Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 12 - Evidence - Meeting of October 15, 2012
OTTAWA, Monday, October 15, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 5 p.m. to examine the use of the Internet, new media and social media and the respect for Canadians' language rights, as well as CBC/Radio-Canada's obligations under the Official Languages Act and some aspects of the Broadcasting Act.
Senator Maria Chaput (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, today we are resuming our public hearings in the context of our examination of CBC/Radio-Canada's obligations under the Official Languages Act and some aspects of the Broadcasting Act. The committee has already heard several witnesses in the course of our examination.
Let me introduce myself: I am Senator Maria Chaput from Manitoba, and I am the chair of this committee.
Before I introduce the witnesses who are appearing today, I would invite the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Mockler: Good afternoon. I am Senator Percy Mockler, from New Brunswick.
Senator Champagne: Good afternoon. I am Senator Andrée Champagne, from Quebec.
Senator Poirier: Good afternoon. I am Senator Rose-May Poirier, from New Brunswick.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Good afternoon. I am Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, from Quebec.
Senator McIntyre: Good afternoon. I am Senator Paul McIntyre, from New Brunswick.
Senator De Bané: Good afternoon. I am Senator Pierre De Bané, from Quebec.
Senator Charette-Poulin: Good afternoon. I am Senator Marie Poulin, from northern Ontario.
Senator Tardif: Good afternoon. I am Senator Claudette Tardif, from Alberta.
Senator Robichaud: Good afternoon. I am Fernand Robichaud, senator for Saint-Louis-de-Kent in New Brunswick.
The Chair: Thank you. I want to welcome all of you to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages. I also want to welcome Mr. Réjean Beaulieu, who is appearing before the committee today.
Mr. Beaulieu has been living in western Canada for more than 30 years. Between 2004 and 2009, he was the principal of the independent new media counterculture blog Le Canard réincarné. At that time, he submitted a brief to a parliamentary committee entitled The Role for a Public Broadcaster in the 21st Century in Minority Communities.
He agreed to appear today before the committee to resubmit that brief in light of this committee's study. Mr. Beaulieu remains well-known within the Canadian institutional francophonie as one of the rare dissident voices.
Thank you, sir, for having accepted our invitation to appear before the committee. You will have seven minutes to make your presentation. The senators will then follow with their questions.
Réjean Beaulieu, as an individual: Madam Chair, honourable members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear. It was a nice surprise, five years after having submitted my brief.
I have seven minutes to provide a brief overview of the previous brief, of an update since its publication, and some opening remarks concerning the recognition of the minority context as well as the relevance of new media. That is quite a tall order.
I will begin with the executive summary of the 2007 brief:
The public broadcaster will remain the main minority linguistic and cultural lifeline for a generation of "digital natives" and "digital migrants" who are completely bilingual and integrated into minority settings. However, the challenges to be met in a participatory Web 2.0 media culture are immense. The preliminary outcomes of the disengagement of francophones from their media in the absence of regulations for the new media services have accelerated cultural drift and assimilation. The public broadcaster must assume a large share of the responsibility for this flagrant lack of presence. I would therefore like to clarify the role for the public broadcaster in the 21st century.
Fundamental changes in attitude on the part of the regulatory body and the public broadcaster, including all employees — staff and management — will be required to meet the challenges of the Web 2.0 paradigm shift so as to daily re-engage minority francophones in the French language.
There must be full recognition of fundamentally different needs, and the broadcasting organization has to better reflect those needs in order to win back minority French-speakers. Web 2.0 enables new forms of grouping, which the public broadcaster should henceforth facilitate rather than obstruct.
Now I would like to quote a few points from the brief that are relevant to your study.
The generation of "digital natives" versus digital migrants is more mediatized than ever, more interconnected, and more in control of everything that happens. And let's not forget that these [. . .] media now involve participation, i.e. reading, speaking, writing, listening, and viewing! Yet today, the media serving the francophone minority are particularly ossified on the French side, unless you decide to go with the majority francophone media, i.e. Quebec and France, with which it is difficult to identify. Building or just maintaining a francophone identity in such an environment is almost impossible.
A genuinely shared "national consciousness and identity" will be possible only if minority and majority communities are better understood and recognized; the minority community is a well-stirred blend of English and French, which is generally very poorly understood thanks to an entrenched linguistic rectitude; this lack of representation serves to disengage blended francophones, who cannot identify.
The governance structure of CBC/Radio-Canada should duly recognize the linguistic minority situation and put an end to majority community control, including management by an exclusive majority community, i.e. staff, executives, ombudsman, regional panel, and the regulatory agency staff. Web 2.0 has increased the need for responsibility, transparency and citizen commitment, along with what is traditionally known in broadcasting circles as an "audience"; public broadcaster services for the minority communities are plainly overdue and should be part of an action plan to cure a dysfunctional governance structure.
These statements were written in 2007.
Minority content must be substantially improved if it is to reach the francophones that normally lose interest; Web statistics should be released and used as performance indicators to reach a hopefully "emergent" Web 2.0 market; the public broadcaster shares none of these data, and for no legitimate reason [. . .].
Minority audiences must be re-engaged and more regional programming and content should be decided jointly with this audience so as to re-engage minority communities and give them opportunities to contribute content; this way, a "leader" becomes a "moderator", with the primary function of putting information into context in order to engage the audience to actively participate in a blog-like undertaking; whereas "passive" participation leads to francophone disengagement and assimilation in minority settings.
There is still no minority setting blogger in 2012 on Radio-Canada's site.
The 2007 brief received no media coverage in 2007, neither from the public broadcaster nor within the related network. And yet, two Radio-Canada journalists in British Columbia were in attendance. A report that followed covered the contribution of another participant, an acting director general of the Vancouver Francophone Cultural Centre and his comments on the basic service provided by the cable distributor — which had nothing to do with the study.
Afterwards, I filed a complaint with the ombudsman regarding the fact that the media coverage was in conflict of interest with the public's right to be informed. The ombudsman disallowed my complaint, invoking the freedom of the press argument and the code of ethics followed by journalists.
The same argument was invoked five years later in 2012 regarding a complaint I filed this summer with the network's two ombudsmen concerning the pathetic coverage of Heritage Canada's pan-Canadian consultation on the Roadmap. Once again I referred to the public's right to be adequately informed concerning an exercise that is supposed to lead to financial commitments of over $1 billion over five years. Despite a similar complaint that was rejected five years earlier, after the previous consultation, once again we were faced with the absurd situation that a local tap- dancing festival generated more coverage than the consultation visits by James Moore in northern Ontario. The fact that the return of a squirrel monkey to the Moncton Zoo generated more coverage than the consultation hearings by a Conservative minister in the Maritimes is similarly absurd. The public affairs program of the excellent Mr. Désautels did not dare cover this pan-Canadian consultation, despite the fact that the topic of language is a hot one in Quebec. The CBC/Radio Canada network completely ignored that consultation.
Was it not in the public interest to know, among other things, that the first Roadmap, involving $1.1 billion, was never audited by the Auditor General, and to know also that Heritage Canada during the past year had undertaken some broad changes in the area of official languages, without even waiting for the results of this consultation? For instance, to my knowledge, they withdrew the funding for certain organizations for the governance of the Canada- Community Agreements.
There was some small progress in 2012: CBC/Radio-Canada's most recent ombudsman recognized the glitch, stating that the choice of coverage was a decision that falls strictly to CBC/ Radio-Canada management, all the members of which were directly copied in emails this time, the News Director, Alain Cormier, the CEO, Hubert Lacroix, as well as the chair of the board of directors. However, no one replied, thus giving implied consent to this absence of coverage; all of this under the eye of my MP Peter Julian, his colleague Yvon Godin, official languages critic, and Minister James Moore, as well as the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Following this, I filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages, arguing that my right to be informed on an important public affairs matter had been breached, in French and in English. This last complaint was deemed inadmissible because the act or omission of a federal institution "did not involve a contravention or failure to comply with the spirit and intent of the act" and intent of the legislator. This was not even signed by the commissioner, the highest official in the field, with an excellent salary, excellent benefits, and a pension; the highest official avoided the issue, thus also approving the farce. The commissioner also did not use his right to comment public affairs of importance and relevance to his field of activity. May I remind everyone that the Office of the Commissioner enjoys public financing of close to $25 million annually.
This last episode now leads me to the fundamental topic of the agents of the status quo, the spirit of the law and its implementation, the main addition to my brief. The rest of my intervention will be somewhat technical, concerning social media, and of lesser importance in light of the current obstacles — which have been there for a long time — whatever the scope of developments in the area of social media, or the number of CRTC studies or studies emanating from the Commissioner of Official Languages and parliamentary and Senate committees.
I am no lawmaker, but I do not believe in any way that the people who made our laws would allow these consultations on official languages to be so poorly covered by the public broadcaster, either on the French side or the English side. Moreover, the spirit of the law would not allow for the fundamental changes sweeping our media environment to bypass minority communities to such an extent.
I will cite a few recent improvements by the public broadcaster, but it is a case of too little, too late. Considerable damage has been inflicted and one day we will have to take stock of the situation. Vancouver, Canada's third-largest city, has been without any French-language community newspaper/media for more than a year, yet no one has complained. Meanwhile, there has been a proliferation of community newspapers and radio stations in other languages. No one has dared to ask publicly why such a ridiculous situation exists. I am asking you that question today.
I can end my brief at that point and I will use my notes to answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. I would just like to let you know that the senators have a copy of your brief before them. So they are able to read it or ask questions about it if they wish.
We now move to questions. Let us start with our first round.
If we give each senator about seven minutes for questions and answers, it should take us an hour. If we then want a second round, we could take 30 minutes more if you would like. The first question goes to Senator Fortin-Duplessis.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Beaulieu, I had the pleasure of shaking your hand earlier. Welcome to our committee. It is always a pleasure for us to have witnesses like you who know their areas so well. My questions to you will be quite short.
Can you tell us what you think of the role of television as a medium? Do you think that it has a future as a medium, or should we be investing elsewhere, in the Web, for example, or even in social media?
Mr. Beaulieu: I have to repeat Wayne Gretzky's hockey analogy. He said:
[English]
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
[Translation]
"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." In the recent Reimagine CBC initiative, Kai Nagata, a young francophile, made exactly the same case: we must stop investing so much in television, in visual productions. People no longer have the attention span to watch long audiovisual productions. We have to move on. There will always be a place for traditional media such as paper and television. But new energy and new investment must be directed to where the puck is going to be.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I would like to know your opinion about which legislative and regulatory measures are needed to improve the presence of French on the Internet outside Quebec and slow down or stop the assimilation of the next generations of francophones in minority situations.
Mr. Beaulieu: I am not sure that legislation is the way to go in 2012. Legislation is where the puck was. It will take leadership from people like Hubert Lacroix or Mr. Cormier, from people like the chairman of the board, who send out the messages. The Commissioner of Official Languages too: people like that. It will take leadership. I do not think that the answer lies in legislation. I actually think regulations will just make things worse.
The Chair: Mr. Beaulieu, in your brief, when you are talking about the relevance of new media, you say:
Majority situations have a poor understanding of the new need that minority situations have to come together.
That comes as no surprise, as we all know. But could we reverse course? What else could we do? Have you any thoughts for us about a solution?
Mr. Beaulieu: We have to renew people's commitment to democracy and their sense of French-ness. Outside Quebec, French speakers are being assimilated in every large urban area in Canada. That often happens because they are so thin on the ground. It is not easy to bring them together physically. At the moment, I feel that the first groupings are being increasingly done virtually, bringing them together two-by-two or in whole communities. Communities like that can establish a position in new spaces, in places where the puck is going to go. That is where we really have to aim. The public broadcaster has to facilitate that, not block it.
The Chair: At one point in your brief — you see, I had time to read it — you mentioned that young francophones in minority situations were becoming disengaged and that the new media were not necessarily helping to get them re- engaged. Can you tell us more about that? I find it to be a concern as well.
Mr. Beaulieu: Our young people are often the unfortunate reflection of the older ones. It does not help if older people do not provide the best example. I often hear about the weight we are putting on young people's shoulders. Living in 2012 gives our young people a lot of angst. I think that our generation has some work to do. Perhaps, in the past, people like me did not shoulder our responsibilities as francophones and I believe we have to do so now.
Senator Charette-Poulin: Thank you very much for being here, Mr. Beaulieu. I know that you came in from Vancouver just today. As I look at your commitment to the importance of a vibrant francophone presence all across the country, I admire you immensely, because I see your commitment is genuine, enduring and very real. It is very important for us to have you as a credible witness at our committee. Thank you for being here.
I would like to follow up on my colleague's question. You say that you do not see the importance of making changes to the legislation, the enabling legislation that provides the foundation for our public, publicly funded, broadcaster.
You say that what we need is leadership. If Mr. Lacroix, the president of CBC/Radio-Canada, called you tomorrow morning and said: "Mr. Beaulieu, I hear that you have a lot of ideas for making sure that new media, including Web 2.0, better reflect life for francophones all across the country", what would be your top three recommendations?
Mr. Beaulieu: I think I would ask all CBC/Radio-Canada administrators to set out on their own road to Damascus: to start blogging, to start becoming actively involved in social media, to stir up the interest of the audience, particularly outside Quebec, and to try and understand it.
Senator Charette-Poulin: Blogging personally, you mean?
Mr. Beaulieu: Yes, sure. To my knowledge, Hubert Lacroix has not blogged in the past, and he does not tweet. He should set an example.
Senator Charette-Poulin: So it is all about personal commitment.
Mr. Beaulieu: Absolutely. If people at that level do not get involved in things like this, people at lower levels will follow the same example. They will see that they do not have to get involved and they must continue with things as they are. I think that is the most basic thing. The example has to come from the top.
The Commissioner of Official Languages finally opened a Twitter account recently, just a couple of weeks ago. I have been pestering him about that for almost two years and he finally did it. Does he write the tweets himself? I do not know. I know that Graham Fraser produces big reports each year. I do not know if they are read, but I think that there would be more added value if his thoughts were more focused. For example, the fact that he has not commented about the official languages consultations recently is an awful situation, in my view.
Senator Charette-Poulin: Does that mean that your recommendation is for the current employees of Radio-Canada to become personally involved, as individuals? In Vancouver, for example, where there is a radio and television team; in Vancouver, there are maybe 50 people on the French side.
Mr. Beaulieu: I know that the Téléjournal has a long list of employees. If you visit their website, you see 50 people on the Téléjournal team.
Senator Charette-Poulin: And you would like to see those people blogging?
Mr. Beaulieu: The example must come from higher up: the head of the western region, the station director. Those are the people who have to participate in our democracy, who have to write letters, as citizens, not as spokespeople for an organization. We have the infrastructure, we have the organizations, but we do not have citizens. We have an empty shell. To fill it up, it will take people who take a stand, who say things to get people interested and mobilized, who show us that it is all real.
Senator Charette-Poulin: If a Radio-Canada employee blogged or tweeted about the need for a francophone presence, do you think that could cause a conflict of interest problem?
Mr. Beaulieu: Certainly there is the danger of editorial advertising. That is not new; we see it in the media already. They try to sell us an idea, something to buy, something to see, and so on. Our media are increasingly polluted, not just in minority situations.
All the media are limited and we have to start cleaning them up. The beauty of Web 2.0 is that, if you say something stupid, you are going to be corrected. People like that really have no desire to take risks and be called on them.
It is a lot easier to let young people get on with it. For example, an awful lot of young francophones are moving to western Canada. They see the way in which older people are working without investing in those technologies. So why should the newcomers do so? If I were in their shoes, I would do the same thing. But I am not in their shoes.
Senator Poirier: Mr. Beaulieu, thank you for being here this evening. In the last year, this Senate committee has recognized the importance of supporting online content in French, whether on the Internet, new media or in social media. In your opinion, are the broadcasters playing their part properly at the moment?
Mr. Beaulieu: I often say that it is putting the cart before the horse. By that I mean that, in order to produce television content, francophones have to become committed to their francophone identity, they have to be interested in it.
It is all very well to produce audiovisual content at the moment, but I am not sure about the extent to which it is consumed. There is also the fact that you do not see the number of clicks; we do not know how many people are looking at the content. At the moment, I think we have to get people in minority situations re-engaged with their francophone identity. That is the priority.
For me, public affairs are critical. So the fact that there is no interest in official languages consultations makes no sense to me at all.
Senator Poirier: Would you say that is the biggest challenge in using these new developing technologies?
Mr. Beaulieu: What use is there in producing stuff if people are not going to click on it?
Senator Poirier: What would be your recommendations for helping public broadcasters to meet their language obligations in the years to come?
Mr. Beaulieu: I am repeating myself, but we have to get the people re-engaged. Achieving that with francophones in a minority situation who have lived in English for 10, 20 or 30 years is not easy. It is not easy.
Senator Poirier: In your personal experience, how could CBC or SRC improve their services to francophones in British Columbia?
Mr. Beaulieu: I would like CBC to recognize that there is a francophone presence outside Quebec. People often blame Radio-Canada in Montreal, the Champlain Bridge and so on. But I am going to stand up for Radio-Canada, because it does cover the public affairs of anglophones in Quebec. It at least covers them, recognizes them. Maybe my neighbour's grass is always greener and that is what I am seeing. From Vancouver, I hear English voices from Quebec on Radio-Canada's French-language radio.
I was saying earlier that CBC has carried absolutely no coverage of the official languages consultations. But are those consultations just for francophones? Should anglophones not become involved? What is the problem?
If I were francophone and anglophone at the same time, it would mean that my English-speaking side would be completely non-existent. When I go on CBC, I want to be recognized, but I do not see myself there. My children are not recognized either. Unfortunately, there are a lot of francophones who do not speak French very well and who end up on CBC. Why can I not join them?
Senator De Bané: Let me just add a quick comment. When you talk about French Radio-Canada's sensitivity to the anglophone community in Quebec, I would just like to tell you that the committee spent several months studying the problem and the challenges faced by the anglophone community in Quebec.
After studying it here for several months, we went around Quebec meeting them. Neither CBC nor Radio-Canada covered it; not here, not in Quebec. At the end of your document, you suggest some questions to ask the CRTC during its hearings on renewing CBC/Radio-Canada's licences.
Mr. Beaulieu: Are you talking about the addendum, senator?
Senator De Bané: I am talking about the suggested questions. If I understand correctly, everything from the production, to the hosting and the research is the vision of a group of francophones in the majority situation that is Montreal. And the needs, the aspirations, the challenges and the problems of people everywhere they are in the minority are not considered. Is that it in broad terms?
Mr. Beaulieu: Yes, absolutely. I mentioned in my brief that most of the hosts on the English-language network in Montreal are native Montrealers and know the setting well. They are much more credible and can engage with their spectators where they are. Unfortunately, that is not the case in western Canada.
Senator De Bané: What strikes me is that these problems are well identified and come up regularly. The Acadian community has done very in-depth studies in this area to say to what extent French production does not take into account their community. As well — and this is the case throughout the country — they do not get the opportunity to see themselves and hear themselves on the national network. They have what is going on within the province, on what is going on at home, but they do not see themselves on the national network.
This is a known problem and no progress is being made. If you appear before the CRTC when they study all this, what would you suggest so that something is done in the end? I will give you an idea. The French-language and English-language radio and television service should be required to submit a detailed monthly report on program content, what the topics are, who was involved in making the programs. Until the broadcaster submits this information, it will be very difficult to make a determination.
We could not function without Statistics Canada. If the Bank of Canada did not have these econometrists, it could not work. Radio-Canada does not have detailed reports that show the percentage of news on the national network that comes from the Franco-Columbian community over three months. That is never reported.
In the questions that the CRTC is asking about renewal, they say they want the public's opinion. But how are we supposed to ensure that CBC/Radio-Canada is successfully fulfilling its role?
Mr. Beaulieu: In 2012, once again, the puck will go toward search engines and tagging. Hashtags need to be used. For example, I should be able to look at the hashtag frcb, used by Radio-Canada. It does not use it.
I should be able to see what that generated, the type of virality that can subsequently be observed, and so on. That is the type of solution that I am in favour of, rather than a somewhat old-fashioned solution. In the past, the CRTC would have considered a solution sort of like what you are suggesting. There would have been accountants, "monks", that would keep large binders and try to tabulate things.
I think that, in 2012, what we need instead is to make more use of the Web 2.0 tools available. Hashtagging, Twitter. The paradigm has fundamentally changed. The CRTC must work more with this new paradigm. I know that regulating it is a huge challenge. We should at least be pushing the public broadcaster in this direction.
Senator De Bané: Unfortunately, I am not as up to date as you are on these new monitoring methods, but I know that if there were a document telling us that, last year, in 365 days, we saw activity from the Franco-Columbian community for two minutes, I would understand that. If there are more modern methods of collecting that information, all the better. Currently, we do not get it. The CBC/Radio-Canada annual report contains no statistics in that regard.
Mr. Beaulieu: I fully agree with you. The pre-Web 2.0 statistics, the 2.0 statistics. Perhaps the question to be asked here is this: should we commit to producing new statistics in a 2.0 world, or should we invest in the previous environment? You know my answer on that.
Senator Champagne: Good evening, Mr. Beaulieu. Thank you for doing us the honour of sharing what you have studied for so many years.
In your 2007 report, you talked about the important role of the public broadcaster to ensure the linguistic survival and also the cultural survival of the minority communities, and elsewhere in Canada, too. That is probably what makes me the most angry about CBC/Radio-Canada. The cultural side is disappearing as well. You just spoke about the excellent Desautels. If you listen to his program until the end — you need to listen to the credits — you will find out that there are 14 people involved in the program: webmaster, assistant-webmaster, researcher, assistant-researcher, assistants of assistants and everything is for the Web.
Mr. Beaulieu: I understand.
Senator Champagne: I listened to Radio-Canada for almost four hours this morning in my car. I did not hear a single artist. Listeners were asked to respond on their website about this or that, but there was not a single artist. Not long ago, I would say 10 years ago, in the Montreal studios of Radio-Canada and CBC, there were eight programs a week on the network that showcased our artists across Canada in all communities, minority and majority. Our artists had the opportunity to get known and because they had done this Radio-Canada or CBC show, they could get a concert in Regina, Edmonton or elsewhere, but the culture was being disseminated throughout Canada. And not only are we not disseminating the language, but we are no longer disseminating the culture and, yet, these are two very important things in the mandate of Radio-Canada and CBC.
I am willing to listen to Desautels and find out that they have three webmasters, but that does not make work for an artist. I will admit that, sometimes, I get angry with the Web. It has taken the place of those people who bring us culture in Canada. I would like to hear what you think about my comments.
Mr. Beaulieu: It is not an easy question. I am an engineer by training, so there are often old technologies and old practices that are replaced by new ones. There are always winners and losers. We often lose things and realize it too late.
What you are pointing out is true. The cultures are different now. I work with young people; I see it. We need to manage to build bridges and maintain a healthy balance. This is not easy. It comes back to leadership, I think.
Senator Champagne: The Radio-Canada and CBC budgets have been slashed for several years now. One of the sectors that was enormously affected is what was called Radio Canada International, where Canadian news was broadcast around the world and people could hear news from home no matter where they were. Radio Canada International had something else extraordinary about it. It produced records. Recordings were made of Canadian composers interpreted by Canadian artists. All these records could be found in all of Canada's embassies around the world. Of course, it no longer exists. Radio-Canada decided that it no longer wanted RCI's records in its boutiques. Fortunately, there were advertisements in the major daily newspapers. We telephoned to ask whether such and such a thing was still available. We were told that there was one left, and we asked to have it put aside for us. It was the work of pianist Harry Somers. Five Canadian pianists had played the entire piano oeuvre of Harry Somers. The record had won the Grand Prix du disque du Canada and no one had heard of it. Now, Radio-Canada no longer has the records. You cannot buy them anymore. Perhaps we could find a way to put them on the Web to get access to this music. Perhaps this is where the Web might be useful, to see concerts, see the opening of the Montreal symphony concert hall, even if we put high-wire walkers and acrobats in the middle of Beethoven's ninth symphony, but that is another story. Whether you see it on the Web or on television, it is the same thing.
I am willing to work with the Web. I started very late in sending emails. With that, I am doing okay, but I would not want culture to lose its place because everything is moving toward the webmasters and never toward the artists.
Mr. Beaulieu: There is a phenomenon in society that goes beyond the scope of this study. You could say that this cultural collapse is happening everywhere, in Europe and so on, and based on certain criteria. However, there are new things emerging, so it is a large topic.
Senator Champagne: Radio-Canada is no longer producing; it is buying things. It might broadcast a concert from Luxemburg or Belgium or even France. But nothing is being done here anymore, and that worries me a great deal.
Mr. Beaulieu: You understand that the amount of production, of content from the minority community where you live in a majority setting is not there.
The Chair: I have an additional question that follows on Senator Champagne's questions. Does this not go back to what you said several times in the addendum of your brief, when you talked about the importance of the relevance of content? Is there not a link between what you are saying here and what Senator Champagne just mentioned with respect to culture?
Mr. Beaulieu: The relevance of content is another big issue. Market forces now say that if it is clicked on, then it is good. The problem is that sometimes people are going to click on things for violent, sexual and other reasons.
So there is a balance, a need for guidance somewhere if we are going to click on things of value. I think we have enough good judgment to know what has value and what does not.
The Chair: So the number of clicks does not necessarily mean that the content is relevant? It all depends on who is clicking and why that person clicks on something, if I may say it that way.
Mr. Beaulieu: It is just one indicator among others. If we see that people are clicking on Lady Gaga or whatever, okay.
Senator Tardif: Mr. Beaulieu, you mentioned in your brief, which was very interesting, that the minority setting must be fully acknowledged by the public broadcaster and that this goes well beyond the recognition of regions. What do you mean by that?
Mr. Beaulieu: I am looking at the organization of Radio-Canada. It recognizes regions like the Saguenay, Ottawa and others. But it does not really recognize parts of the country where people live in an English-speaking environment. Western Canada is a fairly clear example of this. The needs are very different when all my neighbours are anglophone, Chinese, Indian and so on. I do not think that Radio-Canada truly understands the relationship of these people with French.
Since I have not lived in those environments, I have difficulty getting information from these people or getting coaching or management from these people, who do not understand this environment since they have never lived in it.
Senator Tardif: I am from western Canada, from Alberta. So I do understand the reality you are describing. One of your suggestions would be to have more people in management roles who come from those environments? Is that what you would suggest? Or would you have other suggestions?
Mr. Beaulieu: The argument that is often raised is tied to the quality of French, to a professional training experience or something else. We might want to raise the bar for the person holding the microphone. However, an example that came to me is that of people who are choosing their desk. These people do not necessarily need to have a mastery of French, but a mastery of the environment in which these people live.
I find it upsetting when people from Vancouver choose their desk and do not understand the environment they are living in. The individuals who do the assignments, for example, like the choice to report on what I call junk media, that bothers me. We have so few resources available, we must deploy them appropriately. The only people who will know how to deploy will be people who have some experience. We continually see people who come for training in the west.
Senator Tardif: Then, we send them to Montreal.
Mr. Beaulieu: In Vancouver in particular, it is the mountains, the ocean, the nice weather, and no winter. They also come to learn English.
The generational change is, of course, a mentality. This poses certain difficulties for people perhaps of my generation — although I still consider myself fairly young and I have been on the Internet for a long time.
Senator Tardif: You also mentioned a dysfunctional governance structure.
Mr. Beaulieu: Yes.
Senator Tardif: Could you clarify that?
Mr. Beaulieu: Let us talk about money, let us talk about power, because that is what is involved. When all the money and all the power and those people who make these decisions live in a majority environment, the way everything is organized is as if the minority community is just another region. I often hear the public broadcaster say that it needs funding to better serve our francophones in minority communities. And as soon as they get the money, Montreal prevails and we end up losing.
I would argue that, in many cases, minority communities are the first to have large movements of society, not the majority community. We see them first in minority communities.
That is why we need some autonomy in how our media is managed and governed. If my ombudsman comes from Montreal, he will not understand me — although he needs to start understanding me, since he has been at it for so long.
I would like to quote something from Winston Churchill that I read today:
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
The ombudsman for Radio-Canada — the one before and the one there now — knows me very well. They know that if they cause trouble, I will come back and the station manager will look into the matter. They know how to get me, how to affect me.
Senator Tardif: Have you presented your brief to the person responsible for Radio-Canada in Vancouver, for example?
Mr. Beaulieu: You would think that this would have happened. I have already tried to meet with that person. No, there was no interest from the other side. There was no real motivation to do so, and that is too bad. However, I think he follows me closely on Twitter.
Senator Robichaud: Mr. Beaulieu, it is good to hear what you have to say. You mentioned a number of times that the community needs to be re-engaged. I come from New Brunswick, a bilingual province, and I know that we are supposed to receive services in both official languages. But it is important to constantly be vigilant because if we do not demand it, when we call institutions where we need to get services, we see that at a certain point the services are less available. If we want an answer in French, we have to wait until they find someone who can come and answer us. Often, rather than waste time on the phone, we speak in English.
Mr. Beaulieu: I understand the problem.
Senator Robichaud: You understand that, if we are not constantly making an effort, services will deteriorate. When you talk about re-engaging, you talk about CBC/Radio-Canada. Is the community sufficiently engaged? Who engages whom?
Mr. Beaulieu: The community definitely has some responsibility. The problem with the community is the following. Take me for example. For a long time, I had my family, my bills, my job, my work and my obligations. I now have the luxury of being able to get involved in the community, and that is what I am doing.
However, some institutions are supposed to help us and they have the funding to do so. But when those institutions start to pull away, for example, by not participating in official languages consultations or by failing to show interest in the francophone identity, how can we expect people in minority communities, even the most motivated ones, to get involved?
Of course, the community has some responsibility. However, right now, I would not say that the community is assuming that responsibility. It is quite disengaged. I would not say apathetic.
People often ask me why I chase these idle dreams. It is impossible. At any rate, live your life and everything will turn out all right. That is what most people decide sooner or later. Young people see that and we are seeing the results.
If we invest significant amounts of money, such as the $1.1 billion over five years, we have to make sure that the money is spent properly. Our taxpayers expect it to be used wisely. They expect the Auditor General to conduct an audit and see how the money is being used. Francophones should show an interest in how the money is spent. They are not able to have an answer right now.
I have been digging into the issue for a long time and I have not managed to determine how the $1.1 billion has been spent over five years.
Senator Robichaud: You have been putting in a lot of effort, always exerting some pressure and trying to get your community involved. But have you managed to find out whether the people in your community are trying to get the same information as you in terms of how the money is used to serve the community that needs to be served?
Mr. Beaulieu: People would like to know. The problem is that they perhaps do not have the luxury of spending a considerable amount of time looking into that, the way I do. I do not expect my friends to express the same interest as I do. They are curious. They recognize that someone ought to be doing it. People are often happy that someone else is doing it in their place. The problem is exhaustion. I have another life too and other concerns. For instance, my daughter just had a baby. My wife would sometimes like me to turn the page. I would imagine you can all understand.
Senator Robichaud: I have no doubt about that. At the end of the day, it always has to do with those who deliver services and try to get people interested. They deliver what people want, popular shows, but perhaps not the information that some groups would like to receive.
You used Wayne Gretzky as an example. He does not skate to where the puck is but to where the puck is going to be. Like any hockey player, he wants to get the puck in the opponent's net, but he also has to consider the fact that another group also wants to send it in the other direction. He is not the only one on the ice.
Our situation is a bit like that. We all want to play, but there are two nets.
Mr. Beaulieu: My view on hockey is different. I still play hockey and what a player looks at is whether there is room on the ice to be able to go as fast as possible. When you are fast, you can control the zone, the puck and, ultimately, you can score. That is the metaphor I would apply to our situation.
There are some areas where we can skate faster. We should do a better job at being in those spots but someone should pass the puck. If no one passes the puck, because people keep missing it, that is a problem. No one wants to watch the game, not the media or the young people. So, eventually, people turn to soccer.
Senator Champagne: There is not much to watch at the moment.
Mr. Beaulieu: The Senators will be back soon, I believe.
Senator Robichaud: If you talk to people who follow hockey closely, they are afraid that this year's season will be very short, but that has nothing to do with what we are doing here.
When you say that players skate to where the puck is going to be, does that mean that we have to move toward social media, blogs, Facebook, and so on? I am not sure how many people have reached that stage. I should not generalize for people in my generation, but I am not there. Do you have any ideas of how we could reach people?
Mr. Beaulieu: The reason why Twitter has become so popular is because people can be mobilized. In the Arab Spring, people were able to mobilize other people by using Twitter and text messages.
Unfortunately, I am not aware of other ways to mobilize people. If we look at major movements in the past, such as the feminist movement, there was no Twitter. The problem now is that people no longer have the same attention span and time as they used to have. People often have two or three jobs, they run left and right. People are not as available as they once were. So we have to use the tools that are available. I am sure that Twitter will bring its share of problems.
I am aware of the problems that come with every technology. Every technology always brings some terrible problems. But we think that we are able to handle those problems.
Senator Tardif: What do you mean when you criticize public broadcasters for not using new media sufficiently to bring us to where the puck is going to be?
Mr. Beaulieu: For example, they are not using Twitter and Facebook properly. What I have noticed is that they are using Facebook and Twitter as new media for broadcasting.
The Commissioner of Official Languages is doing the same thing right now. They are using them as yet another channel to send messages, but they are missing the idea of mobilizing people. You mobilize people by creating an environment to which people want to come back.
Senator Tardif: Does that depend on the content being broadcast and its relevance?
Mr. Beaulieu: Yes, it partly has to do with the relevance of the content; you can try to broadcast content, but if it is not relevant, it will not go anywhere. That is why I am criticizing them right now; they are not using the appropriate hashtags; for example, they may have some interesting content that can be relevant in getting people interested in official languages, but they have not used it. Right now, they have no digital strategy.
What I am going to say will be positive for Alberta. I noticed that, in some institutions in Alberta and in Ontario, Radio-Canada and the community network have successfully started to show interest on Twitter by simply using #frab. It is inspiring. They have done it in Alberta and in Ontario. Those were individual initiatives started by people who work for those associations and for Radio-Canada. They have not done it in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or British Columbia. I told the station directors to do it.
In Vancouver, there is now a medium called La Source/The Source that uses #frbc. At the moment, #frbc has two users, myself and La Source.
If we had a critical mass, the new space would get interesting, but there is the danger of running out of steam.
Senator Tardif: Do you think that the role of the public broadcaster is to create this community space?
Mr. Beaulieu: Public broadcasters play a vital role in minority communities. In majority communities, public broadcasters do not play a vital role because there is competition. In minority communities, there is no competition, so they can do whatever they want. In my view, they play the role of the steps in front of a church, as in the past. There are no other places where people can get together. If people cannot gather on the church steps, there is a problem.
The Chair: You are saying that the broadcasting is not being done properly, and you also talk about the relevance of the content. Those two things have to be studied together.
If they learn how to broadcast correctly but the content is not relevant and it does not reflect the reality of francophone minority communities, for example, you cannot have one without the other, correct?
Mr. Beaulieu: Let me make a few additional comments on the relevance of content. I have been following an organization called Adbusters for a long time; the organization is sort of against the media. They have identified that everywhere in the Americas and elsewhere, our media environments have become polluted by sellers essentially in such a way that we are constantly being bombarded with media junk food, as they call it. They have launched a campaign called Media Carta with a view to cleaning up our media environment.
For our public broadcaster, the media junk food is filling up air time with useless content such as various bits of information.
In a minority setting, in Vancouver, we have the best person, a great journalist who writes a wonderful international column. The problem is that he takes up valuable air time. I would rather hear this columnist on air in Montreal, because his international column is simply wonderful.
So healthy media food is really something that nourishes the mind; it is food for thought. When websites, radio or TV content are used to fill up the page, to get funding, there is a gap. That is why it is important to measure the relevance of the content. The Web should make it possible to do so effectively.
Senator McIntyre: Mr. Beaulieu, I have listened to you carefully. What worries me a great deal in your presentation is the lack of interest on the part of francophones outside Quebec. It is true that the public broadcaster has made some improvements but, as you said in your brief, the consequences are real. You mentioned the example of Vancouver in your brief. You said:
Vancouver, Canada's third largest city, has been without any French-language community newspaper/media for more than a year, yet no one has complained. Meanwhile, there has been a proliferation of community newspapers and radio stations in other languages. No one has dared to ask publicly why such a ridiculous situation exists.
And I agree: why? Why has no one complained about this incredible situation?
Mr. Beaulieu: I have recently discovered something in minority settings. I am still a Quebecer and I can be a bit arrogant. I have lived in a minority setting for 30 years. After a long time, I have discovered the taboos, the "non-dits", as we call them in minority settings. That is how minorities have survived in the past. Faced with a power situation, when you are at the bottom of the chain, you say nothing; there are some things that you do not talk about. Theatre artists, such as Jean-Marc Dalpé, have turned it into a literary style. For our media, that is a considerable challenge. How can media reach its audience if the glue that holds it all together is the silence between the lines? In the past, this principle might have worked. Right now, silence might work for the English-speaking community.
There is no easy answer. I think we have to recognize the problem; we have to stop wearing rose-coloured glasses and use the new technology, use whatever works in Alberta or in northern Ontario.
I would like to mention the tagueule.ca website, a wonderful webzine for young people in their 20s in Ontario. Good afternoon, Félix and Christian. I hope you are listening. They have done a great job, using Twitter and Facebook. But they have not received support. I think the content was relevant, but there has not been enough support from associations, for instance. I feel that FCFA should have commended them on their work, and perhaps provided content, participated and even made comments. As a result, the tagueule.ca site is currently almost abandoned.
Today, I noticed something that had to do with Senator De Bané's recent comments about radio stations and Radio-Canada. His comments were posted on tagueule.ca today, after a three-week gap on the site. I hope that they will start again. The problem is that people who rattle cages have to be better supported. And we have to stop funding those who do not rattle anyone's cage.
Senator McIntyre: Senator Robichaud talked about being vigilant. I agree with him that we have to be more and more vigilant, not only as individuals but as a community, given this situation.
Senator Mockler: I would first like to congratulate you for your pilgrimage across Canada, Mr. Beaulieu. We have certainly noticed something in the Atlantic provinces. The new Télé-Acadie host works a lot with Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube. He is present. When we watch the show in the evening, if there is news about the Acadian Peninsula, northwestern New Brunswick, the south east or even the Atlantic, he invites people to go on Twitter and engage in dialogue.
I read your presentation carefully and I gathered some information over the weekend. Even in the car, I was talking to people on the phone and they have the same objectives as you — I was not driving. Those people kept saying "but tell me who Mr. Beaulieu is". I heard about you. I had the opportunity to talk to other stakeholders who told me that "Percy, he is like the people we see in Acadia, be they Gervais, Pelletier, Godin, and so on; the University of Moncton, his role with social media", and we must not forget the Robichaud — so that we do not forget our premier, and many others.
I do not want to repeat a question that has already been asked. Let us assume that, tomorrow morning, you are at the helm of Radio-Canada, the CRTC or CBC, and you have to adopt social media in broadcasting and really spread the word so that minorities are protected. You said it earlier, and it is true. I heard a senator saying that we do not have any anglophones, even here. In a minority environment, be it anglophone or francophone, how would you go about adopting it all?
If I say to you, "Réjean, you have 30 minutes here," tell me what we can do to advance your ideas and claims, which go back 30 years now?
Mr. Beaulieu: I did that exercise in June. The summer was just starting, so perhaps it was not the best time. I said why not hold a general assembly on the state of our media via Twitter. We would not hold a general assembly where people have to travel by plane and it takes forever. So why not hold a virtual meeting via Twitter where people could build some sort of synergy and recognition, a space that would provide a basis to work from? That turning point will come, but unfortunately, I did not get any response.
The paper La liberté published the reader email I submitted in which I had put out the call, further to the displeasure of a paper in Manitoba that had lost its funding and was in a panic. I suggested that general assemblies be held on Twitter using the hashtag frcanouest.
I am wearing my western Canadian hat. Our problems out west are certainly common. Radio-Canada management was of course invited, but I did not receive a response from them.
So, at some point, Hubert Lacroix should make a suggestion to Sylvain Cormier and others to hold a meeting via Twitter on frcan, say, or frcanmedia.
If a message like that were put out, imagine the influence it would have on all those looking for new opportunities for involvement. That includes our immigrant and youth populations. As things stand, no such messages are put out, so there is no direction whatsoever.
Senator Mockler: I agree with you, but I think we have to take it further than that.
Mr. Beaulieu: One step at a time. We must not put the cart before the horse. Before we can travel to Mars, we have to make it to the moon. And before we make it to the moon, we have to orbit the earth. So we cannot be overly ambitious: we need direction, we need leadership, we need recognition of the state of affairs.
What I am constantly hearing here is that there is no recognition of where things stand. People think everything is going well; there are a lot of new immigrants coming in and francophiles discovering French. All the while, our core population of French speakers is dwindling and francophiles are wondering where the francophones have gone.
Senator Mockler: Last weekend, I spent time with some young people. There were English speakers, French speakers and bilingual people. I asked them whether they tweeted and chatted.
If we do not attempt to set things right, do you believe the language is in danger, especially given how people use the language when chatting and tweeting?
I asked the young people — who were francophones, Acadians and even Quebecers — what the messages they typed meant. They use all kinds of symbols and abbreviations to convey what they want to say. They also use a lot of anglicisms.
Mr. Beaulieu: I know what you mean. I think we have to trust our young people, lead by example and use the language in a relevant way. If Twitter is a network made up of 140-character messages, what is the problem with using shortcuts? I do not object to having to keep your message short in order to share a powerful idea.
I would object to having to write a dissertation. Before you can run, you have to walk, and in order to walk, you have to want to do it. You have to regain interest in the language and so forth.
Senator Mockler: Could that contribute further to the assimilation of our minority groups in some areas?
Mr. Beaulieu: There is good and bad in every societal change. Older people always tell young people not to do this or that, and the first thing you learn is that young people will do exactly what you tell them not to. When you lead by example, young people will follow suit.
Speaking of language, when Michel Tremblay introduced Quebec to "joual", people were alarmed. But a renewed interest in the French language followed. Things evolved after "joual" was introduced, and it was for the better.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Beaulieu, when you said the population was not engaged, was that a polite way of saying that the French-speaking population outside Quebec is on the road to assimilation and that Radio-Canada is contributing to that assimilation by not asserting its role?
As a Quebecer who is a federalist, I find that Radio-Canada actually divides the country, even though its primary objective is to bring it together. That was its mandate. Radio-Canada's first objective was to bring the country together. But that is not what is happening right now.
What we are seeing in Quebec City right now is Radio-Canada cleverly and slyly promoting Quebec's independence.
Is "not engaged" a polite way of saying that the francophone population outside Quebec is being assimilated?
Mr. Beaulieu: I did not make that up. Statistics Canada has long been observing that phenomenon. The farther away you go from Quebec and the French-speaking hubs, the quicker assimilation occurs.
The unique thing about British Columbia is that people are free-spirited. On the west coast, people tend to be more independent. So an independent French speaker is even more vulnerable there.
Is Radio-Canada dividing the country? I would say that CBC does the same thing. I think it is time to rethink Radio- Canada and CBC. The walls separating the two organizations are incredibly thick. As I see it, the people at CBC should be perfectly bilingual, and the idea that the news is different depending on which side of the wall you are on is a strange and unacceptable state of affairs.
Radio-Canada and CBC each have completely different websites. I think each side may have a different union. They perpetuate the status quo. But that is another story I could go on and on about.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I am extremely disappointed by Radio-Canada.
The Chair: If there are no other questions, I would very much like to thank you, Mr. Beaulieu, for being with us. We sincerely appreciate your brief and your answers to all of our questions. There is no doubt as to your commitment; you certainly believe in what you are doing. Thank you and good luck in your future endeavours.
Mr. Beaulieu: Thank you kindly. This was a wonderful experience. Perhaps going forward, we can communicate via Twitter.
The Chair: Thank you, honourable senators. Meeting adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)