Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 9 - Evidence
WINNIPEG, Friday, February 4, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 8:05 a.m. to examine the current role of Canadian media industries; emerging trends and developments in these industries; the media's role, rights and responsibilities in Canadian society; and current and appropriate future policies relating thereto.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we begin this day with representatives of the Farmers' Independent Weekly. We have with us Mr. Anders Bruun, who is co-owner and general counsel, Ms. Lynda Tityk, who is co-owner and vice president, and Mr. Conrad MacMillan, who is associate publisher.
We thank you very much for turning up bright and early on a winter morning.
Mr. Anders Bruun, Co-owner, Corporate Secretary and Legal Counsel, Farmers' Independent Weekly: Good morning, Madam Chair, honourable senators. We want to thank you very much for working us into your agenda in Winnipeg on such late notice. We appreciate that. The introductions have been made, so I will not go through those.
I will start with a couple of opening remarks regarding the structure of the newspaper business in agriculture. Generally, there is a fairly thorough level of coverage of agricultural issues across Canada that is quite comprehensive. It is competent. There is a good base of journalistic knowledge that allows issues of the day such as BSE, agricultural trade issues, food safety issues and so forth to be covered quite well. That agricultural journalist base provides support for the mainstream press, if I can call it that. They tap into the agricultural journalists, they follow the publications, and that in turn helps to inform the larger public through the mainstream media. That is a valuable contribution, I think, that extends beyond the agricultural sector.
A little about ourselves; we are in our third year of operations. We are what you might call a virtual business. We do not actually have physical offices. Our reporters live mostly in the country. They are equipped with laptop computers and digital cameras, and they provide their feed into a small basement office where the newspaper is assembled every Monday on two fairly good computers. That feed is, in turn, provided directly to our printer, who prints on Tuesday morning, has the papers in the post Tuesday afternoon, and we are in most mailboxes on Thursday of each week. Therefore, we have what we think is a good competitive advantage, in that we have a very-low-cost structure.
I do not know of any other publication that is being produced this way, but it works for us, and it particularly works well for people who have the discipline to work at home.
By way of background, and this is dealt with in our written submission and I will not go through it in great detail, but 10 years ago, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool owned the Western Producer and a number of other publications. Manitoba Pool Elevators owned the Manitoba Co-operator, which had some ancillary publications; and United Grain Growers owned Country Guide, Grainews, Cattlemen magazine, and a variety of other publications. There were three owners.
In most cases, these publications were independent. They would publish stories that would tweak the noses of senior management, or point out their follies. They could pretty much do so with impunity because they had relatively strong editorial independence.
The grain industry has been in trouble and the companies have been divesting non-core assets, and as a result, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool sold its publications to Glacier Ventures about three years ago. Glacier Ventures is a Vancouver-based venture capital company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Manitoba Pool merged with Alberta Pool, which was then subsequently acquired by United Grain Growers. This put that basket of publications under the ownership of Farm Business Communications, a unit of Agricore United. In 2003, Agricore United sold Farm Business Communications to Glacier Ventures, and essentially, all of the publications, except for ours, were in the one basket.
I have an appendix 1 to our submission which lists those publications. If you can turn to that, these are the paid- subscription publications, either weeklies or monthlies. Grainews, I think, comes out 18 times a year, and all of them, except for ours, are under the ownership of a single corporation.
There are other minor publications that are distributed for free. They contain largely advertising and minimal news and editorial content. They are advertising vehicles, not serious journalistic endeavours.
Some of the issues that we face deal with the postal subsidies that are made available to Canadian publications through Canadian Heritage. This is a policy that may need to be looked at. Given the concentration that I have described, it is worth noting that in 2003-04, Heritage Canada reports that the Glacier Venture publications received at least $1.776 million. We received nothing. We were not eligible for the first year and we have not been able to crawl up to the eligibility threshold under their rules. We give away free samples to encourage subscriptions, and those count against you in terms of determining eligibility for those subsidies, but it is an anomalous situation that does make it more difficult for publications such as ours.
Competition law: Despite the clear fact of a virtual monopoly created by the Glacier purchase of Farm Business Communications, when we contacted the Competition Bureau, we were told that there was essentially nothing that they could or would do to prevent that acquisition from going ahead, notwithstanding the level of concentration in this market sector that was produced by it. As a start-up publication, we did not have the means to challenge it in any effective way, so that acquisition just went ahead and we have the level of concentration that we see now.
Our means of competing is to put out what we think is the best of the farm publications from an editorial point of view, a coverage point of view and a story point of view.
I just want to refer to the appendix 2. The first document in there is a list of the awards given annually by the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. There are 12 categories; television, radio, daily news, weekly news, monthlies and so forth. I have underlined the awards received by writers writing for Farmers' Independent Weekly. We have here five or six awards, more than our competitors combined. I think that is testimony to the quality of the writing.
I also would like to refer you to a press release a little further on in that package that came out March 11. There is a North American Agricultural Journalists Association, and FIW writers won four awards in their particular competition. The only other publication to win four awards was the Wall Street Journal, which covers agriculture and agri business fairly extensively.
Last year, we received an award from this organization called the Audrey Mackiewicz Award, for the publication that has made the greatest progress or provided the greatest expansion in coverage of agricultural issues. Farmers' Independent Weekly won that in 2003. Previous winners of that award have been The New York Times; the Los Angeles Times; Bloomberg News, which is a well-known financial reporting service; and others like Pennsylvania Farmer; Iowa Farmer; the Daily Oklahoman. For this year, the High Plains Journal won that award.
It is a publication that is very much trying to compete on quality, and we think this external recognition confirms that we are competing on that basis, I think fairly effectively. Certainly our readers tell us that they like what we are doing. We have a good product, a good publication, our readers like it and we have recognition of that.
Our advertisers are also quite happy with what we do. As you can see from the copies of the publication that we have circulated, we have some good paid advertising in this week's issue, and generally, in the wintertime, when farmers are not busy in the fields, we have in the last couple of years attracted a good level of advertising, which is essentially the economic lifeblood of the publication. Subscription fees represent somewhere in the range of 10 or 15 per cent of our revenues. The rest has to come from advertising.
We think that we are the freshest apple in the barrel, and this makes us an attractive proposition for advertisers. I believe our presence in the marketplace has put some pressure on our competitors to cover issues that they had not been covering.
One other comment that I should make, in fairness to our competition, as concentrated as it is, is it appears that the various individual publications like the Manitoba Co-Operator and the Western Producer have a free editorial hand, which is a good thing. It is not as if this large body is pushing a single viewpoint through all of these publications. That is not a concern that we would bring to you. The potential is certainly there, but we do not see it happening. There is a diversity of publications, some reflecting a left view, some reflecting a right view, some more moderate, which is the category that I think we are in.
Having said that, we are a small publication and everyone else is in one basket. We are growing, we think we are thriving. How could that change? What could threaten us? The things that could threaten us are quite subtle, never see the light of day, occur in closed door meetings and so forth. One example that I can think of is if the publications were to say — and we are certainly not suggesting this is being said, but in competitive situations generally I think this is a comment that could apply — to advertisers, ``If you give us all of your business we will give you a 10 per cent discount, we will provide you with the convenience of one-stop shopping, and by the way, we will bring you and your spouse down to Mexico for a week next February to attend a seminar that we are holding on advertising matters. Now, can we have all of your business, please?''
In reality, I do not think that a sophisticated and intelligent advertiser would want to be a party to that sort of thing. Number one, it is illegal; number two, it deprives them of competitive vehicles for their own advertising. They suddenly become under the control of one single advertiser if they wish to reach that market. Nonetheless, the risk is there, and as I say in my submission, we are like a mouse walking next to an elephant. We hope there are no missteps.
Senator Tkachuk: If you do not mind me asking, how many subscribers do you have?
Mr. Bruun: We have a circulation list that we work with when we are doing large issues that gets us into the mailbox of 12,000 farmers. Our actual paid subscription base has probably grown to something in the 5,000 area from less than 4,000.
Senator Tkachuk: Is it mostly in Manitoba?
Mr. Bruun: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you planning to expand into Saskatchewan or are you just keeping this as a Manitoba weekly?
Mr. Bruun: We have subscribers in Saskatchewan and some in Alberta, even a few in the United States. However, at this stage we want to consolidate our position here before we try to go into Saskatchewan. We have talked about various scenarios for it, but they are all fairly cost intensive, and we do not see ourselves doing that this year. We keep saying that maybe next year we will think more seriously about it.
Mr. Conrad MacMillan, Associate Publisher, Farmers' Independent Weekly: I do not think this is a serious consideration on our part, primarily because our focus is Manitoba; that is where we came from. We started out believing that farm reporting is best done on a smaller regional basis rather than a large basis such as Western Canada. The assumption that agriculture in Alberta is the same as it is in Saskatchewan or Manitoba is erroneous. Each province has individual information, and I will use the province because that is the best definition, but it will cut up differently on soil zone types, types of agriculture, and certainly the political environment will create its own unique situation. We wanted to take a piece of Western Canada agriculture and focus on it, which we had done before; we were all employees of the Manitoba Co-Operator, which focused strictly on Manitoba, the smallest of the markets. However, our focus has always been on the reader. It is very difficult to serve an Alberta reader in a broad-based Western Canadian publication because you cannot be as close to the issues that are important to that reader. Therefore, we focused on Manitoba, and our reporters are all Manitobans. Expansion is not something that is easily considered. We do not think it is the right strategy; let's put it that way.
Senator Tkachuk: These postal rates keep coming up almost everywhere we go, and I think as a committee we are getting a little better idea of how they work in the magazine and newspaper industry. Nonetheless, this one-year ``holiday'' before they will grant the postal rates has also been raised by other publications. You mentioned that there was some difficulty because of the newspapers that you were distributing freely as part of your marketing strategy. Would you be a little more specific as to how that works?
We had another witnesses testify as to the amount of cash that one could get back, but how do the free copies take away from you?
Mr. MacMillan: Over 50 per cent of your circulation has to be paid circulation. When you are starting out, it matters not if you cannot qualify in the first year anyway, so you build. However, to sell a newspaper like that you need distribution, you need to be in front of the readers and they have to know the product exists. It is not as if, particularly with a publication like ours, we have extensive newsstand opportunities in rural Manitoba. For that matter, any publication in Western Canada focusing on a farm group has a difficult time. Basically, it is a one-trick pony. Using Canada Post is the only way that you will get in front of them, so we have been doing large-volume mailings to the target audience, trying to make a subscription pitch. That adds up over the year, and then they say, ``Well, it has 4,000 paid subscriptions; is it 50 per cent of the total?'' If not, then you cannot qualify.
Senator Tkachuk: You cannot designate a part of that as a marketing cost or promotion apart from your paid circulation?
Mr. MacMillan: It is part of your circulation.
Senator Tkachuk: It is part of your circulation, period.
Mr. MacMillan: Right.
Senator Tkachuk: For how long do you have to do that before you qualify? How long do you have to maintain the 50/50 margin before the post office says, ``Okay?''
Mr. MacMillan: There is no time limit. If you are at 50 per cent when you apply, they say, ``All right, you get the postal subsidy.'' Then you have to provide audits thereafter so they can verify on a continuing basis that you are exceeding the 50 per cent.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you need that 50/50 every time you publish those audits? If it is off on time, then you lose it?
Mr. MacMillan: No, it is an aggregate over a year. An audit is typically done once a year, so the audit cycle and that qualification would be on a one-year basis.
Senator Munson: Have you made any money?
Mr. MacMillan: It depends on whether you count salaries or not.
Senator Munson: However, you are making some money?
Mr. Bruun: It is a labour of love, so people have been working for less than what might be a competitive commercial salary for their skill level. We have virtually no debt, and we did show some black ink last year; and this year is looking better than last year.
Senator Munson: In your document about challenges faced, you talk about competition law. Maybe I should know more about competition law, but you seem to be taking a shot at the people at the Competition Bureau. Could you just explain a little more how the competition seems, from your perspective, to work against you?
Mr. Bruun: Well, I did not make the phone call. Our publisher and editor, John Morriss, did. He spoke to a gentleman at the Competition Bureau regarding the acquisition of the Farm Business Communications group of publications. I believe that because a threshold on the size of the acquisition had not been crossed, and for other reasons, they felt that they could not prevent that merger from occurring. Nonetheless, it did result in 95 per cent of these publications coming under one owner.
The Competition Act is a room with many exits. It is not often that you hear of an effective competition law remedy in non-competitive situations in Canada. If a company such as ours was forced out of business by anti-competitive behaviour, it would be very difficult for us to sue and get a remedy. In the United States, you can sue and collect triple damages. That provides a powerful disincentive to non-competitive behaviour that does not exist in Canada. You are left with very little recourse if you are forced out of business by anti-competitive behaviour. The parties doing it may be fined, but what good does that do you? You have lost your business.
There may be other theories of law that would allow you to go after them, but it would be complex and costly litigation involving a small and weak claimant against a powerful defender.
Senator Munson: It seems to be working in the same way in a bigger marketplace. In our other studies dealing with media taking over various markets it seems it is very difficult for smaller independents to survive.
If there was one strong recommendation that we could make in our report in June to help small independents like yourselves have a bigger voice in the lives of farmers, what should that be?
Mr. Bruun: I think providing clear and substantial remedies to those affected by anti-competitive behaviour would be one, recognizing that anti-competitive behaviour is not like ordinary crime. There is no broken window; it happens very discreetly, very quietly. It may be barely discernible. There is no DNA, no hair samples, no written notes, and there is very little on computer hard drives. There is just this pattern of behaviour that has led to this result. You are not able to witness the pattern of behaviour; you are just able to feel the results. We have to rely on advertisers to be sensible and show integrity toward all of the publications with which they deal. I think we can say that we are very grateful for the support advertisers have shown us. As I say, it is in their interest to have another competitive advertising venue out there. If it were all in one basket, they would surely be paying very high advertising rates if they wanted to reach farmers.
Farmers are an important market for advertisers because they spend such a large portion of their cash flow on further inputs for the farm. They are not like others who do not spend as much on their business. Farmers spending 70, 80 or 90 per cent of their cash flow on products, and advertisers who want to sell those products want to reach those people. A farmer could spend $200,000 a year on fertilizer, $100,000 on chemicals, or $250,000 on a tractor or a combine, so those companies want to reach farmers and they want competitive venues to do so. I think that is our real- world protection.
Some provision in the Competition Act would be useful, not only in this area, but in virtually every other area of economic life.
In terms of the postal subsidies, if we could qualify we would get $50,000 or $60,000. It would not make a huge difference to us, but it would be nice to have that support, given that our competitors are getting over $1.7 million. We would not mind a five-figure sum.
Senator Tkachuk: Would you rather have no postal subsidies at all?
Mr. MacMillan: I think it is an issue of fairness, obviously, so we have always taken the position that no postal subsidy would be fine with us. Our view of the postal subsidy is different. We truly see it as a subsidy to the reader, not to the publisher. It is not a view shared by other publishers. For example, if we qualified for the subsidy, and actually the forecast was that we would, we would proactively reduce our subscription rate by about $10, which is the amount that we would see from the postal subsidy for each of our subscribers. We have always followed a course of passing that on to the subscriber. Our not receiving the subsidies keeps our competitors' rates artificially lower. That is the situation, and it really does come down to a competition issue.
We are targeting a farm audience, and they are tight with a penny. I think I would like the farmers to receive that subsidy, thank you very much.
On the point that Anders made earlier, about advertising support, we have heard more than once from a few advertisers — based on your earlier question — that they wish that we would move into Saskatchewan and Alberta, because I think they are feeling squeezed in terms of options in those other marketplaces. In Manitoba, at least they have an alternative. We have heard from more than one advertiser about that. It is not in the cards; it is not a practical alternative for us.
The Chairman: When did you begin operations?
Mr. Bruun: Two and a half years ago, on June 13, 2002.
There is something of an internal debate. I think Conrad is right about the difficulties in moving into Saskatchewan. If we were to do so, we would have to do essentially half of the editorial content differently. We would have to hire reporters on the ground in Saskatchewan. We would do the national and the international coverage. They would have to have a slot for local coverage.
The Chairman: And that is costly.
Mr. Bruun: That is costly, yes.
The Chairman: The Manitoba Co-operator, where you all worked, does it still exist?
Mr. Bruun: It does.
The Chairman: You just decided to move out. Sometimes, new publications are created when an old one dies, but in your case this was just straight competition?
Mr. Bruun: I did not work there, and they were pushed out. The severance packages financed the start-up.
The Chairman: Terrific, another time-honoured tradition.
On the matter of competition law, you say that Glacier Ventures occupies well over 90 per cent of the market. Do you mean in numbers of publications? I would assume they have way more than that in circulation?
Mr. Bruun: Yes, 90 per cent is a low number. In circulation it would be 95-plus.
The Chairman: Okay. The approach to the competition authorities was made by phone?
Mr. Bruun: Yes.
The Chairman: So there is no documentation?
Mr. Bruun: I do not recall whether John sent a letter or not.
The Chairman: This is an extremely interesting topic, obviously, but from our point of view, any documentation that could be provided, even memos to file, something like that, would be helpful for us to get an understanding of what is involved. Any explanation of the threshold to which you referred, anything at all, would be extremely helpful if we could ask you to provide that for us.
Mr. Bruun: We will do so. Our publisher and editor underwent surgery yesterday. He is having a section of his bowel removed, and that is quite debilitating because it means that he is on an intravenous feed for about two weeks. When he recovers and is in a condition to look for his records, I will certainly get him to do that and I will pass them on to you. That is the reason if there is a two- or three-week delay in getting anything into your hands. It does not mean that we have gone on to other things.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, and our best wishes to the convalescent.
Mr. Bruun: Thank you again for accommodating us on such short notice.
The Chairman: We were glad to have you here before us.
[Translation]
Honorable senators, our next witnesses, whom I would like to call forward, represent the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Winnipeg.
Good day, gentlemen. As I mentioned earlier, it is our pleasure to welcome the representatives from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in western Canada. We have before us Mr. René Fontaine, Director of French radio, The Prairies, Mr. Gilles Fréchette, Broadcasting Manager, French radio in Manitoba, and Mr. Lionel Bonneville, Director of French television for the west. Thank you for coming today.
I think we have already explained that you have ten minutes for your presentation. There will then be time for questions. You have the floor.
Mr. Lionel Bonneville, Director, French Television for the West, CBC/Radio-Canada: First, honourable senators, I would like to welcome you to Manitoba. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak to you about French television in the west, because that is what I am responsible for. What this represents in practice is four stations, one per province, and four news bureaus.
We are the only French-language television producer-broadcaster to be firmly rooted in the western part of the country. Cable and satellite distributors have brought other French television signals and we have welcomed this, because when you are in a minority situation you can never have too many services in French. This is competition for us and we are happy about it. But Radio-Canada retains a vital role in the development of the community, in the expression of the community and as a window on the French language for others.
Our stations have a dual mandate. The most important one is to hold up a mirror to the region itself. How do we do this? First, we inform our audiences on the important news of the day, whether that be specific to the community or of a broader interest to all citizens of the region.
From Monday to Friday, in all the provinces, each station offers a daily half-hour news show. The four stations also combine their efforts to produce a half-hour weekly current affairs program. This is a combined effort on the part of the four stations. This is complemented by occasional information specials, such as coverage of the provincial elections that will soon take place in British Colombia.
But life is not limited to news, so we produce other shows of importance to the community. For the past several years, we have been serving the region's youth, because this is a segment of the population that has an important role to play in the development of the community. Aujourd'hui on y va is a series that targets an audience between the ages of 10 and 13 in French and immersion schools. We are very proud of this series.
Arts and culture is another area of interest to us because that is also an important part of community life; it is rather like the spirit of the community. We try to reflect what is happening in terms of culture in the community. Zigzag is a weekly half-hour magazine that is a result of the combined efforts of four stations from Manitoba to British Colombia.
Complementary to this series are a number of other shows that focus on emerging artists. For example, our radio colleagues hold a yearly competition called Chant'Ouest, and we have produced two half-hour variety programs based on this competition. We also focus on other emerging artists on the air, for example Madrigaïa from Manitoba and Polyester from Saskatchewan. Our average annual production is seven to eight variety programs per year.
Finally, in terms of regional work, we do an extensive amount of promotion for francophone activities and institutions in the west. In 2003-2004, we provided 18 hours of community promotion on the air. That is the equivalent of a series of 36 half-hour programs. That is a considerable amount of time on the air and I think it is greatly appreciated by the community.
As I was saying earlier, our stations have a dual mandate. The second mandate is to ensure that our region is reflected nationally. We feel this is a very important mandate. We have a weekly series on francophones living outside of Quebec called L'acccent. This program has been aired on Radio-Canada's Première Chaîne and RDI for ten years.
RDI also broadcasts a daily one-hour current affairs show on the four western provinces, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. For ten years now RDI has been broadcasting news from the west throughout the country.
We have five crews dedicated exclusively to important national shows, on the premiere Chaîne, such as Zone libre, Découverte, Enjeux, La Semaine Verte and Second Regard. Throughout the year these teams produce special broadcasts and we are very proud of them.
The Chairman: Mr. Bonneville, I apologize for having to interrupt you. We seem to be experiencing problems with the simultaneous interpretation.
Mr. Bonneville: Am I speaking to quickly?
The Chairman: It seems to be a technical problem.
Mr. Bonneville: I believe I also handed out copies of my brief in English. If the senators missed any of my comments, they can also refer to the English text.
The Chairman: We are a committee of the Senate of Canada. Feel free to speak in the official language of your choice.
Mr. Bonneville: In conclusion, I would like to say that we work in partnership with the community, our radio colleagues and other networks such as Art TV, an arts and culture specialty channel, and TV5 Québec/Canada.
We work in partnership with these channels and with independent producers who produce programs for us. This is very important collaboration. It allows us to enrich our program offerings.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am very proud of the accomplishments of our staff, given the resources that they are working with in order to serve the public in the west. I think that we are just as important at Radio-Canada as we were 30 years ago, even though there has been a need to evolve, change and adapt to new conditions.
I would be happy to answer any of your questions. Meanwhile, I give the floor to my radio colleagues.
Mr. René Fontaine, Director of French Radio, Prairies, CBC/Radio-Canada: Honourables committee members, I am grateful for your invitation to discuss the services of Radio-Canada radio in western Canada. To start, I would like to outline the scope of public radio throughout the regions of Canada. I will then invite my colleague from Manitoba to speak more specifically to the activities of radio broadcasting in his region.
Firmly rooted in our communities, Radio-Canada radio includes some 20 stations or regional production centres and 14 news bureaus around the country. It comprises the most comprehensive French-language news network in Canada and is the only public French-language radio service in the world to broadcast over the air across an entire continent.
With over a million listeners, our radio service has attracted record audiences. The latest BBM ratings attest to this fact. The fall 2004 results were French radio's best ever, both for the Première Chaîne as well as our new music network, Espace Musique, whose audience jumped 43 per cent compared to fall 2003 audiences.
Our mandate is to inform and entertain; our mission is to provide Canadians with relevant news and information, offer them programs that reflect the realities and diversity of our country, support Canadian arts and culture, and to build bridges between the various communities and regions.
This mission guides our choice of programming and our plans to deploy transmitters for our two complementary networks: Our Première Chaîne, devoted to news and culture in general, and Espace Musique, dedicated to Canada's musical diversity.
The Première Chaîne is Radio-Canada's main radio voice. Countrywide, its transmitters reach 98 per cent of Canada's francophones over six times zones. During prime time, its programs are produced in the regions. On the news front, la Première Chaîne offers complete international, national or regional newscasts on an hourly basis, a daily current affairs program and four public affairs magazines each week.
The other aspect of its programming, culture in all its forms, is featured in some 20 programs produced by teams that may explore such areas as the arts, literature, philosophy, or major trends shaping the society we live in.
The second public radio network, Espace Musique, was created last September, and has been extremely well received by regional listeners. The mission of this all-music network was to make up for the lack of musical diversity on Canadian radio. To this end, eighteen new transmitters were set up across Canada. This new offering effectively doubled French radio service in most regions of Canada.
Espace Musique's distinctive radio format offers an array of musical styles including classical, jazz, chanson, world and new music. The new network has been very popular with francophones, though the fall ratings clearly demonstrate it has attracted many anglophone listeners as well.
Offering two distinct and complementary public radio networks across the country has helped us focus on radio's three major area of concern: strong regional roots, openness to the world, and the development of Canadian talent.
The program manager for CKSB/Manitoba, Gilles Fréchette, will now discuss how our public radio mission is implemented in western Canada.
Mr. Gilles Fréchette, Program Manager, French Radio (Manitoba), CBC/Radio-Canada : Madam Chair, honourable members of the committee, I would also like to thank you for the opportunity you have given us to speak about the services we provide our regions. Western stations broadcast approximately 40 hours per week of regional programming during peak listening periods, in the morning, at noon and in late afternoon during the week, as well as on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Each station produces about 50 regional newscasts per week, while our Regina station produces approximately 20 newscasts for the west. Our Winnipeg station produces a short daily western current affairs program, with the help of journalists in the four provinces.
Each station produces an impressive number of special programs reflecting regional activities. These stations also ensure that their regions are reflected in national newscasts and in network programming. All told, each of the Prairie production centres provides over 250 contributions per year, mainly to the network but also to other CBC/Radio- Canada stations.
The launch of the new national cultural program, Portes Ouvertes, created a new opportunity for regional cooperation in this year's schedule. Western journalists are regular contributors to the show as well as to other national programs such as D'un soleil à l'autre and Les Affaires et la vie.
Regional radio also contributes to the success of the new Espace Musique network through production and recording agreements with partners in our communities, especially on the Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary jazz scenes.
Three years ago, the Première Chaîne dramatically increased its international news coverage. Like the national media services, regional stations are also looking to raise the profile of their regions abroad. To this end, they have formed partnerships with European broadcasters to co-produce special programs or to exchange radio content.
For example, every week for the past two years, CKSB/Manitoba has been airing a 30-minute program jointly with France-Bleu Alsace. This initiative supports twinning efforts undertaken recently between the lower Rhine region of France and Manitoba. As a result, thousands of Europeans are exposed to Canadian current events on a weekly basis through the contribution of our French radio service in the Prairies. No other regional media outlet can claim to do more to showcase its region abroad.
Western regional stations are also firmly committed to developing new singing talent. CBC/Radio-Canada is involved in a program to scout for, train and present emerging talent through a partnership with western cultural organizations.
Showcase events for singers held in each province allow the most promising performers to participate in musical galas in their respective region. The winners then get to take part in Chant'Ouest, an interprovincial competition for the four provinces. Chant'Ouest winners are automatically registered to compete in the semi-finals of the Festival international de la chanson de Granby. The 16th edition of Chant'Ouest is forthcoming, and winners in recent years have been among the most successful competitors in Granby.
Programs and news items produced by regional public radio are governed by the same standards and policies that guide all CBC/Radio-Canada staff. Over the years, the excellent work performed in our region has been recognized by various organizations, both nationally and internationally. From the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union award for children's programming to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association award for innovation and management, all these distinctions highlight the exceptional work performed in regional public radio, in which we take special pride. Thank you very much.
The Chairman: That is absolutely fascinating. We will begin with Senator Chaput.
Senator Chaput: Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for your presentations. I am, as you know, a faithful listener of your programming, be it on television or on the radio.
I would like you to tell us more about your television or radio ratings. Based on your studies, tell us a bit more about your listeners and their favourite programs.
Mr. Bonneville: I will speak for television, but I think that what I have to say also applies to radio. Unfortunately for us, the main polling tools available in Canada, the BBM, Nielsen and other rating systems, conduct samples which are far too small on our territory to give us a precise picture through polling. We really do not have any mechanism which could tell us with any degree of accuracy how many people watch French programming in Manitoba, for example, and how many people listen to French radio.
It is hard for us. We have already tried to see whether we could not conduct another, much more specific poll on our territory, but it would be so expensive that we could not afford it.
That being said, we have conducted many qualitative polls. We are in touch with large francophone families in the west. We meet with them often, and they give us a subjective idea of who and how many people are listening to us, but there is no scientific methodology involved.
But recently, as far as satellite distribution services are concerned, either through ExpressVu or StarChoice, we can now get a fairly good idea of the situation. For instance, in Manitoba, a poll conducted last fall for Manitoba's French television revealed that there was an audience of 180,000, which is truly phenomenal. This is an accurate figure because it covers the country as a whole. Unfortunately, it does not tell us how many of those 180,000 people live in Manitoba. It is a national figure. It tells us who watches French television by satellite. But at least we know that many people, including people living outside the province, watch French television produced in Manitoba.
It is an unsatisfactory answer for both of us, but unfortunately that is the reality.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Could you tell me how many French Canadians there are in the Prairies?
Mr. Bonneville: According to the 2001 Statistics Canada Survey, there are 172,000 francophones with French as their maternal tongue, whereas we also indicate that there are 580,000 bilingual people in Western Canada, which represents an increase of approximately seven and a half per cent from the survey that was done in 1996.
Senator Tkachuk: At CBC television, what would your budget be for the Prairies and how much of that budget is being used for documentaries?
Mr. Fontaine: All our budget figures are shown in our annual report. We would certainly be pleased to have one provided to you so that you can get an idea of the resources that are given to the regions.
What I can tell you is that on the radio side, approximately half of the budget for French radio is invested in programming for the regions.
Needless to say, financing for the entire corporation is a rather sensitive point, because as you know, in 1996 the corporation had to reduce its budget by $425 million. Since that time, on the financial front, we have been striving to do as much as possible with what is given to us. I think we have succeeded remarkably when you consider the magnitude of that reduction in our budget.
In the last four years the government has awarded us an extra $60 million, but that is being given each year on a temporary basis, so it makes it very difficult for us to plan the programming that we offer to Canadians. We are hopeful that this will be added to the base budget that is being awarded to CBC.
Senator Tkachuk: Perhaps you might help me, and I am not sure how the annual report is broken down, if radio and TV are included together, but I would like to know how much of that budget that you would receive for the Prairies is spent on television news and how many reporters you have. That is what we are interested in and it would be helpful to us.
Mr. Bonneville: I sometimes say, only half jokingly, that we are all Metis in Western Canada, and I am French/ English so it is not a problem for me anyway, I hope.
About 25 per cent of the Radio Canada French television budget is for the regions. We have four regions on the television side, Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and Western Canada.
Senator Tkachuk: That would be about how much?
Mr. Bonneville: Well, the budget for French television is about $325 million. It is difficult to give you a precise figure. I am not trying to be evasive, but there is a base budget and then a lot of that is redirected from year to year, depending on the number of special events you might have. For example, this year we will be covering the elections in British Columbia, so that will bring our budget up. The other complication is that most often, CBC and Radio Canada, English services and French services are combined, and the facilities are managed by English services, so that does not appear in our budgets; it is not on the French side, it is on the English side. It is a complicated financial arrangement.
To respond to your question on where we spend our money, the bulk of it is spent on news and current affairs. That is our major mandate, to make sure that French Canadians and bilingual people in Western Canada are well informed about what is happening in their province and in their territory. It is just as important to make sure that those news items get on the national telecast as well.
I do not have the figure in front of me, and I can get you a more precise figure if you like, but I would venture to say that easily 80 per cent of our budget would be spent on news and current affairs.
Senator Tkachuk: So this $325 million is for Canada?
Mr. Bonneville: That is right.
Senator Tkachuk: And then a certain chunk of that, but you are not really sure how much, would be for the Western Canadian budget?
Mr. Bonneville: No, because as I say, there are three components to the budget. There is the base budget, and then there are budgets that we call ``extraodinaire.'' They are not in our base; they are ad hoc.
The Chairman: They are not in the base.
Mr. Bonneville: Special financing.
The Chairman: One time.
Mr. Bonneville: That is right, one-time funding. Then there is funding for the infrastructure, for example, all of our transmitters, that does not appear in my budget, and yet we have a forest of transmitters in Western Canada for television and radio. That is corporate funding. Therefore, it is difficult to give you an exact figure.
Senator Tkachuk: How many reporters would there be in the Prairies or in Western Canada, however you have it broken down?
Mr. Bonneville: For television, we have 30 reporters for the four Western provinces and we have a bureau in Yukon and Whitehorse. We have one person there, a video journalist, and that is within the 40. When I say 40, it is because we have other journalists who are line-up editors, assignment editors, people who put the shows on air, so 40 journalists in all, but 30 reporters within those 40.
Senator Tkachuk: Are there any supplemental French Canadian news outlets that are not affiliated with the government or CBC, private outlets?
Mr. Bonneville: In Western Canada?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. Bonneville: No, there are not.
Senator Tkachuk: So there are no newspapers or —
Mr. Bonneville: Sorry, I was just speaking about television.
Senator Tkachuk: That is what I mean, newspapers or —
Mr. Bonneville: Oh yes, there are newspapers. Each province has a weekly and so there is coverage from those.
Senator Tkachuk: Right.
Mr. Bonneville: There is also community radio. I do not know if they do news programs or not.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, I think we are hearing from community radio today too.
Mr. Bonneville: However, in terms of a national television presence or a national radio presence, we are the only ones in Western Canada.
Senator Tkachuk: You are it. One benefit of fixed election dates is that you can actually plan for that one in B.C.
Mr. Bonneville: Exactly. We appreciate it.
Senator Munson: I am originally from the province of New Brunswick and, of course, it took my hero, Louis Robichaud, to make sure that everybody there was treated equally. That is a paid political announcement. However, in Manitoba, in terms of halting assimilation and keeping the young people interested and in touch with their heritage and who they are, when you talk about the money aspect of it all, do you need more money at Radio Canada to make sure that people do not find themselves being assimilated into this sea of English?
Mr. Fontaine: Absolutely. Needless to say, when the entire corporation took that reduction in 1996, we had somewhat less of a reduction, but still in the order of 30 per cent of our entire budget. We have maintained the same number of hours that we had then, but with fewer personnel, so our programming has become more music and perhaps less information than before.
Now, we have a number of special programs for the younger audience, and for a number of years we did one called Les Petites Oreilles that was for a much younger audience, from four to seven, which had a great deal of success and is still heard today in schools. It was produced regionally here in Manitoba. We also have a new initiative for teenagers. It is called Ceci est un TEST!, and it was just announced this week that we will be broadcasting in the Prairie region. It is mostly music as well, but it is directly oriented to the younger generation and has achieved a certain level of success in Alberta already, where we started broadcasting last year. We are extending it to the Prairie region now, so we have a number of initiatives that are directly oriented towards the younger generation, yes.
Senator Munson: Well, I would say, that notwithstanding, more music and less information is not a very good trend?
Mr. Fontaine: All in all, one of the things that we were certainly hopeful of doing — and we have been striving to do so — was to increase the level of current affairs that we cover. You may have heard that yesterday the Minister of Heritage submitted to the Heritage Committee a strategy that will enhance regional programming. This is something that we hope that the government will be able to fund. It is something that the Heritage Committee had indicated was sorely needed, in view of the past financing difficulties that we have had. We are certainly hopeful that the government will look favourably upon this and will see fit to add to financing for regional programs so that we can enhance the information aspect of what we do.
I think the level of appreciation is quite high, as you will see from further presentations today. Our surveys indicate that it is. Needless to say, our audience is somewhat older because of the type of programming that we do. Whenever we do information programming, it tends to attract an older audience, but we do strive to diversify our programming as much as possible and to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. That is why we have specific initiatives that are targeted to different age groups.
Mr. Bonneville: If I could just add a few words. I said earlier that I was proud of the way our people service our area, but of course we are stretched to the limit with what we do and there are still gaps in our programming that a normal television station should cover. As an example, we do local news, but only five days a week. We do not do it Saturdays and Sundays, and yet the world does not stop turning on those days. We are in a competitive environment, so our listeners, our viewers, are entitled to have the news on the weekend as well. We do not offer that yet. We would like to do that.
We would like to offer some news programs at noon as well, because more and more stations are getting into the noon news market, so we would have to be there.
An objective of all the French television regions is that we would like to have a better reflection of our national programming level, and not just in news, but in drama, if possible. This year we have FranCoeur, which is a series based in Ontario. It is the first time that we have had a drama series from outside of Quebec. I would like the Western region, with the other regions, to see some other kind of reflection that would reach people and tell them something about our region in a different way than in a news environment. As I say, news is one thing, and very important, but it is not all of society. There are different things that we should be telling people about Western Canada.
Senator Tkachuk: Newsworld covers Quebec as well as the rest of Canada, even though it is an English CBC cable channel. Does RDI in Quebec cover any stories outside of Quebec, or is it basically Quebec, period?
Mr. Bonneville: No, absolutely not. A third of the programming of RDI is regional, and that includes all regions of Canada. Every day on RDI, Atlantic Canada produces an hour, the Quebec regions outside Montreal produce an hour of programming, Ontario produces an hour of programming, and Western Canada produces an hour of programming.
We also have another daily show called Le Canada aujourd'hui, which is an overview of all the day's news, right from one coast to the other. We also have, of course, the daily newscasts every hour and every half hour, and our regional reporters are on there regularly, almost every day.
Senator Tkachuk: That is running on Saturdays and Sundays?
Mr. Bonneville: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: You are talking more about local news on the weekends; is that right?
Mr. Bonneville: Local news, and also RDI is a subscriber service. It is not like the main channel, which everybody is entitled to have without paying any extra money to get the service. Not everybody in the country necessarily has RDI on their cable offerings or whatever they happen to have.
Senator Tkachuk: Does RDI not come with your basic cable? It does in our province. Maybe in Saskatchewan and Manitoba it does, but in other provinces it does not?
Mr. Bonneville: RDI has worked hard and is on just about all of the cable systems now, but in the Prairies, particularly, some people do not even have cable as yet, so all they have is the off-air.
[Translation]
The Chairman: In fact, from a strategic point of view, I have not seen it, since we are travelling and not in Ottawa, but I heard on last night's news in English that people would like an additional $75 million to improve local and regional programming. The money would go towards the English and French sections, and to radio and television.
But once the money was distributed, you would not end up with much. Do you know how much money you would end up getting and what kind of difference it would make in terms of staff and facilities? Mr. Bonneville just told us what kind of programming he would like to have, but would you be able to hire reporters? Would you open new bureaus? What would that represent?
Mr. Fontaine: For radio, indeed, we would hire more staff and add new services. No specific amount has been pinpointed yet, but we know that we would try to increase the number of radio news broadcasts on weekends. We still do not have a regional news program on Saturdays and Sundays. That would be the first thing we would do. It is a priority for us.
What we would also like to do is add a couple of public affairs teams that could provide more coverage on how society is changing in every one of our regions. So the second thing we would do is put together such teams to produce special public affairs programming to be broadcast. Third, we would try to provide better cultural coverage for the entire territory. Those are really the three priorities we identified until now. And if we ended up with the full amount, we would hire more staff in each of these areas.
Mr. Bonneville: It is unfortunate that you do not have the report, but to perhaps complete what has just been said, we would indeed hire, if Parliament granted us the money we need, more radio and television reporters to greatly increase our western coverage as regards weekend and noonday news programming, but to also provide better coverage for the entire territory.
More specifically, as regards western Canada, we would like to have bureaus in Brandon, here in Manitoba, in Kelowna, British Columbia, and in Peace River, Alberta. That would give us three news bureaus in three places which do not currently produce French programming. The bureaus would produce both radio and television programming. So we have to combine our efforts in order to ask less of Parliament while simultaneously increasing our news collection capability.
The Chairman: Did you have bureaus in those places before the cutbacks were made?
Mr. Bonneville: No.
The Chairman: Did you have more reporters before the cutbacks were made?
Mr. Bonneville: The answer is yes and no. We protected our news-gathering capability. So we have as many reporters now as we did before the cutbacks. Where we cut back was in administration and in the presentation of broadcasts.
The Chairman: Including on-air programming?
Mr. Bonneville: That is right, we cut back on producers and technicians, because of technological advances. Newer technology requires far fewer human resources. So we cut back a lot in the areas of administration and presentation, and in the technical field.
We did not touch our news-gathering capacity, because we felt it was vital to maintain it. So that is what we protected — at least, as far as television was concerned.
Mr. Fontaine: As for radio, we have about the same number of reporters in our newsrooms as we did before. However, we have fewer journalists on our programs. Most stations had public affairs shows in the afternoon. Now more of our reporters are on those shows. That is why the nature of the programs has changed in most regions.
The Chairman: That is fascinating. Unfortunately, we are running out of time. The last question goes to Senator Chaput.
Senator Chaput: One of the key issues being looked at by this committee in the scope of the study is to find out whether communities, minorities and isolated regions receive good services. In your opinion, do minority francophone communities located in outlying areas receive the same level of service as English-language communities located in isolated areas? Can you compare the two? It is a difficult question.
Mr. Bonneville: Once again, I have two answers. As far as French television is concerned I have to honestly say that, as it now stands, if you draw a comparison with the CBC — because we have two public television networks, so this is possibly the most honest comparison — in reality, French programming in western Canada is now more varied than English programming. The CBC is now producing news broadcasts. As for us, we produce news and cultural broadcasts, as well as programs aimed at young people. So in that way, our programming is more varied than English television programming, and I honestly have to say that because this is the way it is.
Is it enough? I would answer no, because in a minority situation — and I do not want to exaggerate Radio-Canada's role, because I feel it is an important institution — we are not the only ones to support the community. Nevertheless, we play an important role. And I think that since we are the only producers, the only local broadcaster, we have to provide all kinds of coverage, because we are the only ones able to provide this service to the population and it needs to see its image in our broadcasts much more to develop and flourish. I do not know if that answers your question.
Mr. Fontaine: As far as radio is concerned, we have nevertheless made interesting gains over the last few years because we hired additional staff, such as in Saskatoon and Calgary. In 1999 in Calgary, we only had a staff of one. Today, there are six. Some people came from Edmonton, but we also hired more people there. So we really tried to provide better coverage for the entire region. I know we also added a reporter in Victoria. So now, if we want to cover smaller places, we send someone over. There is no other way for us to do it. Especially since francophone communities are small in the more remote areas.
The Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you so much for your testimony. I am sorry that we cannot give you more time. What you told us will prove to be very useful. Thank you for appearing before the committee.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Madam Chair, I would like to correct something on the record. Mr. Bonneville was correct — just so that it is clear — you have to jump two or three tiers before you get RDI in the Prairies. I was thinking of French television, not RDI.
Mr. Bonneville: Over the years, the cable operators have responded more and more positively, so that most of the cable operators now offer RDI, although maybe not in the first year.
Senator Tkachuk: They do not operate in the first year; that is right.
The Chairman: The same is true for Newsworld outside of Montreal. If I go to a hotel in Trois Rivières, I can get CNN but I cannot get Newsworld.
Senator Tkachuk: However, Newsworld is on the first tier everywhere except Quebec?
The Chairman: In English Canada, yes. It is the RDI situation.
Mr. Bonneville: It is a special case for the hotels. I have been trying to fight this battle for years. The hotels are treated, as far as I understand, by the CRTC as almost private residences. They do not have an obligation to offer the same services as a cable operator. Once they have the cable service, they can pick and choose. They do not come under the purview of the CRTC that way.
The Chairman: I think the same is true outside of the hotels.
[Translation]
Our next witnesses represent the Société franco-manitobaine. Mr. Daniel Boucher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Société franco-manitobaine, thank you very much for being with us this morning. You have the floor.
Mr. Daniel Boucher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Société franco-manitobaine: Ladies and gentlemen, the Société franco-manitobaine would like to thank you for giving it the opportunity to present its point of view on the Canadian news media. Allow me to begin by telling you about our mandate.
The Société franco-manitobaine is the organization which officially speaks for the Franco-Manitoban community, which seeks to further its development and defend its rights. In collaboration with its partners, it plans, supports and promotes the overall development of this community. Our vision for the future can be summarized in a few words. We want life in French to be as normal as possible for ourselves and for future generations. In fact, for the last few years our slogan has been ``De génération en génération.'' In other words, we want life in French to become a reality, that is, an integral part of the daily lives of Manitoba's francophones. To preserve our language and culture, we must ensure that public and private sector services are available in both official languages.
The main message we are trying to get across is how important it is for francophones to have access to well-funded French media to better serve our communities. We live in a complex world of communications, we are in the 500- or 200-channel universe, depending on where we live. Francophones living in a minority environment are drowning in Canadian and even American English programming. It is essential for francophones to have access to quality French programming.
In French Manitoba, we are very well served by the Société Radio-Canada. Their local presence is important for our community. However, much remains to be done, as the representatives of Radio-Canada told you.
First, we ask that the government provide more support for services in French and, second, that these services reflect our local reality to a greater degree. As it now stands, most of the programming on Radio-Canada's television and radio networks reflects the reality in Montreal and Quebec. We have no problem understanding that, but perhaps it would be a good idea to diversify the programming by focusing more on the regions so that people living here can, firstly, relate better to what they are watching, and secondly, become more well known elsewhere.
In that regard, RDI is an extraordinary tool to get people to find out more about francophones from coast to coast. However, there is a problem of accessibility, and RDI is not necessarily the only tool anymore, because it now has a competitor. Shaw Cable broadcasts programming on MTS TV, and many people cannot even access RDI on MTS TV. This situation is completely unacceptable. We would like the CRTC to implement measures which would see linguistic duality, a fundamental Canadian value, reflected across the country without our having to fight for it all the time. It is important that francophone culture be present throughout Canada, in every part of our province and everywhere else as well.
As far as radio is concerned, CKSB provides exceptional service in Manitoba, and even though it is generally easy to tune in to the station, it is less so in certain parts of the province. We want a radio station, but it has to be accessible from Sainte-Rose to Dauphin, and everywhere else in between. When you are driving through downtown in a car that is older than a year, you cannot always tune in to the frequency, which is very frustrating. These may be details, but they are important.
There are other sources of information in our community which are extremely important and which must be supported, such as community radio stations like Envol 91.1, which you will be hearing from in a few moments. In our opinion, it is essential that community radio stations be supported, because they represent not only an extremely important alternative to Radio-Canada, but they also complement the national broadcaster. They are also an important training tool, and we hope that they will continue to receive significant support.
We also have the written media. The newspaper La Liberté was founded 90 years ago in French Manitoba. It is a quality newspaper which has won many awards. It needs financial support, it needs its fair share of government advertising, for instance, and the government needs to support our francophone media as it supports anglophone media which, by the way, are much more expensive.
We want to make sure that the CRTC and committees such as yours and those of the House of Commons pressure the cable companies to make French programming more accessible on cable.
A few years ago, when we made a presentation to a House of Commons committee studying the same issue, we were told that the problem would be settled in a few years when we would go from an analog to a digital format. We are now in a digital format and, once again, we still do not have the services we want. It is unacceptable. The CRTC must play a leadership role and pressure cable operators and anyone offering these types of services to make sure that programming is available in both official languages throughout the country. We have to insist on that point. The CRTC must implement measures to ensure that French media services are available throughout Canada.
Before concluding I would like to talk about the private sector. TVA was given a national broadcaster's licence a few years ago. We want to be sure that there are qualitative and quantitative programming standards to ensure that this programming reflects our cultural reality. We are not interested in a program made in Quebec for Quebecers.
I would now be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Chaput: The Société franco-manitobaine officially speaks for the community. In your consultations with francophone communities in Manitoba, was the issue of educational television ever raised?
Mr. Boucher: Absolutely. For years we wanted to have the TFO network in Manitoba. Their programming is focused on education and youth and it would be extraordinary for the youth in our regions to have access to it, but there are many political hurdles to be overcome. It is very frustrating. We have been working with the province of Manitoba on making TFO available through our cable distributors. Educational television is absolutely essential, it is a priority. Ironically one of our own companies, Les Productions River, does many programs for TFO. We heard about these programs but we have never seen them.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: It all gets very complicated when we get into the cable business. I know if you have basic cable, you do get Newsworld, and we talked about that previously, but there is a charge for that that the cable companies have to pay, and I am sure that there will be a charge to RDI, and the consumer will have to pay for it when most of the population is not French speaking. I am sure if RDI said that the service will be provided free to the cable companies they would carry it on basic cable. Would they not?
Mr. Boucher: Oh, yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you think that they should, and should the government ensure that they do, rather than the other way around, because it is a government Crown; right?
Mr. Boucher: Yes, something in that direction would be helpful.
[Translation]
I think we absolutely have to find a way of broadcasting our Canadian products. Whether it is RDI, Musique Plus, or other French programs, we need to find ways of broadcasting them to all Canadians. Cable distributors here choose American stations before they choose Canadian stations. We think that this is abnormal. One of the priorities of the CRTC, our cable distributors and the Canadian government should be to ensure that Canadian programming, including RDI and others, for example, is easily available to all Canadians, which does not necessarily mean that it would be free. We need to ensure that whoever is involved, whether it is the CRTC or the Canadian government, is working with the cable distributors in order to facilitate that broadcasting.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: It seems ironic that the Canadian government would have allowed and did allow the cable companies to get rich by stealing American programming, but will not let them steal from its own cable companies. I am with you there.
The Chairman: Senator Tkachuk.
Senator Tkachuk: I am done.
Senator Munson: I find it rather outrageous that we will be allowed to watch such great companies as Fox Television in Manitoba, but Ontario sits on your border and you cannot watch TFO. What does it take to change that?
Mr. Boucher: Satellite.
Senator Munson: It is a country called Canada, you know.
Mr. Boucher: That is a very good question, senator, and there are politics involved that are way beyond my scope.
Senator Munson: Can we help?
Mr. Boucher: Yes, I am sure you can. I think it has to be communicated somehow to cable companies, and I do not know the ins and outs of it, but I know that many years ago there was a question of programming in Quebec. I think Quebec did not want to bring in some francophone programming from Ontario, and that was all part of the political side of it. I do not know what happened there, but I think we have to find a solution to that. I know that the Manitoba government is lobbying actively to make this happen, but there are costs involved, things of that nature. They are looking at finding a solution to that by declaring it to be the francophone educational station for the province, as there are certain exemptions made for that.
If your committee could look into that and the background behind it, because it sounds very simple but it is not. I do not pretend to know all that is behind it, but it has been a long struggle for some who have been involved, and hopefully you can get to the bottom of it and find out why it is not available.
Senator Munson: Just one other question, dealing with demographics: There was a suggestion in the previous testimony about programming directed to an older audience. Are younger Franco-Manitobans leaving? What is the ratio now?
Mr. Boucher: In terms of leaving?
Senator Munson: Leaving the province.
Mr. Boucher: I would not say they are leaving the province. We have about 47,000 Franco-Manitobans in Manitoba, but there are 100,000 people in Manitoba who speak both official languages because we have a very active French immersion program. We want French programming for those people, for everyone. We want to make sure that that happens. There is a large population there that needs that type of programming.
No, they are not necessarily leaving. I think it is the same problem as anywhere else; our rural areas are losing people. On the whole we are no different from many other provinces. However, I believe that we have some opportunities there that may be slipping away if we do not start providing all types of services, which includes strong communication services in both official languages. I think that people, and you know better than I do, watch TV, listen to the radio; it is there. Therefore, we have to make it available.
[Translation]
The Chairman: You have clearly explained your needs and your feelings about the French-language media. But I would like to ask a question about the English-language media, the majority language media. When the media in Manitoba, or English-language media in general, cover your community, do you think their coverage is adequate? Is it fair? I would like to hear your comments on this because that also contributes to the community, to the social fabric.
Mr. Boucher: I think that when our community is given coverage by the English media, it always deals with a controversial issue. Really does it involve programming or proactive coverage. It is true that there have been discussions in the past; in fact there were discussions last year, regarding a private television station. French-language Radio-Canada covers our affairs. We very rarely see the English CBC, unless there is a special event, a cultural event or a controversial issue.
Last year, the CKY station, which belongs to CTV, approached us to meet people from our community and they asked us how they could better serve and work with us. Their approach was very proactive and we saw a big difference. They are now an English-language partner in the broadcasting of the Festival du voyageur.
Furthermore, there will be a mission, including the premier of the province, leaving in a few weeks for Alsace in France, and CKY is coming with us. English-language media covering this type of story is a first.
Therefore, I think that when there is communication with this media and when we have the opportunity to show them who we are and what we are doing, that generates interest. They then come and follow our events and I think that is very positive.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: I do not know whether you have given a lot of thought to some of these things, but you raised important issues. We make a huge investment in bilingualism in Western Canada through education. My daughter is a product of a French immersion program. My son, until the end of grade 9, was in French immersion. My daughter also went to university and took a degree in French. She moves to Vancouver, and she might as well be in Hong Kong; there is no French. We cannot graduate all of these people; it is a huge amount of money to invest so that a few of them can work for the public service. That is really what it is all about in the end, because there is no one to talk to and no one to listen to. Therefore, I think that is a strong argument for having programs like RDI, because that will be the only way for these people to keep up — use it or lose it. It will be difficult for them to keep up the language after we spent all of that money. It is a waste.
[Translation]
Mr. Boucher: Thank you for the question. That is a very good point. In fact, a few years ago our committee put together a strategy that was called ``Agrandir l'espace francophone au Manitoba.'' This is a fifty-year strategy. What we want to do is find those services and provide opportunities to all people who speak both official languages. We have a strong community and that is always the heart of things. But what we want to do now is include immersion people. In order to this we need tools such as RDI, CBC, community radio and newspapers. We want to broadcast. We have a cultural product that we want to showcase. If people in immersion have the opportunity to see a play in French, that is a good thing for us and it is a good thing for them. So that is our strategy. But we need the support of people like you, senators, and of our parliamentarians and our provincial governments, and we need to work together in order to find the best way of promoting these strategies to ensure that more and more people in Canada will be able to use both official languages if they choose to do so. When they come to Manitoba they will have many opportunities.
Senator Chaput: Here in French Manitoba I think we can say that our community is well organized and that it has developed strategies for itself. Now you are talking about increasing your radius and working more closely with immersion, immigration and the majority; do you think you could go even further and consider a strategy for all francophones in Western Canada? Has that ever been considered from the perspective of what has been happening in the media, in order to ensure that when there are needs and requests made known to Radio-Canada, or when the CRTC decides to implement any changes, all the west and all the francophones in the west will be taken into account?
Mr. Boucher: Absolutely. I think it is essential that we work together as francophones in Western Canada. There are 200,000 francophones in Western Canada and that is a significant population — I am speaking about francophones, not immersion, because that is another set of numbers.
We think it is important to form partnerships at all levels, at the level of communication and communication issues. For example, CBC broadcasts l'Ouest en direct on RDI. This is a very important program. In it you learn about people from western Canada, francophones from Western Canada, and western Canada in general. We think that these are important tools.
We need to work together to ensure that this lasts, because the future is never guaranteed. Second, we need to ensure that the programming truly reflects our needs. But it is together that will be able to do this. Western Canada has much to offer and to learn. There are certainly many options and opportunities in that regard.
Senator Chaput: When there are budget cuts, such as those at Radio-Canada several years ago, would you say that the impact of those cuts becomes directly and obviously apparent within your own lives as francophones living in a minority situation? Are they felt immediately and are the impacts very significant when those cuts occur?
Mr. Boucher: Yes, at one time there were very serious impacts. But I think that much was restored thanks to communication with Radio-Canada, ourselves and our colleagues from the west, among others; much was restored. But there was some question several years ago about whether or not Ce Soir would be a regional program, for example, and that it would be coming from a province. This was a quite a controversial issue. Since then our programming has been restored and this is very positive. When something is taken away you realize what you lost. At this point, I think that everything has been restored and we are even stronger today than we were then, and we want to build on that. We do not want to go backwards. We want to build on what we have today and take it even further. I think that the opportunities are there for that.
The Chairman: Mr. Boucher, thank you very much. That was extremely interesting.
Mr. Boucher: The pleasure was mine.
The Chairman: I will now give our next witnesses the floor. It is our pleasure to have with us today Ms. Anne Bédard, Director General of Envol 91.1, Manitoba community radio, Mr. Jacob Atangana-Abé, Treasurer of Envol 91.1, and Ms. Sylvianne Lanthier, Director and Editor in Chief of La Liberté. Welcome to you all.
We have the texts of your briefs that we will have translated and distributed to the committee members. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of time. In order to allow an appropriate amount of time for questions, I would ask you to speak to the main points in your presentations, rather than read the briefs. You have the floor.
Mr. Jacob Atangana-Abé, Treasurer, Envol 91.1 FM (CKXL), La radio communautaire du Manitoba: Madam Chair, senators, on behalf of Envol 91.1, La radio communautaire du Manitoba, I would like to begin by thanking you for the opportunity you have given to us to speak to you today. This will be a two-part presentation: I will begin by briefly describing Envol 91.1, without going into too much detail, and then I will attempt to answer the questions that were asked of us. We will not deal with all the questions, but rather those that reflect our own reality.
Envol 91.1 is a community radio station for francophones in Manitoba. It has been on the air since October 1991, in other words for 14 years. We are part of a group of networks. At the local level, we work with the Société franco- manitobaine and the newspaper La Liberté, whose representatives will also be making their presentations.
We cover a radius of 120 kilometres around Saint-Boniface and we reach approximately 90 per cent of the francophone population, in other words approximately 43,000 people who speak French as their mother tongue and approximately 90 who can speak some French.
What makes us unique is that, like any community organization, we were created because the community felt a certain need for or lack of a service, in this case a service not being offered by public radio, public media or private media. That is usually how a community radio station is born.
In terms of the questions that were put to us, we answered those we felt concerned us directly, most specifically the third question, that is whether or not communities, minorities and more distant areas are receiving adequate services. As you might have expected, the answer to this question was no, and for two reasons.
First, Envol 91.1, and any other francophone community radio station in a minority area are currently feeling marginal and fragile. They are feeling marginal because of a lack of investment on the part of the government in these types of media. They feel like they have been abandoned by the various government levels. They feel fragile mainly because of the chronically precarious nature of their funding.
Furthermore, several departments and federal organizations do not use our community media when they are running public information campaigns or advertisements. The recent coup de grâce came with the federal government's freeze on advertising because of the sponsorship affair. That meant a loss of approximately $200,000 for the community radio stations, in other words, approximately 10 per cent of their budget.
You may think that it is a small sum, but as treasurer of a community radio station I can tell you that we have to struggle for weeks in order to pay off a $5,000 deficit. So imagine when the amount is $200,000.
We would make two recommendations on this issue. We strongly suggest that the Canadian government promote diversity and invest in the community radio sector for francophones in minority areas.
The second recommendation is that the federal government encourage federal departments and agencies to make a concrete contribution to the development of minority communities, in keeping with section 45 of the Official Languages Act. We also recommend that advertisements be placed in all community media, both in newspapers and on the radio, to ensure that francophone communities are fully informed. I can guarantee that our advertising rates, the sums we request for placing such advertisements in the media, are completely ridiculous compared to the rates of the private media.
The second question of concern to us was number 10, regarding the role of the CRTC in the regulation and supervision of the Canadian news media.
The CRTC plays an important regulatory role, and we do not think this role should be changed. However, the time it takes to get decisions from the CRTC is getting longer and longer. In addition, we think that the CRTC must support community radio stations and avoid issuing notices which marginalize them. For example, a 1997-1998 CRTC notice contained the following statement, and I quote:
...it plans to consider innovative ways of providing additional financial resources for community radio, as part of a future process.
I regret to tell you that we are still waiting to see these innovative measures. And while we are waiting, we recommend that community radio be given access to the contributions made by companies to Canadian programming, and not just in the television sector.
The third question of concern to us was number 13, which reads as follows: Are there lessons to be learned from other countries about useful forms of media regulation and self-regulation?
Our answer is that there are definitely some lessons to be learned. The example that comes to mind is France, which has been operating successfully for several years with a support fund for radio programming. This fund is supported by a tax on advertising placed in the private media.
We would also like to emphasize that in Canada at the moment private broadcasters make no contribution to the development and production of programs in the non-commercial sector. This leads us to a fourth recommendation. We are demanding — the term seems rather strong, but it does reflect our feelings — that concrete recognition be given to the development capacity of community radio and that a radio fund be established using contributions from private radio stations.
The fourth question, number 14, reads as follows: In light of many changes in Canada's media landscape over the past 20 years, what is the role of Canada's public broadcasters?
We recognize that these public broadcasters have a national mandate and must continue to play this role. We also feel that we are complementary to these national media. Despite that, a number of community radio stations in the country have to pay considerable amounts of money to Radio-Canada to rent space on their broadcast tour and to cover other maintenance services. We find this somewhat surprising, to the extent that Radio-Canada's funding comes from taxpayers.
As a result, why should we have to pay to rent these spaces? This leads us to recommend that the costs we pay to the crown corporation, particularly to rent space on their broadcast tower as well as for maintenance services, be eliminated to allow community radio to develop better. In the case of Envol 91.1, the cost to rent space on the tower and the maintenance expenses amount to some $12,000 a year, which is a 5 or 6 per cent of our annual budget. Once again, this is a huge sum for us.
Our sixth recommendation is that the Canadian government must establish an assistance program for francophone minority media and radio to ensure we have high-quality local Canadian productions.
So those are our recommendations. Honourable senators, we thank you for the time you will devote to this issue in the days ahead in an effort to correct this situation for the present and future generations. We would now be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
I must tell you that the very thought that we have been invited here today seems to be the start of a non- marginalization or a correction of the marginalization from which we have suffered. We will therefore be eager to see the results of your efforts.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. I am going to ask you to do the same, Ms. Lanthier, and highlight your main points, rather than reading your brief in full.
Ms. Sylviane Lanthier, Director and Editor in Chief, La Liberté: I too would like to begin by thanking you for your gracious invitation. I do not know whether all the members of your committee are somewhat familiar with the newspaper La Liberté. So I will give you a brief description of our situation before discussing the issues that are important to us.
La Liberté was the third French-language newspaper in Manitoba. Before that there were other newspapers, called Le Métis and Le Manitoba. The francophone print media have been around in Manitoba for a long time. La Liberté was founded in 1913 by the Oblates. To give you a reference point, that was the same year in which they established Le Droit in Ottawa.
We have been there for a long time and we have a considerable circulation in the community. We play an important role as an information medium, but also as a support for all sorts of events. People count on us to encourage them in their activities. So we are very community-oriented in this regard.
The newspaper La Liberté was managed for 30 years by the Oblates. However, when they stopped what they called their press work in 1971, they sold the newspaper to the community in the following way. The Société franco- manitobaine then established a private company known as the Société Presse-Ouest limitée.
The board of directors of Presse-Ouest limitée is appointed by the Société franco-manitobaine, and has full responsibility for managing the newspaper. This is how we continue to belong to the community, even though, legally speaking, we are a private company.
This is also how we continue to depend on the community. People count on us. We cannot do just what we want with this newspaper. We must continue to serve the francophones of Manitoba as much as possible.
For 90 years, La Liberté has been playing this fundamental role of being close to these people and serving them. We have a circulation of 6,000 and our newspaper is distributed to all households with a child attending French school. La Liberté is also distributed elsewhere in the province. We have a provincial mandate. On average we publish 32 pages a week with a staff of about eight people.
The Chairman: What format do you use?
Ms. Lanthier: We use the tabloid format. Two years ago, Presse-Ouest purchased a publication entitled Le Journal des Jeunes, which is a monthly publication distributed to French-language and immersion schools across Canada. The objective of this newspaper is to teach young people about and get them interested in national and international current events through brief articles that come with pedagogical guides for teachers. Le Journal des Jeunes does not make money for us at this time. We do not have much to invest in it, and that is a significant problem. However, we are doing what is required to ensure the newspaper survives. I just wanted to make it clear that we publish that newspaper in addition to La Liberté.
The revenues of La Liberté come entirely from our advertising sales and subscriptions. We are not subsidized in any way. In order to survive and meet our financial obligations year after year, like any self-respecting private newspaper, we have to diversify our sources of funding as much as possible. We count both on advertising from local businesses and francophone organizations as well as provincial and federal government advertising.
The Association de la presse francophone appeared before your committee last spring to explain the situation of French-language newspapers in minority communities. I will not repeat what they said at that time. However, I would like to support the APF's comments regarding the problems faced by newspapers, particularly with respect to the impact we felt as a result of the moratorium imposed by the federal government last spring.
Although this moratorium has been lifted, we have to put out a number of special issues every year, as do all newspapers, on special themes, in order to raise some revenue. Recently, some departments have told us that even though the moratorium has theoretically been lifted, they have still not received the go-ahead to contribute to these special issues or to purchase advertising in our newspapers. In the past, they had much less difficulty doing this.
There are still some problems in this regard. We also feel that the federal government has not yet taken the steps required to re-launch some advertising campaigns, which of course would give all newspapers some revenue, but which would also enable Canadian citizens to remain informed.
All national advertising from agencies is important for newspapers like our. They give us some maneuvering room each week. We have a very small staff. We therefore have to work hard to find advertisers, because it is the advertising that enables us to publish our newspaper. Whether we produce 28, 32 or 40 pages a week, we still have the same number of staff to write articles and produce the advertising. Consequently, the more our advertising containscamera- ready material requiring no other processing, the more time we have to do other things. So this revenue is important to us, it does give us greater flexibility in the way in which manage our human resources. Our staff can then work a 40- hour week rather than a 50-hour week to produce the same newspaper.
There are three types of issue that can have an impact on a newspaper like La Liberté. The first is revenue diversification. Clearly, the government can help us in this regard. The second is human resources. We are a small newspaper with a limited budget, little additional revenue each year and a rather tight profit margin. For example, when our mail delivery costs or our printing costs increase, our budget is reduced accordingly and this has an impact on what we can offer our employees. We are not able to offer salaries that are very high. We cannot afford to hire additional staff to do the work. Nor can we train our human resources to improve their skills, or provide professional development programs to keep our employees.
Often, even though a small shop such as ours cannot offer very high salaries, it has a better chance to keep its staff by offering them other benefits. However, the fact is that we are rather stuck in this regard. We work with the APF to offer some basic training. However, this is not always enough, and the lack of training can become a problem.
We are in competition with other media in our community, some of which have more financial resources, when it comes to recruiting and retaining our human resources. There are a number of choices in our community for people who know how to write in French. These people gain some experience with us for two or three years at the most, and often leave us to go to work for the federal government or some other media which offers better salaries, a pension plan and all sorts of other things. We cannot blame them, that is life. We are therefore becoming a type of training school. However, the more we are able to retain our staff, the better it is for us. It would be helpful to have some latitude in this regard.
It would also be helpful to have a little more support in the area of technology. As you know, in the media, we buy page layout software one year, and we have to buy another the next year, because the software changes all the time. This constant renewal becomes expensive in the long run.
So that is a brief overview of the important issues for a French-language newspaper in a minority community. One of our recommendations would be that the federal government support the recommendations of the Official Languages Committee regarding the percentage of federal government advertising that should go to the minority media during advertising campaigns. The committee recommended increasing this percentage from 1.7 to 5.4 per cent. That would help us deal with a number of issues and would give us the latitude we need to serve our communities properly.
Senator Chaput: Are there any French-language community radio stations in the other western provinces? Are there any in Saskatchewan, Alberta, or British Columbia?
Ms. Annie Bédard, Director General, Manitoba Community Radio, Envol 91.1 FM (CKXL): There are some. Since we shortened our presentation a little, we were not able to mention that. There are five French-language community radio stations in the Canadian west and in the Territories, and six are being established. So we see community radio gaining momentum in the west and in the Territories. There is one station in Manitoba, one in Saskatchewan, one in Rivière- la-Paix, in Alberta, and another in Yellowknife and one in Iqaluit, in the territories.
Senator Chaput: There is no station in British Columbia?
Ms. Bédard: There is one that is being set up in British Columbia. It will be located in Victoria. There are six others in the Canadian west — two in Alberta, and one in British Columbia. I could get you the information on the other three, but there are six being developed at the moment.
Senator Chaput: The reason I ask the question is that Senator Tkachuk's comments earlier made me think about the fact that if children learned French in immersion schools, they are now on the labour market. We know how easy it is to lose a second language, if we do not continue to use it. Is community radio a tool that could help francophones and francophiles keep their French? For example, you have a great many volunteers from all backgrounds and communities in Manitoba.
Ms. Bédard: That is true. In our somewhat longer presentation, we did mention this point. We have over 60 volunteers. They are the heart of community radio. So we provide a lot of opportunities. Community radio is more than a reflection of the community. It is really its voice and pulse, because these are the people who come to talk about their lives and their experience. However, unlike private radio and state radio, we give people an opportunity to express themselves in this way. We are engaged in community, cultural and linguistic development.
With respect to immersion, some program hosts do not have French as their mother tongue, but we are looking for a place to express themselves, and at the same time develop their skills in French.
In addition, there is a program called En Français s'il vous plaît, where people meet once a month and learn French. There are other programs that provide training, through some immersion schools, to immigrants and seniors. All this programming diversity is a true reflection of our community.
We would like to work more with immersion schools, but we are having trouble finding the funding to develop some training programming. Our project was to offer journalism and communication training programs at La Liberté and the Cercle de Presse.
In order to carry out these projects, we need the operating plan to be consolidated. We have a budget of $200,000, which is not very much to operate a radio station, with all the technology involved. To be able to develop, we work miracles with what we have, I would say, but we would need more financial assistance to be able to meet the government's objectives.
[English]
Senator Munson: I know that the senator across from me is my good friend. He will disagree with me on this, but we like to use the sponsorship ``issue'' as opposed to sponsorship ``scandal.'' I am making a little joke here.
Lots of news organizations and other organizations did benefit from sponsorship. Do you think that your paper can survive in the future without government help, whether it is postage rates or something else?
[Translation]
Ms. Lanthier: In Manitoba, we are relatively fortunate compared with other newspapers because there are a large number of francophones. The province advertises in our paper because there is a certain local market. The proportion of federal advertising in La Liberté does not account for 70 per cent of our revenues as it does in the case of some other newspapers. It is around 30 per cent and probably around 20 per cent right now.
We try to bring in money at the local level. That is why we produce a number of special issues during the year, which allows us to balance our books. Of course, this could give us more room to manoeuvre, which would enable us to offer better salaries and have a bigger team to carry out the work that needs to be done.
I believe that the federal government can contribute to the French-language press through advertising but also through the creation of support programs for all media, taking into account the particular challenges faced by our newspapers. It is often difficult for minority media to benefit from programs designed for the majority group, since their needs are different. If it was possible to take into account the needs of the French media when the criteria for support programs are developed, it would be helpful.
In the francophone community, the population has not grown a great deal over the past few years. With a circulation of 6,000, our penetration rate is nearly 100 per cent. Francophone businesses are not necessarily interested in advertising in a French newspaper aimed only at francophones, since most of their customers are generally English- speaking. They prefer to advertise in English in an English-language newspaper because they have the impression that they will reach 100 per cent of their customers, compared with the 15 per cent they would reach by advertising in a French-language newspaper.
We need to convince people to advertise in La Liberté. We also need to be creative and offer special products that will bring them to us. We do that constantly, whereas a majority-language newspaper can usually persuade a business to advertise 20 times a year.
We are constantly creating special products. It costs us more because we have to put in more effort. Federal government advertising helps, of course, because it gives us some room to manoeuvre.
The Chairman: Ms. Lanthier, how many journalists do you have?
Ms. Lanthier: I have two full-time journalists and two others who worked half-time on special projects. We have one journalist who works part-time at Le journal des Jeunes and part-time at La Liberté.
The Chairman: Plus yourself?
Ms Lanthier: Plus myself, yes. And I am the director, editor in chief, proofreader, advertising person, and even layout designer.
The Chairman: We have heard a number of witnesses from the weekly community newspaper sector, and it is nearly the same story everywhere, except that it is even more true in your case.
Ms. Lanthier: Yes, and that is part of what is wonderful about it. It is not boring to work in that context.
The Chairman: How long have you been working for the newspaper?
Ms. Lanthier: I arrived in 1990, I left in 2001 and I came back in the spring of 2004.
The Chairman: Are you Franco-Manitoban?
Ms. Lanthier: I am from Quebec and I am Franco-Manitoban by adoption.
The Chairman: Do you think that the basic situation in your market is stable or do you believe that your readership is shrinking?
Ms. Lanthier: It is difficult to say. We have an agreement with the school district that allows us to distribute the newspaper to every family with children registered in a French school. We have a similar agreement with the Fédération provinciale des comités de parents allowing us to provide the newspaper to every family with a child registered in a day care or kindergarten. That has nearly doubled our circulation, but our revenue from subscriptions is still very low.
These agreements bring us very little money, but we still distribute our newspaper this way because we feel that it would be important for people to still be reading La Liberté in 20 years. Since our newspaper does not serve the majority community, it has to penetrate the market consisting of francophone families in order to survive. French is not omnipresent and people do not live only in French.
The primary challenge for these people is therefore to be able to read and communicate well in French. In order for them to continue their efforts to learn French, more money and effort needs to be invested in reaching out to these people.
Senator Chaput: My first question is for Sylviane from La Liberté. You talked earlier about technological support. Could you elaborate on developments regarding computer technology and the Internet? What do you mean exactly by technological support?
Ms. Lanthier: We are using digital technology more and more at the newspaper. Inevitably, everything is computerized now, from photography to the articles written by journalists to the layout. Our printer receives the newspaper in electronic form. We constantly have to keep up with the software being used by the printer and advertisers.
That means that outdated equipment must be replaced. We also have to replace computers and cameras. That is what I mean by technological support, which costs us money every year.
Senator Chaput: My next question is for Mr. Jacob and Ms. Bédard, and it deals with your recommendation in response to question 13, concerning lessons to be drawn from other countries' experience. You mentioned the existence in France of the Fonds de soutien à l'expression radiophonique. Could you explain a bit more to us about this French fund?
Ms. Bédard: At the national level, as you know, we belong to the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada. They are the ones that did this research for us. I cannot give you any information about the Fonds de soutien à l'expression radiophonique. We know that private radio stations contribute a percentage to a fund for what they call ``free'' radio stations over there.
So we are recommending something similar be done in Canada. The fund is for radio stations that are unable to generate a certain percentage of their revenue from advertising. So the French fund is for radio stations that would be comparable to radio stations in western Canada serving what is very much a minority-language audience. These stations cannot cover more than 20 per cent or 30 per cent of their budgets through advertising. The aim of the fund is only to allow these radio stations to develop. So we are thinking of something along those lines.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. We can get more specific information about that program. I had never heard of it before.
Ms. Bédard: The Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada, which is located in Ottawa and represents us politically, can provide you with more details as well.
The Chairman: We wish to thank all of you very much, both the male minority and the female majority. Your presentation was very interesting and we are very grateful to you for coming.
[English]
Senators, our next witness is Mr. Murdoch Davis, who is the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press, one of the major independent and, indeed, one of the most historic newspapers in the country. As is usual on these occasions, when somebody is appearing before us with whom I worked in the past, I should say that although we never worked on the same newspaper, we did at one point work at the same company on a few common projects. That was quite a while ago.
Mr. Davis is one of the most experienced journalists in the country and has worked in numerous regions for numerous companies, and, therefore, probably has some quite interesting things to say.
Mr. Murdoch Davis, Publisher, Winnipeg Free Press: Thank you, senators, I appreciate the invitation. I did not time these remarks, but I will do my best to stick to around 10 minutes.
Thank you again for the invitation to appear this morning. I would like to note that while for the past 18 months I have had the privilege of serving as the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press, I am here to speak to you as an individual, one who has had the good fortune to have had a career in newspapers. I am speaking for myself.
I got started in this field, one could say, in 1972. I was lucky enough at the end of high school to stumble into something that turned out to be right for me. The chance meeting with a high school teacher by the name of Mr. Kollins shaped my life more than just about anything else that happened to me. One day as the end of high school neared, he asked a handful of young lads loitering about the foyer of the school what we were planning to do with ourselves upon graduation. And I answered quite honestly that I really had no clue. Now, I had some run-ins with Mr. K, so he offered me this advice; ``Why not go into journalism,'' he said, ``you have a big mouth.'' And I did. However big my mouth was or still is, I will happily discuss with you my experiences at the Winnipeg Free Press and my experiences at other newspapers owned by other companies or individuals, but I want to note that I am not speaking for those companies or those owners, I am speaking for myself.
I suppose it is also worth noting that while I was invited here as someone who works at what is now called an independent newspaper, I was in the immediate past employed by CanWest, here in Winnipeg and elsewhere. In fact, I worked at the centre of some of the activities that I believe led to you beginning your work on these hearings, and certainly has been focused on by some witnesses; that is, centralization of some functions, the establishment of a news desk for CanWest News Service, here in Winnipeg of all places — as many have said of the location — activities in what is usually described as convergence, and even the dissemination of certain infamous editorials.
Even earlier in my working life, when my hair was still brown, I worked during what some witnesses have described as the glory days of old mother Southam, and before that even, at The Toronto Star, which at the time described itself as Canada's largest independent newspaper. Therefore I have had some experiences on which to base my views. I certainly have enough experiences to know that ownership influencing content is not new, whether directly or by virtue of what some have called self-censorship. When I worked in the vast newsroom at The Toronto Star I think I actually laid eyes on John Honderich twice, and I never received any direction from him. However, editors and other reporters cited Mr. Honderich's interests and desires as reasons to do or not do any number of things, pretty well every day.
At Southam, notwithstanding what you have heard about its policies of independence, I was also aware that during the free trade election of the mid 1980s members of the board of the company had expressed to publishers their concern that the balance of opinion in the company's paper was skewed in opposition to the policy, and actions were taken to address that.
I was also aware that from time to time, publishers or editors were fired, and while I was not often aware of the reasons, I am pretty sure they did not decide by drawing lots.
Also, one of the most significant moves in my career came about directly as a result of what could only be called head office interference, an intrusion into the independence of the publisher and the editor. My move from the Ottawa Citizen to become managing editor of the Edmonton Journal in 1989 was instigated by the then president of the company and his heir apparent, both of whom testified before you about how things were much better then than they are today. I can only imagine, though, what would have ensued at the height of the hysteria of a couple of years ago had the Aspers told one of their editors or publishers who their managing editor was to be. I have read the interim report and a fair amount of testimony on the website. I have to say that I find a great deal of it dispiriting. It is rife with certainty that things were much closer to perfection back in the good old days.
When I entered this field oh so many years ago I was bored silly by old hands insisting to all of us young people in the newsrooms that newspapers were much better in their heyday, and journalism was much more vigorous. It seems that just as we are destined to start to sound like our parents, we are also destined to start to sound like those that we once regarded as old-timers, out of touch with today; people determined that the best that could be done was to ensure that things stayed the way they were.
There is much opinion in the testimony to the effect that things used to be much better, but there is little fact. Many witnesses seem determined that something is terribly wrong, although they are not certain what, and that something should be done, although they are not certain what, and that for sure the sky is falling.
As I read that testimony I was reminded that in my first year of journalism school, not long after that chance encounter with Mr. K, the Toronto Telegram closed. Most of the students in that year's graduating class were convinced that something was terribly wrong and for sure the sky was falling. Certainly many of those who would have been witnesses at hearings such as these thought so at that time.
Then out of the ashes arose the Toronto Sun, which begat a few other suns, and lots of young journalists got their early jobs. Those journalists produced lots of great journalism and some truly horrible journalism. The sky stayed more or less where it was.
I am also reminded by the beginning of the 1980s of that fateful day when benign mother Southam, as your witnesses have described her, closed the Winnipeg Tribune, and the FP company simultaneously closed the Ottawa Journal. Once again something was terribly wrong and the sky was falling. However, both surviving papers improved in subsequent years, eventually new competitors arose, and the sky again stayed more or less where it was.
I am also reminded that when Conrad Black acquired the Southam company, and in fact, as you have heard, at one point owned or controlled more than half the newspapers in Canada, something was wrong and the sky was falling.
Now, I will stop short of beating that piece of word play to death, but in the end, the main thing Mr. Black did was start another and very different national newspaper, generating hundreds of new jobs and lots of new money for newspaper employees, particularly journalists, particularly in Toronto.
Then of course, Mr. Black sold most of his newspapers to CanWest and the Aspers, and you know the rest. Although, of course, not long after, CanWest also sold most of its papers, and as you heard, new companies entered the field of newspaper ownership in Canada, including the one for which I now work, and today ownership is considerably more diverse than it was when the hysteria was at its peak.
Most recently, Metro, a company, has entered Canadian newspapering and introduced free daily newspapers. We hear talk that they are planning to introduce them in many other markets, and we hear talk that CanWest is planning to start similar kinds of free newspapers in some Canadian markets.
My point is simply that much of what happened after these events was quite different from what was predicted. Little of what was recommended to or by the inquiries and commissions that ensued at those previous times was actually done. Yet what developed was a quite vigorous, quite varied and quite good media scene.
If you look at United States markets of a similar size to Winnipeg or other like Canadian cities, you will rarely find two-newspaper cities. In Canada it is the norm. I am sure that you have heard talk of the research on the credibility of journalists, and we have all seen the references to how journalists' credibility is lower than that of politicians and salespeople for certain kinds of companies. However, in fact that is research done broadly on the media overall. If you look at the research done by individual newspaper companies or individual newspapers, Canadian newspapers are rated tremendously highly by their readers in terms of respect, trustworthiness and satisfaction levels.
Also, I think that that is, in the end, why people like me and Senator Fraser initially went into this business, because you get a chance to do something important, make a difference and serve your community. Last year, the Winnipeg Free Press won a national newspaper award for work involving a wrongful conviction case, and, arguably, contributed to getting a gentleman who had been wrongly convicted back out on the streets, free. This is important work.
Only last month, our newspaper was involved in a lot of publicity regarding a local initiative in the inner city to help young, primarily poor and primarily Aboriginal youth, and through the publicity that we gave it, the program was able to get additional funding. These are important things that lead me to say, as I used to do on the rubber chicken circuit, that devoting yourself to a newspaper, despite all its flaws, is a lot more interesting than devoting yourself to whether people drink Coke or Pepsi. I once said that, and then found out there was a soft drink distributor at the Rotary Club meeting, so I do not use that one any more.
There are likely few things that witnesses have generally agreed on, but one is that our media should be independent. What is it that we seek to have our media independent of? What I as a journalist most want, or in fact insist on, is that our media be independent of government. I have heard no suggestions about what the government itself could do that would have the effect of enhancing that, other than to make sure it does not further intrude into our media, or perhaps even withdraws from some current intrusions.
As I have noted, the Winnipeg Free Press is often described as an independent newspaper. What does that mean? What is it that we are independent from or independent of? Is it other newspapers? The company also owns five weeklies in metropolitan Winnipeg and the Brandon Sun; 49 per cent of the company's cash flow is dedicated to an income trust that is publicly traded. You can invest in my work and that of my colleagues today on the TSX. Therefore, are we not then independent? Was The Toronto Star independent when it owned only the weeklies in its major market, but is not independent now because it owns a handful of nearby dailies as well and has invested in another newspaper out West? Is each of the CanWest papers not independent because the company owns nine others? What is the magic number? What is the magic ownership structure?
I think we have to be frank. A lot of the hue and cry of recent years, much of what led to this committee's inquiry, much of what is addressed in testimony before you was not because of ownership structures or numbers of papers owned; it was because a lot of people did not like the very specific and very public actions of certain owners, owners who happen to reside in this city. I feel strongly that that is not the basis of good public policy decision making.
I am not here to defend the action of those owners or any owners. I do defend the right of owners to run their newspapers as they see fit, even to run them into the ground if they wish. I believe that our readers, consumers of information, will sort it out. They will certainly sort it out better than the government could or should do.
Every day in the media I read, hear and view forms of journalism and manifestations of owner and management policies that I find unappealing, or worse. I am guided by that in my choices of what media to consume and what media to trust. We have in Canada a newspaper chain that seeks to attract people with daily bikini girl pictures. I am pretty sure it is a corporate policy too, not a local one, since the lookalike tabloid papers of that company all carry the pictures. In fact, they often carry the same pictures. The bikini girls shown in Edmonton are quite often from Toronto or Ottawa or Calgary or even Winnipeg.
I dislike that kind of newspaper content, every bit as much as some people dislike CanWest content of a few years ago or of today, but it is not the place of government to try to influence that content, or to actively or even subtly intrude into the decision making behind it.
I have been frankly astonished and appalled by the number of journalists willing to stand up and almost beg the government to somehow stop large media companies from doing certain kinds of content. That is a dangerous mindset. I have not generally found government to be an instrument of subtlety, and as a wiser man than I put it, once you invite the fox into the henhouse, it is difficult to insist that it take these eggs over there and leave those eggs over there alone. Once journalists or other Canadians invite the government to act in the face of this kind of newspaper content or that kind of newspaper content, it becomes more difficult to resist government when someone else urges it to act in the face of another kind of content.
As I read through some of the specifics that have been discussed before you, I was struck by the paucity of actual suggestions that even purported to address the various ways in which the sky is supposedly falling. For example, a journalist that I respect spoke to you about his view that we would all be better off if Canada's media still maintained more bureaus overseas. Many would agree. I would debate that point, but nevertheless, what public policy or government action would have had an effect on that one way or the other? I have heard none and I can think of none, other than perhaps actions that would bring government directly into news management decisions, and, thankfully, likely in contravention of the Charter.
Another example: There have been references to the national news desk of the CanWest News Service that has been established here in Winnipeg, right across the road in fact. The witness who raised it certainly painted it as an undesirable development or hinted at dark things behind it, although not for any actual reason that I could ascertain. Perhaps national news service desks in Ottawa and Toronto are okay, but not okay in Winnipeg.
You have had testimony about the grand days when Southam ran a premier news service for the benefit of all of its papers, although I can tell you that in the early 1980s I conducted a study of that service and found that most of the companies' newspapers were in fact not often publishing the stories from that service. One of the things that ensued was some directives from management and ownership that the rate of publishing those stories should be increased by the publishers and editors of the papers. That kind of directive today would lead to all kinds of hue and cry.
I find that the way CanWest is running its news service now is very effective, and as publisher of a newspaper that subscribes to the service, even though we have no ownership connection, I believe that our readers benefit from that. In today's paper we have a story from that news service on our front page. We have a story on page 6 out of Moose Jaw. Without access to that news service we would have neither story.
Our industry has been actively engaged in debate about the future of the Canadian Press News Service for at least 10 years now. I was on the original Southam committee of editors that began questioning the value we received from CP. I was on the task force of CP members that was struck to respond to the concerns that had been raised among ownership groups. To this day I do not understand why, when one of the allegedly horrid effects of certain of today's ownership structures is a decline in competition and diversity of voices, it is seen as negative if a second national news service is being developed.
I also note in passing that if one boils the notion of Canadian Press down to its basics, it is essentially a vehicle through which all of the newspaper owners in the country can hire one reporter to cover a story for them all. Yet if one group of newspapers with common ownership seeks to take the same approach within its own papers, the condemnation is loud and harsh. I do not understand.
I did read in the testimony some interesting and valuable suggestions. Kirk LaPointe particularly made some valid points about the value of Canada developing something akin to the Poynter Institute or the Pew Centre. I would applaud such a development, unless the government was behind it.
I also noted with interest that while some members of the Southam family or other former significant owners in that company appeared to decry the current state of affairs, I did not hear any of them offering any of the wealth they obtained as long-time newspaper owners to establish such a Canadian centre for journalism excellence. I want to add that I am sure these honourable people engage in lots of charitable and philanthropic acts. I am not questioning them, I am not questioning that. I am simply pointing out that if Canada is to develop an independent — there is that word again — centre for journalism excellence, the impetus should come from such private sources, not from government.
I was also struck by the number of witnesses from media unions who implicitly or explicitly were asking for some kind of government action against supposedly concentrated ownership or against certain decisions or actions of owners or management. I did not hear anyone speak out on or question the concentration of unionization in our media, or look at how that affects content or other things. There are far fewer unions than owners exercising influence in the country's newsrooms. In English Canada there are basically two. I am not aware of any of the unions offering to sit down and find ways to reduce costs in non-journalistic areas so that resources can be reinvested in journalism. Sometimes, in fact, newspaper unions actively seek to exclude from publication the work of anyone who is not a member. Now there is an impingement on the diversity of voices for to you examine. Sometimes they prevent owners or managers from setting up internships for young journalists or from publishing the work of journalism students on work experience visits. No one asked the government to prevent those things, and I am not asking that. I am sure anyone who did would be roundly beaten. I hasten to add that I am not asking for action against the unions. I am just raising something that I find curious, and suggesting that while those journalist union leaders purport, in front of you, to only be interested in enhancing the craft, sometimes they have a higher calling.
Your committee has also raised questions about and heard suggestions on the value of media literacy education or other education initiatives related to media. I would encourage those things. I would rather see media literacy taught as part of a wider thrust, of what we used to call civics, that is, the study of and education on all of the basics that solid citizens should understand about their country and society. Little is to be gained if media literacy is taught in the absence of more teaching about the Charter, about how our courts function and why, about the rules and structures of various levels of government, about how the tax system works and does not work, about the value of voting, the importance of democracy, about what human rights means, what civil rights are, and how they sometimes conflict. I believe the attention paid to all of those things in the education of our young, or even our university and college students, is woeful.
I believe lack of understanding and appreciation of these basics of our society contributes to a lack of appreciation of news media, or even a lack of consumption of news media.
Far too many Canadians, to be completely blunt, do not understand what freedom of expression and freedom of the media are, nor do they understand how important they are. As Joni Mitchell sang, ``You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.''
Canadians, including many of the witnesses from whom you have heard, do not understand or appreciate the diverse media we have, and how despite its flaws, despite its dependence on advertising revenues to effectively subsidize information for consumers, and despite trends in ownership and all of the rest, if I may paraphrase Churchill, our way of operating media in Canada is the worst way to operate media, except for all of the others.
The Chairman: I neglected to mention that Mr. Davis is an award-winning writer, and you can see why.
Senator Tkachuk: One of the issues that we hear about quite often, of course, is that of cross-ownership, where people own television stations and newspapers in the same town. There has been some criticism of it. I want to know what your feelings are about that.
Mr. Davis: It is like so many things. It has the potential to be negative and the potential to be positive. How it will play out would depend on how those owners operate those media and how competitors might react.
In terms of cross-ownership in Canada, specifically between broadcast and newspaper properties, it is early days. I am not sure that we know what the impact will be. I have read and heard suggestions that one of the actions that should be taken is to compel those companies to divest one or the other sets of properties.
I am here speaking as a journalist. I do not know a whole lot about corporate ownership structures and investments. I think it is legitimate for public policy to look at competition, monopoly practices, et cetera. Whether the line should be drawn precisely so that there should be no cross-ownership, I do not think so, but I do not know for sure.
One of the things that I and others have noted as the intense scrutiny of this kind of cross-ownership and what is called convergence really got going is that Canadian Press, which is a cooperative of newspaper-owning companies, has operated a broadcast subsidiary for decades.
Senator Tkachuk: Broadcast News.
Mr. Davis: Yes, I suppose one could say that in Canada, Canadian Press, through Broadcast News, invented convergence before any of us knew what it was. If I can use that analogy again, most of what I have heard as to the negative effects of that have to do with the sky falling, and I have not seen very many specific examples that demonstrate that there really is a negative effect.
Senator Tkachuk: What about loosening up — it is just an issue that I flog and that is why I am asking for support — CRTC regulations to allow more entrants into the marketplace? If you want to start a newspaper in Winnipeg, you organize the money, you hire the journalists and see what happens; the market will decide that. However, if you want to start a news channel, you have to make a presentation; it is just never ending and you may not get it. They may think that your presentation is not good enough. Do you think that it should be as easy to start a news channel as it is to start a newspaper?
Mr. Davis: Ideally, yes, and with all respect to those members of the CRTC and others who struggle with this, I think in the end, the technology will decide for us. This morning before I came here, I looked at the content of 10 or 12 daily newspapers on three continents through the Internet. Through the same source on the Internet, I can listen to radio stations, including news radio, from virtually anywhere in the world. It is only a matter of time before I can also consume television from virtually anywhere in world over the Internet. Good luck to the CRTC or any other King Canute who tries to hold that back.
I live out of town and subscribe to satellite television, and I can receive news broadcasts legally from just about anywhere in Canada. I can watch television news from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. It is only because of regulation that I cannot legally obtain television signals from the United States or Europe, but I can certainly do it technically, and I hear there are people in Canada who do it. Therefore the notion that whether there will be additional radio or television signals anywhere in Canada will always be entirely determined by a government body, I suspect will end up out of date. I understand the concept of the airwaves being publicly owned, and therefore publicly regulated, but increasingly, electronic media will not be using the airwaves.
Senator Munson: What is your position on the Winnipeg Free Press partnering with a local television company, or anybody in television, to have that kind of virtual newsroom?
Mr. Davis: As I say, I just work there. I am not one of the investors or principal owners. If that proposition arose, it would be discussed with the chairman and the rest of the board and I would give my advice.
Senator Munson: Would you be comfortable in that environment?
Mr. Davis: I would certainly be comfortable considering it. Given the hat I wear, the question that I would principally want to examine is what is in it for the Winnipeg Free Press and what is in it for our readers, our advertisers, our customers generally.
We have partnerships with some other organizations. I have mentioned the news service that we subscribe to. We provide content to Shaw cable here in Winnipeg. We are looking at providing content to some other service providers. I would not rule out, out of hand, the possibility that we might be able to extend our local and regional news-gathering resources in partnership with a television station.
Senator Munson: You say that government basically has no place in the newsrooms of the nation. What are your views then on foreign ownership, the existing rules? Some people are saying we have not done very well under Canadian ownership, so let's open it up and perhaps foreign ownership might make it a more competitive playing field.
Mr. Davis: I believe strongly what I said about government having no place in the newsrooms. It does not necessarily flow from that that government has no place in determining ownership structure, particularly foreign ownership structure.
As a Canadian, I would not be thrilled to death if all of our newspapers, or even most of our newspapers, were to end up falling into U.S. or foreign hands. I am not certain that the content of the papers would be degraded as a result, but I have had occasion to deal with American journalists and American newspaper managers, and they tend to assume that we are just like North Dakota, which we are not.
On the other hand, you have all heard lots of testimony about the explosion of diverse media, the fragmentation of markets, and the increasing competition for advertising dollars, which in the end does drive what we do. Newspapering, at least, is a capital-intensive business, high fixed-costs business. I think some newspaper companies could make a legitimate argument that being able to access investment from outside our borders, at least perhaps in minority positions, has merit. I am not an expert on these things, but I do not see, shall we say, The New York Times company or the Knight Ridder company becoming a minority owner in a Canadian newspaper as an inherently evil thing.
Senator Munson: Just one other question, but first I would like to praise the Winnipeg Free Press for having a journalist in Ottawa. It is a good thing.
Mr. Davis: I agree.
Senator Munson: I know you said the sky is not falling, but there was a time when a lot of newspapers across this country, and competitive radio and so on, had people in Ottawa actually covering politics. It seems to me that there are fewer voices. There are still strong voices. I know CanWest does a good job with its reporters, but how do you see the future of Canadian Press? At one point, they did have reporters everywhere; everybody knows that, and they covered beats. It seems that there are fewer reporters covering a more complex society, and I do not know if that serves democracy very well.
Mr. Davis: I am not sure that in total there are fewer reporters working today than there were. There are fewer working for Canadian Press, but that does not necessarily mean there are fewer working overall. I am not even sure there are fewer working in the parliamentary press gallery. They just might be working for different employers or working independently. I am tempted, when I get into the discussions about the future of CP, as I often do, to paraphrase a line that was once used by a sports reporter about the CFL; that the CFL has been dying for 50 years and it will be dying for 50 more.
CP has been at risk for quite some time, and will continue to be at risk for quite some time. I believe that most of the changes that occurred within CP as a result of the pressures of the last decade have been positive ones.
Diversity of voices is a difficult thing to measure. I am not sure that whether there are five reporters or seven reporters sticking a microphone in a premier's face somewhere in Canada makes a huge difference. I think what matters in the end is not how many people cover the same story, but how many stories get covered.
Some would argue that in a perfect world you would get both, but the world is not perfect. As a publisher or as an editor, as a journalist, if I have the choice between investing in making sure, whether through CP or somewhere else, that there is another reporter also covering the story so that we can compare versions, or having two stories covered instead of one, I will pick the latter.
Senator Chaput: What are your views on press councils? We have had witnesses from other provinces who were very much in favour of press councils at the provincial level, and we even had one who talked about a national press council. Now, I believe that we do not have a press council in Manitoba?
Mr. Davis: We do, yes.
Senator Chaput: Sorry, so what are your views on a press council?
Mr. Davis: We have a press council in Manitoba, and the Winnipeg Free Press, as the province's largest paper, is the biggest financial supporter of that press council and a member of our staff is a member of it. I believe next month I am due to appear at a public panel that the press council is organizing related to some current issues in journalism. I support the notion of having press councils. I support the notion of them being local or regional. I would not support the notion of a national press council.
I have seen press councils deal with important and tricky matters and deal with them well and helpfully. Like a lot of deliberative bodies, unfortunately they tend to take a long time, so maybe the beneficial effect is diminished.
If one analyzes the complaints that go to press councils in any province, frankly, a lot of them are marginal. We received a complaint by way of the press council at the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. One of our reporters wrote rather uncomplimentary things about Donald Trump's new wife, and someone in the community has seen fit to quarrel with that at the press council. Well, I suppose we will respond and see where it goes. I am not sure it is one of the great issues of our day. However, the fact that he can take that to the press council, or anybody else, is certainly better than if he could not.
The Chairman: I will come back to this business of diversity of voice and diversity of coverage. I think you make a good point about there being perhaps a limit to the utility of having 15 instead of 12 people carrying a microphone to get the exact same quotation in a scrum, but as the outlets proliferate surely there is a danger of that.
We have heard testimony about cuts in what are still the fundamental sources of news in this country, which are newspaper newsrooms. That is where most of the journalists are. Yesterday, for example, we heard testimony to the effect that as the number of journalists in the many newsrooms has declined, so has the available expertise. I think this was said publicly, but I have heard, for example, that in B.C. there was no reporter specializing in covering the fishing industry, which is of huge importance to that province. The idea is that if the foundation of your news-gathering process is understaffed, then a lot of stories will not get covered. Is there a trend — I am not saying the sky is falling here, I am trying to establish trends — in that direction? If so, what can be done about it, not necessarily by government? I am trying to understand what is happening here. I have been out of the business a long time.
Mr. Davis: I am sure you have been following it closely.
I do not know if one could say that it is a trend. One could, and I think it has been done and referred to at your hearings, measure the number of employees in the newsroom of the Montreal Gazette or Vancouver Sun on this date five or ten years ago and what it is today. As you know from having run a newspaper, you even have to delve a little into those figures, because if the people who have been removed were involved in things such as compiling television listings and that has been centralized, or paginating the comics page and that has been centralized, while it is not a wonderful thing if someone's employment has been done away with, those could not be given as examples of threats to the flow of the lifeblood of democracy. I think that is what happens when people cite the declining numbers of employees overall. Technology and the ability to centralize some of the peripheral and support functions have certainly accelerated.
I do not know whether all of the outlets in B.C. have a fishing industry expert or not. I assume that if the marketplace suggested that they should, eventually that will become manifest. One of the things that we see across the country in all markets is an explosion of specialized outlets. Therefore, maybe people who are interested in information about the B.C. fishing industry are getting it from a specialized publication that the newspapers could not hope to compete with in terms of the quality and quantity of information. I do not know.
I would love it if every newsroom in Canada had 20 per cent more journalists than they do, or 40 per cent more — pick a number. I am a journalist first and a businessman second. However, I think we are seeing more newsrooms, more news outlets of varying kinds, whether they are conventional newspapers as we know them, or the free newspapers that I referred to, or broadcast outlets or Internet outlets. I am quite sure that the total number of people dedicated to producing information is not lower than it was, it is higher. They may not be in the newspaper newsrooms, but they are out there.
The Chairman: I am trying to understand what is actually happening. The convergence model that is often cited — and I gather that this happens some of the time, but who knows — is to have one reporter cover a given story for more than one media outlet. They go out in the morning, get a story, come back, file a TV clip, file a radio clip and write the story. At least one witness made the point to us that to the extent this happens, that specific reporter working on that specific story does not have the time to do much background research and to check with other implicated parties in the piece. It becomes a kind of headline news service. Can you comment on that?
Mr. Davis: I do not think the model that you described — and you and I both sat in meeting rooms when it was talked about — has been successfully implemented in many places. To the extent that it has been, to use one of the examples that is often cited, if reporters are sitting through eight hours of testimony in a court case, or even a hearing such as this, and are asked to phone in a 40-second radio clip during one of the breaks, I am not sure that would hinder their ability to eventually produce the newspaper piece that they have to produce. However, obviously, if you extend that too far, then what you described does happen — the ability to do a good job on any of the platforms is diminished.
I think what we are mostly seeing, so far at least — as you referred to and I was glad to hear you say; I agree with you — is that newspaper newsrooms are the engine of most of the news and information that is generated. Most of what people hear on radio and elsewhere began in newspapers. What we are seeing occur most successfully in so-called convergence is that the expertise and talents in the newspaper newsrooms are migrating to television and presented as exactly that. You see Kevin Newman saying ``We are now going to Ottawa to hear from Bob Fife.'' I think there is a conundrum at play. If the total number of journalists producing information was diminished, I would absolutely agree that is a negative effect. If the total audience exposed to the information produced by one journalist is increased, then that is a beneficial effect.
You and I were involved, senator, in the early days of establishing what was initially called the Southam network, with all of the papers exchanging content among themselves. If an award-winning piece of journalism produced in the newsroom of the Montreal Gazette can be made available to readers in Vancouver and Calgary, that is a good thing. If one of the effects that eventually flow from that is that fewer overall newspapers are producing fewer overall stories, that is not a good thing. In the end, I suppose the marketplace will have to influence and determine that. I cannot see any other way that it can happen.
The Chairman: Somebody said yesterday that one of the difficulties is that the public does not know what it is not getting.
Mr. Davis: However, increasingly, it does. You can get on the Internet now and read the entire Reuters wire service. I have not done a study, although probably someone has, but it would be fascinating to look at two-newspaper markets in Canada from 25 years ago and determine whether the total content in those papers differed from the total content of two-newspaper markets today. My tendency is to think that today, never mind the other media and websites and blogs and all the rest of it, if you just looked at two newspapers in the market today, the total number of stories would vary more than in the days when the Montreal Gazette and the Montreal Star were trying to outdo each other by being the same. Today's newspapers seek to differentiate themselves. There are lots of stories that appear in The Winnipeg Sun on a given day that do not appear in our paper, and we do not tear our hair out thinking, why we do not have the story. Sometimes we do. There are certainly a lot more stories appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press that do not appear in The Winnipeg Sun, and the prospective readers decide this one serves them best or that one serves them best.
I am not a Pollyanna; I know the market is not perfect. If anything, I think that information consumers today suffer from being swamped with choices and stories. It would be a full-time job to make sure of what it is you are not getting in just one or two newspapers. Even just reading the newspaper thoroughly takes a lot of time.
As you know, one of the big complaints that we get from consumers of newspapers is they do not feel they have time to read them. One of the responses I always use with them is, ``Truth be told, we do not expect you to read it all.'' I make the analogy to a buffet. When you go to a buffet, you do not always have everything available on the table. Some days you have pickled eggs, and some days you do not. Some days the readers of a newspaper decide they will go through the sports section, and some days maybe not.
I do not know that people are crying out for even more choices and information. However, I think the way the marketplace has developed, people in jobs like mine spend even more time than we used to scratching our heads over whether we are putting the right kinds of items in the paper so that we can maintain or expand our market position, our niche, and differentiate ourselves from others. When I entered the business, the newspapers were a lot more of the same than they are today.
The Chairman: How many reporters do you have?
Mr. Davis: I was afraid that somebody would ask me a question like that. I do not know the number offhand. The overall newsroom complement of the Winnipeg Free Press is 100 people. As you know, that is copy editors, deskers, clerks and all of the rest.
The Chairman: And your circulation is?
Mr. Davis: About 125,000 Sunday to Friday, and 175,000 on Saturday.
Senator Munson: We heard in Vancouver about profit margins, and I do not know if it is right or wrong, but this is from journalists who are now quite independent, not working for newspapers. They talked about how at one time, 8 per cent to 15 per cent was an acceptable profit for a newspaper owner, but now 30-per-cent profit is the required norm. I do not know if those figures are correct or not, but are profits being made at the expense of good journalism?
Mr. Davis: Well, senator, I suppose one could say that in a perfect world, if we could find investors and owners who would be happy with no profit, then more money could be invested in journalism; or if we could find investors or owners who would be happy with half the profit that they have now, we could have more money invested in journalism.
I saw some of the testimony that referred to the good old mother Southam days, when trying to get to a 15-per-cent return was a target. There were other newspapers in the country then that were making significantly more than that. As I said, our company is publicly traded. We report our results every quarter. While it is not just the Winnipeg Free Press, because there is the Brandon Sun and now since some months back the weekly newspapers as well, 90 per cent of those results are the Winnipeg Free Press. People can figure it out. Our return is not at 30 per cent; it is not at 15.
I am no financier, but one of the things that I think has happened as we have watched newspapers being swapped around rather actively in the last five to ten years is that prices get paid on a certain multiple calculated on the returns, and presumably the purchasers are hoping or intending to do whatever they think is reasonable to increase those returns. For some, the temptation is always there to try to, as it is said, cut their way to profitability. I think it is appropriate business practice to look for ways to reduce expenses without compromising your market position.
In my case, I have been quite clear since I got this job 18 months ago that the one department in which I am certain I have no interest in reducing our expenditures is the newsroom. It is not the most over-resourced newsroom in the country. Compared to those that the senator and I are used to, it is a somewhat smaller newsroom.
If I could find ways to reduce expenses or increase revenues significantly in other areas, I would be up on my hind legs in front of the board, arguing that now we have an opportunity to invest more in content.
To be fair, one of the first things the new owners who acquired the paper prior to me working there did was to invest significantly in content, about a million dollars' worth a year of news hole, which as the senator knows, you need to have before it is worth bothering to have the journalists do their thing, and some additional newsroom resources beyond that, so not all newsrooms are being cut. I believe that in at least some of the Osprey papers, reinvestments were undertaken; I believe in some of the Transcontinental papers reinvestments were undertaken.
Newspaper owners are business people and they want their return in most cases, but they are also very mindful that one of the reasons that the papers command a high price is that, by and large, at least the dominant newspaper in a market has a wonderful market position. I do not think very many owners put that at risk. It is a valuable thing.
Senator Munson: Just an observation; nobody gets paid enough, I suppose, but I am always startled by how much print reporters have been paid over the last 30, 40 years in comparison to people in television. It seems it is changing now.
Mr. Davis: By and large, it is. In the major leagues of newspapering and the major leagues of journalism, it is a pretty good field to go into; it is well compensated. You get to have a lot of fun and lead a pretty good life.
You heard testimony — I read some of it — about an allegedly sorry state of affairs, of low morale and benighted mid-level editors with people looking over their shoulders. Interestingly enough, our editor-in-chief resigned in December after about eight years of fine service and we are recruiting a new editor. There has not been a stampede of beleaguered journalists from other places wanting to come to Winnipeg and be my editor. As I said this morning, maybe they prefer newsroom chill to winter chill. I do not know what the factors are. However, if it was as bad as some witnesses have told you, I would expect to see more qualified people seeking the opportunity to become the editor of a major Canadian newspaper. If they are not, I have to conclude they must be reasonably happy where they are.
The Chairman: I said I had a thumb-sucking question, but it is a serious one. It has to do with competition law. As things now stand, the competition authorities examining mergers and acquisitions in the news business essentially examine the effect on the advertising market.
Mr. Davis: Yes.
The Chairman: There are obviously good reasons for saying that no such authority should be coming within a country mile of looking at news, at content. On the other hand, there are arguments that it is almost artificial not to take account in some way of the potential effect of one acquisition or another on the news business. Let me cite a non- Canadian example, the situation of Mr. Berlusconi in Italy. In theory, our competition laws would not give a snap of their fingers at the notion —
Mr. Davis: I know what you are planning to say.
The Chairman: — that the Prime Minister of the country indeed could have that degree of control over news and information supplied to the population. Have you given any thought to this?
Mr. Davis: Yes.
The Chairman: What are your conclusions?
Mr. Davis: I have given a great deal of thought to it, and my conclusions are just as you alluded to, that the regulators ought not to be trying to form opinions on the quality, quantity and relative merit of the content of newspapers. Even more so, they should not be trying to anticipate what will happen to it in the future, because inevitably that becomes the regulator determining that this kind of content is good, that kind of content is not, and we ought not to go there.
Looking solely at the effects on the advertising market is not perfect, but it is not grossly imperfect either, because as I referred to and as you have heard from others, whether people like it or not, in fact advertising effectively subsidizes the content. In our company we get about 75 per cent of our revenues from advertising. The price that the reader pays, as you know, barely covers the cost of the newsprint and distribution. Therefore, one can conclude from that that a diminishment of advertising can lead to the diminishment of the resources available for journalism.
When I was drafting my remarks, I was toying with the notion of suggesting that the best thing that the Government of Canada can do to equip the newspapers to produce better content would be to move their advertising spin back to newspapers and away from where it is now, but I thought that would look venal, so I took it out.
The Chairman: Self-interested.
Mr. Davis: Do you think it would have?
It is interesting to note that the government and the political parties concentrate their spending otherwise than in newspapers. I agree with what is implied in your question, that the current mandate of the Competition Bureau is potentially not as full as it might be, but I feel far more strongly that to even tiptoe into the notion that competition regulators should pass judgment on whether content is appropriate is fraught with danger. I do not want to sound like a staunch right winger or a libertarian, but I am very cautious, and dubious, about the effects of regulatory authority on journalism and newspaper content. The potential for it to be abused is immense. I suppose this might be a tired analogy; I was driving to work this morning and one of the stories that I heard on the radio news was about the Edmonton police being under investigation because allegedly, they deliberately targeted a newspaper columnist whose writing they did not like in an impaired-driving sting for the purposes of intimidation. We have a very free media and a very free society, but anybody who thinks that authority would not be used abusively against journalists is naive. It happens. It happens now, whether through that kind of action or threats of lawsuits. I have had threats from government departments and bureaucrats to withdraw advertising, so I do not see value in giving them more sticks to wave at us.
The Chairman: I am not sure that is what I was talking about, but it was an eloquent response.
Mr. Davis: I am not sure it was either.
The Chairman: I was not actually talking about the regulation of content. I was more interested in whether there was a way to address the question of source as distinct from actual content. I asked the question because I do not know.
Mr. Davis: I may not have answered your question because there is some uncertainty in it. What I am trying to say is that given all of that uncertainty, I would be worried that attempts to find the right way could amount to at least a subtle form of regulation or influence, and I do not want to go there.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Davis, for a most interesting and instructive session. We are very grateful.
Mr. Davis: Thank you.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we are now pleased to welcome representatives of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, a network with programming by, for, and about Canada's Aboriginal peoples, which also runs good movies quite a lot of the time, as I can testify. Now, there are a lot of you here, so I will identify Mr. Jean LaRose, who is the Chief Executive Officer, and I will ask you, sir, if you would identify all of the people with you, because I am likely to get it wrong, given the faintness of the letters on your name tags.
Mr. Jean LaRose, Chief Executive Officer, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network: To my extreme right is Kent Brown, the Director of Human Resources at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network; next to him is Wayne McKenzie, who is Director of Operations; to my immediate left is Wilfred Blondé, CFO of APTN; Rita Deverell, Director of News and Current Affairs; and to my extreme left, Mr. Tim Kist, Director of Marketing.
I am Jean LaRose, Chief Executive Officer of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. I am a citizen of the Abenakis First Nation of Odanak, located in what is now called Quebec. I am joined today by members of our staff whom I have introduced and I will not go through that again.
We are delighted that this committee has elected to visit us here in Winnipeg, where the head office of our national Aboriginal network is located. It is one of the eight homes of the network across Canada. We hope to make a positive contribution to your important study of Canadian media.
Let me give you a quick overview of APTN and what we do.
APTN was licensed as a national network by the CRTC in 1989. APTN is distributed via satellite to cable and other broadcasting distribution undertakings across Canada, and to our network of over-the-air transmitters serving communities in the North. We are currently available in more than 10 million Canadian households and commercial establishments, either over the air in the North or as part of the basic level of service.
APTN represents the evolution of Aboriginal broadcasting over more than 25 years. I will not go over all of that history now, but I would like to point out that APTN is the successor to a northern television service that operated under the name Television Northern Canada, or TVNC. As the name suggests, TVNC's primary mandate was to produce programming by and about northern Aboriginal Peoples across the North.
The idea of forming APTN, a national Aboriginal television network, arose from the need and opportunity for a national network to expand the audience for the programming already being produced by northern Aboriginal broadcasters for TVNC, and also for southern Aboriginal peoples to participate in the broadcast system.
APTN's plan, as outlined in our original licence application to the CRTC in 1998, was to act as the first level of service for Canada's diverse Aboriginal peoples, similar to the role played by the CBC and Radio Canada when radio and television were first introduced. We described our mandate as one of public service: To service Aboriginal peoples throughout the country and to serve as a cultural bridge of understanding between Aboriginal people and non- Aboriginal communities.
We have made great strides in fulfilling this plan.
We have, over the past five years, put in place the infrastructure that is required to operate and sustain a national Aboriginal television network. This infrastructure includes tangible elements such as bricks and mortar, cameras and crews, and on- and off-the-air personnel, as well as intangible elements such as corporate policies and objectives, know how, and the will and confidence to succeed, as well as a unified sense of mission.
We provide a broad range of programming from all programming genres to appeal to all ages, tastes and cultures, in Aboriginal languages, English and French. The first pie chart that we have circulated with the presentation that you have before you provides an indication of the diversity of programming available on APTN. The committee will see that long-form documentary, drama, comedy and educational programming represent the largest components of our schedule.
We source a large portion of our programming from outside producers, including the northern native broadcasting societies and independent Aboriginal producers. We are proud of the impetus that APTN has provided to the Aboriginal independent television production industry. It is not overstating the situation to say that without APTN, this industry would probably not exist at all, or that if it did, it would probably not be anywhere near the sizeable and dynamic entity that it is today.
In the area of news and current affairs programming, APTN's all Aboriginal news team now provides APTN National News, a half-hour newscast every weeknight in prime time, 52 weeks of the year; Contact, a popular, live one- hour open-line show on the issues of the day, audio streamed worldwide over the Internet; Death at Ipperwash, 90 minutes per week of the testimony at Ontario's Ipperwash inquiry; specials on matters of current concern such as residential schools and elections; and a news website with daily headlines and in-depth features.
Let us now turn to this committee's particular areas of interest. We wish to focus our comments on two questions on the committee's list, particularly as they relate to Aboriginal peoples. We would paraphrase these questions as follows: Do Canadian media provide Canadians with an appropriate amount and quality of information about Aboriginal peoples in Canada; and are Aboriginal peoples in Canada appropriately served by Canadian media?
Madam Chairperson, I think that the answer to these questions that a fair-minded person would reach, at least with respect to Canada's mainstream non-Aboriginal media, is no. Mainstream media do not provide Canadians with an appropriate amount and quality of information about Aboriginal peoples in Canada and, therefore, Aboriginal peoples are not well served.
At APTN we are more familiar with the experience of Aboriginal peoples within Canadian television than other forms of media, so we will look mainly at how Aboriginal peoples are represented on television.
In July 2004, the task force on cultural diversity, which is an independent body established by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, released a comprehensive report on the reflection and portrayal of cultural diversity on Canadian private television. The committee may already be familiar with this groundbreaking and comprehensive study.
Let me quote briefly from the report:
...perhaps the most problematic of all findings relates to the onscreen presence of Canada's Aboriginal peoples. In 10 of 11 programming genres studied across two languages, the presence of Aboriginal peoples is less than 1 percent of the total, or, less than one-third of the proportional presence of Aboriginal peoples in the total population.
Without the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Canada's Aboriginal peoples would have only negligible levels of presence within Canadian private television.
In fact, in the area of news programming, the report found that Aboriginal persons occupied less than one half of one per cent of speaking roles in English language news programming, and that Aboriginal persons occupied none of the speaking roles in French language news programs.
The findings in the area of ``other information'' programming were equally grim. Aboriginal persons occupied one half of one per cent of speaking roles in English language other information news programming. Again, Aboriginal persons occupied none of the speaking roles in the French language other information programming.
These samples do not include the Aboriginal persons appearing on APTN, since the task force wished to obtain a picture without reference to APTN. When APTN is included in the sample, the presence of Aboriginal persons did, of course, increase across almost all categories of programming. Still, even when including APTN's programming within the sample, the overall presence of Aboriginal persons in onscreen roles in French and English news programming does not approach the total proportionate representation of Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian population.
What do these findings mean for Aboriginal peoples in Canada? I think it is pretty clear that Aboriginal peoples do not expect to see themselves represented often on Canadian television, with the exception of APTN. When we do see ourselves, the expectation is that it will be in the context of crime reporting, conflict over the evolution of Aboriginal rights in Canada, or dated dramas featuring worn out stereotypes.
Focus groups conducted for the task force confirmed that Aboriginal peoples were most commonly identified as being severely under-represented on Canadian television. One participant in the study commented, ``I think that aliens are probably more represented on TV than Aboriginal peoples.''
Clearly, APTN has a critical role to play. We ensure that Aboriginal peoples are present on and participate in Canadian television. We contribute directly to the maintenance of diversity in the Canadian broadcasting system in a time of increased media concentration. In using the term ``diversity,'' we mean diversity in its many forms: diversity in point of view, diversity in ownership, diversity in regional representation, diversity in Aboriginal peoples, and most importantly, diversity in our mission.
I will give you just one concrete example of how APTN brings diversity to the Canadian broadcasting system. This committee is undoubtedly aware that there is a public inquiry currently under way in Forest, Ontario, investigating the shooting of Dudley George by an Ontario provincial police officer in 1995 at Ipperwash Provincial Park. The mandate of the inquiry is broad. It includes a full examination of the events surrounding the protest at Ipperwash and consideration of recommendations to avoid violent confrontation in the future. These are, we believe, important issues for all Canadians.
Yet, inquiry proceedings receive virtually no coverage in most Canadian media, with the exception of The Toronto Star. This state of affairs had led some of the participants in the inquiry to consider requesting that it be moved to Toronto, in the hope that at least some members of the larger Canadian media outlets would take a more active interest.
In comparison, APTN provides coverage of the Ipperwash inquiry as a regular part of our news programming and weekly 90-minute — repeated once — extended excerpts of the testimony, introduced by APTN's anchor and the Star's reporter, both of whom have followed the events from the beginning.
Perhaps this contrast in coverage is best summed up by one of the participants in one of our online discussion forums. In response to a question about why is it important that APTN National News cover topics such as the Ipperwash inquiry in depth, this participant stated, ``Why? Because no one else considers it a lead story; because no one else considers it a long-running story; and because no one else considers it an unfinished story.''
We believe that our approach to news and information programming is reaching a receptive audience. In fact, our weekly call-in show highlighting issues of direct interest to Aboriginal peoples is amongst our most popular programming.
Let me turn quickly now to one of the other questions that the committee has suggested we might address. What should the role of the CRTC be in the regulation and supervision of Canadian news media?
We strongly believe that the CRTC has an important and proactive role to play in protecting and advancing the presence of Aboriginal peoples within the Canadian broadcasting system. APTN relies fundamentally on the regulatory framework for Aboriginal broadcasting, and for APTN in particular, established by the CRTC.
The CRTC currently requires that every larger Canadian distribution undertaking, including all larger cable systems and the two national DTH satellite operators, distribute APTN as part of the basic service. This ensures that our service is widely available across Canada. It also provides a reliable revenue stream through the affiliation payments made by distributors to APTN. The level of these payments is regulated by the CRTC and is currently set at 15 cents per basic service subscriber per month.
Without these regulatory requirements, it is doubtful that many distributors would make space available on basic service for a national Aboriginal service, or if space were made available, that APTN would generate sufficient revenue to support our mandate. It can be seen, therefore, that APTN owes its very existence to the CRTC, and, it must be said, to the wisdom of Parliament in enacting the Broadcasting Act.
We believe the CRTC will continue to have a role to play in advancing Aboriginal broadcasting for the foreseeable future. We have recently filed with the CRTC a licence renewal application for our network. Our current licence expires at the end of August this year.
The terms of our renewal application are not yet public, but we can share with this committee some of our plans for the new licence term, particularly in the area of news and information programming. Our plans include up to four news breaks in the day, with a regional emphasis; a weekly one-hour, investigative, in-depth current affairs show; Aboriginal sporting events and youth coverage; increased town hall-style specials, where we go to the audience. In addition, we plan to enhance the regional programming on the northern and southern feeds to allow for a better reflection of the regional realities of Aboriginal peoples in those areas of the country. We are also planning for a separate eastern and western feed that would split the southern feed in two. This would allow for time shifting of our programming to make it consistent with our viewers' time zones and viewing habits, as well as some distinctive regional programming, again to reflect the regional realities of the East and West parts of Canada. APTN plans to move to high-definition television by the end of its next seven-year term, as well as increase programming in the priority programming areas such as drama, comedy, dance and variety, amongst others. These genres are basically non-existent in mainstream media and are in great demand within the Aboriginal community. There will also be an added emphasis on the use of Aboriginal languages in our programming, both as programming originally produced in Aboriginal languages and in versions of the programming in Aboriginal languages. To date, we have broadcast in 23 Aboriginal languages and hope to be able to expand that level of programming. The very existence of our languages is at stake, and APTN believes that it must do all it can to enhance, promote and support Aboriginal languages in Canada.
Implementing these plans will require the support of the CRTC. The existing regulatory framework must be maintained and, in some ways, enhanced. However, the CRTC faces considerable pressure, especially from commercial interests, to regulate less and to not interfere with market forces as they play themselves out in the broadcasting environment. It is imperative for the future of Aboriginal broadcasting that the CRTC preserve a prominent place for Aboriginal peoples within the broadcasting system, despite those pressures.
We believe, of course, that the approval of APTN's licence renewal application is the starting point, but we will need to make that case directly to the CRTC.
As to the terms of the Broadcasting Act that guide the CRTC, we urge this committee to support the recommendations of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage regarding northern and Aboriginal broadcasting as set out in the June 2003 report, ``Our Cultural Sovereignty.''
Among other recommendations, the committee recommended that section 3.(1)(o) of the Broadcasting Act be amended to state unequivocally that the Canadian broadcasting system should provide programming that reflects the Aboriginal cultures of Canada and that this requirement should not be qualified by the phrase ``as resources become available for the purpose.''
APTN believes strongly that Aboriginal cultures must have a prominent presence in the Canadian broadcasting system. Amending the Broadcasting Act as suggested would, we believe, require the federal regulator to ensure that Aboriginal peoples in Canada are full participants.
Let me end with a brief discussion of our sense of APTN's mission. APTN is guided by a mission statement adopted by our board of directors, and I quote:
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is sharing our peoples' journey, celebrating our cultures, inspiring our children and honouring the wisdom of our Elders.
Fundamentally, APTN perceives itself to be fulfilling a public mandate in the interests of Aboriginal peoples, certainly, but also for the common good of all Canadians. We believe our activities feed directly into the issues that this committee is examining regarding the need to preserve and enhance diversity in Canadian media.
Thank you. This ends our formal presentation. We have presented you with a copy of this documentation, along with other documents.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. LaRose.
Senator Tkachuk: How do you finance yourselves? Do you sell advertising?
Mr. LaRose: Yes. Most of our revenue is generated by the subscriber fee, the 15 cents per household, which currently brings in about $16 million in revenue, give or take. The rest is generated through sales of advertising airtime, which right now we are working to expand. We have set up a sales bureau in Toronto and are in the process of hiring account executives who will start expanding that avenue for us.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you part of basic television in most markets, or do you have to go to second tier?
Mr. LaRose: We are part of the basic, but Class 1 and 2, as well as DTH, direct-to-home satellite, services have to provide APTN as part of their basic service. It is an option for the Class 3s, which are the smaller markets. However, we have an agreement with the CCSA in that regard whereby we have been signing up many Class 3s on a voluntary basis to distribute our signal.
The biggest challenge we have with the main BDUs, the main cable distribution companies, is positioning of our signal. Unfortunately, many of them have chosen to put us into what is commonly referred to as the ``nosebleed'' section of the dial, and many Canadians do not even know we exist yet. That is the challenge that we are facing. When we are on channel 75 or 79, many people surf up the channels, hit the snowy area, and drop back down without realising there is more beyond the snow.
Senator Tkachuk: How do most of the reserves in Canada get cable television service? Is it through satellites or through co-ops, or how are they organized on the reserves?
Mr. LaRose: There is a mixture of ways. A lot get it through satellite, DTH, and some have small cable endeavours. Others, if they are close enough to urban centres, will receive it from a distributor in that area. Mr. McKenzie may have some other information on it.
Mr. Wayne McKenzie, Director of Operations, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network: That is pretty much it.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you have issues or problems with the CRTC on this? Can a reserve simply take the feed via satellite and distribute it as a co-op without getting a licence or anything, as some of the other communities used to do in Canada before the government imposed monopolies on them? How does a reserve, say in LaRonge, do that?
Mr. LaRose: This is the first time the question has been asked of me, and I have to admit I am not sure that I would be able to provide you with a complete answer. My sense is most of them. Some of our reserves are very small and do not have much capacity to in fact establish their own cable distribution system.
Senator Tkachuk: That is why they could just do it themselves. Would the CRTC let them, is the other question.
Mr. Tim Kist, Director of Marketing, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network: If I could just step in for a second?
The cost for them to get into a redistribution mode would probably be prohibitive. They would have to set up a headend, receive the signals and then redistribute it to all the community members, at which point they would have to look for a licence as a distribution undertaking. In my experience so far, no one has raised a problem, an issue or a concern that access to the services is not available. Mr. LaRose alluded to the satellite services, with the coverage ExpressVu and Star Choice provide to Canadians, and our service is readily available through the over-the-air transmitters in Northern Canada. All of the communities get access on basic service as well.
The fixed-wireless operators also carry us on the basic service, so that is Look in Ontario, Sky Cable here in Manitoba and Image in Saskatchewan, as do all of the new teleco services that have recently been licensed by the CRTC — Telus, SaskTel and MTS right now — and Bell recently got theirs through their DSL television service. We are on the basic service on those providers as well. There is wide distribution. As we mentioned in the report, it reaches over 10 million homes and commercial establishments.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you do surveys, or how do you determine how many viewers, both on reserve and off reserve, of Aboriginal descent are watching?
Mr. Kist: A couple of things on that one, senator.
We subscribe currently to BBM, a measurement service, because in the advertising industry, advertising planners and advertisers themselves look to the viewer numbers to drive the rates and where they want to make their media placements. Fair enough.
We have found working with BBM — and they have given us a letter stating this — that based on their sampling methods, because they do not go on reserve anywhere in rural Canada or up North, 50 per cent of our potential primary audience will not be captured by any of the rating services.
Secondly, because they do not sample on the basis of ethnicity in the urban centres and are not looking for that sort of diversity representation on any of their media panels, either the diary or the meter, and given that Aboriginal peoples tend not to participate in surveys historically, that is just what has happened. BBM has determined that we basically have no Aboriginal representation in any of the media numbers.
All of our media measurement data reflect a secondary, non-Aboriginal viewing audience. The great news is that audience is increasing dramatically, and even on the measured basis puts us into a really good company of services across Canada in terms of our average minute audit and our reach.
The challenge is we have so far only conducted qualitative research on reserves and north of 60, and we typically ask, do you watch APTN, how often do you watch it, et cetera. Between 92 per cent and 94 per cent of survey participants from all of the surveys we have done over the last few years indicated that they watch APTN, and over 24 per cent said they watch it as often as possible.
Now, I cannot make the extrapolation and say 24 per cent of a population of 1.4 million Aboriginal people across Canada equals 300,000 extra viewers. I would like to make it, and in reality, based on some of the answers to other qualitative questions, I firmly believe that those numbers will be huge.
We are working with two different media research companies to actually determine BBM-like measurements, so that we can say conclusively, ``Here is the size of our Aboriginal viewing audience.'' We know it is significant based on the qualitative data. Whenever we visit reserves or talk to viewers, we have a huge number of people. We have over 7,000 people in a sample size from across Canada who have indicated that they want to participate in research for us, and it is Aboriginal people who are very interested in and supportive of the network itself.
Senator Tkachuk: About how many reporters would you have in your newsroom?
Mr. LaRose: Twenty reporters.
Ms. Rita S. Deverell, Director of News and Current Affairs, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network: We are a network, with a total of eight bureaus across the country, so we operate much like CBC or CTV, but we do all of that with an editorial staff of 17 people, who are from Yellowknife in the North to Vancouver in the West and Halifax in the East. Winnipeg is network headquarters and is supported by a technical staff. That is another 20 or so people, so we run a full-service news operation with around 40 people.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you run sports programming too?
Ms. Deverell: A limited amount. We have done, for example, highlights of the Arctic Winter Games. We were the host broadcaster of the North American Indigenous Games when they were held in Winnipeg, and we likely will have considerable participation in the Canada Games in Whitehorse in 2007. It was announced just recently that we will be doing something on the Olympics in 2010. Sport is not the major part of our mandate, but we are not ignoring it, especially when there is an Aboriginal or northern emphasis.
Senator Munson: I notice in your pie chart here, news coverage at 2.79 per cent, and then reporting and actualities. Is that because you do not have a lot of money to spend on news coverage, so that you have to rely on drama and comedy to stay afloat?
Ms. Deverell: No. Yes, we need more money, but APTN is also a regular or ordinary television network. It has drama, it has information; it has all of the genres. I am relatively confident that in our next licence term, as Jean LaRose said, our news coverage and information programming, which is very popular, will increase if our resources increase. Although at the moment we are doing nightly broadcasts of APTN National News, that is, at 6:30 central and 7:30 eastern.
Senator Munson: Do you have a popular anchor like Peter Mansbridge or Lloyd Robertson yet?
Ms. Deverell: We have a very popular set of anchors — Rick Harp, Nola Wuttunee. We do have the world's only all-Aboriginal newsgathering team. It is quite an asset.
Senator Munson: Page 4 of your presentation, paragraph 2, states:
The mainstream Canadian media does not provide Canadians with appropriate amounts and quality of information about Aboriginal peoples in Canada and therefore, Aboriginal peoples are not well served.
How do you bridge this gap? How do you get the attention of mainstream media? I am talking about the more positive stories that happen in the Aboriginal community. I just do not know how you go about doing that. You cannot force newspapers to print stories. It is their choice. Are there mechanisms in place that you are working on to bridge that gap?
Mr. Kist: There are several initiatives that APTN is actively participating in to try to bridge that. We have established a strong working relationship with CTV whereby we share our news stories with them. On occasion, they will pick up some of our stories and air them on Newsnet. We are trying to broaden that to eventually have some of our reporters appear on some of their regular newscasts also. We are working with other broadcasters, such as OMNI, with whom we have developed a strong relationship that will eventually see exchanges amongst the news teams to try to bring our perspective to their newscasts, and vice versa — the perspective of new Canadians to Aboriginal peoples.
I think a lot of this has to also come from moving beyond the discussion on diversity to actual action. One of the challenges that we often face at APTN is we will be approached by other broadcasters who want to strike partnerships with us, or offer us, as part of their renewal or acquisitions or what have you, if they are buying out another network, training and mentoring for Aboriginal youth. That in itself is very commendable. The problem that we face is trying to get them to move beyond the training and mentoring stage and actually hire some of these youth. Some of our youth have had opportunities for training and mentoring that I would suspect in other cases would have led to a job, but in their case led to still more training and mentoring. I think that part of that impetus has to come from within the industry, so we are trying to push the Canadian Association of Broadcasters to provide more opportunities and to work with broadcasters to open up opportunities to Aboriginal peoples. However, there may also be a need for more direct pressure for them to actually move beyond what I can only refer to as tokenism to actual and tangible results, which we are not seeing.
When you look at the entire number of people that the CBC hires for onscreen positions, whether it be for news reporting or as anchors for Newsworld or other activities, you have Carla Robinson and you used to have Carol Adams, whom we do not see very much any more; those were the two faces. As far as I know, that is it. Those are the CBC's two on-air camera personalities, working as reporters, but not as anchors. Those are the Aboriginal faces in a network of — I do not even how many people they hire — zillions. For a broadcaster that claims to be representative of all Canadians and inclusive of Aboriginal peoples, I think that is a pretty sad state of affairs. The CBC has to be taken to task for that, because obviously, they are not fulfilling their mandate as they claim they are.
Senator Munson: I would think the same thing must be said for the two private broadcasters, CTV and Global.
Mr. LaRose: I think you are right. It applies throughout the industry. These numbers show that when it comes to Quebec, whereas some of the others have a one-half of one per cent presence, there is none, in French language there is none, and that is not limited to Quebec. It is French language services, which means also parts of Ontario and elsewhere; there are no Aboriginal peoples on air. That is a source of worry in an industry that claims to be working to correct that situation. That they cannot find anybody after years of training and mentoring begs the question, why?
Senator Tkachuk: When you do your exchanges with CTV, do they run your reporter on the newscast?
Ms. Deverell: Mr. LaRose mentioned our significant partnership with CTV, on news specifically. This came about through a benefit from BCE. It has been a really creative working partnership that has assisted us in the establishment of our bureaus across the country. Many of them, although not all, are located in CTV facilities, which means that we have access to their editorial strength and to all domestic stock footage and visuals. Likewise, they have access to our stories.
Just to give a concrete example that is occurring right now in Winnipeg, CKY Winnipeg runs an APTN-branded story every weekend. We are now cooperating on the tragic events of this week, the shooting of a young Aboriginal man. Our newsrooms are in constant touch with each other on how we are covering this story.
Our distribution system for our material across bureaus is through the CTV system, and we participate weekly in their network editorial meetings. In many ways, what is significant about this partnership is not so much how many Aboriginal faces are on CTV as the diversity of points of view being brought to bear in their editorial discussions. I have to speak very positively about this relationship.
Senator Tkachuk: There is a local station in Saskatoon, CFQC, which is an affiliate. Do they pick up material directly from you on their local news, not necessarily their national news?
Ms. Deverell: Yes, reporter appearances happen at the local level; it does not happen at the national level, although swapping of visuals or editorial points of view does. In Saskatoon our video journalist's office is located at CFQC, and so they frequently run our stories. We frequently go out on common shoots. Also really importantly, as I say, there is a different editorial discussion. There is diversity of points of view in the newsroom, which is crucial. They also run many of our stories on a show that they produce called Indigenous Circle. In fact, they picked up one of those stories just yesterday.
Senator Munson: Will it hurt you at CBC to have this contractual relationship with CTV on a national level, so that they may not want to participate as much? Not that I have anything against CTV.
Ms. Deverell: I do not think it should. In one sense, I am tempted to say that CTV paid for this and therefore deserves to benefit. It has put its money behind this cooperative partnership with APTN.
On the other hand, we are quite open to exchanging with CBC and would welcome solid, concrete approaches. The most concrete that we have had was a three-way production on residential schools — this was some years back — between Newsworld, APTN and Vision TV. We all participated in that project. We have not had much more than that one example.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you unionized?
Ms. Deverell: Yes, APTN news and operations people are members of the same union as CBC employees.
Senator Chaput: I am just trying to understand why, as it says on page 5 here, there is such a negligible level of presence within Canadian private television. According to what I have been hearing, your people are qualified, they have gone to schools of journalism and they have made the appropriate studies. We heard the day before yesterday from the schools of journalism that they would like to see more Aboriginal people applying, but if I remember correctly, one of those schools only had the one. I am just trying to understand the reasons behind this. That is my first question. My second has to do with your schools. Do you promote this career in grades 9 to 12, and do you already offer courses to the students in writing or whatever, so that they are ready to pursue that career if they want to? I am just trying to see where the problem is.
Mr. LaRose: I do not think there is a ready answer to that. One interesting dynamic facing Aboriginal peoples when it comes to schools is those students on reserve are the responsibility of the federal government. While they are supposed to have equivalency with provincial standards, it would appear from recent studies that is not the case, as even the Auditor General has highlighted. Therefore, obviously for many of them the opportunities to obtain the schooling that they should are not necessarily there.
Those who live in the urban centres obviously get a provincial-level education, and there are many technical and other post-secondary institutes offering broadcasting or journalism courses, what have you. There is the First Nations Technical Institute, located at Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario. There is also the Capilano College in Vancouver, British Columbia. There are opportunities out there. Our director of human resources tours high schools regularly, and even primary schools, to speak about opportunities in broadcasting and be a role model so that students see there are opportunities in this field. We also take in youth for some on-the-job training, if I can use the term, to give them exposure to the broadcast field, a taste for it.
Other initiatives are being developed through a partnership of broadcasters, an alliance of broadcasting entities across Canada, to try to expose our youth to more opportunities with other networks. The Weather Network is very involved in this, as is Alliance Atlantis. There is a series of broadcasters that are part of that and can elaborate on it a little. However, part of it too is we have to help our youth move forward and reach beyond the high school level, which is often a challenge. The dropout rate for Aboriginal people on reserve is very high. I think it is 70 per cent. Many of them just do not see a future beyond what they are exposed to right there. We do not have studios on reserve, or they do not have any visible opportunities, so we have to go to them and present those opportunities.
We have participated in events such as the forum, Blueprint for the Future, which the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation organizes across the country to bring in our youth from remote communities and expose them to a wide array of opportunities, not only in broadcasting, but in every other field. Yesterday, in a meeting with our bank manager, he mentioned that for the last couple of years he has been encouraged to see a trend toward Aboriginal youth going into commerce and banking, which are not usually areas they choose.
You have to keep in mind that on reserve, the opportunities are either in social work and a little economic development, or in serving as chief or on council. The role models most youth will see on reserve are teachers, social services individuals, whether it be welfare or whatever, and the chief and council. Those are the types of positions that they are exposed to on reserve, so for them to seek something beyond that requires bringing an outside influence into their lives. Not only are we trying to develop the network, but we also, as we mentioned, consider ourselves to be a public service. We have to reach out to our people and open the world to them.
I would say that in the past few years we have made many strides in that area, and with the partnerships that we are trying to strike with other broadcasters, because we are really talking about the broadcasting field here. We want to bring some of them along to work with us, to hopefully go beyond, as I said, strictly mentoring and training, and give the youth tangible opportunities for employment.
The Chairman: As usual, our time is running short, but there were three areas that I wanted to ask you about. I will try to be concise and ask you to do the same.
First, who owns APTN?
Mr. LaRose: Aboriginal peoples own APTN.
The Chairman: What is the mechanism?
Mr. LaRose: We are a not-for-profit charitable organization. Our board is composed of 21 individuals from across the country, 19 of whom are Aboriginal people, who represent the diversity of First Nations, Innu and Metis and guide the network.
The Chairman: Second, on the benefit from BCE, could you briefly describe the mechanism that brought that about?
Ms. Deverell: As you know, when the CRTC approves an acquisition or merger, the entity benefiting from it has to devote a portion of their profits to a social/political good. For example, the Alliance Atlantis Banff Television Executive Program came out of the merger of Alliance Atlantis, and in this case, part of the benefit package APTN received from BCE was used to establish a national Aboriginal newsgathering service.
The Chairman: Lastly, we had a very interesting session yesterday in Regina with Connie Dieter, as you probably know, and she spoke very highly of APTN. She also said that APTN cannot do everything. She said there was a need for radio, which can be by its very nature more local and reach deeper into local communities and situations. Have you given any thought to getting into the radio business?
Mr. LaRose: As a network, no, for two reasons. There are already, through the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program, 14 entities in Aboriginal radio. They are located across the country. Some key ones, incidentally, are, here in Manitoba, NCI, Native Communications Inc; MBC in Saskatchewan; AMMSA in Alberta; NNB in Terrace, B.C.; and NNBY in Yukon. These are Aboriginal radio entities that broadcast over a fairly wide territory. NCI now covers almost all of Manitoba, and the parts that they do not will have a transmitter within a few years. MBC has moved into Saskatoon and will be moving into Regina over the next year or two, so they will be covering all of Saskatchewan. AMMSA covers pretty well all of Alberta.
There is talk of a national Aboriginal radio network. How that will come about remains to be seen. There are two approaches to it. One is to create a new entity out of Aboriginal Voices Radio, which is currently a small outlet in Toronto that has obtained licences across the country. The other is to look at the current range of 14 entities, and they are developing, as we speak, a national group that will take their various regional feeds into what they call a wraparound radio service. They will broadcast that feed to each other so they can use each other's programming to fill their overnight dead time or what have you; but also as the basis to launch a national radio network that would be in Aboriginal languages part of the day, in English and/or French the rest of the day, and provide radio programming that is representative of the variety of voices across the country.
What has to be remembered is that there is no such thing as Aboriginal peoples per se; what we have are First Nations. We have Innu, we have Metis. ``Aboriginal peoples'' was a term used by Parliament in the 1970s and 1980s as they were seeking to define our place in the constitutional and other contexts, and to enshrine our rights within the Constitution. However, within our individual entities, we are very different. First Nations from the East Coast are as different from those on the West Coast as Quebecers may be from people living in Calgary. They each have their own sense of region, their own sense of identity.
We have to keep that in mind as we seek to develop this network, and that APTN is trying, as you alluded to, to be everything to everybody. That is a very difficult mandate to fulfill. We think we are doing pretty well. Obviously, when we go out there, some people say, ``Well, you are doing okay, but we would like you to do more here or do more there; there are not enough of us here and we do not hear our language as often as we would want to.'' That is what we are trying to balance. Bringing in a national radio service would help that, because it would also bring another voice that is, as you say, more local, more regional, that could bring that balance to it, and that would, to a great extent, support what APTN is doing and could provide the newsgathering field with new avenues of exchanges. We could provide them with news stories and they could provide more regional, local news stories, and I think there is a synergy that could be developed there. That is something that, as it evolves, we will be working with them to expand.
The Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. It has been a most interesting and instructive session and we are very grateful to you. I apologize again for having kept you waiting, but that is the problem when you have a long list of interesting witnesses. However, you did hang in there and we do appreciate it.
Senators, we have some members of the public who have signed up to speak with us.
Mr. Anderson, welcome to the committee. I think it has been explained to you that you get about four minutes to tell us what you want us to hear, and then we take a few minutes to ask you questions.
Mr. Kristjan Anderson, as an individual: I am here as a Canadian today, an observer of our print media, as well as television coverage and so forth. Time did not allow me to prepare any written documents for you. I would have loved to have been able to do that. I have appeared once before a Senate committee, on the Fix It for Kids, I think it was. I am not sure. However, I noted today's topic in the Winnipeg Sun, and I thought I would briefly put in my two cents' worth here.
The scope of our radio, print and video media coverage is awe inspiring in today's world. My concern, which I have chosen to slightly expand on, is the sensitivity in regards to media coverage and, sometimes, certain areas where there is complete absence of coverage.
I am a single parent with a 14-year-old daughter and I am a male, so I am a rare breed indeed. I understand there are not many of us raising our own children. It is more common today, but still it is a task that most fathers choose not to do; I do. I am trying to teach my daughter right from wrong, but the task is quite daunting at times. Just what is right or wrong, or what is fact or fiction, as far as the print media are concerned or what is on television? Make no mistake, the media are very powerful. Given the principles and beliefs of the powerful few who own and run the media conglomerates, there is a message being sent out there, and sometimes it is focused in such a way that it becomes distorted. For example, I will just point out that in the Winnipeg Free Press, we have a 10 most-wanted list. That started some time back. I do not think that people realize the implications of a person's picture being shown in the paper and the possible repercussions at a later date. I myself have not had my picture in that paper, but I think for those who do, it is totally negative, even for sex offenders, what have you. The process of rehabilitation is very important — I am not saying you should let people go scott-free — but the media keep on tracking people.
The Chairman: We are running out of time for your statement.
Mr. Anderson: I will be brief here. There are certain acts of sloppy journalism. I will end with this: A couple of days ago, there was a young Aboriginal man shot in the north end of Winnipeg. Just as Joe Public, I understood that that young man had come after the police officer with a knife. I found out two days later that he came after him with a screwdriver — quite a difference. Although one can use it as weapon too, but —
The Chairman: I should explain to you that we try not to get into the details of specific judicial matters before a committee like this. It is quite important to respect the process as it goes forward. I think you are just talking about how, in general, reporting may not be as accurate at first as it should be. Is that the general point that you are making?
Mr. Anderson: That is right. I think the press and media need to get their facts straight and put more effort into it, as opposed to just printing something for the sake of getting it out.
Senator Chaput: When that kind of reporting occurs, do you lodge a complaint with the press council?
Mr. Anderson: No, it is just something that bothered me. It is an observation of mine that I am just using as an example now. I think it was a serious mistake to feed that type of information to the public. They have to be very concise and precise about what information they are giving out. I suppose that is partly the CRTC's job, but this is your hearing today and I just thought I would bring that to your attention, amongst other things. Thank you.
The Chairman: When you see a news item that you believe to be in some way flawed, whether in terms of accuracy or, perhaps, in terms of being incomplete or biased, do you have the sense that you can go to the news outlet concerned and get a hearing for your concerns?
Mr. Anderson: Not necessarily, no. That is a long-drawn-out process sometimes. I have caught stories that I considered inaccurate at times, I have asked for information, written a letter to the editor, and there has been no reply. I do not do this on an ongoing basis; it is a rarity. However, the media are very powerful and they choose to reply or not. It is our job as Canadians to make sure they get the message out to us correctly.
I have a child that I am trying to raise, to show her what is right and what is wrong. There are conflicting views. There is television, there is the radio, there is the paper, and as a responsible parent I have to guide that child into adulthood and hope that she does well.
The Chairman: You make a number of profound points. We thank you very much for coming to us, Mr. Anderson.
I would now ask Ms. Lesley Hughes to come forward.
Welcome to the committee, Ms. Hughes. I think you probably heard what I said to Mr. Anderson — you get four minutes and we get to ask a couple of questions.
Ms. Lesley Hughes, as an individual: I will try to stick to four minutes.
The Chairman: I will cut you off if you do not.
Ms. Hughes: I should tell you that I have been waiting to talk to you since 2001.
The Chairman: This is the first day we have been in Winnipeg.
Ms. Hughes: Yes, I know, but nevertheless I have been waiting since 2001, when this committee was first announced, and I was very excited to hear that this action was being taken.
I am actually a writer/broadcaster and based in Winnipeg; I teach media courses at the University of Winnipeg. I am a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists and a media critic for Canadian Dimension magazine, just by way of introduction, since I certainly know who you are.
I am appearing today because I am deeply concerned about the impact of consolidation and convergence, particularly in concert, and the resulting monoculture that many people feel has been emerging in the last decade. As Bill Moyers has said, the tendency seems to be, the bigger the media, the smaller the journalism.
I just have one small personal example, insignificant as far as many people are concerned. It is contained in the press release that I have submitted to you. It tells a story really, and I will just read a couple of paragraphs from that. This is from June 2002, the Sun Media corporation. It says:
Sun Media settles with former columnist. The Sun Media Corporation has paid $1,000 in general damages to a columnist dismissed by the Winnipeg Sun in September of 1999. The damages settle a complaint of perceived political discrimination brought before the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.
By me.
The settlement is believed to be the first of its kind between a newspaper and a writer in Canada. According to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, this case set a precedent, in that it was the first time that a publisher had been held accountable for political bias.
Now, it seemed to me that that was a very important case for journalists. At the time, because the Russell Mills debacle was in full-blown appearance in the Canadian media, a publicist sent out a press release, the one that you have before you, to 88 Canadian media outlets, the best and the least in the country, and there was not one response, which was a big shock to me. I was so sure that we had made a mistake that I asked the publicist to release this news again, and she did. Again, there was no response except for one. The Winnipeg Free Press this time replied apologetically that they could not carry this story because they did not want to be seen as criticizing the Winnipeg Sun, which was a historical event, in my experience.
What I am trying to say here is that although this is a personal grievance, it is not difficult, as I am sure you know from your hearings, to compile a list of stories or opinions that are not acceptable to the publishing class in Canada. NFU is the code for that, as in, not for us. I am sure you have heard that before.
I wanted to appear before you as one of those people in the profession of journalism whose personal experience has led her to support the idea of a Canadian national newspaper, which I hope might counterbalance the growing corporate power, and particularly the power to interfere with the reporting of Canadian events.
With that, because I know you are waiting for lunch, I would be happy to answer any questions.
The Chairman: You are right on the button.
Senator Tkachuk: What did you write? I do not have your explanation; I only have the press release. What exactly was going on here? The Sun newspaper had, from what I gather, some kind of campaign against Cuba. What did you do that caused —
Ms. Hughes: I was a columnist for the paper at the time, and I wrote a column in response to my newspaper's attitude in which I said I felt this was an abuse of media power. In fact, the games came very close to collapsing, according to reports that I have from organizers and volunteers, because the athletes were so split over this issue, and the Cubans very nearly went home, which would have been disastrous for the people of Manitoba, who put on a model of an international sports competition.
The Sun published that column, and then three weeks later they fired me. In an off-guard conversation with one of the editors, it was disclosed to me that this certainly was the reason that I had been let go. However, that is not the issue here. To me it is a testimony to the power of the self-censorship of the media, that although this was a blow for journalists, it was not reported to the journalists. You are now among the dozens of people in Canada who know this story, even though the taxpayer paid for the human rights process, which took two years and was a very difficult campaign to wage. We were told that it simply could not be won, which is why it was significant.
The final thing that I want to say is that I felt that if publishers knew they might be liable and have to pay a fine for firing somebody who had a different point of view, they might think twice about it. Obviously, nobody has thought about it since it happened. It appears not to have happened at all.
The Chairman: I suspect that a lot of publishers would fight all the way to the Supreme Court for the right of people to express whatever views they thought appropriate. Whether or not they would, that is a hypothesis. I do not know and you do not really know the answer to it.
However, without getting into judicial processes, which is a horrible experience for anybody, do you think that the media cover themselves even halfway adequately? Now I am not talking about corporate issues. The business pages carry news of mergers and acquisitions, personnel changes, profits and losses and all of that, but do you think it would be helpful if the media actually covered themselves, in terms of the journalistic developments, what is going on there, for the general public?
Ms. Hughes: It seems to be out of fashion. I know that Barry Zwicker once was a media critic for the CBC radio network, and a very effective one. We have Antonia Zerbisias, who works out of Toronto, and calls herself the only media critic in the country; and of course, I beg to differ, working here in Winnipeg. However, I think certainly it would be a huge benefit if there were more of it.
Just by way of example, I think that the problems of consolidation may be coming to Manitoba, and most citizens of Manitoba are not aware of this, in that the owners of the Winnipeg Free Press have purchased the Brandon Sun and the Winnipeg community newspapers, which were published independently for something like 75 years. We heard this morning that they are providing content to Shaw cable. I believe there is also a content-sharing agreement in operation with the National Post. I cannot give you the details of any of these things because I have not seen the documents, but I can tell you that my suspicions put me a little further ahead than the average citizen in the province.
The Chairman: Ms. Hughes, thank you very much indeed. You have been perfect with your timing and we appreciate it. We are grateful to you for hanging in this long. As I said a few minutes ago, when you have a long series of interesting witnesses, you tend to run over your time.
Ms. Hughes: It was a privilege to speak to you.
The Chairman: Senators, this concludes our session in Winnipeg, and thus our trip to the Western provinces. Before I adjourn the meeting formally, I know that you will join me in thanking all of the people who have done so much to make this very intense week such a success. We cannot do our work without an incredibly professional level of support, from the clerk through to interpreters and staff support of all kinds. It has been a remarkable experience to see how well they have kept this traveling road show on track.
Senator Tkachuk: I would like to do the same. I would like, from our side, to thank the staff, the clerk's office and the interpreters for the great job that they have done. Actually, and I have been on a lot of them, this has been probably the best organized week that I have had the privilege of taking part in, so I much appreciate that.
Senator Munson: I will make that unanimous.
The committee adjourned.