Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 7 - Evidence
CALGARY, Wednesday, February 2, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 9:08 a.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 there to.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chairman) in the Chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Honorable senators, welcome to Calgary. We are continuing our study of Canada's news media with a view to determining the role the government should play in helping the news media remain healthy, independent and diverse in light of the tremendous changes that have occurred in recent years — namely globalization, technological changes, convergence and concentration. We are continuing our tour of the Western provinces. We started a week in Vancouver.
[English]
We are delighted to be in Calgary, Alberta. Our first witnesses are from the Alberta Press Council. We are joined by Mr. Bruce Hogle, Ms. Colleen Wilson and Mr. Robert Ardiel. Welcome to you all.
Mr. Bruce Hogle, Chair, Alberta Press Council: Senators, welcome to Alberta. Thank you for allowing us to be with you this morning.
One of the main recommendations of the last Senate Committee studying the mass media, was the formation of press councils in Canada. Alberta was the first province to conform with that recommendation on a voluntary basis. Our mandate is threefold: to defend freedom of the press, naturally; to mediate complaints against printed media members; and to speak out in certain circumstances against limitations on access to information.
Seven of the nine Alberta daily papers are members, as well as all 111 weekly newspapers. We have a modest budget of $70,000. We have only one staff member, our Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Mr. Robert Ardiel.
The council sponsors a scholarship for a graduating Alberta high school student. Throughout the province of Alberta, we had some 140 applications last year on the extremely interesting topic: What limits should be placed on free speech when it comes to comments that may encourage discrimination?
I certainly do not have to remind any of you of the tremendous changes that have taken place over the years since our first newspaper in 1752 in Halifax, nor of the tumultuous times in which we live and the number of courageous journalists who have given their lives simply to tell the truth. I find it somewhat ironic that we now need a committee to protect journalists. That committee reports that 337 journalists around the world were killed in the last decade, 57 losing their lives in the last year, 2004. Other than the military and the police, there no more dangerous profession.
Canada is not immune from such violence. In Vancouver, Tara Singh Hayer, the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times was murdered in 1988 as he sat in his wheelchair in his garage at home. Ten years prior to that, he had been shot and crippled by the same people who killed him. His daughter continues publishing in Vancouver, despite the ferocious threats to her and her family. In the year 2000, veteran Montreal journalist Michel Augur survived three bullet wounds. He was shot because of his articles exposing underworld activities.
More recently, reporters have been pressured and harassed to divulge their sources and have bravely resisted. The RCMP and the courts seem to be gaining ground in forcing journalists to divulge sources of leaked stories.
It is easy for Canadians and people living in the Western world to take a free press for granted. We have never done that in Alberta. It was October 1, 1937, when the Alberta Social Credit Government introduced the Accurate News and Information Act. That law would have controlled press freedom by rigidly insisting that all newspapers, daily and weekly, had to print government information, government releases as given to them. Naturally, courageous publishers of the day successfully fought that law. As such, the Alberta Lieutenant Governor refused to proclaim that act, and it was later struck down by both the Supreme Court of Canada and the British Privy Council.
For their gallant stand, in 1938, the Columbia University School of Journalism presented Alberta weekly and daily newspapers with a special Pulitzer Price — the first such prize ever presented outside the United States.
Alberta publishers of today have never forgotten that near travesty.
Freedom of the press and the responsibility that goes with it is one of the major mandates of the Alberta Press Council. Accordingly, knowing that many of you have a media background, we would applaud a strong statement from this particular Senate Committee which reinforces the long-established and cherished freedom of the press and the rights of journalists to freely gather and report the news. It is imperative that vital news sources be protected and those involved not be coerced to reveal or name their sources.
Our second and equally important mandate is our assurance to the public that we will handle complaints objectively, consistently and expediently. In simple terms and design, the Alberta Press Council is the print media equivalent of an ombudsman, mediator and conciliator. Our code of practice is attached, and you will note that it states that unethical conduct by any of our members jeopardises the objectives of defending freedom of the press.
It is important to note that decisions of the council are made without the influence of publishers. When we do hear a complaint involving a particular newspaper, that particular press member is asked to leave the room so we can have open discussions.
Since its inception, the Alberta Press Council has received about 300 complaints. The majority were satisfactorily resolved by our complaint process. Approximately 50 complaints were adjudicated, with fault being found against 15 of the weekly and daily newspapers. In all cases, our decisions must be published in a prominent spot in the particular newspaper involved. As well, Canadian Press disseminates that information across Canada.
I would assure members of this Senate Committee that the Alberta Press Council has dealt with extremely tough issues in the past, sometimes with the threat of being sued.
Understandably the press council confines itself to complaints within the province. We do have provision within our bylaws to handle complaints outside of our borders. In fact, our last complaint against a daily newspaper in this province was the result of a complaint lodged by an Aboriginal lady in Ontario. This particular lady had picked up on the internet a series of five columns by one of our daily members. She contacted us and launched a complaint. She was represented by the Mayor of Brooks. We ruled in her favour, and the newspaper in question did indeed publish our results, as it was expected to do. None of the offending newspapers has ever refused to publish any of our findings.
Appreciating that some might wish to arbitrarily oppose a national organization to oversee complaints against newspapers in those provinces without press councils, we feel strongly this would be a regressive step. Rather, we would encourage this Senate committee to reiterate its support of voluntarily organized press councils in every province. Urging all newspapers to join would be welcomed and supported by us. Hopefully this could become a reality by the end of 2006.
We would point out to the senators assembled here this morning that Canada is vastly ahead of the United States, where there are only three media advisory counsels; the states of Washington, Minnesota and Hawaii. However, they do not have the power or the wherewithal to handle complaints, as do the existing five press councils across Canada, all of whom keep in touch with one another on almost a daily basis. We also meet every two years and conduct meaningful seminars.
The Alberta Press Council is now in the process of becoming much more proactive in reaching out to the community. We have contacted the presidents of both the Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton and the Red Deer Community College, in Red Deer. On the weekend I talked with the heads of the journalism departments at SAIT in Calgary and Mount Royal College in Calgary, with an idea to setting up a series of seminars to find out what our young people feel about the media. I want to leave an additional document for you in that regard, although it is from the United States.
As a matter of fact, just before I left, we had reached an agreement with Grant MacEwan journalism students, and when I return we will be holding our first seminar in the first week of March. We are very excited about that.
We also encourage our press council members to keep abreast of what is going on and to inform the public through speeches, appearing on open line programs, or doing interviews, whatever the case might be. As chair, I am particularly proud of the high calibre and significant contributions of the volunteer time that all members spend on press council, especially Ms. Wilson and Mr. Ardiel.
In concluding, senators, I have two extremely interesting articles which I would be delighted to leave with you. One is from the Radio Television News Directors Association in which they have just announced the launch of a comprehensive multi-year national diversity project to help the news media better reflect Canada's cultural diversity. It is a two-year undertaking, and we support this 100 per cent. There are three main objectives, one of which is to improve the reflection of the diversity of Canada in news programming. Another is to help news managers with hiring a more diversified workforce. We think that is wonderful.
The other article — and I just received this from my son who is in the news — is an 11-page document from the January-February issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. It is based on the Associated Press Managing Editors Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, last fall. I think you would find it a great edification. I appreciate that it does not apply to Canada per se. The heading is, “Let's blame the readers.” Is it possible to do great journalism if the public does not care?”
I am not trying to force these articles upon you. However, if there is interest, I do have copies. I will leave them with committee clerk.
There are different examples and what was done in this particular instance. People from all over the United States were flown in to express their views at this conference in order to try to understand why young people are breaking away. Thirty years ago in the U.S., 6 per cent of all grade 6 students had television sets in their own rooms. Today that figure is 70 per cent.
We will leave the articles from the Columbia Journalism Review and the Radio Television News Directors Association with the clerk.
We would welcome any questions you might have.
Senator Tkachuk: You say that seven of the nine Alberta dailies belong to the press council. Which two do not?
Mr. Hogle: The Calgary Sun and The Edmonton Sun. I have ongoing talks with them. I pointed out to them that, in the province of Ontario, one of the “Sun” papers there does belong and the other does not. I am an optimist. The glass is always half full. In my discussions last Monday with the publisher of The Edmonton Sun and in a telephone conversation on Friday with the publisher of the Calgary Sun — who, incidentally, is away this week and we were going to meet with him to extol the virtues of belonging to the press council — they have expressed the view that they can handle it on their own and they do not know what benefits would be gained by joining. I have told them that it would be extremely economical. I have told them that I think there is much to be said for having somebody outside of their own particular newspaper handle matters rather than having their own ombudsman. By way of an analogy, we have the Edmonton Police Commission and the Edmonton Police Force, and if there are complaints, they hire outside people to look into them. So far I have not been successful but, having said that, I am not pessimistic.
Senator Tkachuk: How many media outlets do you have in the city? You have CBC, CTV and Global. Is there an independent station here and in Edmonton?
Mr. Hogle: There was, senator. We had the A Channel both in Edmonton and in Calgary, owned by the Craig family from Portage-la-Prairie and Brandon. However, their Toronto operation ran into difficulties and money from their successful Alberta operations had to keep that Toronto station afloat. As a result, they had to sell the entire chain to the CHUM organization. That was agreed to by the CRTC, but they have not yet formally taken over or renamed the particular stations. To answer your question, senator, no, at this stage, there is not.
Senator Tkachuk: You still have four operating; is that right?
Mr. Hogle: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you believe that Alberta residents are being well served by the news media here in the province?
Mr. Hogle: As a former journalist, I know that journalists are never satisfied that they have done enough. They live by that creed or mandate. It is a passion. However, we do have excellent multilingual stations. We have French stations, both radio and television. The CRTC has been discreet in approving that.
When the CHUM operation starts, it will provide more and stronger competition. When that happens, everyone benefits. With good competitors, the other stations must improve in order to maintain their listeners and viewers.
Yes, I do believe that Alberta residents are being well served.
Senator Carney: Mr. Hogle, yours is the first press council we have heard from, certainly on the western tour, so we appreciate your brief in which you state that, of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, 109 are members of your council, as well as seven of the nine Alberta daily newspapers.
Mr. Hogle: Yes.
Senator Carney: Do your members include radio stations and television stations?
Mr. Hogle: No, they are not.
I would point out that the number is 111. It was changed on the weekend when I did a seminar for weekly newspaper editors in Calgary on Sunday.
The Quebec Press Council does include those, but we do not. We feel that with the CRTC and other organizations such as the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Western Association of Broadcasters, there is no need to include them.
We started 32 years ago. The mandate at that time was to look at the printed media — the weekly and daily media. Ironically, those from the Northwest Territories also belong to the AWNA, Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association. However, we do not handle complaints from there. In fact, we have not received any complaints about those particular papers.
Senator Carney: You are limited by your mandate to the media.
Mr. Hogle: Yes.
Senator Carney: When you say that you have eight press members and that you are geographically representative. Are any representatives from the major newspapers on your council?
Mr. Hogle: Yes.
Senator Carney: Do they include the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald?
Mr. Hogle: Yes, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, Medicine Hat News, the Lethbridge Herald, the Red Deer Advocate, Fort McMurray Today and the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune.
Senator Carney: You cannot get better coverage than that.
Mr. Hogle: Yes, I agree, senator.
Senator Carney: I want to explore two areas with you. One of our witnesses in Vancouver, Dr. Murray from Simon Fraser, suggested that press councils should be beefed up and that they should include members of the general public or “stakeholders”, as she called them. What is your view on that?
Mr. Hogle: We are already at that stage, senator. The Medicine Hat News is represented by a press member, and Ms. Wilson is our public member from Medicine Hat. In every particular case where there is a newspaper member, we also have a public member. As well, the chair must be a public member. If we were to add the Calgary Sun and the Edmonton Sun they too would have a press member from each paper, and we would add an additional public member from each city. They are strongly represented.
The calibre of our people is outstanding. For example, Claire Carefoot from Drayton Valley, who is one of our public members, was a member of the National Parole Board for 12 years. Ms. Wilson has just taken over as executive director of the Medicine Hat Food Bank. We have high profile, extremely dedicated people. We do not pay them. We do provide an honorarium, understandably — and so we should — and expenses while they are conducting hearings and so on.
We also keep in touch. We have at least two meetings per year and we can have up to four meetings per year. We also keep in touch through regular telephone conversations because our people are spread out from Medicine Hat to Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie and points in between. It works well.
Senator Carney: The committee would like to have information on the other public members.
The Chairman: There is a list in the 2003 annual report. Has the membership changed?
Mr. Hogle: I will have Mr. Ardiel check that now.
Senator Carney: My next question is about the nature of the complaints. You have been in business for 33 years and you have had about 300 complaints in 33 years. That is less than 10 a year. You must have an very acquiescent, passive public in Alberta, and very responsible journalists. That is a relatively small number of complaints. What is the nature of the complaints that you have heard over the years? What are people most concerned about?
Mr. Hogle: I would not say that they are passive.
Senator Carney: I am joking.
Mr. Hogle: There is the fact that the publishers, by their own creed, have mandated to publish the results. We also have strong powers to do it. Let me tell you about the last two adjudications, and you will understand the seriousness of it.
A columnist wrote five articles on Aboriginal women across Canada. That series went out on the internet and the lady from Ontario saw it. Canadian Press carried the full article. I have a copy of it, if anyone wants to see it later on. The complaint was about discriminatory remarks. The editor of the paper in question admitted that they should have done some sharp editing, and that that did not happen.
In another example, the publisher of a weekly newspaper also happened to be head of the chamber of commerce committee attempting to bring in a bulk farm operation, and there was opposition to this. It was huge, with Japanese money involved. The lady who opposed the article likened it to the Taliban. As a newspaper publisher, if you are in public office or have a responsible position, you must go out of your way to ensure that those opposing any particular interest you have, get equal treatment and probably far more than equal treatment.
They know that we do not fool around. We respect the media. We uphold freedom of the press. However, if a member of the public is offended, and the newspaper cannot rectify it on its own, we will to step in and we will take tough measures.
Senator Carney: Politicians, as you know, are easily offended. However, I will wait for a second round before I put my questions on that subject, Madam Chair.
Senator Munson: You mentioned in your statement that, in all cases, the newspapers published your findings in a prominent spot within their papers. You say that there are, five or six other press councils across the country.
Mr. Hogle: I would say there are four.
Senator Munson: Are they treated in the same fashion? Is there consistency across the country? A complaint from many people is that those complaints are buried and not made public.
Mr. Hogle: That is a good question, senator, but, unfortunately, I cannot answer it. In our particular case the matter is normally dealt with on page 2. We do not insist on that, but it must be a prominent spot. We do not want it buried, as you say. I cannot speak for the other press councils.
Senator Munson: In your meetings with other councils, do you suggest that it should be a consistent exercise that should take part across the country?
Mr. Hogle: Our next meeting will be in Quebec next year. Ms. Wilson will be the chair. The old guy has to step down. Mr. Ardiel will be there. I will ask that that particular matter be brought up. I think that would make for a valid discussion.
Senator Munson: You are not an old guy. You are a seasoned veteran. I have profound respect for your work. The Calgary Herald and The Edmonton Sun are good newspapers. They make lots of money, don't they?
Mr. Hogle: Yes, they do.
Senator Munson: Yet, in 2005, they do not have a reporter in Ottawa, although they used to. I know that the writers for the National Post, many of whom are friends of mine, are in Ottawa giving Albertans their views, but not one of them has a sense of Alberta in that they do not come from Alberta. In our study, we are asking about the impact of the cutbacks. Is this good for democracy? Is it good for Alberta?
Mr. Hogle: That is a fair question, but that is not within our mandate.
I do think that local coverage would warrant a local voice. There may be budgetary reasons for that. However, in an ideal world, yes, that would be possible and Alberta would be better served.
Senator Munson: These cutbacks are consistent. Their impact can be felt everywhere. I find it remarkable that the only individual daily out west, the Winnipeg Free Press, has a reporter and is independent.
Mr. Hogle: Yes. Senator, I would just add, though, that I think the cutbacks are more prevalent in the radio part of the industry than in, say, television or newspapers. That applies not only to Alberta but also across Canada.
Senator Munson: Do you think the cuts have changed the quality of news and information available to Canadians?
Mr. Hogle: Absolutely. I find, however, that in some radio stations where there have been changes, they have only one reporter covering the news for, say, four different stations. Unfortunately, many readers are reverting to what we call the “rip and the read operation,” relying on broadcast news: Canadian Press, newspapers, United Press, and maybe voice reports from broadcast news.
I do not think that serves the purpose. When I was heading up a radio station in Regina, we had six reporters and we were all kept extremely busy. Even at the Trail Daily Times we had five reporters, including myself.
I come back to the job being a passion. Sometimes it is easy to make cuts in the news. I question that, but that is because I have a journalistic heart. I did argue with bean counters about that. I think you must spend the time to research in-depth stories. Many documentaries and even editorials are no longer heard of or seen on radio or television.
Senator Munson: Do changes in concentration affect diversity in the news media? Would further concentration likely do so?
Mr. Hogle: It could, senator. That is a fair question. At the same time, competition might increase it. I would think, for example, with CHUM coming into Toronto and Edmonton, it will enhance the news operation. I think CHUM will give both CTV stations in Edmonton and Calgary and Global a strong race for the money. I think increased competition will enhance diversity. NewCap now has over 60 radio stations across Canada, 22 in Alberta alone. In the last couple of weeks, NewCap, Corus and Astral in Montreal, have all been changing stations around trying to find out what works best.
A few years ago I did some little research for CTV, working on CHUM and CTV, switching three stations in Ontario for three stations in the Maritimes. They were not trying to financially improve themselves, but they felt, in the case of CTV, that they could serve the country better by having three stations in the Maritimes, which they did not have up to a particular time. I think there are pros and cons on that.
It also comes back to what the owner wants or expects. Newsmen are very demanding. You also have to be demanding of yourself, and how you run a newsroom. Too often you would have certain reporters covering, let's say, the Alberta legislature ad infinitum where you develop a love-hate relationship, and I do not think that is healthy. You would probably agree, senator, that you should regularly change your reporters to keep on top of that. I have digressed. My apologies.
The Chairman: All of us former newsmen would agree with you, Mr. Hogle. Forgive me. I could not resist.
Mr. Hogle: I know.
Senator Merchant: I know you are going to send us a list of the members of the press council, but could you put a face to those names for us because sometimes names do not mean much. Do you have people from minorities, say, First Nations, appropriately represented on the press council?
Mr. Hogle: If we do not, senator, it is only because they have not applied. When we have an opening, let's say, in Grande Prairie or Medicine Hat, which we will have in the spring, we put a large ad in the newspaper in question, the Medicine Hat News or the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune, soliciting applications. Then we will conduct interviews. One of our press members, Sonny Rajoo, is a Black person from South Africa. He owns a paper. He used to be in Brooks, but now he is in Two Hills, Alberta. He represents the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association as their press member.
Let me go back to our applications. One of the applicants for the position of executive secretary-treasurer was an Aboriginal lady. She was not hired for any other particular reason. We had three finalists in that particular competition and we interviewed all three. Ms. Wilson, myself and another individual dealt with those. We interviewed three people over a full day and we could not make up our minds.
We certainly believe in multi-cultural diversity. When I ran the news department in CFRN TV that we were trying to achieve that. It is very important, and we encourage it.
When I was Chairman of the Grant MacEwan School of Journalism and on the board of the University of Regina we worked closely with Aboriginal people.
One problem I find with young graduating students of journalism today, regardless of their ethnic background, is in many cases they do not want to pay their dues in the small shop. They do not want to go to Spirit River in Northern Alberta or Bow Island in Southern Alberta, or to work in a radio station in Edson or in Lloydminster. They want to start off in Edmonton or Calgary. As we know, life is just not like that. You have to pay your dues.
We are extremely cognisant of that, senator. That is an excellent question, and it is ever mindful with us.
Senator Merchant: Sometimes we have to make things happen. When you interview people you have to make it possible for minorities or for young Aboriginals to have an entry point, even if they are not the top candidate, because they bring their own sensitivity, sensibility to the process.
Who heard complaints, for instance, in Vancouver from the Muslim community, that certain newspapers were not representing the Muslims in the proper light. If you have people of that background in the press council, then they bring some background knowledge, some sensitivity to the issue that the rest us cannot understand.
Ms. Colleen Wilson, Vice-Chair, Alberta Press Council: Madam Chair, may I add a few comments to this response. I appreciate your concern and your question.
To carry on with what Mr. Hogle was saying about this particular candidate, when a position did come open in her community, we made sure she knew about it by letter so that, if she was still interested — and she was interested in the press council when she applied — she could apply for that opening for a public member. She chose not to apply.
We will be working on that. As Chair of the Policies and Procedures Committee for the last four years, that certainly has been the subject of discussion. We will be going out of our way to seek out those people.
Mr. Hogle: I would add, on a personal note, that I have two grandsons who are both 20. One is at the University of Alberta. I have lunch once a month with him, one of his Muslim friends, one of his Black friends and one of his Jewish friends. It is great to discuss different subjects. They know our discussions are in confidence. We go into the schools to find out the concerns of young people. It is an excellent topic, one of which we must be even more cognisant of than ever before.
Senator Merchant: I come from Saskatchewan. Do we have a press council in Saskatchewan?
Mr. Hogle: No, you do not. I worked in both Regina and Saskatoon. I have been fortunate to have worked in five provinces. I love and have visited all of them. We would certainly like to see a press council in Saskatchewan. Since I will be retiring as chair this year, I would certainly offer my services at no charge whatsoever, other than expenses, to help set that up, because I feel so strongly about this. It is a great catalyst for the public, and I think it is a preferable option rather than setting up a government committee or a government press council to look after, say, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and the Maritimes. That is why I was suggesting, without being presumptuous, that a statement from this particular committee, possibly, reiterating the formation of press councils on a voluntary basis, is vastly superior to arbitrarily doing that or controlling the media in any way, shape or form. Yes, I think Saskatchewan should have a press council.
Senator Eyton: Did I hear you say in your opening remarks that your annual budget was $70,000?
Mr. Hogle: Yes, sir.
Senator Eyton: I also heard that you have in your membership seven dailies and something over 100 weeklies.
Mr. Hogle: Yes, 111.
Senator Eyton: You described your role as defending the industry, the business and dealing with complaints and speaking out on important issues such as access. That seems to me to be a very tall order, and $70,000 seems like a paltry sum. It is difficult to imagine you doing all that you have claimed with that kind of budget unless you have a mass of well organized volunteers.
Is there a case for increasing that budget? If you had an increased budget what do you think you could do to better serve the public?
Mr. Hogle: Yes, there is a need to increase the budget. Over the last few years we have sort of been in the Dark Ages — and I am not being derogatory at all. At one time when we did an adjudication we were threatened with a $1.5- million lawsuit. This was at the time when we had no liability insurance whatsoever. We treaded water until we got liability insurance. I have been sued in the past. I was involved in a lawsuit that went on for five years, so I know what that is all about.
That insurance is now in place. We now have bylaws in place.
We do, indeed, need to increase our funding. If that happened, we would like to increase our scholarship program. Currently it is only $1,000 a year. We can get 140 applications with brilliantly written essays. The last committee that handled those was left with 11 finalists. It would have been wonderful if we could have given everybody $1,000. We would love to have the money to do that.
We would also increase the number of seminars we hold. We will be hosting the one after Quebec. The next meeting in Edmonton of the national press councils will be in three years time.
We would hope to do two things: help Saskatchewan form a council and also help Atlantic Canada do the same. We would put the money to good avail.
Let me talk about our volunteers. People do not generally walk into a meeting of the Alberta Press Council once or twice a year without us noticing. If you express an interest, we will come after you. Ms. Wilson looked after our policies and procedures. She made long-distance calls all across the country. Mr. Ardiel coordinated our new bylaws. We went to a lawyer we knew, and she knew that we were looking for a handout. I told her that we had $500 left. She accepted that as payment
I think we are keeping in step with the times. I want to get both Sun papers on board. We would love to see a press council in Saskatchewan because we believe it is essential, and we know it works. Atlantic Canada should have a viable press council. They did have a half-assed one in the past. Excuse my language, but that is what it was. It has fallen by the wayside.
The Chairman: You are on the public record here, sir. That may come back and bite you.
Senator Munson: You are not from the Maritimes.
Mr. Hogle: I am sorry, Senator Munson, but I am right. Senator Munson might want to speak about the reasons for that happening in that particular area.
We can do more in education. We could perhaps go into Muslim schools to talk about the media. I think there is some suspicion about the media. There is a lot going on in this world today. There are more pressures on our people and they must be better educated, and we would encourage that too.
To answer your question, yes, we do need more money. We are working towards that. We will certainly put it to good use.
Senator Eyton: I am about to tread on sensitive ground. Is there a case for changing the press council to a kind of media council? You alluded to the broadcasting industry. I say that partly because the press, the printed media, creates much of the news. I am sure they were working very hard yesterday. The newspapers come out in the morning, and the contents are the subject matter of most of what we hear on radio or see on television. In a sense, we are all dealing with the same sources and dealing with some of the same facts.
Mr. Hogle: Yes.
Senator Eyton: Is there a case for having the broadcasters as members of your press council?
Mr. Hogle: Would the print media and broadcast media want to get together on that particular scenario? In the case of the Global operation which is both print and electronic, they might be interested. Suncor might also be interested in that. With our current mandate, I question whether or not that would work. I do not know what workload would be created. I would certainly see many complaints coming in about, for example, an open line program on radio or television; about an editorialist on television in Edmonton. I can see the budget having to triple or quadruple. I am not saying it is impossible, but I do not know how feasible it would be, senator.
Senator Eyton: Yesterday we were at the journalism school at the University of British Columbia where Professor Logan spoke of a research consortium that included three partners: The University of British Columbia, of course, York University in Toronto, and Laval University in Quebec City, and they are the beneficiaries of significant funding. The total funding was, I think, $3.5 million, and they are drawing it down in instalments. I think they have at least four years to go.
Professor Logan tabled with us a report on the media that had been professionally and well done across the country. I believe there were over 3,000 respondents. The questions were about the media and about accuracy, bias, ownership, satisfaction and professionalism. There were many precise questions. It was well put together. That report, if I can characterize it, gave a failing grade to the Canadian media.
The survey was released some months ago and almost no attention was paid by the media to a report that was most critical of them. The grade I would have given, just scanning through it, would have been something like 40 per cent, 40 points out of 100.
I am sort of a laissez-faire sort of person. In general, we have laws covering libel and slander, and we have criminal laws; and then we exhort the best kind of professional standards.
Had this research consortium report been about any other industry I know of, it would have been front page news, and coverage would have gone on for a long time. It seems to me that the Canadian media have elected to ignore it.
My question is a long-winded one. Is there a role for the press councils to shine a light on some of the failures of the Canadian media, and in that way encourage better performance and a better media for Canadians?
Mr. Hogle: That is a good question. I am surprised, considering the amount of money involved by these three prestigious universities, that they would not have seen fit to directly send each of the press councils a copy of that. This is the first time that I have heard about such a report. There is no question that it exists. I am surprised that they, themselves, did not say, “If we are not getting across to the media, why don't we work through the press councils?” If you can give me the name of a contact afterwards, I will phone, because I do want to have a copy of that particular scenario.
The print media does have faults. I have been involved in that, so I know we all have faults. It is easy to pick on the media. I am not defending them in that particular case, because who is error free? However, usually a good newspaper will do that. I know that, when I did television editorials, if it was a provocative one, Friday night was always the feedback editorial.
Newspapers are usually pretty good about dealing with criticism. As part of our mandate, our daily and weekly newspapers must put advertise, at least once a week, and many of them do it every day, the fact that they belong to the Alberta Press Council. They give the email address, the phone number, and the address. They let their readers know how to get a hold of us. We do not shy from that. We go out of our way to tell people who we are and what we do. You cannot resolve it that particular way.
Some journalists may leave much to be desired. That also probably applies to publishers as it does equally to politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors, Indian chiefs, et cetera. In other words, I would not want to tar all media with one brush, because I some do outstanding jobs.
This week and two weeks ago on the opinion page of the Edmonton Journal — and I have never seen this before in any newspaper in North America — they had absolutely no editorial. I thought, “Am I missing something?” There is a controversy in Edmonton dealing with the police commission, the police force, et cetera. They had printed a response from a constable, but there was no editorial whatsoever. I am wondering if they are experimenting and trying to assess if their readers are tired of editorials. They may want to find out if the public misses the editorials.
Global did experiment at one time with doing national editorials for their newspapers across Canada. They curtailed that. They no longer do that. They used to emanate from Winnipeg, as the case might be.
Some papers are probably better run than others. That comment also applies to radio and TV stations. Obviously Sears is better run than Eatons or Woodwards. Obviously, Air Canada, thanks to the government, is doing a better job than Canadian used to do. I hope that will answer your question, senator.
Senator Eyton: I do not want to speak for Air Canada.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: We have heard a lot of public cynicism across Canada. Yesterday, for example, people representing their interests told us that certain chains of newspapers were not treating their issues fairly. Other groups are very cynical. As well, journalists have told us that they do not have opportunities they used to have, and that, if they write certain things, they will be out of a job tomorrow.
How would you react to this? On page 3 of your brief you talk about the freedom of the press and about the ability of those involved to freely gather and report the news. You say that you would applaud a strong statement from our committee in that regard.
On page 5, you make a strong statement that your council ensures that the public interest is looked after. That is a very strong statement. I like your optimism. I like how positive you are, but could you speak a little bit about the cynicism, the discouragement that we have felt across Canada from certain groups of the public, and certain journalists, and those representing those other journalists?
Mr. Hogle: “Cynicism” is a good word. However, I tend to think of the word “apathy.” I think of apathy in all of our elections in Canada. One of our recent federal elections was the worst since the 1800s. Perhaps we should consider doing what Australia does, which is fine a person who is eligible to vote $75 if he or she does not vote. In that way they have a 95 per cent turnout, including spoiled ballots. However, that is another subject for another time.
Given the proliferation of the media across Canada and the expansion in all facets of it, the number of cynics does increase. At the same time I think it is easy to throw marbles at the media collectively, and I think it may emanate with editorial viewpoints. A certain paper may have a viewpoint about one party and a different viewpoint for another. Any editorials dealing with the Middle East, in particular the situation in Iraq or Iran, will offend some people because of their ethnic background. In Vancouver particularly, the mother tongue of 51 per cent of the city's school population is not English. You may have witnessed that during your hearings on Monday and Tuesday.
The pressures on journalists today are even greater than before. There is no question that we need better educated journalists because of the amount of material they are expected to absorb and the stories they are expected to cover. A journalist could cover a heart transplant story at the Edmonton University Hospital on Monday and cover the Jim Keegstra trial in Red Deer the next day. Those are two diametrically different scenarios.
There is pressure on people in the media today, and probably the expansions are not what the media people would like. I can appreciate that. In fact, I would be front row, centre seat in saying: “I need another person in sports, news or public affairs.
We have a real responsibility, but we also have a deep respect for the press and the press members, knowing what they are doing. Equally important is our respect for members of the public and their concerns.
In the particular case where Mitsy Brown from Ontario complained about these five columns that were written in the daily newspaper in Alberta, I was very surprised, as were members of our committee, that there were no complaints from Alberta. There were a couple of very harsh statements in there about mothers having children with different fathers and those sorts of things. We made a tough statement. It showed that we were not fooling around.
Good press councils work very hard. I was up at five o'clock this morning. I am not trying to impress anyone, but I believe in what I do, just as you believe in Canada. You bring something to the table. If we have problems, let's resolve them.
I do want to have a copy of the report you mentioned. I want to know who authored it.
We go into the schools and we want to start to hold seminars regularly. We go to Grant MacEwan College perhaps once a year. When I was chairman of the Grant MacEwan journalism board I taught in that school and we set up the first private scholarships with the radio and television news directors, specifically, Dick Rice, the former owner of CFRN TV. In the ultimate world, the Alberta Press Council may be leading the way when the budget is increased. We might come back to the Senate and be able to tell Senator Eyton that we have scholarships and that great people are going into journalism. It would be wonderful if we were able to expand our scholarships. We might even be able to put a young person through journalism school.
There is always concern about the media. There are questions out there that we have to address. I appreciate that reporters may question why they cannot have more people in, say, the business department or the sports section. They are all doing all the work. They are doing the play-by-play for the Calgary Hitmen. They may think that their news department has to expand. We have four stations in Calgary. We have four stations in Edmonton, and there is one company who does have that. We need more people to do that, to do it better than we are doing it.
I do not think there is any easy answer. People are definitely being better heard now than ever before. I commend this committee and the excellent work you have been doing for almost the last two years. It is very necessary . I do not for one moment say that the media is perfect. I do not for one moment say that the Alberta Press Council is perfect; far from it. We can always do more, and we should be doing more.
What I am saying, though, is that we are seeking support from you on voluntary press councils. I would love to see them in Saskatchewan, because I know the good they can do. I know the good the people can do in British Columbia and how hard they work. You will hear from the Manitoba people in Winnipeg on Friday. The Ontario people are equally good. We talked with them last year in Vancouver. You have also heard from the Quebec people. They are also very powerful.
You somewhat alluded to the question: Should we become more like the British Press Council? The British Press Council, first of all, has a huge budget and a huge staff. They go looking for stories that are offensive. In other words, we consider ourselves ombudsmen, media conciliators, what have you. We do not have the wherewithal at this stage in the game to do what they do and, quite frankly, I do not know if we want to do that. I do not know if I want to read, say, the Lethbridge Herald and regularly point out that they should not have said something in, say, a classified ad. Is that our role? I do not know. I question that. The British will do that; and I am not being critical. I do not know if we want to go that route. I do not think we are mandated to go that route. I do not think we need to go that route.
I think our weeklies and dailies in Alberta are responsible. When we made that decision against a weekly newspaper, the publisher in question emailed all 110 papers at that time, saying, “Let's get Hogle off the press council. It's time to get rid of that guy. We do not need that sort of stuff.” That is fine. I do not react to high pressure. I have thick skin. We all have thick skin, and that is how it should be.
I do not know if I covered the entire area, senator. I hope I have.
Mr. Robert Ardiel, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Alberta Press Council: Perhaps I can just add that the mandate of the press council is to consider complaints about what is written. I have had some emails from individual readers of newspapers complaining that an event in which they were involved, and which they felt very strongly about, was not covered. You wish you could have encouraged the paper to have sent a reporter out to cover that, but we do not dictate to any newspapers, any of our members, what degree of coverage there should be, or what events should be covered by them.
As our chair alluded to, we are trying to become more proactive in setting up forums whereby members of the press and members of the public can talk to each other and ask questions of the press. Perhaps through that process we can generate some additional interest in the publishers and reporters in covering some events that are of interest to the groups that they are hearing from.
Senator Chaput: My question has to do with memberships. You have daily newspapers that are members, and weekly newspapers that are members through their association; is that correct?
Mr. Hogle: Yes.
Senator Chaput: Are any of those newspapers published in other languages, such as French or Chinese?
Mr. Hogle: No, not that I know of. I was thinking of the St. Paul area. No, they are not, senator.
Senator Chaput: Does the question of Canadian ownership versus some other ownership come into question at this time?
Mr. Hogle: No.
Senator Chaput: Are all of your newspaper members Canadian owned?
Mr. Hogle: Yes. I would add that if one of the ethnic papers or French papers in Alberta wished to joint the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association — and, of course, it would have to be approved — then, of course, it would be a member of the Alberta Press Council.
Senator Chaput: You would not go as far as to ask them who owns that newspaper. It is not your role to check that out, is it?
Mr. Hogle: No.
Senator Chaput: I understand.
Regarding the scholarships that you provide and the essays that you received in 2004, I would be interested in knowing what those students thought about the freedom of speech.
Mr. Hogle: Would you like us to provide you with a copy of that, senator?
Senator Chaput: I would like that, because I recognize that decisions we make today is what those young people will have to live with tomorrow.
Mr. Hogle: Senator, we will get you a complete copy. We always have lunch with the winning entry, and in this instance that was Erin. We want to ensure that our applicants go on to university and that the money will be used towards that. Erin is a delightful lady, and her essay is so well written. Our committee was hard-pressed to come up with a winner from among the top three this year. We will ensure that you get a copy of that along with a list of all the current members.
Senator Phalen: In my opinion, what we have heard about press councils, at least up to this point, has not been favourable. However, you have made it a very good argument and a strong presentation. Let me tell you some of the things that we have heard.
There is a perception, because you are funded by the owners, that you have a bias. How do you deal with that perceived bias?
Mr. Hogle: That is a good question, senator. I can see where a bias would develop. At the same time, with our bylaws and with our policies and procedures, which have all been approved, and with the fact that the publishers have agreed that if we do rule against them, they must publish that, there has never, ever been any argument. Yes, we are funded by the newspapers as is the British Columbia council. Others are funded by private enterprise or the government per se. If we were funded by government, I am sure there would also be prejudice expressed about that — taking a handout from government.
We do two things. First, we ensure that there are public members to offset the press member from each particular newspaper. Second, if there is a disagreement, senator — and let us say Senator Munson was representing The Vancouver Sun — then we would ask Senator Munson to leave the room while we discussed this complaint against The Vancouver Sun, so he would not be in attendance. In the last case involving the daily newspaper in question, that person was not there and the discussion went on for the better part of the day. This concerned five columns written by one particular individual. That particular individual was not there for the entire day.
You could ask, “What about the representative from the same chain who may have been sitting across the room?” We have found that parochialism does not extend to that degree. In other words, in the case of the five articles in question, there was an almost unanimous decision by the public members and by all but one press member. The only press member who did not vote was from Southern Alberta and, because he had just joined the press council, he did not feel qualified to express an opinion. I think that you will always get that. We have gone out of our way to alleviate that by meeting it head on, and coping with it head on.
Senator Phalen: I would like you to know that I have asked that question a couple of times already, and this is the first time I really got an answer.
Mr. Ardiel: Senator Phalen, I would also suggest to you that any perceived bias by the press council would be significantly less than the perceived bias by any individual newspaper dealing with a complaint on its own. I would think that having a forum comprised of both public and press members from other newspapers with the newspaper who is being complained about not being present during the deliberations, would lessen the perception of bias by the group handling the complaint than by some staff member of the newspaper in question dealing with the complaint.
Through the chair, the press council probably needs to have more public information going out about what our exact role is. We just have a new set of bylaws that were filed with the Alberta register, and in those bylaws we have added a clause that requires all of our member newspapers to publish, once a month, our address and phone number and, on a daily basis, the fact that the newspaper is a member of the press council, and any complaints about any article or editorial opinion in the may be relayed to the press council.
Senator Phalen: Do press councils have any codes or standards, and what sanctions are available to press councils to ensure compliance?
Mr. Hogle: Let us start at the top. If we have a complaint against a newspaper and that complaint has not been published, we have the wherewithal to meet with the publisher and tell him or her to publish the complaint. We remind them that they have agreed to do that.
Could we take them to court? Probably not, senator. I would be very honest in that particular regard. However, I believe in meeting people head on, looking them in the eye. As far as I am concerned, a verbal agreement on the strength of a handshake is like a written contract. If you and I make a bet on the Super Bowl on Sunday on a handshake, I expect you would pay me if I won and vice versa.
I think you approach it head on, and point out that those are the rules. We are not perfect people, by any stretch of the imagination, but we are honourable people. That kind of reasonable approach has satisfactorily worked so far. In life, you have to respect one another. That does not mean that people have not disagreed with my editorial or phoned me at two o'clock in the morning. They have.
Stefan Sorokin of the Sons of Freedom sued us for $100,000 when we exposed him. Examination for discovery went on for five years. However, we won because we told the truth and we stuck to our guns. That same approach is applicable, as far as I am concerned, with the Alberta Press Council and the people we deal with.
Ms. Wilson: Madam Chair, I have a comment to make about your former point. I wanted to elaborate and let you know that it is not just the complaints procedures that we deal with when we are looking at our standard committees. There is always a press member along with two public members on the committees, and there is a great deal of respect amongst the people who sit on the committees. We are there as one voice to do the best we can for the public in Alberta, and that has worked tremendously well.
When the member newspapers appoint people to the press council, I for one, for four years, have been extremely impressed with who they send to that table.
We work together for the good of the public. I just wanted to be sure that you realize that we do not just deal with complaints. We have committees and structures, and they are part of that.
Senator Phalen: I am not sure that Canadians know that you are there. What can you do to raise awareness?
Mr. Hogle: We are probably one of the best kept secrets. The media know who we are. On the weekend we did a seminar for the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association and there were 300 people in attendance and, obviously, we want them to return.
When I travel from Edmonton to Calgary, I visit editors along the way. I also seek out speaking engagements and invitations to do open-line programs. However, it is never, ever enough. You have got to keep doing it.
With the scholarships, we give information to the AWNA for distribution to all the weekly newspapers. We ensure that the winning essay is published, along with a picture of the winder with Mr. Ardiel and myself.
It is a constant, ongoing job. Like anything else in life, you cannot take the public for granted. You cannot take as a fact that everyone will automatically vote for a government in power. You just do not assume those things.
Senator Phalen: Yesterday, we were told that a study was being conducted in the United States in respect to the press. In effect, it amounts to a report card on the press. Would you favour such a study on the press in Canada?
Mr. Hogle: Yes. This kind of thing is commendable and good. I think you are doing it right now. I see nothing wrong with that. The way the associated press managing editors did it was great, that is, by bringing in people. The answer is yes, I would.
The Chairman: I want to pick up on the point you were making, Ms. Wilson. I want to ask about the limits of complaints-based organizations and, in large measure, press councils tend to be complaint-based organizations, as indeed is the CRTC.
You came close to describing the British system as a “witch hunt,” with people going out and looking for individual bad pieces of work, so much as the ability to take public positions on more systemic matters that are of legitimate public interest, including pointing out what is not being done. Let me give an extreme example.
If the press in Alberta stopped covering the oil industry, it might be worth pointing out that hundreds of thousands of citizens of this province were no longer being informed about the stuff of their daily lives, and that the press had a duty to do this. I just pulled that out of the air. It is not a very profound example. It seems to me that there is a difficulty with systems that are at least perceived only as being complaints-based because complaints — as all of us know who have been on the receiving end of them — tend to be about details such as a complaint by someone that his or her letter to the editor was not printed. Rarely is there an attempt to deal with the broader issue.
I must say that was most impressed by what you told us about your outreach in all its different forms. You do much more than other press councils we have heard from so far. It seems very “Alberta;” in keeping with the community building quality of this province. However, it is informal. It does not have the stature of the kind of thing I am talking about. Can you respond to that rather incoherent question?
Mr. Hogle: We seem to be complaint-oriented, but only because, perhaps, the public expects that of us and nothing else. I think we have turned the corner, senator, let me put it that way, by going into the schools. Now we must ask, “What else can we do?”
What comes to mind is what we did for the Shriners. Perhaps what we should do is ask our public members in, say, Grande Prairie to speak to, for example, the Knights of Columbus and the Chamber of Commerce. We could ask our members to do that in their particular area and also to solicit questions. When you do that, you sometimes come up with a gem of an idea. I am sure that is what you are looking for right now as you prepare to write your final report, based on your very excellent preliminary reports, with which I was impressed.
We have to do more. We cannot stop. We have to keep that visionary cap on our head in looking for other things we can do. What else should we be doing? We keep an open mind. We look at anything and everything, and so we should.
The Chairman: You have in your membership representatives of the public and representatives of the newspapers, which I take to be the proprietors. Has any thought been given to adding a third stream, representatives of the journalists? I am not saying that no proprietors understand journalism, but there is sometimes a conflict of perception, if not interest, between the owners and the workers.
Mr. Hogle: There is an organisation for journalists in Edmonton comprising about 30 to 35 members, all media, electronic and the printed media. They meet on a regular basis. They just met with Mr. Justice Allan Wachowich, one of our high court judges here in town. We want to pursue with him the question of getting cameras into court. That is one of the topics we covered in our essay. More importantly, perhaps the Alberta Press Council could leads that because, quite frankly, I think we need TV cameras in the courts.
I am not bragging, but would just illustrate my point by telling you that, at CFRN Television we were the ones who met with Peter Lougheed and told him that we needed cameras in the legislature. That came about in three months. We were the first in the British Empire to have that coverage, and it led to open cameras everywhere in governments. We can do much more. We are becoming more proactive in an organized way.
The Chairman: You are not actually bringing them in as members. You would have to change your bylaws to do that.
Mr. Hogle: That is a fair question. I do not know if they would want to join. Sonny Rajoo from Two Hills is a member of both organisations. That might be a topic for discussion.
Again, thinking of being proactive, Ted Byfield, a controversial journalist in Alberta, is coming to speak to us. I am sure his remarks will be very stimulating, because he has some outlandish views, and there is nothing wrong with that. Probably everybody in this room has a bias, be it for the Montreal Canadians or the Toronto Maple Leafs, or maybe for this party or that party. That is natural. However, as a reporter, you have to control that bias so that your personal views do not diminish your ability and your competence to tell the truth.
Senator Carney: I would reassure you that former media members of this committee are from small shops. In Bathurst, I started at CKLN in Nelson when we thought you guys in Trail were the big smokes.
You have presented us with the code of practice of the Alberta Press Council which is concise but extensive. It covers 17 points. For the record, I will just list some of them. It deals with accuracy; opportunity to reply; privacy; balance; the need to exercise the widest possible latitude in expressing opinions; subterfuge or the need to use straightforward means to obtain information; and the fact that people who are criminals or witnesses in criminal proceedings should not be paid. It covers intrusion into grief; interviewing children; sexual offences; pictures; discrimination; the fact that journalists should not use for their own profit financial information received; journalist behaviour at hospitals and confidential sources. This covers only two pages but it is very clear.
Is this the standard for other press councils in Canada, or is it similar to other press councils? Where did it come from?
Mr. Hogle: The beauty of being a chair is that you surround yourself with brilliant people, two of whom are here today. It is a result of work we have done over the years, and it has been refined, defined, improved upon and changed where necessary.
I cannot speak for other press councils. We have seen theirs and, I am sure, they have seen ours. As you will note, six lines is the longest section. It is succinct, it is readable, and it is easy to follow. No one could say that they misunderstood it. It is a combination, senator, of many things. Once again, I cannot speak to the codes of other press councils.
Senator Carney: Do your members agree to adhere to this code? Is it posted in their newsrooms? Perhaps Colleen or Robert could respond. Are journalists kept accountable to this code of practice, or is it just a nice piece of paper?
Mr. Hogle: It is definitely not motherhood stuff, and it is not Chamber of Commerce stuff. It is our code of practice. We expect that from our members. If you come out of retirement, come to work for our newspapers. We would expect that of you. We are very upfront about that. When you sign on, when you become a member of the press council executive, or you work for a member newspaper, we expect every press member to do that. We also expect it of every public member. We are not averse to telling you that you stepped out of line.
Senator Carney: You are not answering my question.
The Chairman: I believe Ms. Wilson is trying to answer.
Senator Carney: Is it given to journalists? Are journalists or editors who are hired or are working told that this is the code of ethics? Does it just go into the membership form that the publisher receives, who happens to be on the press council?
Ms. Wilson: Throughout this process, there was been a press member on the committee. Everybody in the room voted to accept this codes of practice with its policies and procedures. As members of the Alberta Press Council, I would think it would be prudent of them to take that back to their press rooms and their publishers and certainly abide by it. I certainly will ask if that is happening.
Senator Carney: Do any of the journalists know about it, not just the publishers?
The Chairman: When you ask, will you let us know what answer you receive?
Ms. Wilson: I certainly will. I will ask what their process was when they took it away from the table.
Mr. Ardiel: Senator, these are the standards by which complaints are adjudged.
We have recently fine-tuned and modified some of these statements. We have planned to do a 14 x 17 chart that will go in libraries in the province that, hopefully, will be in the lobby of all of our member newspapers. As for getting it down to the level of individual reporters, I am not sure we will be able to accomplish that. We can certainly ask the press members on the council to ensure that this is discussed with management
Senator Carney: I would suggest it would be very helpful if you sent them to every school of journalism in Canada, so that students have a set of principles that they can examine and discuss.
Mr. Hogle: We certainly undertake to do that.
Senator Merchant: I am looking at No. 17 of the code of practice. You urge this committee to give strong support to No. 17, that is, confidential sources of information regarding reporters. Exactly what do you think we should say? Whether reporters should protect their sources and, therefore, protect the reporters is a current topic of conversation. How far do you want that to be carried?
Mr. Hogle: There could be just a simple reiteration of that particular statement. I would not want to tell this Senate committee exactly what to say. Words to that particular effect as are found in item 17 would be extremely powerful. It would convey the message that it is essential that that be done, that that be adhered to. Freedom of the press is the bottom line. In the past, journalists had confidential sources. They simply did not reveal those sources, despite the pressures. There has been pressure by the courts and sometimes by the national police force.
Senator Merchant: How does this protect the public? I am not saying that they should disclose no matter what, but might there be cases where they would serve the public better if they were to disclose? For instance, priests, sometimes if they do not want to disclose, will go to gaol. Doctors, medical people, have to make disclosure, so why should the press be held to a higher standard?
Mr. Hogle: The public, this committee and society in general are demanding high standards of journalism. Having said that, I think government should say, “We should protect these particular people.” As an example, a lot would never have happened had it not been for Deep Throat talking to the journalist in that particular case. It is very simple. We have all had confidential sources over the years who tell us things, and it is not a matter of backtracking or anything like that. It is a matter of finding out what is going on, and to protect the source.
Without naming anybody in particular, we have seen examples of that, and we feel strongly about it. However, that would be a decision of this committee. People may not agree, and people may agree. It is a fundamental point and a part of freedom of the press, as we enjoy it.
Senator Merchant: We have a judiciary. Why could we not leave it up to the judges to decide whether it is absolutely imperative in any particular case, because it would assist the carriage of justice or serve the public best? Why could the judges not make that decision instead of having us make that decision?
Mr. Hogle: What we are suggesting is that you support the principle. In any lawsuit the judge will rule on that. We hope that you will agree in principle with this. When I worked in Trail, it would have been be terrible if I had had to reveal the name of the bodyguard for Stefan Sorokin who provided us with the information on which we based that particular story.
Perhaps I might illustrate my concern. The complete village of Ootischenia, a village near Castlegar, between Nelson and Trail, was destroyed. Three hundred homes had burned to the ground. The only things standing were fireplaces, the steel frames of the beds and stoves. Ted Moore, the photographer, and I, were the first people to arrive at the scene. The police were not there. No other news people were there at all. It was early on a Sunday morning. It was just like Hollywood. We went over the hill. There was smoke all over the place and the conventional Sons of Freedom thought we were the radical Sons of Freedom sympathisers and they had us hemmed in against the car. We could not move. We simply could not move. Finally, I mentioned John Verigin from Grand Forks, Alberta. I said, “Phone John. He knows us.” We eventually got out of there.
I become emotional over that, because I can visualize those buildings that were lost. They took an empty house and they had piled gasoline bombs against it and these wooden shacks all went up in flames. That is how imperative I find it.
You can go to the courts, but I am looking for approval in principle. I think it is a creed for every good journalist, and we need that. At the same time we have to protect our sources. As I say, Ootischenia comes to mind. Other journalists across Canada, on occasion, will have to protect their sources. I am sure that three senators here, on occasion, have had to protect their sources, maybe even sometimes from management. They may have had to tell management in the deepest confidence, or even give management a letter in a sealed envelope, stating, “If you have to open this, you may.”
I would not want the courts to do that, senator. You are looking for answers from the Alberta Press Council, and we have to be accountable, absolutely. We have to do our job. What I am saying, I do not think is an unreasonable request to put to the courts and to this particular committee regarding point 17.
Senator Merchant: That is an explanation. I will leave it at that.
Senator Munson: This is just an observation. You say on page 2 that you do not mind appearing when there is a complaint before the council. Perhaps this could set an example for radio and television. I recognize that there is a private sector and public sector component. It might add to the concept of impartiality if we established some sort of council so that the public could make complaints regarding radio and television programming. I do not know if CTV or CBC or any station deals with that. They could, at least, from time to time, indicate in their newscasts that a mistake was made.
The Chairman: Thank you all very much. You can tell how extremely interested we have been in what you had to say. You touched on vital issues, and we are grateful to all of you. You will send us that material.
Mr. Hogle, for your reference, with regard to the study to which a couple of senators referred the first contact point would be Professor Donna Logan, Director, UBC Graduate School of Journalism.
Mr. Hogle: Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Senators, our next witnesses are representatives of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association. I welcome Mr. Roger Holmes, who is the president; and Mr. Dennis Merrell, who is the executive director.
We thank you very much for being with us. Mr. Merrell, the floor is yours.
Mr. Dennis Merrell, Executive Director, Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association: I will make some initial remarks, and I am sure Roger will have some comments. I know that you heard from the Canadian Community Newspapers Association on Monday in Vancouver, and we will, we hope, complement the remarks that they presented, looking at the subject more from an Alberta perspective, the role that our members play in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. We do have a couple of comments, of course, on the material that we received from your committee.
The mission of the AWNA is to encourage, assist and ensure its members publish high quality community newspapers. The association achieves this by providing education, marketing and fellowship opportunities. There are currently 111 newspapers in our association that circulate 625,000 copies weekly. Our membership includes publications that are owned by corporations as well as single proprietorships. In fact, we believe that AWNA is one of the last bastions of the free, independent community newspaper. They are in the majority, and we are quite proud of that fact. In fact, our board of directors always has been, in the majority, composed of independent community newspaper publishers.
Community newspapers provide a unique editorial environment that connects with its readers in a personal way. Community newspaper readers are often hard to reach individuals, not easily reached by other media. As proven by the ComBase, which is the Community Newspaper Database Corporation, readership study, a majority of adults of all ages, gender and social status in both rural and urban communities read relevant news and local information, and highly value the role community newspapers play in their daily lives.
According to the ComBase 2003-04 study, 79 per cent of adults in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories reported reading the last issue of their community newspaper. This compares to 51 per cent of adults, 18-plus, who reported reading a daily newspaper, and 61 per cent listened to a radio station the previous day. It is clear that reading a community newspaper is an important part of Canadians' lives.
Alberta community newspapers must meet the following criteria before becoming members of the AWNA. First and foremost, a proof of circulation audit must be provided before applying for membership. They must prove that their circulation is an audited one. Second, the newspaper shall contain news and feature stories that deal with its community, contain no less than 60 per cent of copy which will be material generated by or for the publication and have an editorial page or forum for readers or opinion. Third, members shall adhere to publication standards, which are endorsed by the board. Fourth, member newspapers must publish verbatim any decision of the Alberta Press Council regarding a complaint against that newspaper.
The AWNA has introduced many services to the marketplace that are now widely used and have since been adopted by other community associations, including our full service ONE Stop advertising planning and buying service; access to a digital archive system that permits key word searching of an archive of 200 community newspapers — it includes newspapers from other provinces as well as Alberta papers — and permits viewing of next-day PDF files of the newspaper pages; a comprehensive database of over 4,000 fields of information of current market research that provides an economic and demographic snapshot report on each of hundreds of community newspapers across Canada — that is a service that we also provide to other newspapers associations; literary components such as the “Write-On” contest that is available in schools throughout Alberta; and scholarships and bursary programs. You heard a little bit about that from the press council. We are also involved in scholarship programs both for high school and the community college journalism schools throughout Alberta.
The association was an early supporter of the Alberta Press Council. Established in 1972, the Alberta Press Council was the first press council formed in Canada, and AWNA has been a member of this organization almost from the outset, has consistently supported the press council throughout the intervening years, and continues to be a staunch advocate of the council.
As you have heard, the press council has resolved hundreds of complaints from Alberta readers in cases where fault was found against a community newspaper. Those newspapers published the council's findings. There have been a number of these cases involving community newspapers.
The association feels so strongly about this process that it has made adherence to the press council decisions a requirement in its bylaws. In short, members can face expulsion if they do not abide by these council decisions.
The AWNA believes that self-regulation through independent press councils funded by the print media is working, and the AWNA would be opposed to any form of mandated or legislated regulation of its newspapers.
We strongly encourage this Senate committee to issue a statement of support for press councils. We believe that there should be an independent press council in every provincial jurisdiction, and we would certainly do our share to help Bruce in his endeavour to establish one in our neighbouring province to the east, Saskatchewan.
One of the questions you posed to us was: Do Canadian citizens have appropriate amounts of information about international, national and local news? Community newspapers primarily deliver news about the local communities they serve and generally leave the coverage of national and international stories to their national media counterparts. It is clear that community newspapers deliver the local news in an effective fashion, as evidenced by ComBase readership research. I would refer again to ComBase.
This research has shown us that 26 per cent of Canadians are not only reading community newspapers, but also that they are not regularly watching television, listening to radio or reading a daily newspaper. This is exclusive coverage that no other medium can claim. That, I think, indicates that there certainly are Canadians out there who have a habit of reading the community newspaper and who do not necessarily follow the other media.
The AWNA does not believe that media concentration has affected the editorial freedom enjoyed by reporters and editors of Alberta's community newspapers. Ours is an industry, as I mentioned, still dominated by independent publishers and editors. Newspaper members in our association that are part of a larger media corporation report they have always been able to determine the editorial direction of their respective newspapers without their head office exercising any control or influence over that.
We do not believe that consolidation of community newspaper ownership has had a significant impact on newsroom budgets, staffing and news quality, at least as it relates to community newspapers in this province. We do recognize that newspaper accounting, production and printing often benefit from the economies of scale group ownership brings, but it is rare that editorial departments are downsized as a result of corporate ownership. The success any of any community newspaper depends largely upon the quality of its editorial product, and it is just not an area that is generally compromised in any way, regardless of the ownership.
We noted a reference to a national newspaper in the material that we received as being a kind of print media equivalent to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We need, perhaps, a way to counterbalance the perception that this concentration of ownership may be limiting the opinions that folks see on a weekly basis. We considered that. We believe that the CBC receives government funding primarily so that Canadians in remote locations can enjoy the benefits of public radio and television broadcasting. A privately funded community newspaper that serves these remote communities could be negatively affected, we feel, by the formation of such a publicly funded national newspaper. The Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association would oppose the public funding of a newspaper that would, in effect, we feel, compete against privately funded community newspapers.
We believe readers are well served by our Alberta's community newspapers and that it is not in the public's best interest to introduce a regulatory framework where one is clearly not required.
We thank you for allowing us to appear today. As I mentioned, my colleague, Roger, may have a few comments to add. We certainly look forward to your final report and any recommendations that may come from your study. We certainly welcome any questions.
Mr. Roger Holmes, President, Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, and Publisher, Wainwright Star Chronicle: I have nothing further to add at this time. I was fascinated by the dialogue that you had with the press council. I could hardly keep my mouth shut. I wanted to jump up and put in my 2 cents worth. If you wish to ask some of those questions and how certain issues might relate to the weekly newspapers in Alberta, I would be delighted to give you my views on that.
I think we have made a fairly succinct presentation. I realize that you do not have a lot of time, and I will keep my answers brief and to the point. I would very much enjoy have a specific dialogue. I will be very candid with you about how I think the community newspaper association is run.
This is my second term as President of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, which is unusual in our organization. It is the first time that a president has served two terms in a row. That was due to some unfortunate circumstances.
I have recently completed visiting the entire 110, 111 members of our association personally in the last about 11 or 12 months. I personally walked through the doors of every community newspaper in our membership. It was a wild and wonderful experience.
With that, I would be pleased to entertain questions, thoughts or comments, and I will give you my views.
Senator Tkachuk: Thank you for your presentation. You said the majority of your members are independent. How many would that be?
Mr. Holmes: Currently, about 65 per cent are independents. About 45 per cent would be what we call chain or corporate owned. We measure those from asking, “How many links does a chain make?” We would say 10. If you own 10 newspapers, you are a chain; if you own three or four newspapers, you are a group.
Senator Tkachuk: Would the 65 per cent be either individuals or groups?
Mr. Holmes: They would be independents or what we call small groups. I am from Wainwright, Alberta. Three community newspapers in Wainwright are members. I do not consider myself a chain, and I own three. I get to vote three times at the annual meeting.
Mr. Merrell: Just to correct that math, I think it is more like 55 per cent independent.
Senator Tkachuk: Are the corporate players from Alberta, are they from outside the province, or are they from both? Who would they be?
Mr. Holmes: Sun Media is our largest group of newspapers. It originated in Alberta as the Bowes newspapers chain. Bowes was purchased by the Sun Media group which has connections with Quebecor. That would be our largest group.
The Black Press Group Ltd., from British Columbia has several of our members. Not long ago, a group called the Great West Newspaper Group Ltd., had some connections with the Hollinger group. There is also a group in Southern Alberta called Southern Alberta Newspapers which has some roots back into the Hollinger group as well, but it is operated differently.
Mr. Merrell: That is most of our chains.
Mr. Holmes: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: We have heard complaints from ethnic press groups and weekly newspapers about the federal advertising budgets and what they thought was a fair percentage. Amazingly, we have not heard that here. Do you think that the weekly newspapers are getting their fair share of the federal advertising spending?
Mr. Holmes: I will give you my reaction to this, and Dennis may have a slightly different one. I do not think we have a fair share. We have to earn our way. We have been negligent as an association, as an industry, in making our case known at the federal level. We have taken steps at the national level, at the CCNA level, to get a person into Ottawa who can carry our message. Not until recently have we had a strong, good message to tell. It was based on our ComBase readership study numbers. Now we can go out and empirically tell our story. That is happening, and we are seeing excellent results
If we have not been getting a fair share, it is because we have not done our homework. We have not sold ourselves well and properly. We now have done due diligence. We have the readership studies. We have the information. We are a much more professional organization that can make our case to the federal government. That is our approach, and it is the approach I support. I do not think that we have some sort of right to some share of anything. I lean a little more to the capitalist side on that.
Mr. Merrell: Currently, we have about 9 per cent of the media spending in the country. About 6 per cent of the federal government budget goes to community papers, so there is a disparity there.
As Roger has said, we believe we need to take our message to departments in Ottawa and convince them that they need to seriously look at our medium, and we are doing that. We now have a full-time person in Ottawa making calls.
Senator Tkachuk: When you say that you have a person in Ottawa, do you mean the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association?
Mr. Merrell: I should correct myself. I say “we” because I consider that we are part of the CCNA. However, it is really the CCNA that has this individual.
Senator Tkachuk: Are your newspapers subscription, or are they mailed free to the customers?
Mr. Holmes: Historically community papers, over the long haul, were subscription based newspapers. In the last 20 years, we have moved to more and more pre-distribution newspapers. Pre-distribution newspapers when I was growing up — and my father ran a community paper, as did his father before him — were considered the “black sheep” of the newspaper industry. My father called them “throwaways.” Then we were horrified by them. However, we adjusted to the fact that a free distribution newspaper can, in fact, be a good newspaper, and we see we have many of them in our associations. I am not sure of the relative percentage. Perhaps Dennis could help. Is it 50-50?
Mr. Merrell: No. The majority of our members are paid circulation, paid subscription, to this day. Twenty years ago, probably in the neighbourhood of 80-90 per cent were still paid. That trend has been more towards controlled circulation, and it is dropping well below that 80 per cent.
Mr. Holmes: As competition increases, we see more free products coming into the marketplace and that is what has driven people to compete on that basis. If somebody runs a good editorial product and gives it away free, it is difficult to charge for a good editorial product if you are in a competitive market. The market has driven some of that.
Senator Tkachuk: We have heard about a trend towards auditing in B.C. and in Ontario, and I am sure we will hear about it in Saskatchewan. They can do an audit of purchased papers to assess the numbers in circulation, but how can they do an audit of free newspapers?
Mr. Holmes: Those audits would be conducted in a couple of different ways. It depends on how the newspaper is distributed. There will be post office receipts. If they go through Canada Post, there is a requirement to fill out forms and submit them with your audit. There is some verification. You can verify if postage was paid on, say, 10,000 copies of a newspaper any particular week.
Press run certificates are required from printing press organizations which reflect how many papers were printed. Somemtimes invoices are required to verify that you did, in fact, pay to have a certain number printed by your printer.
When newspapers that are free are put in the postal system, then they are presumed to be delivered. When free products are out on what we call “newsstands” or “pickup boxes,” the newspapers themselves are required to record, when they do their weekly cycle, how many they picked up and brought back. Those are counted. We have to account for those.
The circulation audit of choice by most of our member newspapers is what is called a VCP, the verified audit process, operated by CCNA. They are now instituting an audit trail, that is, doing spot checks on newspaper providers; so they could show up at your office and go through your records to verify that returns are being reported correctly.
Senator Tkachuk: When someone buys a newspaper, you assume, because they are making that small investment, that they will read it. When a newspaper is delivered to a mail box, you do not know whether that newspaper goes in the garbage can at the post office or wherever.
Mr. Holmes: That is correct.
Senator Tkachuk: How can the audit verify that people are actually reading the newspapers?
Mr. Holmes: The audit does not. The audit is not intended to be readership management. The audit deals with circulation, that is, that a newspaper did, in fact, circulate a certain number of papers. Whether anyone read it or not, we do not know. It is only one measure that we use.
The readership study we did with ComBase bypasses how many copies are printed. They could not care less. They want to know how many copies are being read.
The counter argument to that within our association is what we call “pass-along readership”. One person buys a subscription, which is sent to an aunt, who sends it to her cousin. Those are not counted in a circulation audit, but they would be picked up in a readership audit. Currently, we have two ways to measure what we call the penetration of our products into our communities.
Personally, I think, we will eventually move to readership, and that will be the interesting information. That is what people need to know. How many copies are printed and sent out, and how many end up in the garbage, is irrelevant. However, it will probably take our industry 10 or 20 years to move to a readership audit. We need both for the time being, because we have grown up with circulation audits.
Senator Munson: Do you want to get something off your chest before I ask further questions? I could feel the energy in the room.
Mr. Holmes: Yes, I did want to say something about how newspapers are held accountable. I see it in my own newspaper, but I do not see it in any other medium to the extent that we do in our newspapers. I am referring to our letters to the editor. I get more letters to the editor each year that are critical of my newspaper than you will ever see come through a press council. The local community members who are involved are impacted by what we do and by what we do not do as reported in a newspaper. They can vent their frustration publicly in the columns of my newspaper, and we print every letter, even those that are critical of myself, as long as they are signed. We verify that the writer did, in fact, write the material.
That is one thing that is overlooked when we talk about press councils. Only once a situation really escalates does it actually hit the press council level. By using the letters to the editor lots of people can vent their frustrations about how the community newspapers has or has not handled a situation, and the community can be the judge.
Sometimes editors such as myself will include an addendum or an editor's note for clarification; or we may again put our own point forward to explain why we behaved in a certain way. I would challenge any other industry to paste on their front door a letter critical of themselves. Can you see Wal-Mart getting a letter of complaint and then tacking that letter up on their front door so that all their customers could can see it? As newspapers, that is exactly what we do, and I think we do it fairly well. That serves us well and it prevent matters being referred to the press councils.
That was what I was anxious to say.
Senator Munson: Could you clarify what you meant when you mentioned 60 per cent of copy? Is that a standard across the country, or is that simply applicable in Alberta?
Mr. Holmes: That refers to the fact that 60 per cent of the copy that you write in your newspaper must be local, home grown. It is not that 60 per cent of your newspaper has to be news.
Dennis, is it 70-30 or 60-40?
Mr. Merrell: Our bylaws require that a minimum of 30 per cent of the overall newspaper content be editorial. Of that 30 per cent of editorial, at least 60 per cent of it should be generated in the local community. I am referring to basic news columns related to the local community. There is the opportunity for a community newspaper to run what we would consider a canned copy or maybe Canadian Press type copy that is from outside the community sphere of influence. Delivering the local news is what we do.
As to your question of how this correlates with other associations across Canada, I would have to check into that and report back, because I am not totally certain that is common. It is something that we created in our bylaws in Alberta. It may have been adopted by other associations, because we do compare notes.
Mr. Holmes: We also require that at least 80 per cent of the front page must be news and only 20 per cent advertising. You can run a little bit of advertising on your front page if you want to be a member of our association. However, if you want to run more than that, you are in violation of our bylaws. In fact, that excludes some of what we call the “shopper type” of newspapers from our membership. They carry more than the allowable amount of advertising on their front pages.
Senator Munson: This is an age-old question which relates to the pressure that all of us who have been in the media have endured from time to time. We are studying bias in the media. Small town newspapers and small town owners have experienced political bias. Do reporters come under pressure? Do you get complaints from reporters? Where can reporters go to make complaints without fear of having to move to another small town?
We often hear of a newspaper being called a Conservative paper or a Liberal paper or an NDP paper. How can a reporter maintain objectivity when the boss is suggesting that he or she may want to go somewhere else with a particular story?
Mr. Holmes: I will answer that in two ways. The first answer is no, there is no established mechanism for that person to go through. The frustrated reporter would simply have to quit and move on.
However, what we are seeing in Alberta — and I think we are seeing across the country — is, should that situation be so unbalanced, desktop publishing has made it possible for newspapers to start up overnight. You do not need a licence. You can be at your kitchen table and start up a newspaper overnight if you feel that the local newspaper is not overly balanced. We probably now have a dozen small market newspapers in Alberta that have two community newspapers. One started up because someone thought that the community was not being well enough served by balanced reporting. Some, in fact, have started up in towns that have chain-operated newspapers. In the extreme, that is the check and the balance. The public will make its decision.
From our association point of view, we embrace both of those members into our association, if they are in the same small town, and we try to treat them as equally and as fairly as possible. That is the marketplace. If there are any disputes between those newspapers in the marketplace, the marketplace will decide which one will survive if, in fact, one of them cannot survive economically.
Mr. Merrell: Bruce Hogle alluded to this just this past weekend in Calgary at our annual symposium which involved 300 staff members from our 111 newspapers. I was a facilitator in an editorial critiquing session and there were probably, 60 or 70 editorial types from across our membership in attendance. We were able to ascertain that not one person in that room reported any influence from his or her newspaper owner when it came to writing that week's editorial. They all reported that they had complete freedom to write whatever editorial they felt they could write in that week's newspaper with no influence. That includes corporate owners, independent publishers. Nobody reported that.
While it is true that some of them have an editorial board of sorts where the publisher, editor and senior reporter would get together and decide what editorial to print in that week's newspaper, by and large the most common theme was that the editor decided. The editor decided what editorial was going to appear in that paper that week, with very little undue influence coming from the publisher. I would say that typifies how it does go.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I come from a small town in New Brunswick where I view the newspaper as very important.
I want to hear your observations and perhaps your predictions, about the “freebies” or the “give-aways.” In New Brunswick the freebies that can be picked up at corner stores have much less editorial content and fewer local stories. They contain a lot more advertising. Is that the trend? We have heard from a number of people that newspapers are answerable to their owners and to the bottom line, so advertising is rapidly increasing in local weekly newspapers. In magazines it is a run-away business. What is the trend? I know that a certain number are now free. What do you see happening to the content?
Mr. Merrell: I agree that there is some pressure to increase the percentage of advertising content. In our case, as we mentioned, we would not permit our newspaper advertising content to exceed 70 per cent. We have stood firm on that in Alberta. We have not wavered.
In some other jurisdictions there is talk about moving it up to 75 per cent. It is a slippery slope. We define ourselves as community newspapers that carry the news. There is a fine line between our members' products and what we would typify as a shopper-type of publication. Once you are at the 75 or 80 per cent level, then you must ask: What content is there? Is the newspaper providing local news, or is it too watered down? There is definitely a concern about that among our members.
The Chairman: What is creating these pressures? Is it that there are more and more ads flowing in and not enough news to fill the spaces between them? Newsprint is expensive. Is there a huge inflow of revenue from advertising? Is it happening there is a diminution because newsprint is expensive?
Mr. Merrell: It is probably primarily economic. We have not had those pressures in Alberta, but it is happening in other provinces. I cannot speak for them, but I would imagine that it is primarily economic. Newspapers are perhaps looking at the overall cost to put out each page of the newspaper and finding that they need a range in that ratio to make it economically feasible.
Mr. Holmes: I would be delighted to have 70 per cent advertising in my newspapers. Most of the newspapers in our association would hover in the range of between 50 and 60 per cent. Sixty per cent is the goal. We sit down and count the ads we have on any given week. Then we do the math. If we have 60 per cent advertising, we have a 40 per cent news hold, and that is where we like to be.
Sometimes that has to change. If you have a small page count, you have to calculate by multiples of four pages. Sometimes people try to hold it down to keep that four pages out. Other times I will bump over four pages and increase the size of the photos. We fill a news hole.
To answer your question, senator, there is no lack of news in communities. We can find that news.
The Chairman: Is there a lack of ads?
Mr. Holmes: There is a lack of ads. However, that comes from our inability to sell our product on the main street. Our main streets in rural Alberta and rural Western Canada are shrinking. The big box chain stores are coming in. They are not good advertisers in community newspapers. Our local ad revenue dollars are shrinking, and that shrinks our page count.
We have strong representation in what we call our national ad field through our association. If you asked Alberta newspaper publishers, they would tell you that one of their biggest concerns is that the advertiser on the main street in their local community that was the mainstay of their financial viability is indeed shrinking.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I want to follow up on this because I think it is very important. Will the passion and the faithfulness to local journalism influence this trend? Can your important association, voices in local communities, or a committee like this influence this trend?
I hardly bother picking up some of the magazines I used to buy because page after page contain ads, mostly about wrinkles. How do you feel about that?
Mr. Holmes: I think economics has something to do with it. I think a community of about 1,000 people could have a small community newspaper if it had one employee who would be the editor, the publisher. He would find the advertising and write the stories. I print newspapers for other communities around Alberta. We print them with as low press runs as 500. There are only two or three staff members in some of those places. There is only one in one case. A single employee runs his newspaper. It is scaleable to that degree. At some point they will become economically unviable. They will merge with other newspapers or they will simply close the doors.
Mr. Merrell: As an association we would do what we could to influence. We have influence and control over our membership in terms of not exceeding a 70 per cent advertising content ratio. However, for newspapers that are outside of our membership that are leaning towards that trend, all we can do is try to influence them in a positive sense. The Canadian association also has something to say about it. We are all part of a federation and part of the CCNA. As an association, we do have some degree of control over this, in terms of affecting their membership.
Beyond that, if newspapers chose to leave our membership because they felt they could not survive according to our membership criteria, that would be another story. I see no indication that we are going to change our bylaws.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: In a country where freedom of the press is one of the fundamental foundations there is freedom to publish these ads.
Mr. Holmes: There is also a freedom to fail. If your newspaper is no longer economically viable, you are free to close up shop. That is one of the harsh realities.
Senator Carney: Your presentation is formidable. When members join the Alberta Press Council does the staff know about the code of ethics?
Mr. Holmes: The code of ethics is produced by our press council and all our newspapers are required to abide by it. That is the standard that we judge. Some of our newspapers are very conscious of it, but others do not have a clue that it exists.
Senator Carney: Thoughtfully, you have provided us with the AdWest Quick Facts for 2005. It lists all of the newspapers in Alberta. It would be a great mailing list for political parties, by the way. Does it include the Aboriginal papers such as Windspeaker? My question is: Who serves?
Mr. Holmes: Who serves the ethnic press?
Senator Carney: Who serves the ethnic press? Who serves the Aboriginals?
Mr. Holmes: The Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association does not serve the ethnic press in Alberta very well at all. The reason is that one of our primary tenets for membership is you must publish at least once a week. Most of those ethnic presses do not meet that criterion. If they did meet all our criteria they would certainly be welcomed into our association.
I think we have done a relatively poor job in our association of reaching out to the ethnic press in Alberta. I say that because it is one of my failings. We could do more to reach out to the ethnic press. The requirement to publish at least once a week excludes a lot of the ethnic press.
Senator Carney: I have looked at the market share figures that you have provided to us. You say in your presentation that you do not feel that consolidation of ownership is a factor in Alberta. However, if you add up your market share figures for the daily newspapers of CanWest and Quebecor, who run the Sun newspapers, it comes to 90 per cent. Therefore, 90 per cent of the daily newspaper circulation in the province of Alberta is covered by the two big chains. Horizon and Black have 70 per cent and 30 per cent. Ninety per cent of the market share is owned by two chains. Do not you think that is a concentrated market?
Mr. Holmes: You are saying that 90 per cent of the daily newspapers is controlled by two chains. We are the weekly newspapers.
Senator Carney: I know, but I am asking for your comment. You do comment in your brief on the issue of consolidation. Do you not believe that it is a factor?
Mr. Holmes: We do not believe that it is a factor in the weekly newspaper industry.
Senator Carney: Could you then talk about how Albertans are served, globally, in terms of the figures you presented? Ninety per cent of the market is held by CanWest and Quebecor.
Mr. Holmes: I would take issue with you. I do not accept that 90 per cent of the market is held by CanWest.
Senator Carney: I am adding it up. These are the figures you have produced. We have this market share. Is not it from you?
The Chairman: No. That comes from the CEP Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, the CEP Media Monitor.
Senator Carney: It was with the material from you.
The Chairman: I do not think that they do leadership circulation surveys. My guess would be that they got this from somebody like ABC and just printed it out for us.
Mr. Holmes: We would dispute that the dailies have 90 per cent of the circulation or the readership. In the communities that we serve, we do not see that concentration.
Senator Carney: You mentioned Canadian Press several times. Some of the larger papers, the daily papers, have told us or have said publicly that Canadian Press is no longer relevant to their news-gathering efforts. Are members of your association members of Canadian Press, and how relevant is Canadian Press to your membership?
Mr. Holmes: I would say that it is not very relevant at all, because it would mostly carry provincial, national and international news feeds. Most of our news is generated locally. Most of our readers are interested in what has happened down their street; what has happened with the local town council; what the dog catcher did last week; and whether Mary had tea with Sally. I would say it is not particularly relevant.
Senator Carney: Is that a change historically?
Mr. Holmes: No, that is our tradition.
Senator Merchant: During our hearings we do not often see lots of young faces and we do not often hear from young people. Yesterday we had an opportunity to do that at the graduate program of the University of British Columbia. We heard from the young people. They were our participating audience.
Do you afford any opportunities to young people, to students from schools of journalism, for any sort of internship? Do you have some connections with institutions? Are you able to pay students if they intern with you? Do you have any young readers? Do you try to attract young readers? After all you want to perpetuate yourselves, and you have to get people connected with you early on so that they grow with you.
Mr. Holmes: Many of the community newspapers are the entry level into journalism for young people coming out of journalism programs. That is where they get their first jobs. They get some experience before they move on into other areas of journalism, should they choose to do that.
We are moving towards the concept that you can have an entire career in community journalism, and that it is a valid and a meaningful to spend your entire career being a community journalist. The communities we represent are marvellous places to raise families. What keeps me in community journalism is the fact that I can run a business and make a reasonable return for the work I do. I can be an important part of the community. You can make a difference in a small community by being in community journalism.
We do embrace bringing in a lot of young journalists. They may come through our ranks and move on to other journalistic endeavours. We also work with the journalism schools to bring in students as part of their training. Some are unpaid. Some are required to do this as part of their course. They come to us, unpaid, for three or four weeks and we give them experiences.
As well, our industry often employs journalism students for summer relief help during the two or three months that they are out of their journalism programs. Often staff members are away on vacation and we bring people in to give them experience and, basically, to get us through our summer holiday time.
Senator Merchant: Do you get many more applications from students than you have positions to offer?
Mr. Holmes: Yes, we do.
Senator Merchant: A statement was made to the effect that, these days, students want to start at the top and do not want to move to small communities. However, you say that you receive more applications than you have positions?
Mr. Holmes: We definitely get more applications than we have positions. The applicants who seem to fit the best are those students at journalism schools in the cities but whose roots are in rural Alberta. They have a tendency to come back to us because they can live within our communities, and that is where they are comfortable. Some of them stick and some of them go on.
Senator Merchant: Do you have any sense that young people are reading your papers? Why are they reading them? What do you put in the papers that will attract young readers?
Mr. Holmes: We make a major effort to cover a lot of the school news where children are involved in activities. I do not know if anyone has mentioned the FOIP before, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. For the last couple of years we have had some interpretation difficulties and that has affected some of our school coverage. We sent a reporter to the school grounds with a camera, and we had to face some restrictions. That has been a concern of our industry for some time. We think we now have a clear understanding, and we think the schools have a clear understanding of what we can and cannot do in that regard.
We cover lots of minor sports events. That is where kids are involved. Their parents also form part of the readership. We also have the usual cartoons and puzzles and things like that to try to encourage local readership.
Our newspaper association has an annual contest which we call the “Write-On” contest.” It is a formal way of getting newspapers into the schools, and every newspaper has a winner. The winners then go to other levels of competition. We also have provincially recognised winners of the Write-On contest to engage young readers and young writers at that level.
Mr. Merrell: I would add one point about the outreach programs that we have with the journalism schools in Alberta. I alluded to the symposium that we held in Calgary last weekend. We extend invitations to all of the journalism students from all the colleges throughout the province to that symposium. We are more successful with some institutions than with others. For example, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, or SAIT, for the last 15 years that we have been operating this event, has encouraged and almost ensured that virtually all their students attend our event. The fee is nominal. It is affordable to all of them, so they attend. It gives them an opportunity to rub shoulders with potential employers. That particular program, I believe, has the largest intake of journalism students in Alberta. I believe it as high as the 70 to 80 per cent range. When they graduate, the students end up initially employed by our members.
You overcome the difficulty of getting graduating students to move out of the major centers, because we are primarily outside the major centres. It is a bit of a struggle to encourage them to do that because some of them have grown up in cities. To encourage a student to move to Wainwright, for example, it is not always an easy sell. That is one success story that we can allude to regarding that particular institution. It is unfortunate we do not enjoy the same success with all of them.
Senator Merchant: Our daily newspaper in Regina affords students space in the paper once a week, to comment on current events. I think it is called “-20.” They must be under 20 years of age. There is a space in the paper where students can write in. They can express opinions on same sex marriage or all kinds of subjects that are of interest to them.
Do you give an opportunity to young people to write something in your newspapers?
Mr. Holmes: In my particular newspaper, it is not available in such a formal way. We have had young people write letters to the editor. That is always open, available. However, we do not have anything as formal as what you just described, and I do not know about our other members.
Mr. Merrell: Many of our newspapers do have that. The St. Albert Gazette has, as they call it, the “Kids' Gazette,” as a regular feature. The students themselves develop the stories. The advertisements and the whole project is produced by them, and the newspaper publishes it. There are other examples of that. I wish there were more but, unfortunately, it is not prevalent across the association.
Senator Merchant: Encourage it as much as you can.
Senator Chaput: I would commend you on the initiative of visiting all of your members. I would congratulate you on that.
My understanding is that, as an example, 55 per cent of the newspapers of your membership are small, and not more than three newspapers have the same owner. That leaves 45 per cent where the same owner is responsible for, perhaps, 10 newspapers.
Mr. Holmes: Yes.
Senator Chaput: You have free newspapers and the one-week subscription papers. Where do you find the most free newspapers? Is it in the 45 per cent category or the 55 per cent category?
Mr. Holmes: I believe you would find more of the paid-for ones in the 55 per cent category because those are in the very small markets.
The chains have purchased most of the suburban markets and the community newspapers that surround the metropolitan areas in Alberta, because those bring economies of scale in that they can put in a central printing plant and run a hub maybe even out of their own daily newspaper. Those would have the tendency to be the larger newspapers, the growing communities, and I would think you would see a tendency of more of the free distributions in those areas.
Mr. Merrell: It is more a matter of geography than ownership. If a chain newspaper is in the middle of nowhere where it has no competitors and it has subscriptions, it will take revenue from the readers. If it can get readership revenue, it will not turn it into a freebee. There is no need to turn it into a free distribution newspaper unless there is competition. Competition, in my view, is what has driven the free versus paid in our industry.
Senator Chaput: Having visited all of your members, I am sure they shared with you their main concerns. What is the difference between the concerns of the small owners versus the larger owners?
Mr. Holmes: The most dramatic clear indications I get come from the local owner of the community newspaper. He has been there a long time and he is more connected with his community and he sees he is not going anywhere. He has a more vested interest in his community. I see a different kind of journalism there.
In the chain owned newspaper, I see younger people who are in management or who have publisher responsibilities, and their turnover is more frequent. They do not have a financial stake in their community. However, I could not point to a situation where someone has done something terribly bad or terribly good. I get a different sense of them. They want to move up the corporate ladder and they are looking beyond their community towards their next posting in the next larger community. That is natural. It is not bad, it is just different from the way it was when I was young. Does that answer your question?
Senator Chaput: Yes, it does, sir.
As far as salaries are concerned, I would assume that workers are paid at a higher level in the larger newspapers than the community ones?
Mr. Holmes: Generally speaking, yes. However, to our detriment, we do not have a strong reputation for being a well-paid industry. I believe that our products are strong enough, and I believe we could ask for more of the advertising dollar so that we could pay ourselves, pay our members more. We just need to realize the value that we have. In the community newspaper industry we under-valued our own product. We could be charging more, because our community would give us the money, and we could pay more. However, that is a paradigm that I am working on trying to shift as I talk to people.
The Chairman: It will be very interesting if that works out. You are bucking centuries of tradition there. However, I do not want to discourage you.
We talked about the circulation data, and Senator Carney referred to CanWest and Quebecor controlling 90 per cent of the circulation. Was that 90 per cent of dailies?
Mr. Holmes: Yes.
The Chairman: Although these particular figures came on a sheet typed up by somebody else, they are comparable to other data that I have seen. If you have different data, do send them in.
Mr. Holmes: I have no reason to dispute the data you have.
The Chairman: You do not have to work with it because you are a weekly.
Mr. Holmes: That is right.
The Chairman: You have 111 members. Do you know how many journalists are employed by your 111 members?
Mr. Holmes: No, I do not. It is not something we track individually. Given the size and the scope of our membership, some newspapers may have 10 or 15 journalists. Some will have only one; and that person would also be the ad salesperson.
I run three community newspapers out of my town. One paper comes out on Monday, one comes out on Wednesday, and one comes out on Friday, and I employ four journalists to do that. I have two editors, a sports writer and a general reporter. I have four journalists working, print journalists, in the town of Wainwright that has a population of about 5,000 people. They turn out three newspapers a week.
The Chairman: How many pages?
Mr. Holmes: Each one is about 24 to 32 pages per week.
The Chairman: They are earning their pay.
Mr. Holmes: Yes, they are. One thing you learn in community journalism is how to write quickly. It is great experience to learn that. We do not spend a lot of time on a story. We get the facts and we run a lot of good photos to go with those facts because that is what people in our community want. They want to see their picture in the paper.
The Chairman: When we were talking about chains among the weeklies, you said that Great West Newspaper Company and another one had had roots in Hollinger.
Mr. Holmes: Yes.
The Chairman: They are no longer Hollinger problems.
Mr. Merrell: It is a little muddied. Great West Newspaper Company started out as an independent, and the principal involved, Duff Jamison, still owns a significant percentage of the company, but his partner initially was Southern, originally, and then it ended up being Hollinger. The waters are muddied right now as to the ownership. It was more to do with the whole Hollinger situation.
Mr. Holmes: Southern Alberta Newspapers, which comprises a bunch of community newspapers, The Taber Times, Coaldale's The Sunny South News, the Medicine Hat News and the Lethbridge Herald, is owned by the Southern Alberta Newspaper Group that has some connections with Mr. Radler.
The Chairman: Thank you so much. Your presentation was fascinating. Our next witnesses have been patient, but your evidence was extremely interesting and helpful.
Mr. Holmes: We really thank you for this opportunity to come to speak to you. Hopefully we have been of some help to you in your work.
The Chairman: You have been.
I would invite our next witness Mr. Ross Mayot to come forward. We are very interested to hear what you have to tell us. The floor is yours.
Mr. Ross Mayot, Vice-President, Administration and Business Affairs, Access Media Group: Madam Chair, deputy chair and honourable committee members, my name is Ross Mayot. I am Vice-President of Administration and Business Affairs for ACCESS Media Group, the owner and licensee of ACCESS, Alberta's educational and television service. I would thank you for giving us the opportunity to contribute to your important and timely study of Canadian broadcasting and news media.
As you know, this year Alberta is celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary as a province in Canada's federation. We commend the committee on its efforts to seek out western opinions on your area of study.
I should start with a disclosure. ACCESS does not do newscasts, nor are we in the news gathering business. However, in our view, programs formatted as news, current events, public affairs or informational are all part of a program paradigm intended to inform viewers of the world around them, whether it be the local, national or global. ACCESS, as an educational broadcaster, fulfils an important niche within that paradigm with our informational and public affairs programming, serving viewers in a manner not provided by any other broadcaster in Alberta and, as such, we play a distinct role in the Canadian broadcasting system. Permit me to tell you a little bit about ACCESS.
ACCESS The Education Station is the provincial educational television service for the province of Alberta, and the provincial educational authority as that reference pertains to the Broadcasting Act.
Ten years ago our company, ACCESS Media Group, which is majority owned by CHUM Ltd., submitted a plan and made a commitment to the provincial government to save and revitalise educational television in this province. We converted it from a public sector organization to a private sector company. It was the first, and still is, the only provincial educational television service to be privately owned and operated. Our business model and our CRTC licence have been built on a unique public-private partnership with Alberta's education ministries.
ACCESS receives no grants from the government. Rather, the ministries are clients and we have formal contracts for services with them. These contracts account for roughly half of ACCESS's revenue, with the other half generated through commercial activity, largely comprised of advertising and program sponsorship. There is no commercial advertising in any of the air time dedicated to the ministry programming or in the preschool children's programming which, combined with the ministry time, represents about half of our program schedule.
Our business is based on the belief that educational television can, and should continue to be, an accessible, relevant and useful resource for learners of all ages and interests, and that it can be an effective advocate and promoter of lifelong learning. We believe ACCESS has demonstrated that over the past 10 years. In 2004 a public survey indicated that 87 per cent of Albertans reported that ACCESS's programming was educational, entertaining and informative.
We have made educational television more contemporary, popular and vital, strengthening its support for and promotion of a learning culture in Alberta. We have taken a position that all good educators have always known, that there can be a healthy relationship between good education and good entertainment. The two are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps Marshall McLuhan made the point somewhat more colourfully when he said, “Those who make a distinction between education and entertainment don't know a thing about either.”
We have brought advertising dollars to the service of education, levered money from outside the province to help finance independent production in Alberta, and have significantly increased formal educational output.
We have substantially reduced the cost of the service to the public purse, and we have grown our business in ways that contribute to the educational, social and economic health of the province.
With ACCESS as the base, we have built, and are continuing to build, a successful national learning business, with multiple television channels: Canadian Learning Television, Book Television and CourtTV Canada, all of them available throughout the country.
As well, we operate an educational program distribution company called Distribution ACCESS; a school for continuing education and personal growth called The Learning Annex; and ideaCity, an annual conference about the power of ideas. All contribute to our ability to best meet our commitments in the province of Alberta.
We have steadily increased the range and depth of our audiences, including building a demographic that has traditionally abandoned educational television, the 18-49 age group. We have retained the younger and the older audiences, but we have added, and added with some weight, the 18-49 year-old viewers, a key demographic if strategies for lifelong learning are to be successful. Much of our schedule, including all drama and feature films, is connected to formal courses of study or to the priorities of the education ministries, and we have working relationships with nearly all of the 26 post-secondary institutions in Alberta.
ACCESS works hard to be relevant and useful to all learners, including preschoolers, for whom we have maintained a hallmark of educational television, a daily commerical-free block of quality programs. Language programs, Aboriginal studies, family and lifestyle, health and seniors and telecourses in a wide range of subjects are regular parts of our schedule. These are combined with stimulating programs for adult lifelong learners who may not be registered in formal courses of study, but nevertheless want to use educational television as a meaningful and, yes, entertaining learning resource.
Also, importantly for us and for Alberta's educators, we have understood the impact of technological convergence and the opportunities it presents for education. We have continued to evolve and adapt to the digital era to ensure that our content is useful and accessible in a variety of formats, whether that is broadcast, multimedia or broadband. That is to say, we are changing with the changing needs, priorities and technical capabilities of educators, learners and society as a whole.
We place a priority on informing and engaging our audiences. We produce, acquire and broadcast programming that helps people more fully understand the causes, impact and importance of issues and events that they may have seen on newscasts on other channels. Our goal is to present programming that stimulates people to learn and to be active; to understand social issues such as bullying, family violence, cultural diversity and race relations; to understand and respect science, history and social change; to express themselves, pursue new interests and understand the value of literacy, including media literacy, and early childhood education.
Providing a context for learning is a primary role of ACCESS and of educational television. It is something that we believe enhances citizens and motivates them to be active in their own lives and in their communities.
For example, through our daily, live, hour-long interactive program called Help!tv, trends and up-to-date information about jobs, mental and physical health, careers, cultural diversity, leadership, advances in technology, volunteering, where to seek help when it is needed, and a wide range of other topics, are a central part of our daily schedule.
Similarly, our award winning weekly series Careers TV travels the country to report on career and educational issues, workplace and business trends, and includes a segment on unconventional careers and vocations called “Off The Beaten Path.”
Speakers Corner is our weekly series that allows Albertans to speak their minds on issues and events of importance to them. In effect, they give us the news.
Whether it is Business In The New Economy, produced in association with Athabasca University; Living Literacies, produced with Frontier College and York University; or the Memory Project, produced in association with the Dominion Institute, featuring Canada's military service veterans sharing their remarkable, and often heroic stories with Canadians, especially young Canadians, these programs reflect ACCESS's distinctly different contribution to the information programming mix in Alberta and in the Canadian broadcasting system.
That is a thumbnail sketch of ACCESS.
The committee has issued a number of questions, largely concerning issues related to news media. Since we are not in the news business, we think others can respond more knowledgeably about the state of news business in Canada. However, as a general observation, we think it is certainly the case, as the committee's research has also pointed out, that, at face value, Canadians have much more access to, and much greater diversity of news sources — local, national and international — than existed at the time of Senator Davey's report some 35 years ago.
We would also agree that the comments in the committee's internal report that Canadians are well served with regard to the quality and quantity of news in comparison with other countries. Moreover, newscasts are certainly more culturally diverse and representative than in the past.
We believe that a tip of the hat for initiating and leading that change nationally should go to Citytv in Toronto.
In that regard, the current policies, regulations and legislation appear to be serving the public interest reasonably well. One thing we do not see the need for, nor do we think it would better serve the public interest, is an increase in foreign ownership of Canadian media.
The committee has asked a question about the role of Canada's public broadcasters in light of the massive changes in the broadcasting landscape over the last 25 years. I am sure you have already heard plenty on the role of CBC, and we do not have anything useful to contribute on that score.
However, we do know something about educational television and the state of public educational broadcasting. Our president, Ron Keast, myself and others on our team, have been involved in educational television, public and private, for quite a few years — in fact, a few decades.
As you know, none of the public educational broadcasters is mandated by their provincial governments or licensed by the CRTC to be in the news business. Having recently met with our educational television colleagues in the Association for Tele-Education in Canada, or ATEC, we are not aware of any interest on their part to get into the news business. Given the state of funding these days, we think that is a sensible position.
However, like us, they produce, acquire and broadcast excellent public affairs and informational programming and make a significant contribution to our broadcasting system. Last year, for example, we co-acquired with the other educational broadcasters the exceptional series Canada: A People's History for broadcast and cassette distribution to schools throughout Alberta as a curriculum resource.
Clearly the financial pressures on publicly funded educational broadcasters reflect the overall pressure on the public purse. They will have to find a way to meet those pressures and to demonstrate to their funders and their publics, that they continue to be cost-effective, relevant and useful educational resources and, therefore, deserving of ongoing public funding.
As you might appreciate, we are big supporters of the public-private partnership model in educational television. We have proven in Alberta that it works and it may well be applicable in other provinces. Over the past several years we have had discussions with officials in some of the provinces about our model, but it is up to them to decide whether they have better alternatives to sustain and grow their public educational television services.
As I noted at the outset, we believe educational television has played, and should certainly continue to play, an important and distinct role in the Canadian broadcasting system, utilising television and other learning technologies as an accessible and useful resource for formal and informal learning.
Madam Chair, that concludes our formal remarks. I hope they will be of some use to your committee's work, and I would be happy to respond to any questions.
The Chairman: It is a unique model. It is not surprising that, when you come to Alberta, you find unique models for all kinds of things.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Mr. Mayot, educational television is very near and dear to my heart because I have committed quite a bit of my time in recent years to early childhood learning and family issues. What you are doing is important, interesting and probably groundbreaking in some respects. You have about a 10-year history I see.
This is excellent, but this is happening in Alberta that has resources that some parts of Canada do not have. Ontarians, as well, have this type of television. I come from New Brunswick. Can you give me a national perspective on this kind of educational television programming. Can you also tell me what you foresee for the future nationally?
Mr. Mayot: There are publicly funded and operated educational television services in British Columbia. The Knowledge Network of the west, which is part of the Open Learning Agency, is operating in the province of British Columbia.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Is it all public funding?
Mr. Mayot: Yes. ACCESS is a private operation with a public partnership in Ontario. TVOntario operates TVO, the English language network, and TFO, which is the French language network. That is all public. Télé-Québec is the broadcaster in Quebec, and SCN is the educational broadcaster in Saskatchewan.
We have been in educational television since 1974, and have had relationships with all of those broadcasters as colleagues, so we have an appreciation of the fine work they are trying to do. In our view, it continues to be important work.
There is a role not only for young people. As we have tried to establish ACCESS as both a medium for content and as playing an advocacy role for lifelong learning, we must have individuals in that 18-49 age group as part of our constituency, or else we will miss the essence of the concept of lifelong learning.
When I was at TVOntario, we used to say: We own the kids, we own the preschool kids.” When they got to be about 8 years old they moved to Homer Simpson and The Simpsons. They did not come back until they had families of their own for Elwy Yost and Saturday Night at the Movies. There was a great gap in the middle because educational television simply did not appeal to a large sector of that 18-49 demographic.
We have challenged ourselves to address that by, in fact, being more popular. We do not find any shame or concern about trying to appeal to that group, draw them into the tent with popular programming, because when they are in the tent, we can share the other messages for lifelong learning and how to get involved in a course. The relationships between education and career, all of those messages can only happen if you have them in the tent in the first place.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Do you want to add something?
Mr. Mayot: On your point about the future of educational television, we have also built a national educational television service called Canadian Learning Television, CLT, largely because the provincial services were unable, for political, jurisdictional reasons, to come together as public entities to provide a national service, and it was not an easy go. We fought quite a few legal and regulatory battles to establish that national educational service. We see that as an important ingredient in terms of making sure that, from Newfoundland to Victoria and up into Canada's North, there is an educational service that similarly promotes lifelong learning and provides content for lifelong learning.
As for the future of educational television in general, we are obviously hopeful that it continues. We have partners in many ways. Even though we have different financial models, we share the same mission. We take a private sector approach to serving public policy. They take a public sector approach. We want all of that to continue.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Is Télé-Québec public?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: As is SCN?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Is all of your private funding from CHUM?
Mr. Mayot: CHUM Ltd. is the majority shareholder. CHUM owns 60 per cent. There are other minority shareholders, and our chairman is Moses Znaimer, well known for his initiatives with Citytv and within the CHUM enterprise.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Manitoba and Atlantic Canada do not have this kind of service, and that worries me. How does Canada compare to other countries in terms of educational television?
Mr. Mayot: In terms of the services that exist in the four provinces, I think Canada compares wonderfully well. Our educational broadcasters win awards around the world for what they do. They are looked to by the other PBS-type services in the United States. We have a good market for the kind of material we produce. The United States buys our programming.
There is no other model like ACCESS. The others are public sector models. In the United States, for example, and increasingly, there are services on the specialty television side such as The Learning Channel, A & E, Discovery, National Geographic, that have a lot of content that used to be the domain of educational television. They saw some of the value of that, but they are not true educational services. They have no relationships with universities, colleges or technical institutes.
The Chairman: You have to pay to get them.
Mr. Mayot: Yes, you have to pay to get those channels through Cable or Satellite services, exactly.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Is yours the only service that allows a student to take university or college courses via television?
Mr. Mayot: The Knowledge Network, SCN and TVOntario, in their own measure, have relationships with schools, and they are expanding that.
TVOntario fell away from that for a while, but in the last several years it has brought that back up as an important part of their mission to reconnect with education, not only at the post-secondary level but also at the K to 12 level.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Are you using American material?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: What percentage of your material is American?
Mr. Mayot: By our licence, as technically a commercial broadcaster, we have to broadcast in the broadcast day an average of 60 per cent Canadian material, but in fact we do use American, British, Australian and other material.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Up to 40 per cent?
Mr. Mayot: Up to 40 per cent, yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: How much of your children's programming is Canadian?
Mr. Mayot: About 90 per cent of the children's programming is Canadian. Canada has a strong reputation in producing quality preschool programming.
The Chairman: I know my children preferred The Polka Dot Door to Sesame Street.
Senator Chaput: On page 4 of your presentation you deal with second language programs. In what languages are those second language programs?
Mr. Mayot: They run the gamut. There are a number in the day part of our schedule. They are also included in our weekend schedule.
Senator Chaput: Does it have to do with schools also? For example do immersion schools have access to programs in French on your service?
Mr. Mayot: Yes, indeed, they do. We provide French, Spanish, German and various language groups.
Senator Chaput: I come from Manitoba where there is no educational television, but we see what is going on in Ontario. Would you be open to partnerships with other provinces?
Mr. Mayot: By all means. As I briefly mentioned, over the years, we have had various discussions with provincial authorities, including New Brunswick, about ways in which this private sector, public sector model can allow a quality service using the capital of the private sector, and a lesser portion than would typically be required from the public sector, to have a quality educational television service.
From our point of view, we can see that model being very functional and effective. By the reaction from our public here in Alberta, it is extremely attractive to people because it means that the public contribution would be much lower than it would traditionally have been.
Senator Chaput: You get about 50 per cent, of your revenues from the province and, instead of being called a grant, the province pays your network for services that you offer to the schools; is that right? They buy the services from you?
Mr. Mayot: Yes. The contract is for activity we do over the air through the broadcast and the non-broadcast side. We have a media resource centre that does bulk dubbing for programming, and we clear the rights so that schools throughout Alberta can have access to cassettes or, increasingly, DVD's or online.
Senator Chaput: On page 3, you talk about independent production in Alberta. I guess that means that you have independent producers who develop programs for you. Do you also buy programs from producers outside of Alberta?
Mr. Mayot: Yes, we do.
Senator Chaput: You are open to that, also?
Mr. Mayot: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Chaput: Is there a certain percentage?
Mr. Mayot: No. Frankly, we give priority to material that has a relationship with Alberta schools. We give priority to independent producers in Alberta. About 75 per cent of our production money, of our new programming money, is spent on independent producers.
Senator Eyton: Am I correct in saying that ACCESS, at least in its previous form, was publicly owned and only 10 years ago became privately owned and funded?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Eyton: What happened then? Was it simply provincial policy at the time? CHUM Ltd., the Waters family, are known for careful attention to the bottom line, and I am curious to know why they were a part of it.
Mr. Mayot: Back in, perhaps, 1993, the Government of Alberta of the day decided that it no longer wanted to be in television. They were in the educational television business, and they let it be known that they were going to close it down, that they would no longer fund it. They charged the board with the responsibility to consider the alternatives.
Because of Ron Keast's relationship in educational television from days gone by, and my own, we knew that community very well. We decided that we should not let that service go dark, so we put together our own plan, financial model. We told the board that we could help them stay in the education business through learning technologies but that they would not have to operate it. We told them that the costs of doing that would be much less, and the output in formal education would be much greater, through our own efficiencies.
The board accepted that proposition, took it to the political side. Cabinet liked the model. The government of the day supported our application for a licence from the CRTC. We were the first. This was a policy-breaking decision by both the government and the CRTC.
Senator Eyton: Do the shareholders get a return on their investment?
Mr. Mayot: Yes, the shareholders do get a return.
Senator Eyton: Could you profile for me the kind of the revenue stream for ACCESS on an annual basis? Are there advertisements, for example?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Eyton: Are there contributions?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Eyton: Is there government funding?
Mr. Mayot: Yes. We operate an integrated service. We have ACCESS, Canadian Learning Television and Book Television all based in Edmonton, so there is some integration of those channels, and that allows us to lever the infrastructure and the costs. The annual revenue for ACCESS would be something under $10 million with, to date, roughly half of that being provided by contract from the government ministries. Advertising and program sponsorship generates most of the rest.
Senator Eyton: From an earlier answer I gather that the costs are running less than that, so there is a profit of some sort.
Mr. Mayot: Yes, there is a small profit. When we started building the service, there was no profit, but over the last five years we have shown that the model works both financially and, as important, educationally. There is a return now. At this stage, it would not be attractive as a return to some commercial broadcasters, but there is a return.
Senator Eyton: Given that success, are you aware of any others that may, in fact, do the same thing in other parts of Canada?
Mr. Mayot: Four or five years ago there were notions of it in Ontario, again with some prospect of privatising a public enterprise. Ontario looked into privatizing TVOntario. We offered our perspective on it. More recently the Government of British Columbia entertained the idea of dissolving the Knowledge Network or considering financial models that could be sustained other than through public funding. British Columbia, to my knowledge, is still entertaining that idea. They have not made a decision.
Senator Eyton: You are talking about relationships with other like services. Can I assume that there is good cooperation between them?
Mr. Mayot: Our programming people get together and look at whether they can make group buys, because, frankly, the story of education in Canada is a very balkanized one. Every province jealously protects its jurisdiction. Even though there are many commonalities, they have been silos, and that has gotten in the way of a lot of cooperation.
A producer may start in the east and come west trying to sell a series. He may find individual buyers. However, if we identify programming to be the sort that all education broadcasters will buy, then the price will come down and it is more widely disbursed. That has been accepted by some of our colleagues.
Senator Eyton: Would CLT be one of the vehicles for doing that?
Mr. Mayot: CLT participates in that, yes.
Senator Eyton: Does it overlap along borderlines in any way?
Mr. Mayot: I am hopeful that we share audiences and sustain audiences. In the scheme of 120-odd channels, five or six educational services need to be cooperative. We need to create critical mass and ensure that the argument for educational television is in people's minds. If they know of us, then they will know others such as CLT or Knowledge Network. We are small in the scheme of things.
Senator Eyton: But you are together.
Mr. Mayot: Yes. Part of our strategy is to try to cooperate more than we have in the past.
Senator Eyton: What would you like our report to reflect about learning television?
Mr. Mayot: I would love you to say that it continues to be, and should be, not only a spot on the dial, but the mission of educational television as a learning resource and as a champion for lifelong learning. It is an issue that faces Canada at large. Not many national or provincial vehicles are driving home that message to the public, but we are, and any support you can give in terms of championing that message, would be greatly appreciated.
Senator Munson: I live in Ontario and I have become an avid viewer of TVO. You talked about cooperation. Do the programs that they produce have a chance to be on ACCESS?
Mr. Mayot: Certainly. Our programming people meet at the television markets and they talk. They know one other intimately. They consider what is available and, where the price is right, they buy and sell to one another.
Senator Munson: You have taken programming that was produced in Ontario about, say, Northern Ontario or Aboriginals, and shown it to your viewers in Alberta; is that right?
Mr. Mayot: Yes. Increasingly, senator, there is more co-production at the initiation stage. It is not just a matter of buying or selling a finished product. There is more of an attempt to co-produce, whether it is done through an independent producer or through an in-house production. We will be asked, “Here is what we are doing as a programming priority. Do you want to come in as a co-producer and help produce it, not just buy it when it is finished?” The frequency of that approach is increasing.
Senator Munson: It is fascinating that there can be this educational thread running across the country. I would certainly enjoy seeing a program out of Alberta being televised on TVO.
Mr. Mayot: I would enjoy seeing that too.
Senator Munson: What is your market share?
Mr. Mayot: It is in the range that educational television has traditionally shared, and that depends on whether it is on the Canadian side or in the United States. It is a share of under 5 per cent. That does not fluctuate much, whether through our model or anybody else's.
Senator Munson: How does Speakers Corner work?
Mr. Mayot: That involves a mobile video unit that allows anybody to talk into the camera. We put it in malls, in schools and in community centres. Sometimes we prompt with a question. However, it is Speakers Corner which means that you can get up on your soapbox and talk into the camera. We then compile that material and, every week, we create a half-hour show of what Albertans have to say. It could be a rant, a tribute, or an issue that they want to deal with or feel is not being addressed. It is our way of hearing from the public direct in their own language.
Senator Munson: CTV tried that, but they did not seem to find many people with diverse views, so they dropped it. It was a very short experiment.
Mr. Mayot: It is certainly not a big money maker, but it is an important outreach dimension for us.
Senator Merchant: When do you air Speakers Corner?
Mr. Mayot: It is an evening show on Thursday nights.
Senator Merchant: Do you have any trouble compiling a half-hour show every week?
Mr. Mayot: No. Young people can talk for a long time.
Senator Merchant: Do you make efforts to, for instance, run a campaign against drinking and driving or usage of drugs? Around election time the Government of Canada runs ads trying to encourage young people to vote. Do you zero in on events during the year and try to solicit local participation, encourage it or somehow promote it? Do you, for instance, participate in career days, or do you let students come into your space?
Mr. Mayot: Yes. There is a mention in my formal brief about Careers TV and Help!tv. Help!tv is a unique daily show in Canadian television. It is an hour-long, suppertime show that deals with every issue under the sun. It is a live show with phone-in, email and fax interaction. We have a bank of topical subject area experts who attend every show. The show deals with everything. It could be a complete show on substance abuse; bullying; obesity; or any of social issue. The show invites viewers to call in and express their views, and to talk to the experts. People who are dealing with the issue of obesity can talk candidly and privately. They get expert advice on how to deal with their issue off line, off the air. The expert will help them by informing them of the kind of resources that are out there.
Help!tv is a very energetic, high tempo show aimed at young people. It talks to their issues in a way that they can relate to, both in format and in style, and it is a remarkable vehicle for addressing those issues. Doctors, social workers and experts of every kind come in to deal with those issues.
Senator Merchant: Do you have any way of measuring your audience?
Mr. Mayot: We do. We measure the audience. Again, the audience would not challenge America's Funniest Videos, but we have a healthy audience for the nature of the programming, and the value the program has in terms of sending a message to young people and others.
Senator Merchant: Do you sell advertising?
Mr. Mayot: Yes, there is advertising in that program.
Senator Merchant: Do you make a conscious effort to avoid certain types of advertising, because you are trying to reach all age levels, but you are an educational television? For instance, some people object to hospitals having McDonald's or doughnut shops in the hospital because they are supposed to be promoting healthy habits. I recognize that we cannot legislate what people will eat and that it is up to people to make their own choices. Do you make some concerted effort to avoid running certain ads at certain times of the day?
Mr. Mayot: As a condition of their licence, all broadcasters have codes of advertising setting out what is and what is not allowed. I would not claim that we are more diligent about that than other broadcasters. We may be, but I would have no way to quantify that.
We deal with those things through the editorial content of the show. We have an engagement on the issues rather than a screening of the advertising because, frankly, we need the advertising.
Senator Merchant: You might have a program on trans fats and then turn around and have an ad advertising fast foods right on the heels of the show.
Mr. Mayot: I cannot say I am aware of that example, but it is possible, yes.
Senator Merchant: This might be very confusing to a 4- or a 5-year-old child.
Senator Munson: I am involved with CAYFO, Child and Youth friendly Ottawa. An anti-bullying conference was held in Ottawa in March when we heard from various speakers, including Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, the vocal group. I have just been sending messages to TVO. It is very inspirational for me to be involved, because I enjoy educational programs. They are outlets for good, positive things and where people can make a difference in the lives of others.
Mr. Mayot: A similar conference on bullying was held here in Edmonton, Alberta, in June or July of last year. We were the only broadcaster to cover it wall to wall.
Senator Eyton: I am fascinated by your programming and what you are doing. Is there an opportunity for individuals to fund a particular program, and do they do that?
Mr. Mayot: Do you mean through sponsorship?
Senator Eyton: Yes, a type of sponsorship.
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Eyton: Not typically advertising?
Mr. Mayot: No. Program sponsorship has been a hallmark of educational television where they have not had advertising. It was a model used by the PBS in the United States. Educational broadcasting in Canada will have a line where we tell our audience: This program is brought to you by so-and-so, or is supported in part by company X.
Senator Eyton: Is that all?
Mr. Mayot: Yes.
Senator Eyton: Does that include individuals?
Mr. Mayot: I wish that individuals would come forward and say that they want to be associated with us and help make a program happen. That does not happen.
Senator Eyton: I would have thought that, especially in Calgary which is a wealthy city, a fair number of good people who had done very well, would want to do something.
Mr. Mayot: We have had sponsorship in relation to foundations, but not individuals at this stage.
The Chairman: Do you accept ads aimed at children?
Mr. Mayot: No, we do not.
The Chairman: What is the cutoff?
Mr. Mayot: The cutoff is established by the conditions of the licence that every broadcaster is obliged to adhere to by the CRTC. In our case — this is not a condition, this is not a requirement of ours, it is a discretionary choice of ours — none of our children's programming contains any advertising at all.
The Chairman: I am assuming there would be some spillover from the rest or your programming.
Mr. Mayot: We have very little of that kind of programming. The nature of the daytime and evening programs we run does not lend itself to advertising, say, Cheerios or kids' toys.
The Chairman: You told us that you are not in the news business. However, listening to you, I was reminded of what, in the newspaper business maybe in the 1980s, was a buzz word “music and news.” You are not in the news business. You do not cover the political speeches of the day. You do not have a daily newscast. However, you do broadcast Help!tv, Careers TV and Speakers Corner. You may even cover business matters. These are the kinds of things that news organisations do, and a lot. I am not complaining about the volume of such material. I am trying to get a fix on where the dividing line should be drawn. If one is trying to understand the whole news information continuum, that is one matter for consideration.
Do you have any interest in edging further into the public affairs arena with politically oriented chat shows or panel shows of the type that TVOntario and Télé-Québec put on?
Mr. Mayot: I take your point that it is a spectrum. Where does one begin and one end? I was saying that we do not do news and we do not do news gathering in the convention of newscasts, as they have come to be known in commercial television; or news gathering, or news in content as it is packaged. I am speaking within the realm of television. That is not the world we are in. We have no interest in being in that world. It is an expensive world. It is not what we think educational television should be all about — the ephemeral side of news today, news tomorrow or news the next day.
Our goal is to help people engage issues, understand, build their awareness, and that includes everything from programs on health to programs on science, history or forensics.
I am not trying to set us up as being holier than those who do news programming. I am just saying that is the niche that we can concentrate on — and it is a niche by mandate — we think is an important one to bring to Canadians and Albertans, and so there is no idea of where one begins and one ends. In the format we do not do news. We do not do a 6 o'clock, an 11 o'clock or a 10 o'clock news show. We do this other kind of informational programming.
As to edging into public affairs and running a Studio 2 kind of program as does TVOntario, no, we would not do that. Frankly, the resources required to do that would be large. Studio 2 is an excellent but expensive program. It started when I was at TVOntario, but it is an expensive proposition for a small operation, a $9- or $10-million operation like ACCESS.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Mayot: It has been a pleasure.
The Chairman: I would ask Rebecca Aizenman to come forward.
Welcome to the committee. I would ask you to talk for maybe four minutes and then we will ask you questions
Ms. Rebecca Aizenman, as an individual: I would like to thank the committee for acknowledging the public in this city. Seldom do individual members of the have the opportunity to present a point of view to official government committees, so I thank you for this opportunity, and I compliment you on that process.
I would like to deal with standards and responsibility in the print media using specific examples from my hobby of reading newspapers. I subscribe to the three dailies in Calgary, which take up the better part of the day to read as best as I can.
I would also like to deal with some omissions and some very good examples of journalism in TV as was recently evidenced by the scene in Southeast Asia.
On the second day of the disaster in Southeast Asia, the State of Israel supplied a fully equipped EL AL Airline to travel to the disaster area. There was a fleeting glimpse of equipment on that plane going to wherever. It had a split second showing on CBC TV. Never again was it shown.
A week ago someone brought an item to my attention. It came from the B'nai Brith online site somewhere in the United States. The State of Israel supplied 80 tonnes of food and supplies to a particular area. I believe it was Ache in Northwest Indonesia. At no point was that story reported in the Canadian press. I went through The Globe and Mail, the National Post and, of course, the Calgary Herald. At no point was it reported. Here was this tiny, tiny country doing what it had to do to help other countries survive, and the national media did not report it — and you ask about the role of the media in understanding international relations. I leave that with you.
I would like to now deal with standards in the print medium. I have been a subscriber to The Globe and Mail for 35 years. As a former educator, The Globe and Mail was a textbook in my Canadian studies courses many years ago. If it is in The Globe and Mail, it is the truth; it is correct. Very seldom is The Globe and Mail sued for incorrect or improper reporting or disparaging character stories. I say this to you because The Globe and Mail sets the standard for print journalism in this country. I cannot live without that newspaper. I also compliment the National Post on its business sections. They are factual. They are exceedingly informative and, again, that sets a standard. I will not deal with editorial content, because that is the prerogative of each paper. However, I would like to deal with local print media, and I ask your indulgence for a few extra moments.
The Davey commission, in the early 1970s, travelled throughout the country looking at print media. Even in those days when the Calgary Herald was under the “editorialship” of Parker Kent, it was an excellent city newspaper. Although I do not think it rated in the first top 10 newspapers in Canada, it was a good paper.
I am a native Calgarian. I have seen the paper devolve into what I would call a “glitz and glamour” newspaper. In my opinion, one cannot use that paper as an authoritative source of news. The paper prides itself on appealing to the demography of Calgary, so most of the paper deals with lifestyle and real life entertainment. For one week we got a series on the spas in Calgary, or “how to outdo Martha Stewart.” I have not made this up. That is not a standard for information.
I cannot cite a reference but, several years ago, a study was done that showed people who use print media are far better informed voters than people who watch TV. However, 10 days ago there was an excellent source of TV journalism on the television. The stories that Mr. Don Murray did on China set an all time high. Anybody who watched those two shows was motivated to go out and learn about China. That is a standard of journalism that sets the standard for his colleagues to follow.
The Chairman: Would I be correct in saying that it was, in fact, Patrick Brown?
Ms. Aizenman: I stand corrected.
The Chairman: I watched those shows and I agree with you that they were superb. So much was covered in those evenings.
Senator Munson: It seems that there are fewer and fewer reporters covering the national scene. When I was a reporter based in Ottawa, the Calgary Herald did have a national reporter. Do you see a slippery slope here of profit driven newspapers at the expense of more voices in a democracy?
Ms. Aizenman: Yes, I do. Again, my frame of reference is from here. I have to go beyond my local paper to get news from Ottawa. Maybe I am a political junky, but I like to know what is happening in my country.
As another example of good print journalism, Madam Chair, yesterday The Globe and Mail did a full-page breakout story about how members of Parliament would vote on the same-sex issue. It was an excellent piece of journalism investigation. It is to be retained for future reference, and let us see how it breaks out when the final vote is taken. That, to me, is what backgrounders should be about. At the local level, I really have to search for backgrounders.
Were it not for the national newspapers, I would not know what is going on. I would watch TV, but my point is that print journalism should give you that background. It may not be profit driven, but what is a newspaper about? I have some background of having to research newspapers to find news in order to know what was going on in the country.
Senator Munson: As an aside, when we were in Vancouver yesterday I read The Vancouver Sun, and there was not one international story.
Ms. Aizenman: There you are.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: We heard repeatedly in Vancouver that there is little or no coverage of the provincial legislature. What would be your comment about the situation in Alberta?
Ms. Aizenman: When the House is sitting, there is coverage because that is the big news from Edmonton. Until the House sits, there is little news, but it does depend on the issues of the day. That raises the question of how that news is reported. There are times when you would think that the local paper was an arm of the communications division of the government, because it is pointed in a certain direction. At least one columnist writes columns that are very snappy and they are always in favour of the government point of view, to which you can reply with letters to the editor. I do not see that in The Globe and Mail. That is a personal observation.
The Chairman: It is important for me to note that it is not part of a Senate committee's job to tell newspapers what their politics should be. Your perspective as a resident of Calgary and a reader of newspapers is important to us, but do not expect us to come out with a report saying that any particular newspaper has the wrong columnist writing for it.
Ms. Aizenman: I realize that. It is just a point of view. For that reason you read other papers to get a point of view and nothing is more enlightening than to read about what is happening in Alberta in a national paper.
The Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
For what it is worth, I have to tell you that, the next day, I knew about the 80 tonnes from Israel. I do not recall how I came to know about it, but I did. I knew that Israel had made a massive, immediate effort, for a population the same as that in my Greater Montreal area. It was very impressive, and I registered that. Somebody told me about it.
Senator Merchant: I knew about it, too. I do not know where I saw it but I saw it. I may have seen it on American television.
The Chairman: I wish I could give you the reference, but I cannot. I do know that I knew about it. Somehow, the news is getting out, if that is any comfort.
Ms. Aizenman: Thank you for this opportunity.
Senator Merchant: I may have seen it on CNN, because I scan all the American stations.
Ms. Aizenman: It came from American sources.
Senator Merchant: I believe you are correct.
The Chairman: Thank you so much.
I would now ask Mr. Oscar Fech to come forward.
Mr. Oscar Fech, as an individual: Good morning, senators. I study world history. I have travelled to over 50 countries. I ran as a MLA candidate twice, and I find it atrocious when the news media does not pick up on true justice and fairness. I was sort of barred from TV, from the papers and from the Calgary Herald. I could go on and on.
The reality is that I met Mr. Gorbachev. I met George Bush Sr. here at this hotel. I am sort of politically inclined. I met Senator Hays at the convention here in Calgary, and I also talked to Senator Michael Kirby. He spoke about health care. I indicated to him that I think everything has been spin-doctored so much that we have to get back to the meat, and create good accountability in everything.
It seems that, with globalization, we are living just like people did in the Roman Empire days. All of us are being manipulated. We have to stand up. I do stand up. I have been harassed and my phone is bugged. It is frightening. We are living in a democratic world, so-called, but that is not the case. We are not. We are living in a dictatorship, globally, and we have got to stop that. If we do not, we will not save the environment. We are not doing anything for the poor, the homeless and the needy. The news media does not cover that. All they are inclined to do is make money, and that is wrong.
I put an ad in about my campaign, just a little ad, and it cost me $3,000 or $4,000. That is highway robbery. Two lines cost you $200 or whatever. I have listened in at the House of Commons gallery and at the Senate gallery. Unless we all start standing up, fighting for true justice, fairness, we are going to self-implode. The news media is not doing much about it. It seems that all they care about is money. That is the way it was during the days of the Roman Empire.
We all have ancestry. My family's ancestry goes back to the Tsar family that ruled Russia. We have all been in the States and Canada for the last 300 years. At first we were Italian, French, Spanish and German. I speak out and, like I said, and I am being harassed. It is frightening. We live in a democratic country, but there is no freedom here. I have been blocked from going to the mike and sometimes I am told, “Oscar, you can't ask any questions.”
Senator Hays knows that too. I have known him for years. I met Brian Mulroney, and I have been at some of the sessions. I am not trying to put anything on. I am just giving you the facts.
The reality is that we all have to stand up, whether we are senators, MLAs, MPs or whoever. A handful of people run the world, and that is the whole problem. It was the same in the days of the Roman Empire. We are going back to the Sodom and Gomorrah days.
When you take away morale, the whole thing implodes, and can happen sooner than we think. People are afraid to speak out, and I do not blame them. People have come to me and said, “Oscar, I like what you are doing. You speak out and tell the truth.” Ladies and men have said to me, “I spoke out and I got fired, and I have kids to feed.”
As senators your top priority is to legislate what the news media can and cannot do. The main reason I am saying this is that they must be accountable.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Fech. Before I ask the senators if they have questions, I would like to thank you for your kind words about Senator Hays, who is our Speaker. He never loses an opportunity to tell us what a wonderful place Alberta is, I might add.
Did you hear the presentation from the Alberta Press Council?
Mr. Fech: Yes.
The Chairman: Is that the kind of mechanism you are talking about when you talk about “accountability”?
Mr. Fech: Right. I understand.
The Chairman: Have you ever appealed to the press council?
Mr. Fech: I have talked to the news media. They say, “Oscar, we listen to what you are saying.” I take it in and it is edited. They will not put you on the air. They have you on camera. They say, “Oscar, you say the things that we do not want to publicise, because you believe in truth, justice, fairness, and that is a no-no.”
I met Mr. David Asper, in Calgary when I ran as a MLA candidate. I said to Mr. Asper, “The mayor here does not want to have any debates. You're the boss. Why don't you tell your news people that they have to have a debate?” He said, “Oscar, talk to my news people.” You see, this is what I am saying.
Senator Carney: Very few members of the public have come out to talk to us. You are one of two. In Vancouver we had 17.
How did you know about this hearing, or how did you hear that you would have an opportunity to come and talk to us?
Mr. Fech: I would not have known if I had not read the paper. I clipped it out of the Calgary Herald.
Senator Carney: The Calgary Herald did report it?
Mr. Fech: Yes.
The Chairman: We placed an ad in the Calgary Herald, as we did in other newspapers. Maybe they also reported on it, I do not know, but we did place an ad.
Senator Carney: It was as a result of the advertising. The previous witness is nodding her head. It is very encouraging to know that it is worth the money to place the advertisement. Sometimes we are criticized for spending money on advertising for the Senate, but if that is the way we reach the public, that is very encouraging to know. I just wish we could hear from more of you.
Mr. Fech: I would like to make one more comment. The Alberta news media is like one big family, and I do not like that.
The Chairman: Actually, it is two big families.
I would like to explain to both of the members of the public who turned up here — and we are so grateful to you for doing that — that if I am cutting you off after a brief period of time it is because we are trying to give equal treatment to members of the public all across the country. That is the format that we decided upon. If I were a member of the public who had turned up in Vancouver and been cut off after four minutes, I would be furious to discover that somebody else was given a whole lot more time.
We are grateful to you for being here, and we hope that you found listening to our work today both interesting and encouraging. If you have any further thoughts, do not hesitate to write to us. We would be grateful to receive any further input. We hope that when you see our final report, you will approve of the work we are trying to do.
Mr. Fech: Is there a chance of getting a report?
The Chairman: It has not been written yet. We have your address, Mr. Fech and Ms. Aizenman.
Mr. Fech: Fight for truth, justice and fairness.
The Chairman: Yes.
Senators, that concludes our meeting.
The committee adjourned.