000 a year at most, they are very unhappy and isolated, they do not feel valued and ultimately leave journalism to do something else. So they study journalism for nothing, and they wasted two years of their life. None of this is good for the quality of the work.
When people are starting out, they cannot do a good job. In Quebec, in my opinion — and here I'm going to say something that may seem a little overstated: freelance journalism as it is practised at the moment is almost harmful to the quality of information.
In an ideal world, there would be fewer independent journalists, and they would be experienced people who have already worked in a company, who are specialists and have an excellent network of contacts, who have experience they can share, and who can produce high-quality information quickly.
These would also be people who have managed to build up some savings in their life, which also allows them to have their own little company. However, I think it is very bad for the quality of information to have all these young people, all these people coming off a long period of unemployment, all these beginners and all these people who call themselves journalists restricted to working as freelances out of their homes.
Ms. Cabado: These market realities mean that independent journalists do not have the time to be concerned about their rights. Rather, they are in a race for freelance contracts, and a tremendous number of independent journalists have burn-outs, because they are on the go all the time.
If they want to earn a decent living, they have to work non-stop, in terrible conditions, with too much pressure from employers and performance demands that are sometimes unattainable. There have been no studies of this issue. In my environment, I know a number of journalists suffering professional burn-out. I think this is a very important point.
At the moment, the AJIQ is drawing up a list of freelance rates in the various media in Quebec. One of the questions we ask in our survey has to do with copyright. We ask the following question: “What copyright conditions are offered by each of the media for which you work?”
People never answer this question. When we ask again, they say they do not know. In other words, they are caught up in a system where they have to deal with the most urgent priorities. I was going to make a comparison with underground workers who work long hours at low wages in sweatshops, and who are only concerned about making enough money to put food on the table. That is a caricature and quite overstated, but the situation is somewhat similar.
We must also point out that there is no union of journalists here. The association with the most power is the Fédération professionelle des journalistes, which represents salaried employees, who are defended by unions, who have excellent working conditions and who themselves have no awareness of the situation facing freelance journalists.
The AJIQ is a very small association with no power. There are eleven of us on the board of directors, and we have professional and family activities and devote as much time as we can to defending our profession. However, this is a huge job.
We must also find a way of enabling the AJIQ to mobilize independent journalists and get them to band together. At the moment, this is impossible.
The Chairman: I remember that at the very beginning, when articles were being reproduced in other media, one of the problems in paying copyrights was to anticipate the cost involved and to administer them. Because if access rights were sold, for example, to the archives of a newspaper, and this is particularly true now with the Internet, controlling access was at odds with the very idea of selling access. However, once access was sold to the newspaper, there was no control over what the purchaser decided to reproduce. It might be freelance texts, texts by salaried employees or photographs. It was impossible to predict, much less administer and track in order to determine who would be paid and how much.
So when I listen to you, I see a huge administrative apparatus looming before me and I wonder whether you have thought about other solutions such as the photocopy fund or the fund for libraries that pays authors whose books circulate in libraries. Might this approach interest you?
Mr. Marsan: I am not a specialist in the management of copyright, but there is a collective in Quebec which does this type of work very well for print media, for reproduction. It is Copibec, the Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction. Its pays royalties for the large-scale reproduction of printed documents.
It is starting to do so for electronic texts as well. I have signed a non-exclusive licence with Copibec for the management of my electronic rights. Any publisher wanting to publish some of my print articles will be told to negotiate with Copibec, not with me.
If a publisher wants to reproduce an article on a CD-ROM, for example, or an Internet site, that is fine, and I will say to contact the people at Copibec. And the people at Copibec will try to get the best possible royalties for me, while keeping a bit to cover administrative costs, which are very low at Copibec, because it is a not-for-profit organization.
With respect to management, the people from Cedrom-SNi operate a number a databases. There is also the Eureka.cc, Internet site, which contains archive articles that may be bought individually. If they cannot distinguish a text by a salaried journalist from a text by an independent journalist that is their management problem, not ours.
In any case, for ten years Canadian companies have been getting excited about electronic commerce. In my opinion, this is a very small problem to overcome. I see no serious administrative problems with it. All that needs to be done is to establish from the outset that there is a distinct difference between the copyright of a salary journalist and the copyright of an independent journalist and that royalties must be paid to independent journalists.
Mrs. Cabado: Yes, perhaps this is precisely the difference, once again, between independent journalists and salaried journalists. In the Internet age, it will obviously become increasingly difficult to control the dissemination of texts, and, at the same time, this is not the most desirable thing to do.
If I write a text, the more widely it is disseminated, the happier I will be, not because my name gets known, but because my work gets known.
I do not know to what extent this could be established by legislation or in some concrete way, but earlier I was talking about the very low rates paid to independent journalists. Independent journalists are paid only for what they write, not generally paid for the research they do.
To begin with, if the rates were higher, and if they were in keeping with the hourly rate paid to salaried employees, I think we would be much less insistent about our copyright and we would be happy to sign over the rights to our texts.
Moreover, another possibility would be to require notification every time a publisher used a previously published text — and there would be some administration to deal with — so as to better monitor and determine the cost involved.
Mr. Marsan: May I make a comment about the Internet? In the 90s, I was in favour of a completely free and open Internet, in keeping with the utopian dream of the people who invented it — namely a completely free, open, democratic space accessible to everyone.
Unfortunately, the Internet has been hijacked by people who want to make it into a commercial enterprise. I can live with that.
If the Internet is completely free of charge, it does not bother me that all my texts are on it, provided there is no charge involved. But if the Internet has become a commercial space, I want my share of the money that comes from my texts. It is a matter of principle.
Senator Chaput: My question is to Ms. Cabado. I would like to know more about your comment earlier that there is a law in France which, if I understood correctly, deals with freelance workers, not just journalists, and this law provides that employers must contribute to a pension fund.
Let me take the example of artists and other creators. I have a daughter who has a studio. She is a painter, and in order to keep her professional status, she has to produce so many works in two years. However, at the same time, she has to earn a living. So she works freelance, and because she has only small contracts, she has no pension fund.
Does the French law you referred to apply to all creators or just to journalists?
Ms. Cabado: It applies to journalists. I know that, because I benefited from it myself. However, the legislation is different for self-employed workers. This type of work does not exist in France the same way it does in Canada.
In order to be considered self-employed, a person has to set up a small company and pay various registration fees and contributions, such as to the health care fund. I remember that when I was a freelance, I would never have been considered self-employed in France, because I was not earning enough to pay the fees I would have had to pay as an independent worker under French law.
Consequently, I think that your daughter would not qualify as a self-employed worker in France, and ultimately she would become part of the underground economy. This phenomenon is much more widespread in France than here, and one of the reasons is that it is impossible to just be an independent worker.
When I got here I thought I had come to the land of milk and honey and that I was free to be independent. What I realize is that I am free to be independent, which I love, but as far as social benefits go, it is more like slavery than freedom.
[English]
The Chairman: Colleagues, we come now to our last, but definitely not the least of our witnesses of the day.
[Translation]
I would invite our next guests, the representatives from the Quebec Press Council, to please come forward.
Members will recall that two days ago we met with representatives from the Ontario Press Council. Now we have the Conseil de presse du Québec. With us today are Raymond Corriveau, the President of the Council, and Robert Maltais, the Secretary General. Welcome. You know our format: a ten-minute presentation followed by questions.
Mr. Robert Maltais, Secretary General, Conseil de presse du Québec: Thank you for your invitation. We are doubly pleased to be here, since the invitation came from you, the former editor of The Gazette. We will try to keep our presentation as brief as possible. We have brought a number of documents that answer at least partially some of the questions asked by the committee.
Unfortunately, on other issues of interest to you, we must say that we would have required more time. And in particular, we would have had to do some specific studies on certain issues in order to provide the committee with information, because you have raised some very fundamental issues.
We will make our presentation as briefly as possible, and we will be pleased to answer your questions in either French or English.
Mr. Raymond Corriveau, President, Conseil de presse du Québec: Without further ado, Madam Chair, since you have asked a series of very relevant questions, I will walk you through the documents we have provided and we will focus on the last part, because I think we have an exclusive point of view that deserves attention, because we have never written such comments anywhere. I think it is important to pass them on to you.
First, with respect to the operations of our council, we have a document that summarizes the year's activities. Fortunately, there is a chronology of the council's existence, its major activities and its operating procedures. However, if you have any questions later, we will be pleased to answer them.
In the first question, you ask whether Canadians have access to enough information and information of sufficient quality on international, national, regional and local affairs. Unfortunately, we cannot comment on all the key issues of interest to committee members.
Mr. Maltais gave you some of the reasons for that. However, I must tell you that we are considering a trip around Quebec, but so far it has not happened. That might have allowed us to contribute some more information. If we do make the trip before you have completed your study, we could send you some other material.
The second question asks whether communities, minorities and remote areas are well served. It is not clear that there is adequate media service for minorities. We have submitted two documents. The first is the result of a complaint filed with the council which is a good illustration of the problems that sometimes crop up with respect to regional information services.
You can see how we handle complaints at the council. We outline the background, the context, the analysis and the resulting judgment.
We have included the proceedings of the conference on the press and aboriginal reality, which was held in Quebec City in October 2003. I would invite you to review the recommendations made at this conference. There were three main ones, and I think they could lead to constructive, long-term solutions. You can appreciate that this problem must be dealt with a view to the long term. We will leave that document with you.
Another question asks how the current policy context has allowed such a concentration of the electronic media in Toronto and Montreal.
We cannot provide a specific answer to this question, because we do not have any policy analysis as such.
However, you do have a number of documents, in particular a brief prepared in February 2001 for a parliamentary committee, which received unanimous support. I think it is important to emphasize that there was consensus among all the political parties in Quebec.
In that case as well, some recommendations were made. I would nevertheless like to make a comment: it is clear that since we do not have legislation, as some countries do, and since we do not have a policy framework, the market has had free rein.
We would like to highlight an innovative proposal made at that time, involving the establishment of a development fund to promote the survival and establishment of independent information bodies. I think that it is an interesting solution that deserves your attention. The other suggestions are interesting as well, but we wanted to emphasize that one in particular.
That leads us to talk about the various types of self-regulation. Are they appropriate? We at the Press Council can argue in favor of self-regulation by the media. This is illustrated by the fact that there are five press councils in Canada, and by the fact that the Quebec Press Council has existed for over 30 years.
Our activities prove that self-regulation is possible: more than 1,600 decisions on ethics have been made in response to complaints against the information media. We have produced more than 10 briefs, 24 notices and 218 press releases.
Our ethical guide, entitled “Rights and responsibilities of the press”, is accessible to the public and to the entire journalism community and is on our website.
We very much hope that we will get the financial resources required to translate all these documents into English. We are asking the media to publicize the council's decisions and activities.
However, our independence entails a cost, and I think we must discuss this openly, which we will do.
Originally, a foundation was established at the Press Council by the public and government in the early 1970s. The interest from the foundation was supposed to provide the public contribution, which was augmented annually by the contribution from the media.
It was quickly apparent that this amount was inadequate, and the media's contribution was increased. Indirectly, the council became increasingly dependent on media organizations. Various strategies were developed over a certain period of time. The secretary general was a public servant paid by the government. I think it is important to mention that some media groups have for years shown a great deal of maturity and loyalty toward the council. However, we must also say that some indicators suggest that other media groups use the financial issue as a way of exerting pressure.
Throughout our history, we have been so handicapped by the lack of resources that for a certain period of time, it took 12 to 18 months to publish a decision. At the moment, it takes 4 to 5 months. We find the 4-month target difficult and not desirable, because we have about 500 cases a year, which result in about 100 judgments.
The difference between the two periods of time has to do with our mediation efforts. So, as you can see, it would be difficult to hear from the parties in less time.
All my predecessors, including the last two, have sounded the alarm bells regarding the funding and independence of the Press Council. I would invite you to read what we say on the very first page. This was a comment by the first president of the Press Council. In June 1977, he said that funding was the Achilles heel of the Press Council. It is quite moving to note that he said we should find a structural solution to the problem, in light of the volunteer time given by the council's directors. We highlighted this on page 3, at the very beginning.
Last year, we avoided a deficit thanks to a special donation from the foundation. However, as you have seen, that will make our long-term financial situation precarious, because the interest income has been reduced. This year, we are expecting a deficit because of the withdrawal of an association involved in media activities.
So that is the situation. Let us try to come up with solutions, if we may. Despite the goodwill of some media groups, we have to conclude that the voluntary contribution by the media and media organizations has been somewhat unreliable over the years. In order to run the Press Council, we have to be able to count on stable cash flows.
The council is studying various options. Our board of directors will be focusing on this thorny issue this winter and spring. Obviously, we must find a structural solution to the problem.
One solution that would allow the council to be independent from both financial and political pressure might be the establishment of a compensatory fund, to which the owners of the major media outlets would agree to contribute. This would mean that if one partner were to withdraw, the fund could compensate for this, and the major media owners would determine how to keep the fund active so that it could always provide regular funding for the council.
The problem with big newspapers is that they do not work collaboratively; we have to be realistic in that regard, they are in fierce competition with one another.
We have examined various solutions to that problem, but we have found none that was reliable.
Our council has an annual budget of close to $380,000, of which $70,000 come from the foundation and a little more than $200,000 from the members of big press organizations. We raise the rest here and there. This raises the question of whether the government could not itself provide the $200,000 donated to us by the private sector.
It is true that the Quebec government is itself looking for money, these days. They are not inclined to invest in industries where big financial groups are present. Rather, they tend to think that there is enough money in that industry for us to solve our own problems.
Between the precarious financial situation of the government and the inherently competitive nature of the media, could we not imagine a hybrid solution, in other words, some kind of regulation by which the government could ensure a mandatory contribution to the press council? It is true that we have always been careful to stay at arm's length from the government as well as everyone else, and that our existence depends on no statute nor constitution. The Press Council is incorporated but it is independent. The Press Council was not created by statute.
There is one solution: we could reduce our level of activity. But events in the past year have pushed us in the opposite direction; in 2004, civil society asked us to intervene in the case of Saint-Charles-Borromée, for example. Civil society was in need of an arbitrator, and editorial writers who might be described as well respected have applauded the role that we played in that regard.
As you can see, there is no easy solution, and we at the council, are still looking for one. I should point out that the members of the board are volunteers; they come from all walks of life, they are managers in media organizations, reporters, citizens, women and men, who, despite our financial difficulties over the last 30 years, continue to volunteer their services to ensure the survival of the council.
According to our very conservative estimate, which does not take travel time into account, our volunteers have given more than 54,000 hours to the Press Council. That is absolutely fantastic. Our board members are very dedicated people.
I think we owe it to them to find a solution. That is what we wanted to tell you today. We are now ready to answer your questions.
The Chairman: Before we go to questions, I will ask you to briefly describe the Saint-Charles-Borromée case for my colleagues who are not from Quebec and to whom the case is not so well known. This case is a good illustration of the complex issues we must sometimes address.
Mr. Corriveau: I will let the secretary general answer, because I was not president at the time, and Robert Maltais knows the context better than I do.
Mr. Maltais: Saint-Charles-Borromée is a residential long-term care centre where the patients, who are very vulnerable people, were abused. The story came out in the media through Radio-Canada and La Presse.
The case received extensive media coverage and a few days after the story came out, the director general of Saint- Charles-Borromée, Mr. Léon Lafleur, committed suicide.
The premier of Quebec did not hesitate to finger the media and to tell them they should consider their role in all of this. We found Premier Charest a little too quick to lay blame, but we did find it appropriate to do a little self-criticism. We set up three task forces that examined the case, that reviewed over 10 hours of radio and television reports and articles published mostly in Quebec dailies. In all, 111 texts were analyzed.
The committee concluded that, on the whole, the French and English press did fairly well except for a few cases where there were some shortcomings. Some of these were major, and some minor.
The working group found cases of minor slippage in almost all the media, and the major irregularities were observed on radio stations throughout Quebec where there was improvisation.
So the members of that special task force did the analysis and we published the results of their work. Finally, through that report, we answered a few questions.
Mr. Corriveau: There is a summary on page 85 of our annual activity report.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: We do not have a press council in Saskatchewan, but my understanding is that it is made up of the owners, journalists, and the public. How does the public appoint its press councils?
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: We advertise in the media, mostly in the print media, when there are vacancies at the Press Council. Anybody who is interested can apply.
We do, however, have selection committees who interview the candidates. Did I answer your question?
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Do these people get paid?
[Translation]
Mr. Maltais: No, no one gets paid.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Are they all volunteers?
[Translation]
Mr. Maltais: We are all volunteers. The 22 members of our board are all volunteers. Our chair does get paid but very little. As he is a university professor, it is not a problem for him.
Mr. Corriveau: I donate the money to my university.
Mr. Maltais: So they are all volunteers except for the four permanent employees, myself and three others.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: At page 43 in the English section entitled “Mission Goals and Operation of the Press Council of Quebec,” I was intrigued by this passage:
The Council is also a permanent forum for discussion and debate on journalistic ethics. It endeavours to instill in the public a desire for complete, accurate and authentic information, based on the ongoing concern for professional integrity to increase public awareness, and the essential role that the press plays in a Democratic society.
My assumption is that this question of ethics applies not only to journalists but owners as well.
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: All of the council's discussions, in all committees, at all levels, are tripartite. There is never just one group of individuals. At all levels of the council, among the officers of the council, the board of directors, the complaints committee or the appeals board, the representation must be tripartite, that is a mandatory requirement.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Does this question of copyright ever come up? The question was brought up by the previous group of contract journalists who were concerned about how they were being paid and the question about how they were being approached. They recalled the gentleman that wanted to be paid for not only the work that he did on that particular story, but also for future copyright work. That seemed to be a normal thing to ask, but basically he was told to take a hike.
Would that not be a good topic of discussion for the press council? Perhaps the press council should take some action before government has to step in and do it for them.
[Translation]
Mr. Maltais: None of the issues that are negotiated by management and unions, such as salaries and so on, is addressed by the Press Council. Only the professional acts of journalists are within our purview.
We refuse to deal with these issues. We try to strike the right balance, taking into account that there is management, there are journalists and there is the public. The public helps us to keep management and journalists on topic, focused on the ethics of journalism. Discussing salaries is absolutely out of the question. There are unions for that, and we are not a union; we are a press council, and like any other press council in Canada, we play the role of arbiter, so to speak.
We must judge, from a professional ethics point of view, the quality of information. That is what we do. We therefore refuse to deal with issues that have nothing to do with our mandate and that are related to collective agreements.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: I am not talking about the payment; I am talking about the principle. The discussion of how much the job is worth does not have to come up, but the topic of the copyright should be discussed. The owners have as much an obligation as the journalists do to discuss these issues and to make sure that they are doing the right thing.
How can these issues of copyright be discussed by the media themselves, if they themselves have not had a discussion on the ethical nature of how they deal with copyright? Do you know what I am getting at?
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: I understand your question, but we focus on the public's right to know. If issues related to copyright or work organization were shown to impede the public's right to information, there are various mechanisms people could us; they could file a complaint with the council that we could then review.
You must understand that we often refer to our guide entitled “Rights and responsibilities”. We have to see whether we can deal with this matter. The council works in such a way that members of the board of directors can call for the council to take a stand on a contemporary issue.
So there have to be people, from whatever background, who raise the point. At the moment, I do not think we have any precedent in this area, because too often this has to do with organizational procedures from which we want to maintain some distance, particularly in the area of the public's right to computerized information, information which is already available in the public domain.
Senator Chaput: If I understood correctly, you said at the beginning of your presentation that you agreed that the media should be self-regulating, because that is essentially what you do, is it not? There are five press councils in Canada and that is what they do, if I understand correctly?
Mr. Corriveau: Yes; we are the only council that deals with both the print media and the electronic media, I believe.
Senator Chaput: What role do you think the CRCT should play in regulating and supervising the information media in Canada, if in fact it should play a role at all? What measures would be appropriate to support what you are doing, and how should this be done?
Mr. Maltais: You ask excellent questions, senator.
Mr. Corriveau: Yes, except that the problem is that your question requires a much more in-depth analysis than I can give you at the moment. And in my opinion, it would not be helpful to tell you something that we have not analyzed enough.
We can talk about our experience and we wrote about it in the case of CHOI, namely, that the CRTC does have a role to play. That is clear. We published an article in Le Devoir, which was also carried by the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec. In the article, we raised some questions about what we are doing and we said that the Press Council imposes a proximity penalty.
In other words, if a broadcast host makes some comments that are not socially acceptable, the Press Council will file a complaint against the host in question.
In the article, we invite the CRTC to think about the development of new media technologies. The basis, and in universal language we would talk about the topical basis, the major focus, the core of the CRTC's legitimacy, is based on the fact that access to airwaves is limited.
This issue will change over the years because of the arrival of new technologies, and the basis of legitimacy will no longer be the fact that access to the airwaves is limited by the number of frequencies, because there will be accessibility, there will no longer be any restriction on the available air space.
That caused us to invite the CRTC to think about other solutions rather than withdrawing a licence, to take the extreme case. At the moment, that is entirely legitimate, because of the limited access to the airwaves. We were inviting the CRTC to think about the option of a proximity penalty, which is what we impose.
That calls for an entirely new legal apparatus. In any case, I think we will have to get to this point some day. This is why we were inviting the CRTC to start thinking about this issue now, because once the airwaves are accessible to a large extent, because of digital transformations, the commission will have to deal with this problem. It is something we thought about some time ago.
[English]
Senator Munson: We were told by the Ontario Press Council that ombudsmen in Ontario — and I do not know if it was one or two newspapers — were let go because of cost cutting measures. Has that happened in Quebec? Are there ombudsmen in all of the major newspapers that deal with complaints from the media or from the public?
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: To my knowledge, there is no ombudsman for the print media.
Mr. Maltais: There is no longer one. The Gazette had one. Ms. Fraser knows something about that, there was an ombudsman at The Gazette. In Quebec at the moment, only Radio-Canada/CBC has an ombudsman. The newspapers no longer have one.
[English]
Senator Munson: Would that be a good thing?
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: Perhaps these people also thought about the council's background and impact. They may have preferred to intervene by financing the council. Gesca has been with us for a very long time, but we now see that the Quebecor Group is aligning itself with the council, and we are very pleased about that.
Perhaps their thinking is that given the very serious work done by the Press Council, and given that we are accessible to everyone — I do not know, here I am speaking for them — they think we are doing enough to deal with ethical problems in Quebec.
Mr. Maltais: Another feature which distinguishes us from our colleagues in Ontario is that other Canadian press councils have said that they will deal only with the media who are members of the council. A certain number of newspapers are members, and most of them are dailies. This is similar to the former British model, from England.
So whether the media like or it not, we deal with them, and we say that the public has the right to information. If a person's rights have been violated, whether or not the media service in question is a member, the latter will have to provide explanations to the Press Council.
We have a somewhat broader approach in this regard: we are the defenders, and in the extreme case, the representatives of all Quebec citizens. The media have to answer to the Press Council, whether or not they are members.
The Chairman: I know this is somewhat unusual, but I would just like to clarify one point, since a reference was made to my previous life. It is true that about 10 years ago I abolished the ombudsman position at the newspaper where I worked at the time, and it was not at all because I thought the Press Council was all that was required. Rather, in my opinion, there cannot be too many self-regulatory mechanisms. The position was abolished purely and simply because of costs. How many people were we entitled to have in our newsroom, and which were the most important to keep? Was it more important to keep journalists who were supplying information, or the ombudsman, who judged their behaviour? I made the decision, rightly or wrongly, that a journalist was even more important than an ombudsman. However, I certainly would not want this to be interpreted as a judgement about the value of ombudsmen, nor about my views at the time or today. I apologize for this interruption, colleagues.
[English]
Senator Munson: That is fine.
I just wonder how the public gets its point of view in this converging world. Are the newspapers in Quebec, like La Presse or Journal de Montréal, worried about convergence? Where does the public go to have its voice heard?
It is nice to have the press council write you a nice letter, but it seems to me that there is nobody in a very public place that is protecting the rights of the reader.
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: I must tell you that your question puts us in a very uncomfortable position, and I will explain why.
Some members of a union filed a complaint with the Press Council about convergence and its impacts on information. Once a complaint has been filed with the council, we must refrain from making any comment on the subject given that on the one hand, we must protect the work of the complaints committee, which is analyzing the complaint.
On the other hand, since I myself chair the appeal board, I must definitely not make any comment on this matter, because if there were an appeal, I would have to chair the appeal board.
I believe it was last month that we received a complaint on this matter and we will analyze it according to our usual procedures.
[English]
Senator Merchant: Given the multi-ethnic, multicultural nature of this country, are you receiving a lot of complaints from minority groups as to the way that they are represented in the press? I think that since 9/11 particularly there have been groups that have felt marginalized and uncomfortable with the way that people interpret what is happening in other parts of the world. There are other networks now from elsewhere who want entry into the Canadian market, and I am wondering if you are getting a lot of citizens who are looking to you to get some justice, so to speak?
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: I will refer part of your question to the corporate memory seated to my left.
Mr. Maltais: Yes, we have complaints regularly, and that has always been the case. Unless I am mistaken, I think that since September 11, there has been a slight increase in complaints from various ethnic communities.
As you are well aware, various communities have been more sensitive since September 11. However, at the Press Council we remind ourselves when we are working on a complaint that we are still using the same ethical standards and we pay a great deal of attention to them.
First of all, we try to be fair and equitable in our decisions, but we are very careful not to go too far the other way into political correctness, something which frightens us as well, because we are dealing specifically with ethics.
All citizens are equal, and of course that includes the various ethnic communities in Canada and Quebec.
Mr. Corriveau: I would say that the ethnic communities have always been fairly quick to react to any type of injustice. Since I have been on the council, for over 10 years, even though I left and came back as the chair, we have always been extremely vigilant with respect to the ethnic communities.
Yes, there may be slightly more complaints, but there is nothing new in that regard. So perhaps the problem is persisting, if there is nothing new.
I would remind you that the council has no legal power, it has only moral authority. However, we remain accessible to everyone. The former mayor of Sainte-Foy made this comment about accessibility: “A lawsuit costs $100 million, and it takes 10 years to settle.”
Very few people can afford lawsuits. Because of the council's accessibility, it is very attuned to ethnic minorities and anyone can turn to it.
I am also thinking about aboriginal issues, on which we held a special symposium, for example. And in the trip we want to make around Quebec, it is clear that we must go and visit aboriginal communities, if the board agrees and if we come up with the funding required, of course.
[English]
Senator Merchant: Do you have board members who are able to deal with these issues? Are they members of minority groups? I ask if they are members of minority groups because sometimes they can bring a different understanding and interpretation to the subject. They feel differently about the subject because they have lived the life.
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: Yes, we do have representatives of ethnic minorities on our board of directors and on our various committees.
Mr. Maltais: We are also pleased to tell you that we have representatives of the aboriginal community, the Arabic big community, the Jewish community, the anglophone community and the francophone community. It is not the UN, but in some respects, it is not far off. I think it is positive that we can have a good representation of the population, and generally, regardless of the background of our board members, we have never had any quarrels. They get along well, because the issue we deal with is ethics.
Ethics is a question of equity among human beings. I think there is always a way of finding a compromise on this basis, and that is what people generally do, by setting aside some entirely legitimate cultural sensibilities. Our members try to set them aside so that we can work to achieve the greatest possible justice.
Mr. Corriveau: I should tell you how the council works. The committees actually receive the new members, one after the other. So there is a learning period on each of these committees. It is very impressive to see people from different backgrounds and it is absolutely fascinating to see the absence of corporatism when they come to analyze complaints.
We might think that journalists would side with journalists. That is absolutely incorrect — that is not how it works at all. There is a complete absence of corporatism that comes into play. Actually, that is why I came back to be president again, because seeing the way in which these committees work was one of the most impressive experiences of my life.
[English]
Senator Merchant: How do people contact you? Is it just in writing? Do you have public forums that people can come to and participate as a group? In a group setting sometimes people are strengthened in their resolve if they realize that others in the community have the same problem. Do you have any opportunity to hold a forum, or do they write to you? How do they get in touch with you?
[Translation]
Mr. Corriveau: One of the things we do is to hold symposiums. We have held hearings on certain subjects. However, the complaint is still the procedure that is used the most.
Dissemination of the council's judgments really reaches out to the communities. In fact, we want to encourage the media to increase the coverage of some of the council's judgments.
Our revenues are modest. There are many things we would like to do, but I have to do one thing at a time. I could give you a list of some absolutely fascinating points we have received, about which we could write briefs, but we do have to deal with the financial realities as well.
Mr. Maltais: If I may, I would add that the public's expectations — and we deal with the public on a daily basis, people call us a great deal — are very numerous, and we cannot respond to all of them. They are often legitimate, and the public expects that the media in general must be accountable. We have noticed that, unfortunately, this is not done enough, so we are there to do some educational work, to put it modestly, along these lines.
There is not enough accountability to the public. What are the best approaches for doing that? There is the CRTC, the Press Council, and mediators in the media.
I am a former journalist, and I can tell you that both journalists and the media insist on saying that they are accountable only to the public. Though that is a commendable principle, that is not really what happens.
We work every day to ensure that the media and journalists are accountable to the public. I would say, and I am not sure I am supported by my board in this — that often the media are like the shoemaker with worn-out shoes.
In other words, they provide information about what is going on in society, but they forget to provide information about themselves, to explain to the public what they are and what they do. They are not doing that.
The public is entitled to know, because after all, this is supposed to be a public service. If that is so, let us provide some information. Even if we work for privately owned media, that does not mean that we are not providing a public service. Unfortunately, people often fail to understand that. We are there on a daily basis to remind people of that.
Mr. Corriveau: I think that in the past year in Quebec society there was a film and a number of events, the Saint- Charles-Borromée case is one — where journalism was called to account.
The Supreme Court judgments are a case in point, in the Néron case, for example. I think that in the journalistic community at the moment, there is a greater awareness. They are somewhat like us, they are looking for mechanisms.
It would not be betraying anyone to say that we have good dealings with the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes. We work together to determine — just as the secretary general was saying — how we can make people aware of greater responsibility, how we can better support the actions of good journalistic practice, as recommended in the Néron judgment.
At the last convention of the FPJQ, a number of comments were made. Mr. Justice Robert told journalists that they should consider establishing a professional corporation, or at the very least, a procedure for determining a good practices guide.
The court does not much like having to determine for another group the guidelines for good practice. It said this could perhaps be done through this means. I am not saying that it must be this means, but these are some very important people. There was a sequence of events that called the journalistic world to account. There was a court proceeding on this matter.
The Chairman: Thank you. I have two questions to ask. The first is whether you are familiar with the work done by the Ontario and other press councils? Have you noticed any philosophical differences or other differences between the francophone media and the anglophone media?
Mr. Maltais: There are similarities in the work done by the two press councils. We regularly receive the annual reports of the activities of the Ontario Press Council.
We can certainly say that the Ontario Press Council is very active, despite its rather limited resources. The council is quite active. The ethical principles we defend are virtually the same. There is nothing new here — these are principles of the western world that apply in both Europe and America. There are many similarities.
I think that the only major difference is that we want to try harder to get resources. Perhaps they do that as well, but our coverage includes the electronic press.
The Chairman: I see. That was my second question, which you have led into.
You mentioned the resources you have sought: you accept financial assistance, and occasionally, in the course of your history, some government employees.
Mr. Corriveau: Yes.
The Chairman: I have always found that somewhat surprising on the part of an organization involved with the information media. Did that not disturb you?
Mr. Corriveau: I think that provided there are some guidelines, government assistance is acceptable. Are economic influences worse than political influences? If we have any problems, they are due to the fact that we have always displayed our independence.
It is clear that the public does not have the resources to provide contributions, and that is why we occasionally seek government assistance. This assistance is in no way tied or conditional on anything. We would never accept a condition of any sort.
This is simply part of the reality of inadequate funding. That is why I was saying that the ideal solution from our point of view would be a compensation fund provided by the media corporations themselves, so that there would be no need to seek funding from anyone.
However, on specific issues such as the translation of our documents, for example, would it be so serious to have a federal government subsidy for that?
The Chairman: It is the government, after all.
Mr. Corriveau: Yes, but could that have an impact on our committees in any way whatsoever? Never. These people are absolutely independent.
The fact is that if anyone tried to apply pressure to one of our members, there would be a scandal within the Press Council. I remain detached from the complaints committee. I want absolutely nothing to do with it, and I, like the media, receive a list of the complaints that have been filed. We are extremely vigilant in this respect.
Nevertheless, you have raised a good question, and my president answered it. I would just add in addition that we need to protect the independence of the Press Council with respect to our own members.
The Chairman: Definitely.
Mr. Maltais: Not only can the council's autonomy be threatened by the government, but also by media corporations, since they are the major funders of the council. How can we strike a balance? As you know, there are many dangers, which may come from many quarters.
Senator Chaput: Your answers to all the questions we have asked you today have been very good.
In any association, there are always some difficulties or challenges, and even some problems. What are your difficulties? You do not seem to have many. Things seem to be going well, you have good answers to our questions.
Mr. Corriveau: Our difficulty at the moment is that we must review all of our procedures, because we want to seek funding from someone else. Before bothering others, we need to do some work ourselves. We are in the process of reviewing all of our procedures.
We are in the process of defining very specifically how the procedure for issuing a notice is determined, and which screening mechanisms should be used within our own organization. And these are things that must be done.
Internally, there is always work to do. And after a few years, we have to ask the question: Is it still adequate?
However, it is the issue of financial independence that is, to my way of seeing things, the one that must be settled. We absolutely must come up with enough money to manage things so as not to curtail board's activities.
For the past 30 years, we have created something that works well, I think, thanks to an unbelievable number of hours of volunteer work, as you have seen. Civil society expects more and more from us.
If we want to answer those expectations — it is incumbent upon us to do so, since we are there for that very reason — we need some form of funding. For example, we have a junior analyst who holds two BAs, one in literature and the other one in law, and she is finishing her master's degree in communications, but I cannot hire her full time; I would like to do so. We would need her full-time.
So when I mention problems, these are the kinds of problems we are faced with. More concretely, it means that I would like, next year, to have a budget that would allow me to hire her year round.
The Chairman: Mr. Corriveau, Mr. Maltais, thank you very much. Your presentation today was extremely interesting and very useful for our committee.
Mr. Corriveau: Thank you for giving us a chance to address your committee.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, before we adjourn, I am sure you will join me in thanking all the people who have helped to make this trip outside the sacred confines of Ottawa such a tremendous success. It takes an enormous amount of organization and sustained support to make things like this work, and every single person involved has done a terrific job.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
The committee adjourned.