Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 9 - Evidence, October 23, 2014
QUEBEC CITY, Thursday, October 23, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day, at 9:30 a.m., to examine the challenges faced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Senator Dennis Dawson (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Good morning. I am Dennis Dawson, Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. As I said earlier, there were other members scheduled to participate in this meeting, but due to yesterday's events in Ottawa, they were unable to attend. Unfortunately, they were not able to travel from Ottawa to Quebec City.
Today, I would like to take a moment to remember all the victims of the tragic events that took place in our capital city yesterday. They and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.
[English]
On behalf of the committee, I want to also express our gratitude to all the courageous men and women who served to protect Canadians and to thank the public for their support and solidarity during these difficult moments.
[Translation]
We want to assure our colleagues that although we are not in Ottawa, we continue to fulfill our parliamentary duty and to serve Canadians. At this time, I would ask you, if you don't mind, to observe a minute of silence in honour of those who were killed yesterday — the person who died yesterday.
[English]
Thank you.
[A minute of silence.]
[Translation]
The Chair: Today, as part of our study on the challenges faced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in relation to the changing environment of broadcasting and communications, we welcome the Syndicat des employé(e)s de bureau et professionnel(le)s de Radio-Canada. We will hear from Isabelle Doyon, President of Local 675, Nathalie Blais, Research Advisor, and Adrien Caissie, Local President, Moncton.
Thank you for being here. We are here to listen to you.
[English]
If Senator Plett doesn't mind, they have a document that they are using to make the speech, but there is a chart of different percentages of market share that I think might be a good reference point if you permit that it be tabled. It will be translated and sent to all the members.
[Translation]
Ms. Blais or Ms. Doyon, you have the floor.
Isabelle Doyon, President, SCFP Local 675, Syndicat des employé(e)s de bureau et professionnel(le)s de Radio-Canada: Good morning, honourable senators. Thank you for meeting with us.
We have come before you today because you invited us to talk about the challenges faced by the CBC in the regions in terms of the changing communications environment. CUPE represents roughly 1,800 CBC/Radio-Canada employees throughout Quebec and in Moncton.
I will begin by saying that the Broadcasting Act gives the public broadcaster specific obligations with respect to the regions. CBC must provide programming that reflects ". . . Canada and its regions . . . while serving the special needs of those regions." The purpose of this provision is twofold: first, to ensure that we cover and talk about the various regions throughout the country and, second, to enable people who live in these regions to see their way of living and circumstances reflected in the media.
The repeated budget cuts to the public broadcaster since 2009, along with the resulting staff reductions, are threatening this part of its mandate. The main challenge for the CBC/Radio-Canada regional stations is to continue delivering relevant local programming, without compromising its quality and quantity, despite a difficult economic environment.
Nathalie Blais, Research Advisor, Canadian Union of Public Employees: The financial situation of general interest television stations across the country has been poor for the past few years. In the private sector, the growth rate of local advertising revenue is negative in all regions except Ontario and Quebec.
At CBC/Radio-Canada, advertising sales were growing over the past five years. However, the National Hockey League lockout took a significant toll on advertising revenues in 2013.
CBC/Radio-Canada is facing reduced commercial revenues for the next four years, given that it will no longer get a penny from the ads shown during "Hockey Night in Canada." After that, the public broadcaster will have to add 360 hours of programming to its schedule to replace hockey, which will necessarily increase its programming expenses.
Last spring, the president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada offered the following analysis, and I quote:
Local television is especially under threat following the elimination by the CRTC of the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF). In many cases, there simply isn't an economic model to support it. For that reason, we don't think the privates will stay, except maybe in the most populated cities in the country. Should we exit now or be the last broadcaster offering local news? Can we fulfill our mandate in the regions differently?
CUPE believes that the public broadcaster must absolutely continue its operations in the regions. CBC/Radio-Canada has a legal obligation to provide — on radio and television, in French and English — programming that informs, enlightens and entertains, while meeting the needs of the regions. The presence of CBC/Radio-Canada across the country is particularly necessary in light of the fact that private broadcasters could well abandon that market.
Adrien Caissie, Local President - Moncton, SCFP Local 5757, Syndicat des technicien(ne)s et artisan(e)s du réseau français de Radio-Canada: Private broadcasters are not the only one affected by the elimination of the Local Programming Improvement Fund. The fund earned over $40 million per year for CBC/Radio-Canada, which used the money to enrich its regional programming. These improvements are being jeopardized by the public broadcaster's budget problems. Nevertheless, in its 2015-20 five-year plan, CBC/Radio-Canada says it wants to do the following, and I quote:
. . . preserve its geographical presence, to be even more local . . .
That is the end of the quotation.
We find it difficult to see how CBC/Radio-Canada could do that with fewer staff. In Moncton, where I used to work as an editor, our union represented 54 permanent employees in 1998. We are now about 40, and we think that fewer than 30 technicians and artists will remain when we move to smaller facilities next spring, as planned.
Having fewer workers in regional stations means having fewer journalists and fewer cameramen on the ground. It means less time to do research, to find guests, to do interviews. It also means that we deliver less in-depth news because the same team has to supply television, radio and Web content. Having fewer workers ultimately means fewer programs made in the region, less filming outside studios and less contact with communities.
There has already been some criticism of CBC/Radio-Canada in the regions. Canadians tell us they are disappointed that our reports no longer cover all aspects of the news. Others argue that there is not enough information in our regional newscasts — and they are quite right. Over one news hour, less than 30 minutes are dedicated to local news. The rest comes from elsewhere in the country, mainly from Quebec.
In addition, the 2015-20 plan calls for a shift to digital and mobility, which changes the priorities of the public broadcaster. As part of this shift, information programming on television and regional radio, which is the focus of CBC/Radio-Canada's activities in the regions, will see its resources decrease by 2020. This strategy gives us great concern. It will lead to the loss of professional expertise that will be impossible to rebuild.
The public broadcaster therefore faces another challenge. It must maintain what it has done in the regions, in spite of the changes that are under way. The CUPE unions at CBC are aware of the need to innovate on new platforms. However, this shift to digital must not be made too quickly, improperly or for the wrong reasons.
For example, Canadians love audiovisual programming on the Internet, so we feel it is illogical for CBC to get rid of its regional television studios. CBC could use them to produce a variety of regional audiovisual products for television, the Internet or tablets.
Ms. Doyon: CUPE is also opposed to CBC's application to the CRTC to stop using its digital transmitters for television. CBC is a publicly funded public broadcaster and as such must send out its signals free of charge to the widest possible audience over the public airwaves.
If CBC's transmitters were shut down, 15 per cent of taxpayers would no longer have access to the only broadcaster that offers a national perspective on Canadian and international events. Francophones outside Quebec who do not have cable would lose access to the only television station broadcasting in their mother tongue on local issues.
We feel that the scope of CBC's planned shift to digital and the speed at which it wants to proceed are motivated primarily by the expected savings. However, those savings have yet to be proven, because right now people tend to watch television and listen to the radio on the Internet in addition to, not instead of, doing so on conventional devices.
It would be a shame if CBC were to lose its regional expertise because it tried to modernize too quickly in order to balance its budget. The corporation's plan for 2015-20 should be not only economically viable, but culturally and socially viable as well. The regions should also benefit, because under the Broadcasting Act, CBC's mission includes meeting their needs.
Regardless of the medium it uses to broadcast its programming, the public broadcaster has a mission to fulfill, and it must therefore be properly funded. CBC cannot constantly sacrifice its employees to balance its budget without hurting its regional mission. The corporation needs a stable budget. The government must live up to its responsibilities in this regard.
Thank you. We are ready to answer your questions now.
The Chair: Thank you to all three of you.
[English]
Senator Plett will have questions for you.
Senator Plett: Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Clearly, CBC/Radio-Canada needs to provide a service that the viewers want. It has to be based on viewership. It has to be based on people wanting it, not based on what employees want, not based on what management wants, and they need to try to do that within the means that is given to them.
I've heard you say today that CBC/Radio-Canada should not do things at the expense of their employees, and I appreciate and respect that opinion. You've talked about them doing more local news versus national news. We visited the studio just down the street here earlier this morning, and we were told that, in fact, they were doing, in their opinion, more local news than national news here. The six o'clock show, for example, would run completely local news, and people would sometimes phone to complain and say, "Why aren't you doing national?" They would be told, "Well, you can go to other stations for national. This time we do the local."
So keeping viewership in mind, not employees, first of all, what is the overall market share of CBC/Radio-Canada out of Quebec City? What are the ratings? If you could simply name two things that they would do to help the viewers, not you as staff, but the viewers, what would those two things be?
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: I have to say that we do not have the ratings for the Quebec City station specifically. However, we do have the ratings for the Moncton station, which is about the same size. I do not know if you know the number off the top of your head, Adrien, or if you would like me to give it, but I remember that it is about 50 per cent. In fact, if memory serves, 42 per cent of the people in the Moncton area watch local CBC programming, so there is a great deal of interest in local programming. CUPE recently took part in CRTC hearings on the future of television, not just at CBC, but across the country. According to independent private broadcasters, their local programming is more popular than the programming on the networks with which they are affiliated. People generally want news about what is going on around them, and I think that is a good way to interest them. You ask me what CBC can do for people. It can offer local information. For example, the station in Moncton — perhaps Adrien can expand on this, since he works there — covers the whole Atlantic region, which is huge. When we talk about local and regional news and how there is 30 minutes of news a day, there is certainly more than 30 minutes of news to cover in that whole area, which includes Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
[English]
Mr. Caissie: I would like to add that what happens if we don't have the means to do the local news, we just take news from Quebec, Ontario or Toronto and we complete our newscast with items from outside. That's what happens right now. So if we would have more means, we could do more local news. We have to make choices.
Senator Plett: What would you consider local news? I mean, we're talking Moncton, Atlantic Canada, Quebec. How large of a region is "local"? How many different stations do we need to present everybody with local news?
I'm from Manitoba. We have Radio-Canada in Saint-Boniface and I know that they actually cover the province of Manitoba. We're a province of a million people. I would consider that if they cover the province of Manitoba, they're covering local news. So would you agree that local news would be provincial or is local news even more local than province wide?
Mr. Caissie: In my case, I would say regional news. I'm talking about local news and regional news which would be the four Atlantic provinces, in French.
Senator Plett: The four Atlantic Provinces would be local to you?
Mr. Caissie: Yes.
Senator Plett: Thank you.
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: I would like to add that CBC has obligations to the CRTC. CBC has broadcasting licences that call for a certain amount of local programming for each station. The CRTC defines local programming as programming intended for the people who receive the CBC signal. If you receive the signal via the CBC, you are in the coverage area. CBC must provide local coverage in that area. Once you go outside that area, you are in the regional part. According to the CRTC regulations, when we are talking about the four Atlantic provinces, that is the region, and at that point, we are no longer necessarily talking about specifically local information.
I could give you another example. Station V, which is an independent network in Quebec, stopped providing local programming for a while. In fact, it gradually reduced its local programming. Moreover, it included provincial news in the news from the Quebec City station. For example, all the news about the National Assembly was considered news from Quebec City, but there was no news about what was happening at city hall, Quebec City's economy, various events or community life. The news was about what was going on in the National Assembly, and that was included in local programming. The CRTC said that it was not local programming, because provincial information is intended for a larger audience. I do not know whether you grasp the difference between local programming and provincial programming.
[English]
Senator Plett: Maybe I'm not understanding it entirely correctly, but I'm getting the idea that your desires are not necessarily what Adrien's desires are. I'm not sure, but Adrien said that he would consider the Atlantic provinces local. The people in Prince Edward Island may not care what's happening at the legislature in Halifax, so they might not consider that local. So again, I don't think it's viable for Radio-Canada to have productions in literally every city or town in Atlantic Canada. Quebec is a larger province. What in Quebec might be a couple of cities would be the same as all of Atlantic Canada. So I'm not sure; were your wishes different than Adrien's, or did I not understand?
Ms. Blais: I was more talking about the regulatory side of things. That's why there's a difference between what he said and what I said. "Local" is considered by the CRTC to be more community-based.
Senator Plett: Okay.
Ms. Blais: So I think this refers more to what you asked.
For the Atlantic region, considering the population, it's normal that you have one big regional station. Moncton is a bigger station like Quebec City is a bigger station. Then you have small bureaus that gather news for that bigger station, and that's the way you cover the Atlantic region.
Senator Plett: Further on that, when we were in Halifax two days ago, we were talking about local news as well. One of the witnesses said if there is a significant francophone population, there should be a presence, and my question then was, "What is a significant population?" I got two different answers. One of the answers was that if there is a francophone school, that might be considered a significant population. I thought that was maybe even a little tight, and it would be a little difficult to do, but then the next answer was that if there is more than one francophone person, it's a significant population. Well, I really thought that was going over the top.
Manitoba has a fairly large francophone population. My riding federally of Provencher has the most francophones, most French-speaking people outside the province of Quebec. That's my riding. I should be able to speak French considering that. Yet, when we go west, when we go into Saskatchewan and Alberta, we get fewer French-speaking people. What kind of resources should there be put into these areas?
Now I understand that in Atlantic Canada clearly there are a lot of francophones, especially in New Brunswick, but to what extent should we put in resources? Should we take a chunk of Radio-Canada's budget and say, "Well, obviously, we'll spend a larger chunk in Atlantic Canada," and should we decline as we go further west? How many people do we need to have before we provide them with services? Everybody should be entitled to services; I understand that. There are two official languages. So where do we go?
We have heard — and you even eluded to it in your presentation —very clearly from some witnesses that CBC overall should not be a national broadcaster. That was never their mandate. Their mandate was to be a regional and local broadcaster supplying services to all of our country in both official languages. And "national" maybe isn't fare. I should maybe go further and say even "international." We have a situation in Africa with the Ebola crisis, and we have a situation in the Middle East with ISIL. All the major networks are there. Is it necessary for CBC to be there? Quite frankly, if I want to know what's happening in Syria, I can go to CTV or Global and find out. But if I want to know what's happening in my local town, CTV and Global, unless they're going to make money there, don't care what's happening in my town. So should CBC get out of the international coverage at least and become just a local and regional station?
I know there are a few questions in there. Certainly you can speak French. We have good interpretation, so whatever you're comfortable with.
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: As far as CBC is concerned — In fact, your question is whether CBC should be a regional broadcaster instead of a national or international broadcaster. First, under the Broadcasting Act, CBC must provide international service. Second, I am not as familiar with the English-language market, but do CTV and Global really have Canadian journalists on the ground in Syria, for example? Is that what you said?
[English]
Senator Plett: If I want to know what's going on there, CTV and Global are out there as well.
Ms. Blais: With journalists in the field?
Senator Plett: Yes. CBC isn't the only one out there. And there are even American stations to tune into. Should CBC simply pick up from the journalists out there, tap into them. Do they need to send out journalists? Do we need to focus that much attention on the subject? Is that maybe where they should start saving some money?
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: I think so. We need journalists on the ground abroad, and I will tell you why. First, there is a need for a Canadian perspective. From what you say, other networks have journalists abroad, but there are none in the French-language market. TVA, the largest private network, has no journalists abroad, except for one in Washington. The V network has no one. It deals with a private news provider. If CBC did not have anyone abroad, we would never have a Canadian point of view on what is happening elsewhere in the world. That is very important to people in the French-language market.
[English]
Mr. Caissie: To answer your first question about the presence of Radio-Canada, you have to understand that our Acadian community is everywhere in Atlantic Canada. There are some communities in Newfoundland, there are some in P.E.I., Nova Scotia and a lot in New Brunswick. Radio-Canada is the only way we have to communicate between our communities. It's not TVA, a private station from Quebec that will cover news in New Brunswick. This is our only news information in French. The news bulletin, the newscast is done in Moncton for the whole region. That's how it works, and it's important for our survival, for our identity. It's important for us.
Senator Plett: But you are getting that now in all of Atlantic Canada. They are broadcasting in all of Atlantic Canada, so they don't need to change.
Mr. Caissie: No. But if we don't have the personnel, how are we going to cover the news? Right now, we have difficulty. Every time we cut personnel, we do less news and less news or not as in depth. We don't investigate as much — less research. Less work is done on each news story, so we have to make choices. For example, if we have two news stories, they're both important, but we don't have the staff. If we have file footage that would cover one story, we are going to use the file footage and read about the news. But we're going to cover the other one. So we make choices like that. Sometimes we should cover both; it's important.
The distances are important also. If there's something important in Edmundston, it's a five-hour drive from Moncton. We have a bureau in Edmundston, but it depends on the event. Sometimes we have to cover it if it's important, or if it's something in Halifax.
Senator Plett: I guess that's my question: To what extent?
I appreciate your point. In my province, we have vast areas of no population. When we want to go from The Pas to Thompson, Manitoba, clearly with the population we can't, in my opinion, justify two centers. Then we go on to Churchill. We can't even drive there; we have to take a train or fly. So to what extent do we do what you're suggesting before it's just not feasible? We hear the argument so often in bedroom villages. I live in a bedroom village 20 kilometers from Winnipeg. I'll use an example that has nothing to do with radio, but it's the same scenario. We move to the bedroom village in Landmark, Manitoba. Manitoba, like Quebec, at least a few years ago, was kind of the hog capital of Canada. Hogs bring with them some unpleasant odours occasionally. So we have people moving to this bedroom village surrounded by hog farmers. All of a sudden they want all the farmers to close their operations because they don't like the smell; they are used to being in the city. Or in the city, we have people moving close to an airport, and they want the airport terminal to move because the planes are making too much noise.
The same thing can be said here. In the words of the one witness that we had in Halifax, two francophone people make up a "significant" population. We have a family moving somewhere and starting a little village, and now we have to accommodate that family. Is that how far we go?
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: I do not think we are talking about serving areas where there are not enough people, because that would not be reasonable. What we are saying is that with the successive cuts — I do not know if you know the numbers — 800 jobs have been eliminated since 2009. In 2012, 650 were cut, and this year, 657 were eliminated. CBC has announced that between 1,000 and 1,500 jobs will be cut in the coming years. We are concerned because we are being stretched thin at present. As Adrien said, we cannot always cover all the important news, even at the regional level. If there are further staff cuts, we are afraid that CBC will no longer be able to carry out its mission to provide local and regional information. We are not asking for — We are not asking, as you seem to be saying, for —
[English]
Senator Plett: The staff cuts are mostly in the field. Again, we were just over at the studio, and I throw this out for the record, because I found this tremendously impressive. Some of this is very relevant to your testimony when you talk about staff cuts.
There were staff cuts in the studio. Changes were made to a production studio. They used to have nine people working in this production studio that with benefits were receiving somewhere close to a $100,000 a year — $65,000 plus benefits, plus overtime. I'm assuming that would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100,000. So we had nine people doing that.
They revamped the production studio at the cost of $800,000. They then cut six jobs because they only needed three people now to do the work that nine people were doing before. That saved them $600,000 a year.
I'm not talking about savings. I'm talking more about the cuts. Those are cuts that really don't impact what you're saying. So are you feeling that the major cuts are made to journalists in the field?
Mr. Caissie: In our news station in Moncton right now we have seven editing suites. The next station, we're going to have four. We have five radio studios in Moncton. We have English and French and whatever and we're going to have two. We have two people working as graphic artists; we're going to have one. These are the cuts that we're living with.
Senator Plett: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Senator Housakos, you have the floor.
Senator Housakos: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to welcome all the witnesses. You presentations are very much appreciated.
I would like to make some comments and ask a few questions. First of all, the committee has done a great deal of work on this over a long time. It is interesting to hear the testimony of many people from different fields. Many witnesses say that CBC/Radio-Canada's mission is to broadcast international and national news to Canadians because it does so better than the private sector and other companies. They say that there is a need.
Other witnesses say that CBC/Radio-Canada's mission should be to broadcast local and regional programming, news and so on, because the private sector does not have the capacity. It is not viable for the private sector to go to the Northwest Territories or the francophone regions of Manitoba to provide local programming. I feel that is a very important argument, because there are anglophone and francophone minorities across Canada. We cannot abandon them because the private sector does not see any economic benefit in going there.
However, we must not forget that CBC/Radio-Canada's mission, which the federal government established a long time ago, is very specific, and it is to promote Canadian culture.
It is to promote Canadian content in the development of Canadian films and in the Canadian production sector. I feel that over time, CBC and Radio-Canada have developed along the lines of other broadcasters. Now they work to get high ratings like Global or TVA. They compete in the national news sector and so on. In my opinion, they have abandoned the development side of their mission and promoted their local and regional interests. And gradually, they have forgotten the regional mission that the federal government gave them.
I would like to know what you think about my comments. As committee members, we have to be able to make recommendations at the end of this process. Up to now, several of our colleagues and I have had the feeling that CBC/Radio-Canada is trying to be all things to all people. However, at the end of the day, you have to choose your niche and work hard to develop it.
Ms. Blais: I will start with the question of the niche, because a public broadcaster takes on a specific mission. You talked about private broadcasters who do not see any economic benefit in going into certain regions. The public broadcaster does that. It also covers the regions with linguistic minorities. In the same way, I believe that the public broadcaster should not be slotted into a very specific niche. It should also be able to offer programs that please everyone, for example, a sports program that would please Senator Plett, a program on economics that would please you and a science program that would please Isabelle. Who other than CBC broadcasts science programs? No one.
As for the regional aspect, we are concerned about the new 2015-20 plan. We really get the feeling that CBC will be gutted because we are told that the corporation wants to be more regional, but at a lower cost. Certainly, savings can be achieved through automation, especially in the studios. But there is a limit to the savings that technology can produce. When you have to produce content — and I worked in a newsroom for a long time — you need to think about what you are going to present and make sure the facts are checked and accurate. You need to meet with people, a little like you do here, to get different points of view. All that takes time. If you ask your journalist to be a cameraman, editor and journalist and then send his report to the station from outside, you are cutting two-thirds of the time he has to do his work. That is what we are really concerned about. Yes, we can save money once our objectives are clear — and I think that CBC's mission is very specific, as you said, and that it has regional obligations — but it has to really fulfill those obligations. It cannot just pretend to fulfill them. There has to be more than just an objective on paper. People have to be able to see the results on the ground.
Mr. Caissie: CBC is present in the regions of Atlantic Canada. But we cannot imagine a private French-language station. It would not be viable. That is why Radio-Canada is important to us.
Certainly, there is more coverage in major cities, where it is possible to generate more advertising revenue. If CBC has less money or needs more money for production or for its transformation, it can turn to advertising revenue. At that point, it adapts to the market. That must also be taken into account.
Ms. Blais: The other thing is that we do not know exactly what CBC's budget is in each region. Since the data are aggregated, we do not know what the expenses are for each region. To go back to what you were saying earlier about how you feel CBC is a bit like the private sector, I think that is because of the ratings. There have been studies on this. The fact that our public broadcaster needs advertising revenue forces it to operate like a private broadcaster, because to sell advertising at a good price it has to broadcast programs that will appeal to the greatest possible number of viewers. As I said earlier, CBC has to present a program for Senator Plett, one for you, and so on. There needs to be something for everyone. If you want to offer a wide variety of programs, you cannot just broadcast programs with high ratings that will bring in unlimited advertising revenue. You have to make choices. If CBC decides to offer a wide variety of programs, as the law prescribes, then in my opinion the government has a responsibility to provide CBC with adequate funding so that it can carry out its mission. I was looking at the data from the last quarter, and 56 per cent of the funding comes from the government. That means that 44 per cent of the funding comes from advertising. That has an impact on the type of programming that is broadcast. That is why CBC is more like television than a private broadcaster. There is no advertising on radio, so it is quite different.
Senator Housakos: Would you describe your employees for us? What sectors, what kind of businesses do they come from? Do you have employees from the private sector? If so, which fields?
Ms. Blais: First of all, Radio-Canada has office staff, professionals, technicians and artisans, such as make-up artists, hairdressers, set decorators and so on. Outside Radio-Canada, we represent people from TVA, the Journal de Québec, RNC Média, which is an independent broadcaster affiliated with TVA, and Global in Montreal. In the communications sector, we also represent people from cable networks, such as Cogeco, Telus and Vidéotron. As I said earlier, we recently participated in a consultation on the future of television. Even though we represent people from cable networks, everyone agreed that we absolutely have to send the message that Radio-Canada needs to keep its broadcasters.
Senator Housakos: Is there a big difference in terms of negotiations and working conditions at Radio-Canada/CBC compared to private television broadcasters? Also, given your position, do you have a sense of the average salary of a Radio-Canada/CBC employee compared to someone doing the same job for TVA or Global?
Ms. Blais: I don't have the numbers in front of me. As I recall, the last time I checked, salaries were pretty comparable. I used to work for TVA. When our union negotiated, we were paid more than people at Radio-Canada. Actually, our hourly wage was comparable because people at Radio-Canada worked longer hours, but I would have to check the latest data. I can get that information.
Senator Housakos: Can you show us some data or a chart? That information would be really useful because we haven't been able to do a comparison so far.
The Chair: If you have such a document, you could send it to the clerk, who would forward it to committee members. I think it would be interesting to get that data.
Senator Housakos: Mr. Chair, if I may, I would like to ask another question. By any criteria, I think that the situation has improved significantly at Radio-Canada as opposed to the English CBC in terms of ratings and revenue. This committee has seen a big difference in performance. Recently, many witnesses have suggested that there should be two separate corporations and two separate budgets going forward. There would have to be two new strategies: one for the unique needs of francophone communities and another for anglophone regions. What do you think of that?
Mr. Caissie: In Moncton, CBC journalists, the anglophone journalists at the Moncton station, are increasingly reporting in English but asking questions in French too and requesting that their interviewees, some of whom are bilingual, answer in French if they can. That means we can use those reports to broadcast the news in French and in English. Francophone journalists do the same thing. They ask questions and do all of their interviews in French, which saves money. Then they ask questions in English. That means we can air reports in Moncton, Fredericton and elsewhere. We save money when the two networks work closely together. Moncton and Fredericton share a lot of information because they are both capitals. There is a lot of back and forth. We have file footage, shared archives. A lot of information is shared. There are benefits when everyone is part of the same corporation.
The Chair: That is the first time we have heard that answer. It makes perfect sense with respect to the CBC/Radio-Canada union.
Ms. Blais, you mentioned the CRTC a number of times with respect to legal issues and obligations. The Broadcasting Act was passed in 1991, back before the Internet, cell phones and iPads. As my colleague, Senator Plett, has pointed out, there were no iPads at the Vancouver Olympic Games, and four years later, in Russia, people were getting most of their programming on iPads, iPhones and via other technology. The Broadcasting Act does not cover that. You might be right when you say that Radio-Canada has certain obligations, but are they realistic considering technological change?
Ms. Blais: It is clear that there has been a technological change. During the previous hearings on the future of television, all of the broadcasters agreed that there has been a shift toward Internet broadcasting. The appetite for that is due to mobility. Phones and tablets enable people to access programming no matter where they are. However, nobody agrees on how quickly this will happen. Over the past few years, there have been really rapid changes, but the rate of uptake of these technologies varies a lot from region to region from what we have seen. For example, if you live where broadband Internet is not available — that is still the case in some parts of Canada — you cannot use that technology. The law is actually quite flexible. The CRTC issues exemption orders for over-the-top programming services. Programming people get through the Internet, Netflix, Dailymotion and so on, falls under that heading. Tou.tv is the same kind of service. These companies take advantage of an exemption that does not require them to obtain a license. The CRTC can add conditions to the order — I think that is section 9.4. In Radio-Canada's case, the law should perhaps be amended, but I do not have a position on that to share with you today.
That was taken into account the last time it was up for renewal. Radio-Canada outlined its 2010-15 plan, which had a more regional, more unique and more digital focus. The CRTC took into account the fact that Radio-Canada also offered its services on other platforms. There were no specific conditions added to that. At this point, we know that the 2015-20 plan is on its way. Could I table a short document, a Radio-Canada chart showing the changes that Radio-Canada wants to make between 2014 and 2020? I think this document can contribute to the discussion.
The Chair: Can you table it?
Ms. Blais: Yes.
The Chair: When Senator Housakos was talking about regional budgets, you said, "We don't know."
From Halifax to Edmonton, from Saint-Boniface to Ottawa, that is probably one of the things we have heard about most often: Radio-Canada's lack of transparency. I am sure it is lots of fun to have those secrets, but wouldn't people be better served if Radio-Canada, like the BBC in England, were more transparent? If you go on the BBC's website, salaries for all BBC employees are posted. Here, though, we have been struggling to get answers about pay scales since we started these hearings. They sent us a document with thousands of names in no particular order that was not even consultable. The clerk and the analyst spent a lot of time searching that document and eventually found salaries for Peter Mansbridge and Céline Galipeau, which were in the $80,000 range.
The chair doesn't often get mad. Just ask my two Conservative colleagues, who occasionally accuse me of being a friend of the CBC. Guilty as charged. But I'm really insulted that CBC management sent us such a useless document. I've said it before and I'm saying it now. You can tell when I'm mad.
Several months later, we ended up on the right track after our inquiries. Instead of answering us — since they're not big on transparency, which is the subject of my next question — they sent me a letter one Thursday that said, "Mr. Dawson, as of Monday, we have published the salaries of our highest-paid employees, those who earn $100,000 and $150,000, et cetera, on our website." How respectful of them to tell us to go to the website instead of answering our letter, but that is all part and parcel of the transparency problem.
When we asked you about salaries, you said you could provide a document comparing what TVA and CBC employees earn. When we ask questions about CBC salaries, we can never get that information. When it comes to transparency in general and in particular in your case with respect to the regions, don't you think it would make more sense for CBC to cooperate with the committees, with the CRTC and with the general public to provide financial comparables?
Ms. Blais: Well, we're seeing a level of transparency too, and I think Isabelle could speak to that, especially in terms of staffing cuts. You had problems getting usable lists and whatnot, but even internally, it's complicated.
Ms. Doyon: First of all, I have to say that they're a lot more transparent than they used to be. I've been with CBC for eight years, and I've seen a change. It's not perfect, and it's taking some time, but things are getting a little better.
Pay scales for all of the unions are available to the public. If you want us to send them to you, we'd be happy to. The document is one page long.
In terms of transparency, my colleague was saying that we, as union representatives, have a hard time getting the official word on how many jobs will be cut. If more than 50 jobs are going to be cut from an organization, the minister has to notify us. We never get the real facts. Here's a very simple example. This year, we were told that about 32 jobs would be cut. As you may know, they call it "32 full-time equivalent jobs," which isn't the same as the number of people because we have part-time employees. Still, since December 2013 — and this includes retirees — we have lost 94 jobs. As you can see, that's a big difference. It's triple the number we were told. We're having a little trouble with transparency that way too. I'm talking about the labour relations point of view. From the public's point of view, I get it. When people try to get information about CBC's board of directors from the website, there's nothing there except for the headlines. So I definitely understand you in terms of that.
[English]
Senator Plett: Senator Dawson talked about the iPad and the technology, and you kind of answered him saying it's difficult for a cameraman to be the journalist and so on so forth; you need different people. Not wanting to, in any way, exploit anything, the terrible, horrific events that happened yesterday in Ottawa, but the most graphic, clear pictures of what happened in Ottawa yesterday, had been taken with a cellphone, a journalist taking them with a cellphone — the shooting in Parliament in Center Block. So with technology and the pictures being as clear as they were with the cellphone, why can't a journalist not be his or her own cameraman today and do all of this? We don't need the large cameras to have a very clear picture; it's becoming easier.
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: You must be talking about the Globe and Mail images by the Globe and Mail reporter who was inside?
[English]
Senator Plett: Yes, Josh Wingrove from The Globe and Mail.
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: Our view is that, when an unexpected event occurs, if the journalist can capture some images, that's fine. But if journalists are doing that all the time, that cuts into the time they spend putting together their reports. Nobody wants to be misquoted by a journalist. Nobody wants just part of a news story. Our view is that journalists should do the work they are hired to do, which is to cover the news, and if, for whatever reason, they capture images during an unexpected event, that's fine, but image specialists can support journalists by producing the best images for the story. I have seen journalists come up with images that were not always relevant to the subject or that were not very good.
The Chair: Ms. Doyon, Ms. Blais and Mr. Caissie, thank you for your presentation. As I said, there are fewer senators here than usual, but we have the transcripts, and the documents and recommendations will be put together not just for those who were here, but also for those who will read the recommendations and the debates. Thank you for being here. I think this justifies us coming to the region to meet with people who give us very different opinions.
Mr. Caissie, I have other questions about broadcasters and the size of the Moncton station because your director came to Halifax to tell us that he thought it was a good idea.
[English]
Mr. Gignac, as I mentioned earlier — you weren't here — but as you can imagine with the events of yesterday, the participation of the members today is going to be a little smaller. The reality is that the transcripts are read by members and the recommendations are made based on the information that is given at committees. We do appreciate your presence.
You had the pleasure, Jean-Sébastien, of appearing in front of the Official Languages Committee on the same kind of issue, but we are the ones that deal with CBC. This study is based on the CBC in the past, the CBC in the present, but more importantly on how we adapt the CBC to a changing environment, both technologically and potentially legislatively.
I know you have a presentation that you have to do later, so I will cut to the chase and give you the chance to make your opening declarations.
Jean-Sébastien Gignac, Executive Director, Voice of English-speaking Québec: Excellent. Thanks a lot.
Good morning, Senator Dawson, and members of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. My name is Jean-Sébastien Gignac, and I am executive director of an organization called Voice of English-speaking Québec which serves the English-speaking minority in the Greater Quebec City region. VEQ represents a community that is formed of roughly 14,500 individuals in the Greater Quebec City Region, which is just under 2 per cent of the overall population.
What's interesting about this is that according to the last census from Statistics Canada, it's the first time in over 150 years that our population is actually increasing and not decreasing, and this is mainly the result of our region's and community's capacity to integrate English-speaking newcomers in our region.
VEQ maintains a strong partnership with over 70 groups from both linguistic communities in our region, and we are proud to have a membership of over 2,300 individuals. As an umbrella group that serves a minority community in Quebec City, VEQ serves and offers different types of services to various segments of our community, whether it's newcomers, seniors, jobseekers, employers and so on. Every year, we are able to offer high-quality services aimed at helping over 400 English-speaking newcomers integrate in our regions. We serve hundreds of seniors, help them stay active and autonomous as long as they can in their actual home. We help dozens of jobseekers find meaningful employment here in Quebec City or create their own business, and we organize different types of events in which a thousand of people participate every year.
All these efforts are aimed at, of course, maintaining a strong dynamic English minority community here in Quebec City, but our objective is also to always be an asset to the majority, the French-speaking majority in Quebec City, and that's why we do what we do.
It is important to mention that the English community of Quebec is not simply an extension of the larger Canadian English majority in the rest of Canada. Actually, we shouldn't be talking about the English community of Quebec; we should be talking about the English "communities" of Quebec. While our communities spread across the province sometimes are confronted with similar issues, such as a higher unemployment rate than the majority, aging population, youth out-migration, our communities are really different from one another. This depends on various factors, such as is it an urban context, is it a rural context, is the community involved in the integration and attraction of newcomers or not, the demographic of that specific community. So we're really looking at a variety of communities that are unique. For a small community like the one we have here in Quebec City, that owes its own demographic growth to the integration of newcomers. The presence of a strong media source that truly reflects who we are as a community is fundamental.
I cannot overestimate the importance that CBC Radio has for our community. CBC Radio not only covers the issues that are affecting our community, but they attend events that are taking place in our community, they talk about issues that are important for our members, and through their coverage they also help us mobilize the entire community on important issues.
Senator Dawson mentioned that in less than an hour and a half I need to be at the National Assembly to present to the Quebec government about an important issue — health reform. CBC Radio has been instrumental, helping us mobilize the community, making them aware of how this reform can affect our community members.
Of course, English speakers in this region are no different than any other English speakers across the country in the sense that they have access to hundreds if not thousands of sources of information in English through television or the Internet. What's important to keep in mind is that there's only one source of information that really prioritizes the importance of local coverage for our community, and that's CBC Radio. So for us, it's absolutely fundamental that CBC Radio and CBC in general remain really strong for our community.
It is different to be an English speaker in Quebec City than it is in the rest of Canada where you're a part of the majority. As I mentioned before — I'm sure I don't have to convince you — the reality of an anglophone in Montreal is different than the reality of an anglophone on the Gaspé coast, in Thetford Mines or in Quebec City. CBC Radio has been able to adapt to that reality and offers our community members coverage that truly reflects the uniqueness of our community, and that's really important.
On the other hand, we do believe that CBC television could probably do a better job at covering our local community. While it remains an extremely important, viable source of information for national or international issues, CBC television is a bit less relevant for our community members when it comes down to local coverage. We do understand that there's limitation in terms of the resources that are put into it, and we understand that this community is a rather small one, but we think improvement can be made on that level.
Overall, I guess the message for me is that we certainly hope that CBC will continue to offer our community members coverage that truly reflects who we are, that reflects the issues that we face as a community, and that reflects the context in which this community has to evolve.
I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity to present to the committee, and I thank you for this time.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ann Marie Laughrea Powell, President, Megantic English-speaking Community Development Corporation: Good morning Senator Dawson, Senator Housakos and the honourable senators of the Transport and Communications Committee. Welcome to Quebec City.
I'm Ann Marie Laughrea Powell. I live in Sainte-Agathe-de-Lotbinière, which is a predominately agriculture rural community on the South Shore of Quebec. It is between Quebec City and Thetford Mines. I'm the President of Megantic English-speaking Community Development Corporation, which everyone calls just MCDC. It's a not-for-profit organization that serves 3,800 Canadians who make up the English-speaking community of the Chaudière Appalaches and the Arthabaska, the sub-region of Arthabaska and L'Érable, which is sort of Drummondville, Plessisville going towards Montreal. We offer community life activities, access to health and social services and youth and senior services. I thank you for this opportunity to speak on the importance of CBC, especially CBC Radio, for ensuring access to regional information in English for members of our community.
MCDC was started in 2000. Due to a severe decrease of the English-speaking population in our region caused by youth out-migration, aging and the disappearance of the asbestos mining industry, community leaders and volunteers saw the need for the creation of a community group to provide services to and revitalize our English-speaking community.
Before MCDC was started, Voice of English-Speaking Québec and also the Townshippers' Association tried their best to offer services to our area, but because of limited budgets, only so much could be done. So we started our own organization.
Our only source of English radio in the community is the CBC broadcasts. Our community depends on clear receptive radio service. Just yesterday, I had to go to Saint-Georges in Beauce, and the reception of CBC was really poor. So in the rural areas, it is essential.
We are a rural area not close to the borders of the U.S., Ontario or major cities. The only English communication we can receive is CBC. As Jean-Sébastien has mentioned, we are an English minority community, and since the English-speaking population of Chaudière Appalaches and Arthabaska-L'Érable represent only 1 per cent of the entire population, services and information material in English, other than those provided by MCDC, are almost non-existent. It is very rare to be able to even find an English media newspaper. Our reality is that we are an English-speaking minority community within the majority of a French-speaking community.
Again, as Jean-Sébastien has mentioned, sure, we have a lot of access to English-language programming from other parts of Canada and the United States, but this programming is not reflective of our community; it tells us nothing about ourselves, our identity.
The only source of regional information in English comes from the CBC Radio Quebec. There is no local television or newspapers in English. The role that CBC Radio Quebec plays is vital, both in terms of regional information, but also as a service to community groups and organizations who can use their community public announcement service to reach their population. It is the only source of information in English for emergency announcements or announcements of public health interest. It is essential that this only source of information in English remains available to our community.
No matter what your age is, community members enjoy their radio, whether they are listening in their home, in their car or even in their tractors. More local programming would be an asset. CBC Radio Quebec is always supportive of our community. If they have not got the budget means to come and to do onsite interviews, they're always willing to put something on the radio or an interview, but because of lack of funding and resources, they are limited in their ability to improve services for additional local programming.
I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you this morning, and I hope the message will resonate that we need continued local radio that reflects our reality as an official language minority community.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Madam Powell.
Senator Plett: I have a couple of questions. First of all, Jean-Sébastien, did you say that the area you serve is about 14,000 people? Was that correct?
Mr. Gignac: Yes, 14,500.
Senator Plett: And you said 3,800 in your community?
Ms. Powell: Yes.
Senator Plett: I think we heard this morning that the figure was 140,000 that they serve across —
The Chair: Province wide: Eastern Townships, Gaspé —
Senator Housakos: Outside Montreal.
Senator Plett: Yes.
Senator Housakos: Then they say the population for the Quebec City area is 14,500.
Senator Plett: Right. The majority of these anglophones, do they also speak French or is English their only language?
Ms. Powell: In our area, the people that we serve, especially the senior population, English is the main language. They maybe have conversation in French, but to listen to a program in French, I would say no. They totally rely on CBC English radio.
Mr. Gignac: As for my community, it is obviously same type of situation for the seniors' population and also for newcomers. If you're looking at the 2,000 individuals who joined our community over the last four years, some of them have really limited French and they are in a process of improving it. The rest of the population, I would say, has a fairly good understanding of French and can use it in their daily life. But, obviously, it leads us back to the issue of whether we are getting coverage about our community in the French media, and the answer is no. So CBC Radio remains the main source.
Senator Plett: My next question is related to that. Your largest concern is that you want the issues that affect the greater part of Quebec transmitted in English? It's not that the issues are different in your area than they are in other places, but it's that you want it in the English language.
Mr. Gignac: Yes and no. They are different sometimes, and that's why it's important to have media sources that will be interested covering issues affecting the English community. I'll give you an example. For the French media to cover anything that touches the English community, it's usually because it's a situation that is seen as a potential problem or as a confrontation between the two communities, while English media sources of information will cover what we do, not only our challenges, but our successes. They will help us promote who we are. They will help us promote some of the initiatives that we do. That helps us attract more newcomers to Quebec City and in the long-run helps us become even more of an asset, not only to our members but to the French majority. We are contributing to the economic prosperity of this region through our work in integrating newcomers.
Again, when you work in the type of dynamic that we work in with a small community, recruiting newcomers, you have to use all the tools that you have available, and all the tools are important — whether it's health and social institutions, whether it's the media source of information that is reflective of who we are as a community.
Senator Plett: We visited the CBC studio here earlier this morning and found that the French side and the English side really collaborate well. They work well together, and we heard what the English side does. I really didn't hear in your testimony — and I hope I heard it correctly — that you're really not unhappy with what's happening, but more that you want it to continue. Is that correct? Are you happy basically with what CBC English is doing?
Ms. Powell: I would say yes, but we're looking hopefully for more local programming that relates to our culture, to who we are, for our identity. In small communities, your radio is an important asset. It adds to the community vitality, to your community's well-being. It's very hard for someone who doesn't speak or understand French very well to listen. Just take yesterday's happenings in Ottawa. Sure, if you have television, you can turn on the TV and get some information, but you rely on radio to be sure you're hearing the information correctly. So yes, it's local programming that I think we're stressing. Most of the programming schedules come out of Toronto, so there's not very much room for local programming at times.
Mr. Gignac: Again, we do understand that we're in a context right now where governments are not necessarily in the business of increasing funding; that we understand. But that reinforces our concern that what we have we need to maintain. CBC Radio is an essential tool for the sustainability of our communities and for our capacity to attract more people to join our community and be part of who we are as a community.
Going back to your question, we are actually really happy with what we've got from CBC Radio — no doubt. We certainly hope that this will be maintained. CBC television, as I said, probably could do a bit more for us. Then again, we understand that resources won't be doubled in the next few years. We understand the issues. It's just that for us, maintaining what we have would certainly be our minimum expectation.
Senator Plett: Ms. Powell, when you answered the last question, you use the one word that we have heard so often, and you didn't use it in your presentation, and that was the word "Toronto."
Ms. Powell: Yes.
Senator Plett: Do you feel that everything is being controlled by Toronto or Montreal?
Mr. Gignac: In our case, while we are 100 per cent convinced that the people that are managing CBC Radio here in Quebec City understand our community, we're not that sure about whoever is managing CBC television from Toronto. I don't think they understand the fact that English speakers in this province are not just an extension of the larger English-speaking population in the rest of Canada. I don't think they understand that reality. I don't blame them. Maybe we haven't done a good enough job of presenting who we are, presenting our reality or presenting the fact that being an anglophone in this province is a totally different ball game than being an anglophone anywhere else in Canada.
Senator Plett: I think, as we said, they serve 140,000 people outside of Montreal. You're serving 14,000; you're serving 3,800. How many more of the 3,800-sized communities or 1,000-sized communities, English-speaking ones, are there? Obviously, there are only so many dollars to go around. It doesn't matter how you slice it. So how many communities does CBC English radio need to serve and cover their local issues?
Mr. Gignac: Obviously, there are small communities in almost every single region of the province. Again, because you're looking at a fairly big province and there are fairly big distances between each community, we understand that it's a challenge for CBC to try to reflect the reality of all these regions. You're probably looking at eight to ten different communities across the province. It depends on how you subdivide the province, obviously. But you will hear from the Townships in a couple of weeks, I understand. There are communities on the Gaspé coast, on the Lower North Shore, in Abitibi.
Ms. Powell: They all have their own issues in each community.
Mr. Gignac: There are various ways to be creative and serve more than one community at the time. Looking at some of the programs offered on CBC Radio, some are produced from Sherbrooke, some are produced from Quebec City. People from both communities kind of relate to both of them because it's part of the dynamic. I think there are ways to do that, keeping in mind the importance of investing taxpayers' money really well.
Senator Plett: Thank you.
Senator Housakos: Welcome to our committee. It is interesting listening to your perspectives. From a Montrealer's point of view, I guess I could be categorized as an anglophone. I've been categorized as an allophone. I'm categorized as all kind of things, but I'm curious: The 15,000-odd speaking anglophones in Quebec City, how many of their children would be attending English schools? How much of the growth in the anglophone population here has been immigration? How much of it has been through the baby boom, if you wish, amongst the anglophone community?
Mr. Gignac: On your first question, it's a tough question to answer because a lot of our community members will send their kids to an English school, but our school board, the school board that is actually covering our two regions, actually covers 40 per cent of the entire province. So you have schools all the way up to Chibougamau and Three Rivers, and so on, so it's difficult to extract these —
Senator Housakos: But have those school boards had a growth, as well, of students?
Mr. Gignac: School boards, not as much as we do, because in Quebec City a big part of that growth has been the result of immigrants or Canadian immigrants. Immigrants don't have access to English schools, obviously, so that limits them. Some of our community members also choose to send their kids to French schools — elementary school — and then they move on to an English school in high school. There are multiple options.
But again, in Quebec City, the majority of the growth has been the result of immigrants and Canadian immigrants moving here, and also part of it has been the fact that our community is integrated without being assimilated. They're having kids. The numbers are extremely similar to the French majority though in the region, but that's also part of the dynamic here.
Ms. Powell: On the South Shore where we live, there are many parents who would send their children to school in English, but it comes down to transportation. My children went to school in English, and we're also now the legal guardians of our two grandchildren. Now, Ashley is going to school in Thetford Mines, but still, last year, at kindergarten, she would be on the bus at 6:09 in the morning and would only get home at 5:00 at night. Now the transportation has changed to Thetford Mines. She leaves at 6:42 and is home about the same time. They have a long bus ride. So for a lot of parents, that's the reason they don't send their children to school in English; because of transportation.
Senator Housakos: And how old is little Ashley?
Ms. Powell: Now she's 10, but she's started in kindergarten coming to Quebec City.
Senator Housakos: So someone like Ashley, besides CBC Radio, which somehow I don't think she'll find anything interesting there, what would she be watching in English or listening to?
Ms. Powell: We're probably a unique family here in Quebec. I'm from Boston originally. We speak English at home. My kids are very bilingual. She watches the Disney Channel. We have a satellite dish. She watches children programming in English.
Senator Housakos: Jean-Sébastien, if you're an anglophone in Quebec City, besides CBC Radio, what other outlets would an anglophone in Quebec City be using to watch? Where would they watch their CFL football broadcasts? Where would they watch their shows that interest them the most?
Mr. Gignac: Whether it's on CBC or other channels actually, in the past, people who live in minority communities face a different reality than anglophones or allophones in Montreal. I think people would watch absolutely anything that relates to who they are and their reality in their specific region. For example, on CBC television right now, there is no show like those for Quebec City. It's difficult to speculate, but I can guarantee you that if something would be offered that would talk about the local issues and some of the initiatives taking place, people would watch it.
Again, I understand that there are high production costs for television, and so on, but the reality in a small community is that people actually care a lot about their community. They volunteer more in their community. They will come to community events more often than the majority because they actually care and they feel they belong. It would be the same thing with any information source. They would watch it more, I would say, even though the interest might not have been that high initially, because they feel they have to support it, and it's important to them and reflective of who they are.
Senator Housakos: You see, there's certainly a demand for what you're calling for — a minority language group in a province of a majority francophone population to be served and to get some form of relevant information. Of course, we heard the same story. When you go to St. Boniface and you talk about the minority francophone groups there, they're saying, "Well, look, Radio-Canada is the only game in town, and if we didn't have that, we wouldn't have anything." As I have repeated, everything is market driven. We live in a world where there's a demand, there'll be a supply and vice versa. So now what we have to grapple with as a government and CBC/Radio-Canada management has to decide as a strategy is that while there's a service, there's a need, there are limited resources in supplying that need.
Mr. Gignac: Yes.
Senator Housakos: So the question is this: What kind of models would you suggest we put in our report to help alleviate a very difficult problem? Over $1.1 billion of taxpayers' money goes to this Crown corporation. There have been reasonable reductions year after year because the marketplace demands it. They are grappling with that challenge and trying to satisfy everyone that is pulling in so many directions.
I want to finish by saying, would you be in favour and would it work, for example, to have a subscriber's program or to have a CBC speciality channel here in Quebec City for which you would have to pay a monthly fee? Of course, it would have to be subsidized to an extent by the government, but the question is right now, I don't think there's an appetite, regardless of what political party will be in power, to increase funding at the CBC by 20, 30, 40 or 50 per cent.
Mr. Gignac: The first thing, as I said before, is to maintain what we have. We understand the supply and demand logic here, but we have to remember that serving both linguistic communities is a responsibility and an objective of this country. That comes with a cost. We understand that. But if we want to maintain English communities across the province, there's an investment to make. There are efforts to make. And the same reality, I'm sure, applies to French minorities across the country.
Would people be really happy to have to pay to get the same services that other Canadians get for free? Probably not. Again, it's a question the government has to ask itself: Is it still important for us to maintain minority communities across the country and English minorities across the province of Quebec? If the answer is yes, then it comes with a cost that goes beyond supply and demand logic.
The Chair: I come from this community, and I had the pleasure of having my children go to anglophone schools. I'm really happy to have these people here to talk to the members of the committee than to talk to me, because I know pretty much everything about the subject. I often brag about the fact that when I was a member of Parliament, I was the first one to subsidize the Voice of English-speaking Québec through a program of Heritage Canada.
Mr. Gignac: Yes.
The Chair: So my commitment to the community has been long-standing.
That being said, we did get some very strong presentations this morning from the CBC about their services to the community and their cooperation with the community.
One of the questions I asked them about this morning is the pilot project on 450 in Montreal, on the South Shore. Their website is accessible by the community. In their case, it's not a linguistic issue; it's a geographical issue. Is there some kind of service that they could offer via new technology, whether it's Facebook, Twitter or the CBC anglophone website for Quebec City and anglophones outside Montreal that could be of interest to you, that comes at a lower cost than transmitters?
Ms. Powell: It could be interesting. Again, I'm probably here speaking a lot through our organization about our senior population, and they don't have computers. Some of them have computers, but they don't. I saw in a presentation about the future that by 2020 things will be different. Yes, my kid, everybody has a smartphone. They have their iPads. You're connected to technology. But in our area, quite a few seniors do not have any access, except through radio. The television is not via satellite; it's the television that you pick up through whatever broadcast signals you get. Not everybody is connected to cable in the country. That's an interesting possibility, but I think that there would still be, as we said, pockets of areas or communities where it wouldn't be accessible.
Mr. Gignac: In our case, when you work for a minority community in this province, being able to evolve and adapt is crucial to your survival. So we would be open to other options like that, as long as it doesn't compromise the quality of the services offered to our community.
I'm not familiar with the Montreal model, so I apologize for that, but it sounds like a potentially interesting option for us.
Senator Plett: My question is more in the form of a comment.
I'm from Manitoba — we have a large francophone community in Manitoba, but nevertheless they are in a minority, they are not the majority — and we have heard, over and over again, that services need to be provided in French to small pockets of francophone-speaking communities that we have across the country. I hear this over and over, that they need to have the services provided. We are a country with two official languages, and I just wanted to take this opportunity to commend you for fighting here for the minority on the other side.
Mr. Gignac: Thank you.
Senator Plett: I think it's important, and we don't hear that. I hear so often that Quebec City is not bilingual, that it is unilingual, French only. To hear you fight the good fight here, I commend you for it and wish you all the success in the world in continuing your endeavours.
Mr. Gignac: Thank you.
Ms. Powell: Thank you.
Senator Housakos: I have a comment and a question. I heard in your response to my last question in saying that there might not be a willingness on the part of a minority group to pay additional costs for what other Canadians are already getting for free. We have to keep in mind that no Canadians get services from CBC/Radio-Canada for free.
Mr. Gignac: No, for sure.
Senator Housakos: We all pay for it, and we pay dearly for it.
Mr. Gignac: I should have said "additional cost."
Senator Housakos: I also want to underline that that's where government has to come in, in my mind, to come in and fill voids where the private sector doesn't want to fill them.
I'll take my question to another area. I like to think out of the box, and I think it's important that CBC/Radio-Canada — and for me, they're one entity — find a way to better serve their communities across the country. I think their mandate should be one where they focus on areas where there's a Canadian cultural make-up that needs to be promoted and supported, and if they don't do it, Global won't do it, TVA won't do it, because there's no money in it for them.
I'm throwing this out there; I'm curious to have your comments. Should Radio-Canada in the Quebec City area, for example, not see itself uniquely as just a channel for francophone Canadians, but as a channel that reflects the image of their community, including the 15,000 anglophones, and you guys shouldn't be a separate entity? In St. Boniface, CBC should not look at the francophone community as, well, a little side service we provide in that corner of St. Boniface in a small studio, and we give them a few hours a week of francophone time. Is it maybe time that the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada be a perfectly bilingual one, where on Radio-Canada, the local French channel here, you get some reporting in English? You get some bilingual reporting on all the CBC/Radio-Canada outlets? I'm just throwing it out there for your comments.
Ms. Powell: It would be wonderful if it happened, but the reality of this province — and I wasn't even here in the 70s — is that it's always a challenge to live here in English.
Senator Housakos: I live in Montreal. I know exactly what you're talking about. But it might be a good thing for francophones to hear a little bit of English, and it might be a great thing for anglophones to hear a little bit of French.
Ms. Powell: It would be wonderful if it happened.
Mr. Gignac: I agree. Certainly, one of the efforts that organizations like mine have to do is to reach out more to the French-speaking media and try to have them cover who we are and what we do in other situations than just, "Well, there's a problem with that specific reform" or "There's a modification proposed to the Charter of French Language," or situations like that. I certainly agree.
The reality here is that we represent 2 per cent of the population. The media, by definition, will prioritize news that will attract the attention of as many people as possible, and that's the reality in which we live. Again, if Radio-Canada would be more open to covering community, we would be responding yes to an invitation to participate in any of their shows anytime of the day, any day of the week.
Ms. Powell: Because we're really, I think, invisible to them. Certainly, as Jean-Sébastien said, maybe our organizations have to push harder. But certainly that's a welcoming thought, a welcoming idea.
Senator Housakos: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I hope that you will have a good audience and strong support at your next meeting.
Ms. Powell: Thank you.
Mr. Gignac: Thanks a lot for the opportunity.
[Translation]
The Chair: Hello, I'm Dennis Dawson, the chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. Today we are continuing our study on the challenges facing CBC in the changing broadcast and communications sector.
Our witnesses are Jean Lortie, Corporate Secretary of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, and François Énault, Assistant to the Executive Committee, as well as Pierre Roger, President of the Fédération nationale des communications.
Gentlemen, you have the floor for your opening statement, and then senators will ask you questions.
Mr. Lortie, would you like to begin?
Jean Lortie, Corporate Secretary, Confédération des syndicats nationaux: Yes.
The Chair: You have the floor.
Mr. Lortie: Good afternoon. I would like to thank the Senate transport committee for inviting the Confédération des syndicats nationaux. On my left is Pierre Roger, President of the Fédération nationale des communications de la CSN, which represents, among others, over 6,000 employees in the communications sector, including 1,500 at CBC in Quebec and New Brunswick. On my right is François Énault, Assistant to the Executive Committee of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux.
We would like to thank the committee for inviting us here to talk about issues facing CBC. I would like to focus on issues related to the regions.
CBC/Radio-Canada is important to the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, a union organization founded in 1921. I should add that we represent thousands of federal correctional officers across Canada from Grande Cache, Alberta, to the Nova Scotia border.
I would like to start by talking about the quality of the product. As I have said in numerous public statements, CBC/Radio-Canada's presence in a region forces other private broadcasters to adhere to standards as high as the CBC's for the credibility of their own messages. They are private, for-profit broadcasters, so of course the quality of the reporting, the quality of the information has to be upheld if CBC/Radio-Canada is in the same market.
The other equally important element is the variety of information in the regions. For Canada's francophone populations, as well as for minority anglophone populations here in Quebec, the quality and variety of the information they get from private and public networks are important. CBC/Radio-Canada is doing an amazing job by being present in the regions and should be even more present even though, over the past several years, regional stations across Canada have been closed. We believe it's important to strengthen regional identity.
The presence of CBC/Radio-Canada in the regions also provides a platform for a variety of voices in the region, from civil society organizations to businesses, from communities to municipal and regional councillors. Having a national public broadcaster in the region enables people there to learn about themselves and the issues they are dealing with, and enables other parts of Canada to reflect the Canadian people as a whole on issues of national importance, such as Canada's fishing industry, public safety, employment insurance and other national issues. They can also be a window on what is going on in Canada.
For the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, any discussion of CBC/Radio-Canada's presence begins with a discussion of adequate long-term funding. Over the past few years, nearly half a billion dollars has been cut from the national public broadcaster's budget, and that has had a major impact on quality in the regions. This interferes with Canadian democracy because fewer resources are allocated to content, to analysis and to broadcasting, which means that the gap is filled in more and more by private broadcasters and our national broadcaster cannot maintain its presence.
For us, funding is an important issue. We are in the process of a five-year plan that is causing some concern. Over the past few months, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux has commented publicly on CBC/Radio-Canada management's announcements about the five-year plan. The main problem is funding. We cannot develop a national public broadcaster or respect the fundamental mission that led to its creation in the 1930s if we do not allocate funding that protects it from the political whims of the moment and competition from private enterprise. CBC/Radio-Canada is not a private enterprise. We strongly believe that, if the goal is to develop a product in the regions across the country, in all of the provinces and territories, the national broadcaster needs the resources to do it, to develop content over the long term and maintain its credibility for audiences across the country in both official languages.
For now, I would like to conclude by saying that, for us, funding is closely related to the development of the CBC/Radio-Canada product in the regions. This might go without saying, but for the telecommunications industry, which is undergoing a profound shift, investing in technology, investing in creators who are CBC employees and investing in the medium term in a Canadian product in the regions that reflects the diversity of this country is good value for everyone in this country.
Thank you for inviting us to be here this afternoon.
The Chair: Do your colleagues have anything to add?
Pierre Roger, President, Fédération nationale des communications: No, we're ready to answer questions.
François Énault, Assistant to the Executive Committee, Confédération des syndicats nationaux: We're ready for questions.
[English]
Senator Plett: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. My first question is not necessarily related to CBC. You said that, I think, Mr. Roger was the head of the union for Quebec and New Brunswick. Why Quebec and New Brunswick? Why not all of Atlantic Canada and Quebec?
Mr. Roger: Yes, but in fact the way the Union is — how should I say?
[Translation]
It might be easier if I say it in French. Unions were grouped by territory, and in Quebec, we represent people working for CBC in English and French, and in French in Moncton. CBC/Radio-Canada employees in the rest of Canada are represented by the same union, which is the Canadian Media Guild.
[English]
Senator Plett: How have CBC services for the public, not for the employees — I'm concerned about the public, as we all should be. Now, in fairness, I want all of you to make a good living, but that's not my concern. My concern is that the public gets good services.
The funding cuts, the half of billion dollars you say over the last number of years of cuts, what part of the services have those cuts affected other than that they've laid off a thousand employees.
We just came back from Nova Scotia. We have been out West. We've been in my province of Manitoba. We've been in Alberta. We've been in Yellowknife. I said yesterday in Halifax when I was asked "How has your impression of CBC changed during these hearings?" as to the services of CBC, my impression has actually gotten better, increased. For the best part, when I have talked to even people from CBC, I've been told they have had budget cuts, but we have improvised here or we have adapted new technology here, and we've done this over here, and really, our services haven't gotten that much worse.
Tell me of some examples where the services, where the person out on the street has noticed a decline in services, aside from the fact that you don't have as many union people to represent.
[Translation]
Mr. Lortie: I will start by describing the situation here in Quebec and in Moncton. In the regions, there are far fewer newsrooms, far fewer journalists. Because of the cuts, more than 11 stations have been closed, there are fewer journalists in the field to investigate and report on situations in the region. Fewer people are assigned to cover what's going on in the regions. Regional news reports are much shorter, and there are fewer regional programs.
Obviously, that affects people every day. We have seen it in Sept-Îles, in Baie-Comeau, in the lower St. Lawrence, everywhere. The quality of the news product for the regions has suffered because of service cuts.
There is an increasing reliance on national media to pick up the slack, and a growing dependency on news bulletins from major centres — Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Moncton — because there are fewer people in the field. Increasingly, people don't have the tools they need because there is no investment in the regions, only in major centres. Pierre can add his thoughts.
Mr. Roger: One very important aspect of this issue is technology. CBC, like other broadcasters, private or otherwise, is going through a seismic shift right now. This is a major transformation. CBC has always been and is still a traditional radio and television broadcaster. Over the years, it has developed its expertise and its Internet platforms. Now it has to make its content available on cell phones and tablets. There has to be investment to make sure it stays present because people are turning to these new platforms. The broadcaster has to be available to those people, and of course it needs resources to do that. CBC can't just count on its existing budget to do that kind of development.
CBC's success has always been tied to its ability to produce high-quality programming both in entertainment and, mainly, information. CBC has a unique role to play in broadcasting information. As Jean was saying at the beginning, it is kind of the benchmark for other media; it sets the standard for information and even programming quality. Other broadcasters take their cue from CBC. They say, "That is the standard we need to achieve."
To maintain that quality standard, especially in the realm of information, and to make sure people are getting the information they need, CBC needs the means, the resources. CBC plays a critical role in Canadian democracy by keeping the public well informed.
I can point to how much people in the regions tune in to the radio and television during election campaigns to hear the candidates' platforms, to hear them explain what they are doing, what they did when they were in office.
This is important. CBC plays a huge role in communication in the regions, and in major centres, but especially in the regions. We know people appreciate it. I am sure you observed during your visits to those regions how attached people are to CBC.
Mr. Énault: I might have another one of the examples you asked me for, senator. Three weeks ago, I was with Alex Levasseur, outgoing president of the local CBC union, and he told me about satellite trucks. When CBC/Radio-Canada decided to pull satellite trucks out of the Quebec regions, what happened was that three weeks later, TVA pulled its satellite truck too.
With respect to the standards that Pierre and Jean were talking about, it's automatic. When you lower certain standards, the competition does too. As a result, those communities don't get the same services they had before. CBC sets the standard. That is an example of what happened in Quebec.
[English]
Senator Plett: You were talking about elections, so one of my questions will be around polling. I've been involved in elections for the last 50 years. Voter turnout has gone down and down in the last 50 years. In those 50 years, I've gotten the information on election night. How many people will pay attention in a local region to the debates? Yes, I want to have the information. Election night, I want to know how my candidate is doing. If I'm not involved in elections, I want to know how other candidates are doing. But we don't need all of the resources. That can be done with a national team. We don't need the amount of resources that we do.
You talk about satellite trucks and CBC setting the standard. Yesterday, we had one of the most horrific incidents that we've had in our country in our lifetime, this last week with terrorism coming into our country the way it has. We all watched a fair bit of what happened in the Hall of Honour on television that had been shot by a cellphone. A Globe reporter took the video with his cellphone. It was sharp, as clear as could be, as clear as if you would have had your television cameras in there. Now obviously the reporter had to hide a bit because didn't want to be in the line of gunfire and in the line of what the police were doing, but the shooting was clear.
So I'm wondering whether we need to set a standard that is so high in quality that it can't be done with different services? We've progressed so much.
One of my colleagues, two weeks ago when we had hearings in Ottawa, used an example of how he had done television interviews both in the CBC studio and in some of your competitors' studios. Indeed, CBC is the Cadillac of television studios, and maybe that's what we want. I've done television interviews in these studios. I come in there and I have a receptionist coming to the door, and I have a different person bringing me a cup of coffee, then I have two or three people doing the make-up, and so on and so forth. Then I go to one of the private broadcasters, and as I'm ushered through, if you want a cup of coffee, pour yourself one there as you walk by. I walk in a little room, and I sit there for a while. Maybe they're going to do a little bit of make-up and maybe they're going to come and look and say, "Well, your face is red enough the way it is, so we won't bother with that." These things all cost a lot of money. Is it necessary that we have those types of services?
CBC did a fantastic job with the Olympics. I want to commend and compliment everybody involved in what they did with the Olympics. But four years previously we had the Olympics in Vancouver; there was no such thing as an iPad, so technology has changed. But much of what's happening on the street nowadays, we don't need satellite trucks. We don't need all the television crews. So do you not agree that there can be legitimate cuts?
I asked the question about services. When I ask the people on the street, "Have you noticed a decline in services in CBC?" — and I want to commend the three of you working there — I'm left with the impression that your services have still maintained a good level. So the tax payers that we're representing are not noticing this decline in services. How do you square that box when they're not telling us there's a decline in services, and yet you say there's a decline in quality of services?
I know that was a very long-winded question, but there was a question in there.
[Translation]
Mr. Roger: Thank you, Senator Plett. Your question had a number of elements. First, I would like to address the events that happened yesterday evening. You are right about the journalist who captured images of part of the event with his cell phone, images that were rebroadcast repeatedly by television networks. However, the most important aspect of the events that happened yesterday was not just the images, but the facts. We also have to have people who can analyse, who can tell the story to the people, to Canadian viewers so they understand what happened, what went on, and the impact of all that.
Presenting the facts is one thing, but there has to be analysis as well, and there have to be resources to do that and technology because, as you said yourself, the television coverage was very good yesterday.
Sure, there were the cell phone images, but in addition to that, there was a huge technological machine to report on what people were seeing quickly, without wasting time. In the case of yesterday's incident, right away the big television networks and CBC did an amazing job of looking at it and analysing it, bringing in experts to comment on the incident.
In terms of technology, yes, it's true that this is the age of cell phones and tablets, but there is a problem in the regions, and I would like people to be really aware of that. The CRTC is aware of it, and if the committee should make one recommendation above all, it should be a reminder to the CRTC or Industry Canada that we need to find a way in Canada to make the Internet and broadband available in the regions because it can be hard in remote regions for people to access this new technology that is more flexible, more lightweight, less costly. People in the regions still don't have access to it.
It's great if CBC can use that lighter equipment, but we have to make sure that people in the regions have access to it. That is one of the problems we're dealing with in Canada because our country is so big. It's fantastic, but it does cause some problems with technology for some people.
[English]
Senator Plett: Mr. Lortie, in your opening address you talked about funding cuts undermining democracy. First of all, the government, as I have said many times, has no money; they administer taxpayers' money. So they have to administer taxpayers' money in a responsible manner. How do funding cuts undermine a democracy? Have you done polling that shows that taxpayers are unhappy with the funding cuts and that taxpayers are not happy with services? Are there polling numbers that bear that out? Because that's the only way a democracy can be undermined, if we do something that the voters don't want.
[Translation]
Mr. Lortie: I have several things to say. First and foremost, it's a political choice about priorities. No matter how many choices are made, it's always about priorities.
Look at the 2008 economic crisis. Prior to the crisis, none of the western governments ever had any money, taxpayers didn't want to pay more, and then suddenly, in the fall of 2008, to save banks around the world, hundreds and hundreds of billions, thousands of billions were spent to save the global banking system.
I'm pretty sure nobody consulted taxpayers before saving the banks, but that's what governments did because it was a national and international priority. All countries pitched in, and that showed us that governments make the choices they have to make by setting priorities and deciding how to use taxpayers' money.
Having a public broadcaster in Canada is a choice. We can choose to rely on Quebecor, Sun Media and other private media outlets. We represent not only CBC employees, but 325,000 members across the country, and as an organization, we believe that Canadian democracy needs a public broadcaster that's protected from monopolies, from political circumstances driven by shareholders that have their own priorities. I can illustrate that by looking at elections in the regions. If you don't have the financial resources as a candidate or as a civil society organization to make yourself heard because private media decides that it won't give you access to that private platform, that raises questions about diversity of opinion in this country.
Canada's strength lies in diversity of information and opinion. All of that comes together to make Canadian society open and democratic.
This morning, if you had asked any taxpayer, "Do you want to pay taxes?" nobody wants to pay taxes. However, everyone wants a public health system, nobody wants to touch the Canada Health Act, nobody wants to touch funding for schools and universities across Canada, but nobody wants to pay taxes.
At some point, we have to ask ourselves whether we, as a society, want to make the choice to have a national public broadcaster paid for by people's taxes as part of Canada's democratic system. That's a choice. People might disagree — that's valid, that's good, it's a choice individuals can make. We believe that the national public broadcaster helps us define our vision.
Speaking of yesterday's events, the interesting thing was tuning in to CBC and RDI to get the analysis of what happened on Parliament Hill, to get a critical perspective without advertising, without editorializing because shareholders wanted this or didn't want that. The concentration of private media is a major issue here in Canada. Having a broadcaster means being able to trust because its mission is to be the national public broadcaster.
There are access problems, people talked about that, but in the regions, that is a bigger problem. You don't see that so much in Toronto or Montreal or even Winnipeg, but you see it in cities like Chicoutimi, Saguenay and Gaspé. There's a problem, a crisis in the fishing industry, and when CBC journalists investigate the fishing industry in crisis, they set the standard. The benchmark is about quality of information, and CBC/Radio-Canada sets the benchmark. Other media follow suit.
This is not about driving a Cadillac. This is about quality of information, about taking the time and having the resources to do it. That is our message to you, sir.
[English]
Senator Plett: I understand perfectly well your need to represent your 325,000 people. I recognize that entirely. But again, you say that the taxpayers didn't have a choice when governments decided to do what we did during the financial crisis. Well, the fact of the matter is there has basically been two governments in power, two parties, since Confederation, and they are the ones that have made the cuts to CBC. The predecessors, the Liberals, made about a $400 million cut to CBC, and the present government about $115 million.
Well, in fact, they did it democratically because they run elections every four years, or sometimes more often, and the taxpayers and the voters decide whether or not the government of the day has spent their money wisely. Having been involved in politics and elections since I was 15 years old, that has never been a ballot question. I don't think any government has ever been elected or thrown out of office based on what they did with the CBC, whether they increased their funding or cut it back. That's never been a ballot question. Overall, how we do many things, including the economy, would I guess in a roundabout way affect it's operations.
So I disagree that taxpayers aren't consulted. We're going to consult taxpayers on October 19 of next year, and they will tell us whether or not we've done a good job. I have every confidence that they will, but that's a political statement, so that will be as far as I go on that matter.
The Chair: The Chair has been very generous because you were nice enough to stay here at our request.
Senator Plett: I appreciate that.
Senator Plett: I will just finish. My last question is in regard to transparency. Our chair has written letters and we have been asking for information from the President of CBC and others about salary ranges and other issues. I want your opinion on how transparent should CBC be. We've compared it sometimes and others have compared it with the BBC. I go on a BBC website and I can find out, if you were working for BBC, how much money you were making, and I can find out how much the president is making. What's your opinion on the transparency of what the three of you, sitting right where you are, are drawing for salaries or Hubert Lacroix is taking for his salary?
[Translation]
Mr. Lortie: That doesn't have much to do with CBC/Radio-Canada's mission in the regions.
The Chair: In general though, questions about governance at CBC have been coming up since the beginning.
Mr. Lortie: For sure, and we can answer.
The Chair: This morning I talked about how, a few months ago, after a great deal of effort on our part, we received a list of 1,500 CBC employees in some kind of numerical alphabetical order that meant nothing, which CBC provided in response to our request about how much people were being paid. We wanted that table — which was not consultable because it wasn't in Excel or any other format — because we wanted to know how much Céline Galipeau was making, to find out how much Radio-Canada and CBC top earners were being paid.
Based on the document, we concluded that Peter Mansbridge makes $88,000. Everyone knows that's not true. Don't insult me, as a member of the Senate, as the chair of a committee, by giving me false information.
That is the culture at CBC, and it took us months of work, but in the end we got it because transparency is important that way. If we, as a Senate committee, cannot analyse how CBC is spending its money, we can say we want to help the regions, but we don't know if they're misusing that money. When there are cuts, unfortunately, we don't know where those cuts are. Are they in Moncton, or are they at headquarters in Toronto and Montreal?
It's important to know that about the regions. Maybe you don't think it has anything to do with the mission and it's not on the agenda. However, I'm telling you that, given the nature of the recent cuts, we want to know if the regions are being mistreated. We think you might be able to help by telling us whether, from the point of view of transparency, you think the regions are not being treated as well as headquarters.
[English]
Senator Plett: Mr. Chair, the answer, I'm sure, will be on record, so I will excuse myself.
The Chair: Okay.
Senator Plett: Thank you very much.
The Chair: I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for having stayed on under the circumstances
And thank you very much, Senator Plett. Bon voyage.
[Translation]
Mr. Lortie: We'll address that in two parts. Pierre will answer part of the question. In answer to the question about governance, people on the front lines, people in the newsrooms in the regions are paying the price for these cuts. Of that there can be no doubt. The CSN cannot be clearer than that. The people bearing the brunt of the cuts are in the regions: journalists, technicians, people on the front lines. They are the ones on the front lines in terms of equipment, quality of equipment, quality of newsrooms. I want to be very clear.
On the subject of governance, there are important issues. Just last Thursday, we happened to attend a breakfast event put on by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, where the president, Hubert Lacroix, was giving a presentation on CBC's five-year plan. I have to say that the three of us who were there were disgusted by the quality of that presentation on transparency.
Somehow, magically, in 2020, Radio-Canada will be this, that and the other thing, CBC will be this, that and the other thing, as if there were no creators, but at the same time, there were announcements about selling off assets, selling off real estate. There's a problem, a big problem with transparency there in terms of what it will cost to achieve President Lacroix's goal.
On that first point, there is no doubt in our minds that there are problems. Pierre can speak more to salaries and day-to-day issues.
Mr. Roger: I think I understand some of your concerns, Senator Dawson. I sure hope that CBC will be more transparent in responding to the committee, but bear in mind that these consultations are public. Still, there could have been a way to submit documents about certain salaries confidentially. I should point out that there is stiff competition in the television and media sector.
For example, Patrice Roy, who anchors the French-language six o'clock news on Radio-Canada, which is a very important program, has a competitor on another major Quebec chain, TVA. Each network offers compensation to keep its star anchor and doesn't want the competitor to poach. If CBC can't pay competitive salaries, it will lose its best journalists and hosts.
That is part of the unique way stars are compensated in the industry and doesn't necessarily apply to the journalist in the field. Star host journalists often have unique status in terms of compensation because this is still a ratings war after all.
CBC is in it too because, seeing as its funding shrinks year after year, stays the same or shrinks, it is getting harder to keep providing the same services. That is the state of things in the media world.
The Chair: We don't want to get obsessed with finding out anyone's exact salary. We want a pay scale that shows how much the top earners make. We have that for most public collective agreements and publicly traded corporations. It took months of asking, and in the end, as you know, he sent a short letter telling me that it was all online as of last week. It's hard to get information from CBC about operations. If I want to find out what any given BBC employee earns, all I have to do is go on the website and the information is there.
Their competitive environment is a little different from the one in Canada, in Quebec in particular, and I certainly understand the nature of competition, whether it's Patrice Roy or Céline Galipeau. However, as my colleagues have said, taxpayers know how much the President of Canada Post makes: $134,244.
They know what I make as a senator, what an MP or a minister makes, but we can't get that kind of pay scale from CBC. One of your colleagues, who is sitting back there, said that the situation is getting better, that CBC is starting to be a little more open with its information.
It would have been much simpler for us if that cooperation had been there from the start. When they tell us that they give their employees bonuses on the order of 20 to 40 per cent, we have to assume that there are criteria for that because I think bonuses are a good thing. However, is it tied to ratings or, as you said, is it tied to their ability to cut costs? Are they being rewarded for cutting salaries in the regions?
If so, they have every right to do so. Again, I don't want to interfere in their right to run things as they see fit, but I think there needs to be some transparency in those criteria.
I also think that instead of viewing you as adversaries in this, we should admit that we are serving the same interests.
Mr. Roger: I agree. I just want to add to what I was saying earlier. I was more referring to famous hosts. You are absolutely right when it comes to the governance by senior management at CBC, its board of directors. There does, however, need to some kind of transparency, considering it's a crown corporation.
Now, I want to come back to something — I'll answer one of your previous questions — to certain aspects relating to taxes. What do Canadian taxpayers want or not want from the CBC?
I'm not sure what study Senator Plett is basing his arguments on when he says that Canadians no longer want the CBC or that they find that it costs too much. He didn't say that they no longer want it, but perhaps that they find that it costs too much, to be fair.
We had studies done that I could table. They may not be recent, they go back a few years, but they indicate how much the CBC costs per Canadian and we asked the question in a poll of roughly 1,000 people. That is not an insignificant poll. Those polled were prepared to pay $5 a year more in order to keep the CBC. I'm not sure what the senator is referring to when he says, "People no longer want to pay for it."
I think that heading into an election a political party can say, "People were pleased that we made cuts to CBC." But was there a study, a poll, something that says so? I want facts or I want us to take the same approach as other countries and ask people the question directly during the election: "Are you satisfied? Do you want "X"?
I don't know. This type of process or consultation is not in our culture in Canada. I think we want to change things at CBC because we are very worried. You saw in Le Devoir this morning that the CBC is cutting another 400 jobs in the next few days.
Where will those jobs be cut? We don't know. Will it be in the regions again? I think the government is slowly killing the CBC. If that's the case, could the government be upfront with us and say so clearly instead of dragging out the problem? Could it ask Canadians directly: "Do you still want the CBC?"
The CBC has a mandate to fulfill under law. The government has to look at that law and see that we have a duty to keep the CBC going. There are reasons the CBC was set up in the first place. Perhaps we have to go back and look at those reasons and see if they are still relevant. I think we have to be sure to respect the CBC's mandate, which is becoming increasingly difficult to do with the budgets it is being allocated.
The Chair: Senator Housakos, you have the floor.
Mr. Lortie: If I may, Mr. Chair, I want to come back to the issue of governance. Asking questions is your duty as senators because you are mandated to do so. As far as CBC's governance is concerned, we have the same questions on the direction that CBC/Radio-Canada is taking. This five-year plan only results in staffing cuts. Don't tell me we're trimming the fat. Don't tell me it's outdated. We want to know what the plan is. Where do we want to be in five years?
Listening to President Lacroix last week was certainly not reassuring. He didn't once talk about the people or the artists at the crown corporation. He didn't mention them once. He said, "We're selling the furniture, we're going to sell the buildings, we're going to sell the equipment, the technological equipment to get to 2020."
In 2017, there won't be any money left. This is a dark and endless downward spiral. Where will they be? We can't seem to get any answers about their business plan, if they have one. They may be able to present one to you at an in camera committee meeting, but they certainly don't have any answers for us.
It is the public broadcaster. It has an obligation to face public scrutiny on what it does. It is your duty to ask those questions and we will encourage you to do so. We are asking the same questions.
I want to come back to that issue, and the erosion of CBC/Radio-Canada because we are talking about the regions. To us, there cannot be just a commercial voice in the regions of Canada. Canadians' access to information or entertainment cannot be commercially-based only.
There needs to be balance and that is the CBC's role and mission. If we need to review the mission that was established before the Second World War, then let's do it, if that's the issue. In 2020, we want there to still be a national public broadcaster, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, that does its job and respects its mission and doesn't engage in crisis management, as it's currently doing on a daily basis. When we get up in the morning, we constantly see news of cuts and we have no idea where this is going.
Senator Housakos: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here and thank you for your very interesting speech today.
In your press release of June 26, 2014, your agency denounced CBC/Radio-Canada's new strategic plans saying that they open to door to dismantling and privatizing the corporation.
I would like to know whether there are any entities that you know of in Canada or abroad, that are prepared to buy CBC/Radio-Canada if the government decides tomorrow to privatize a corporation that is losing more than $1 billion a year. I don't know many in today's industry that are prepared to buy CBC/Radio-Canada. There are a number that may want us to shut down CBC/Radio-Canada, but that's another story. I don't know too many people who are prepared to invest $1 billion a year in a company that loses year after year.
You have called for a moratorium on all the budget cuts and you are doing so again today. You are suggesting forming a parliamentary committee to study the future of CBC/Radio-Canada. We have been doing that for the past year.
I can assure you that what we've heard so far across the country, and I want to reaffirm what Senator Plett is saying, is that Canadian taxpayers do not have an appetite for spending even more money. Regardless which political party is in power in a few months, whether it is the Liberals or the Conservatives, taxpayers certainly cannot do any more than they are doing right now. What metrics are we using to confirm that? CBC's ratings are atrocious. I admit that Radio-Canada's ratings are a bit better. However, Radio-Canada's ad revenues are declining much quicker than the government's yearly subsidies are.
Over the past 10 years, the federal government has cut $500 million from the federal subsidies to CBC/Radio-Canada, but the reduction in ad revenues over the past few months is much bigger than that. That worries us. The government invested more than $15 billion over the past 15 years and ratings, in English Canada in particular, as I said, are atrocious.
I recently read a poll sent to my office by the Friends of the CBC, which says that 39 per cent of Canadians think that Peter Mansbridge is the best anchorman in Canada.
I believe that. It's possible, but in the meantime, Mr. Mansbridge's ratings on the National, in English Canada, represent less than 5 per cent of the population month after month. That is very worrisome. I heard your message loud and clear that the government has to provide more money.
Do you have any another proposals as to how we can save the future of CBC/Radio-Canada?
I can assure you that when the report is published in a few months it will be sent to the minister and the House of Commons. They will never agree to spending $6 million or $7 million more a year to continue receiving the service, given the results we have seen in the past four or five years.
It's a long question. I put a lot of things on the table, but I take it that you want the government to spend all kinds of money to fill the void left by the loss of "Hockey Night in Canada," by the loss of ad revenue that has been declining month after month for the past three or four years. Just forget it. The government can't come up with that kind of money or justify it to taxpayers.
I would like to know what your plan B and plan C are as to what we should do with this important corporation, which I believe has its place. However, we have to find that place and figure out how to pay for it.
Mr. Roger: Your question is very interesting, Senator Housakos. We always come back to the fundamental question. First, I would like to clarify something: indeed there are differences between French Canada and English Canada. It's true that the ratings are not very high on the English side. Things are definitely better on the French side and I think you know why.
Obviously, the English-Canadian population has access to a lot more programming during prime time on the U.S. networks in real time, whereas in Quebec, they are limited by the French language, so there is programming specific to Quebec.
This comes back to the relevance of CBC/Radio-Canada. Today I am taking part in your committee, but for almost 20 years I have attended many federal committees such as Canadian Heritage. I can't count the number of committee meetings where we discussed the relevance or future of CBC/Radio-Canada. We also addressed this issue at Joan Fraser's Senate committee, as I'm sure you remember. Every time, the recommendations were to do better and to support CBC/Radio-Canada, and that we had a national broadcaster, we had to wonder. I think the debate has to be on whether or not to have a public broadcaster. The BBC made that choice and exists in Great Britain.
If we want to question the existence of CBC/Radio-Canada, then we have to have a debate on that and soon. We have to have a real debate with all the players instead of just saying people no longer want it, or we get the feeling they don't want it, but we don't know why.
Talking about ratings is for the private sector. That was never supposed to be a major focus at CBC/Radio-Canada. CBC always wanted to do distinct programming. Unfortunately, because CBC/Radio-Canada's budgets have been hamstrung over the years, the corporation has had to resign itself to producing programming similar to private companies to seek ad revenue in order to be able to continue producing.
Take for example CBC radio, and the last trial period on Radio 2 and CBC Music, where they tried to include ads, but it didn't really work. Radio is quite unique at CBC. When Canadians are tuning into radio, they know where to find CBC because that's the only place where there are no ads. It's wonderful. It is something truly unique, but again, that's CBC.
I will talk about local stations because I know there's going to be a debate on the relevance of the national broadcaster, but perhaps not with us. I think it's so important to hear journalists, CBC reporters when they are abroad sending us reports such as the ones on the Ebola virus currently in Africa. Canadian journalists are currently on site, covering armed conflicts where Canada is involved. They are the eyes of Canada. These aren't reports we're buying from the BBC or a French journalist, but reports made by Canadians who travel there with our perspective, our culture and that is important. It does cost money for that, however.
I think democratic debate is alive and well on the CBC, which sets a sort of standard for other media types and that is really important. I'll come back to the fact that we definitely need to have a broader debate on the future of CBC, and not just say that we have to reduce spending and hope that CBC will survive. We have to ask ourselves what we really want to do with CBC/Radio-Canada.
Mr. Lortie: Senator Housakos, you ask a good question. Fundamentally, do we in Canada want a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster? That is the question — and what for?
Pierre touched on a lot of things. I would like to add, ratings aside, that as far as American television is concerned, I don't look at how the networks are funded. They are private networks such as ABC, and all that. PBS can't claim to have the same ratings as CBS and NBC, but when you watch PBS, you know what to expect: top-quality information and top-quality documentaries.
Look at "American Experience." It would be great to have a show of that quality in Canada on our history as Canadians. This adds to the quality of information, the quality of entertainment and the quality of the cultural product that is developed in the United States.
When you listen to American Public Radio it's the same thing. You turn on the radio, you're in the middle of Iowa, you find Public Radio and you immediately know that this is something different. There are no ads. It's not a show, a "Gong Show." It won't be a "Loft Story" about murders on a desert island. It's something else. It doesn't have 80 per cent market share, but it contributes to building a pluralistic society.
The same goes in Canada. You said that "The National" represents 5 per cent, but when I turn it on at 9 o'clock, I expect certain things from Peter Mansbridge and the program. I expect a quality that I won't find on another network that is not public. The public broadcaster has this capacity to delve into the issues.
On the radio they have the time to do an in-depth analysis and we don't get enough of that. Things are moving so quickly, we end up with superficiality, entertainment, "infotainment," as they call it. There isn't time to deliberate or take a step back because technology is polluting us and bombarding us with information and we are unable to analyze it all.
When you have a national broadcaster that doesn't have to sell itself to survive, then that takes care of this problem. Of course we have our own politics and make our own choices. We don't have to agree, but I think we have to be open about this debate. What do we want from this five-year plan and what type of broadcaster do we want? Let's keep an open mind. Are we for or against?
Obviously, we are very much in favour of it. We are quite convinced. I see what's happening and I always come back to the regions. When I travel to the regions in Canada or Quebec, I know I'm going to get high-quality information on the public stations.
But I pay the price. You're absolutely right that this comes at a cost, when it comes to ratings. This is not "Entertainment Tonight." These aren't shows like "Loft Story," but in the meantime, it is information, entertainment or cultural products that Canadians need to have and that is part of it, but, at what cost? That's the question.
Senator Housakos: Just to clarify, I may ask tough questions, and there are many people who have come to the conclusion that I am anti-CBC, but far from it.
I think there is a place for Radio-Canada and for CBC, but we have to figure out what that place is, where it is, what the niche is for those corporations. I totally agree with you.
When we look at PBS, it has a very unique experience to that of the other American broadcasters. In the case of PBS, the money that goes to PBS comes from taxpayers, the public sectors, but the channel is 50 per cent self-funded. For every dollar that is devoted to PBS, there is a dollar that comes from the taxpayer, the federal government.
Currently, here, at CBC/Radio-Canada, that is not the case at all. For every ad dollar that is devoted to CBC/Radio-Canada, there are four or five dollars that come from the taxpayer. Now, the real debate here for us, the real question — and I want to come to a clear conclusion at the end of this exercise because currently all the witnesses who come here feel like their domain is the most important.
Earlier, we heard testimony from people who represent the anglophone minority community in Quebec. To them, CBC English was the end of the world. It was very important.
When we went to Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, we saw that Radio-Canada was the only game in town for Franco-Manitobans. It is crucial for them. We can't cut Radio-Canada there.
Other people are saying and you said it too, that the way the CBC's "The National" broadcasts the news is truly fantastic. It's the Cadillac. We have to keep it.
I agree. I watched "The National" yesterday. Their reporting of yesterday's events was very well done. I was very impressed and I tried to compare "The National" and "CTV News." I was impressed with all of Peter Mansbridge's reports, the level of detail. It was quite brilliant. I can't say that their production wasn't extraordinary, because it was quite good. I really don't understand why their ratings are so low.
That's what makes me come to conclusion that people just don't find it interesting and I am in the minority.
When we went to Radio-Canada in Quebec City one morning, I asked the station manager the following question, "How do you rank in the ratings?" He said, "We are second behind TVA."
That's not because they aren't innovative in their approach, or they didn't work hard and it's not because the taxpayer didn't contribute enough money. At the end of the day, we have to accept that it would be impossible to fund everything that CBC/Radio-Canada is doing right now.
I would like your point of view, if we were to identify two or three top priorities out of the current six or seven, what are they? What are the two lowest priorities on the list, without which CBC/Radio-Canada could survive? CBC/Radio-Canada is trying to do it all right now. It's trying to meet the needs of linguistic minorities across the country. It is trying to become the BBC of international news in Canada. It is trying to be all things to all people, but perhaps at the end of the day, we don't have enough money to do all that.
Mr. Roger: That is an excellent question, Senator Housakos. Indeed, it would be hard to define those priorities under CBC's mandate. No other broadcaster has that obligation, for example, of broadcasting in a number of Aboriginal languages, in northern Canada. Providing services in those locations is very expensive.
I would remind you that CBC has ended practically the entire transmission side of things. The shortwave transmission of Radio-Canada International, which was broadcast from Nova Scotia with short wave antennas, no longer exists. We have entered the modern world and now we have the Internet. Radio-Canada International still exists. It's just broadcast on the Internet now.
It's hard to say we'll just stick to the news and no entertainment. That would not satisfy the CBC's mandate. I think that comes back to the basic question. Let's look at CBC's mandate and figure out the priorities. Those priorities are already there and CBC is currently dealing with that. It is trying to fulfill its mandate and take into account, as I was saying that there are new platforms now, new technologies on which CBC must be present to reach a younger audience. The 18 to 24 age group is on mobile phones, tablets and less and less in front of traditional televisions or the radio, where older people are very much present. The older demographic makes up a big part of the Canadian population right now.
I want to briefly come back to one of your questions on funding as well because people need to know that the CRTC's funding data on CBC/Radio-Canada that I have been looking at for many years, that I follow regularly, have shown me that until a few years ago — you were talking about the past few months earlier, you said things seemed drastic — yes, things aren't going so well when it comes to ads, not just for the CBC, but for all the other media, the written press. I could go on about this for hours because there are a lot of problems in that regard. It is another major challenge. However, over the years, when there were cuts, CBC managed to recoup some of its revenue with ads. There are graphs to back that up, except for the past few years. I agree with you. You're right in that it seems harder to rely on ads. It's hard for everyone, including CBC.
Again, CBC was forced to turn to advertising because the government subsidies could not be sustained. The thing that is most disconcerting is last week's announcement by CBC president, Hubert Lacroix, who said that we are going to be selling our assets, as though we're going to buy groceries on credit. In a way, we're selling the assets to pay for content, programming, and not for the next 10 years, but just a few years to come. We're just buying time, but then what? We have to address the fundamental problem. I will give the floor to Jean. I think we wanted to follow up.
Mr. Lortie: I would add that, two years ago, when the CRTC renewed CBC/Radio-Canada's licences, we were at the CSN's public hearings in Gatineau and there is not a lot of life left in the current mandate. That comes back to your questions. We opened this debate on the mission. In the context of your work and the insight that will come out of your report, should we revisit the mission or not?
I wouldn't say that's a priority, but to me there are three areas we need to work on to have a national broadcaster in Canada: the issue of quality entertainment, and producing entertainment; produce programming as a crown corporation and quality information that reflects the regions of Quebec.
Think of mirrors and windows. The regions of Canada mirror each other and they are a window to Canada for the people in larger centres,
Coincidentally, I was watching CBC North this morning to gauge that very thing. No one can do that, know what's going on in the large communities in Canada's North, which is a strategic area, as your government likes to hammer home every summer saying that the North will become Canada's new frontier in the coming years.
If there were no CBC North, it would have to be created because all news about northern communities will emerge from there. That is part of our concern with respect to the regions.
We have to work around that. Today in 2014, when the global climate for media is difficult and where things are happening quickly, does the mandate of the CBC/Radio-Canada, which predates WWII — we are talking about the 1930s — need to be revisited?
What about the CBC/Radio-Canada's accountability, governance rules and the direction it wants to take as a corporation? In my opinion, these are all questions that all of us — the Senate committee, the House committee, members of civil society — must ask ourselves, and I believe they are pertinent questions.
Senator Housakos: I have another question. Have you noticed whether, in recent years, the number of people in that industry and in all the organizations, has declined? The CBC is cutting its staff; TVA, everyone, is cutting staff, their budgets, what they do. Have we lost a lot of people in this industry, such as journalists and people working in this field, to the United States?
Mr. Roger: Yes, I can try to answer because we represent a majority of the journalists in Quebec. There are 1,800 journalists and we represent 1,500 in the industry, the print media, radio and television.
No, I do not believe so. Obviously, when people such as journalists lose their jobs — to answer your specific question about journalists — and there are no other opportunities in another area, they will sometimes go to work in public relations, for businesses in municipalities and cities, and they will do public relations work because they are communicators and journalists by training.
However, I would also like to elaborate on my answer to your question. There have not been that many cuts. For example, there have not really been any cuts at TVA because they also have a big organization and they did not really cut any people.
Senator Housakos: It is mostly happening in print media, the newspapers.
Mr. Roger: Yes, in the newspapers, because there is —
Senator Housakos: — such as The Canadian Press —
Mr. Roger: Yes, exactly.
Senator Housakos: — Postmedia —
Mr. Roger: Yes, there have been cuts at The Canadian Press, you are right. However, at the newspapers — I know this is not the subject here — what is happening is that the paper format is going to disappear in the next few years and new distribution platforms will be developed, such as La Presse+ for the iPad. This requires reviewing how the work of newsrooms is organized, but does not really affect the journalists. It is often the other workers, such as those who print or distribute the paper, who are affected. Journalists are always needed because they are the ones who get the news and analyse it, and they will always be needed, even at the CBC/Radio-Canada. I mean, they are the ones who make the news. We need journalists to go find the news, analyse it, then broadcast and present it.
The Chair: Mr. Roger, Mr. Lortie, Mr. Énault, thank you very much for being here. As I said at the very start, we apologize and we know you understand the present circumstances.
Mr. Lortie: Absolutely.
The Chair: I assure you that the evidence is recorded and that it will be shared with the senators. When we prepare our report, it will be the quality and not the number of participants that counts.
Mr. Housakos is my Deputy Chair, and I can assure you that you truly have been heard and that you will be heard by our colleagues thanks to the transcripts.
The next witness is Mériol Lehmann, Chief Executive Officer of AVATAR. Before I give you the floor, Mr. Lehmann, I must tell you that, as you know and in light of yesterday's events, we have two options. We can suspend our hearings today and perhaps not have the opportunity to return to Quebec City to hear from people from different communities, or we can proceed. It is our preference to hear your testimony, as I mentioned earlier. Before the other group leaves, I would like to say that the testimony is part of the record of documents on which the study of the future of the CBC will be based. The study will be published in 2015 at the latest. Whether there are six senators or two senators present, you can rest assured that your comments will carry just as much weight. As I somewhat jokingly said, but it is not a joke, Senator Housakos is the Deputy Chair of the committee and I am the Chair, and you can count on the fact that if we take your testimony it is because we intend to give it the same weight as if there were six, seven or eight senators listening to you.
Mériol Lehmann, Chief Executive Officer, AVATAR: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I start, I would also like to thank you for inviting me. I am delighted to be participating in this democratic exercise. I hope I can make a valuable contribution. Naturally, I glanced at the list of witnesses and I see myself as somewhat of an outsider. However, at the same time, I think that I have some knowledge and concerns that can be helpful to this discussion.
To create some context, I would just like to point out that AVATAR is a media artists centre, and that I am also a member of the strategic committee of the Conseil québécois des arts médiatiques, and a member of the board of directors of the Independent Media Arts Alliance, which is the umbrella group for media arts centres in Canada.
That will help you understand the viewpoint I am presenting today.
There are obviously several ways of looking at this topic. The future of CBC/Radio-Canada is a very broad topic, and I absolutely do not expect to address all the issues. I chose to look at two points that I believe to be of the most concern. The first is the impact of the corporation on the economic development of culture and cultural development, primarily in Quebec, because that is the region of Canada I am most familiar with. The second point concerns the digital shift because, naturally, AVATAR is very involved in the digital world, and I am as well with many other organizations. In two weeks, I will be representing Quebec City at the Rencontres Champlain Montaigne sur la culture numérique in Bordeaux, France, and the issues of digitization and the digital evolution and revolution are subjects of particular interest to me.
I will go directly to the first point, the impact that the CBC/Radio-Canada has on Quebec's cultural economic development. As you know, there are a great many studies showing that the cultural sector is a very profitable economic sector compared to other sectors. For example, it is a sector that generates a great deal of revenue and creates many jobs as well. In that regard, I will say that the cultural industry, and even beyond the industry, culture in very general terms also benefits tremendously from CBC/Radio-Canada, among others, in particular with regard to the visibility to be given to cultural stakeholders.
For example, only at CBC/Radio-Canada will you find book, theatre and visual arts reviews among others, and culture that goes a little bit beyond the entertainment culture that appeals to a very broad audience. The other media, except for small community or university media, for example, do not cover that.
Therefore, it is extremely important to the entire cultural world and it is something that is often forgotten. What I am trying to get across to you is a point of view that I do not often hear. For example, as the Chief Executive Officer of AVATAR, what I see, whether it is radio or television is that the CBC/Radio-Canada is the only electronic media that is going to cover the type of artists that we are going to produce and present. In other words, whether it is Radio-Canada's "Téléjournal" or a specialty program, the corporation is my direct contact with the public and it allows me to attract the public. That is obviously the case for the organization that I represent, but it is also the case for many organizations.
If I look at cultural coverage in Quebec City, the only such electronic media coverage worthy of that name is provided by Radio-Canada. I am not saying that organizations such as TVA or the other radio stations provide absolutely no coverage. However, their coverage is very generic, and they will cover a comic who already sells out shows. They will cover an artist who will fill the Colisée.
In Quebec's cultural ecology, this contribution by Radio-Canada is extremely important. I believe that we must consider this because we may not necessarily see a direct impact; the impact is much more subtle. For someone who does not work in organizations such as ours, it is hard to realize how important this is, how important it can be for visibility and how we reach the public, and how this also lads to — I am thinking of certain Radio-Canada broadcasts — debate about it being one of the only places where we can find quality reviews, and where there are people capable of advancing the debate about culture in Quebec in an intelligent, thoughtful and neutral manner.
We also have to remember that the other major player in Quebec culture in terms of the media is Quebecor. It is no secret that there are many ties between its different platforms. In their daily programming, they are obviously going to promote their own television programs, just as they will promote their own music artists, and so forth. Quebecor also controls music distribution through Archambault, Select and others.
Thus, there is a very big player that mainly looks after its own interests, which is normal in private enterprise, and I have nothing against that. However, Radio-Canada is a very important counterweight and provides much more equitable coverage for everyone and raises the tenor of the discussion.
I do not want to elaborate further because I know that I do not have much time and I am afraid I have already gone over my time. I would like to get to my second point, the digital world.
Recently, the CBC/Radio-Canada put a great deal of effort into developing its Web presence and it is extremely important to do that. You cannot ignore digital technology. If the CBC did not go digital, what would happen is that consumers would consume other content and mainly content that is not Canadian.
Therefore, I believe it is extremely important for the development of Canadian culture for the CBC to be present on the Web and all digital platforms.
However, I will say that I do not fully subscribe to what was said earlier about digital media being absolutely necessary to reach young people. I think we are really underestimating the power of radio. Radio is one of the media that is consumed the most. When people are in their cars on their way to and from work, they listen to the radio. Some people easily listen to two hours of radio a day. We should not underestimate that.
However, my concern about digital media has also been raised with respect to print media. When we look at what is happening, for example, with La Presse+ and the disappearance in the medium term of print editions of Le Soleil, Le Droit, and other newspapers, there is a tendency to say: "Digital technology will be our saviour, we don't need the rest."
I consider digital access to be a problem even though I am completely immersed in digital technology, not just at work, but also in my personal life. I am a huge consumer of digital media. I am constantly on my tablet, laptop, iPad, and sometimes all three at once. However, the fact remains that, in the regions, the Internet is clearly inadequate, for example, even just for watching a television show, or the equivalent of Netflix.
If we take a look at the statistics, there are still almost 100,000 households in Ontario that are unable to obtain 5Mbps Internet access, which is the standard established by the Government of Canada for decent broadband.
We are talking about households in the regions. I can tell you that when I go to my parents' home 200 km north of here, there is an area where there is absolutely no Internet. Until last year, we had a 56k modem, now we have a dish. There is absolutely no way to listen to the radio or watch TV via the Internet.
Therefore, for a national broadcaster that is funded by Canadian taxpayers, there is the issue of access in the regions. In Nunavut, 100 per cent of the population currently does not have enough bandwidth. Therefore, that means that television and radio are still extremely important. We should not believe that digital media will allow us to do without these media.
The other point is that, besides the problem of the regions, there are the problems of financial resources and age. For example, we know very well that persons of a certain age are not as proficient with digital media, computers and so forth. There are also all the people in more difficult financial circumstances, the people who may not earn what is considered an average salary in our society, and who cannot necessarily afford to pay $60, or $70 for a high-speed connection.
For these people, radio and television continues to be a way for them to access information, news and entertainment. Even though, as I was saying, I believe that there has to be a shift to digital, the CBC/Radio-Canada tends to say, "We are going to transfer everything to digital, we are going to save money and that will let us reduce our current radio and television offerings." I believe that is really unfair to a significant proportion of Canadians, especially those in the regions and the most disadvantaged.
I think that I have dealt with my two points and I am available to answer your questions and take this even further, especially with regard to the impact of digital technology and the development of digital media. I can answer questions about that.
The Chair: First, we look for diversity, as we want to have witnesses from a variety of backgrounds. The witnesses who appeared before you represented unions, which have a direct interest in the CBC/Radio-Canada. We have also had all kinds of witnesses that represent its competitors. Thus, we want to hear from the ordinary citizen and the citizen who will be a partner in the future of the CBC/Radio-Canada because we are not looking at its past, or even its present. This is about the future of the CBC/Radio-Canada. What you have told us is somewhat different than what we heard previously because the shift to digital does sound like a solution to many problems. I can tell you that the deputy chair and I co-authored a report about a Canadian digital society, which did not have the scope that we would have liked, which stated that bandwidth must not be a basis for discrimination in the Great North, bandwidth must not be just about the profitability of companies that serve major centres, and that the Canadian government must use revenue generated by the sale of bandwidth to subsidize these services.
There have been improvements and hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested. A step has been taken in the right direction. I believe that a little bit more of the billions generated by the sale of traditional TV bandwidth could have been shared with northern communities. You are certainly talking to two people who support investing in bandwidth. We talked about that a few years ago in a joint report, and I do not believe that my colleague has changed his mind. I can certainly tell you that I have not changed mine.
Senator Housakos, you have the floor.
Senator Housakos: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I heard what you said about how it is important for the CBC/Radio-Canada to protect and then advance Canadian culture and Quebec culture. However, broadcasters such as TVA or Canal V, for example, are also Quebec businesses. They are companies that must be considered as businesses that sell the Quebec cultural product.
Mr. Lehmann: Absolutely.
Senator Housakos: In your opinion, what is the major difference between the way Radio-Canada supports Quebec culture and what TVA does, for example?
Mr. Lehmann: Yes, you are quite right about that and the difference in my mind is quite simple. TVA, Canal V and all channels, even specialty channels, those that produce Quebec content, have a lot of Quebec content.
The main difference I see with respect to Radio-Canada is not the content created by the radio or television broadcaster, but the news programs, thus the public affairs programs where — I do not want to use the term "promoted" because Radio-Canada does not work that way, it is not into infomercials — Quebec and Canadian culture is promoted through book and movie reviews and by disseminating cultural news.
That is something that the other companies do not do very well. The main point is that the quality of Radio-Canada news is still exceptional, its coverage is broader and more neutral and the quality of journalism is superior to that of other stations.
My point is that it is not so much about Radio-Canada's production because I think there is not much of a difference. For me, a TVA television series and a Radio-Canada television series are about the same. However, Radio-Canada's public affairs programs and news coverage make a difference to the cultural world.
Senator Housakos: I am a Quebecer and I see the importance of and the important role played by Radio-Canada in Quebec life in French Canada. At the same time, as an anglophone, I have been watching the CBC and its approach for the past 30 years. In the case of the CBC, it is obvious that its ratings are dropping and that it is losing a substantial amount of revenue. The question I have asked many people to date is the following: Are we less Canadian in English Canada than we were 30 years ago? Because when we look at the ratings, the revenue, and English CBC's position compared to its competitors, there are many more English Canadians listening to Bell Media, Global, Sun Media, all of the CBC's other competitors. Does that mean that today, in 2014, in English Canada, we are less Canadian? Can we say that the CBC has not fulfilled its mandate of properly promoting Canadian culture?
Mr. Lehmann: In this matter, I think that there is an interesting question to which I will give two sub-answers. The first is in response to what you said about the difference between Société Radio-Canada and the CBC, which resurfaces regularly. It is a fact, one noted by all parties, that Société Radio-Canada has a very different impact and that the people of Quebec have a much stronger attachment to Société Radio-Canada than what English Canadians may have to the CBC.
In my opinion, that is very difficult to explain. However, there is one thing I would like to point out. I am a Quebecer who is very attached to Société Radio-Canada and when I see that it is impacted by the problems at the CBC, I swear that it affects me. I am not saying that we should separate these two companies as that makes no sense. However, there are questions that should be asked. Why? Because the CBC is not doing well and has low ratings. Société Radio-Canada, here, has excellent ratings, for both radio and television, and yet it is impacted by the CBC's performance and has its budget cut.
I believe that you are in a much better position than I am to find the answers, but that is something I wanted to raise.
With regard to the CBC as compared to other stations, I do not think it is about being more or less Canadian depending on whether we tune in to the CBC. Global is still a Canadian TV station. However, one thing is very clear and discernable on television and radio and is evident in all forms of culture that exist. The French fact ensures that Quebec has a distinct culture that is very strong. For example, we have singers who have a very high profile in Quebec and who, in the rest of the world, are unknown.
Major Canadian artists, take Bryan Adams for example, are just as popular in Canada as they are in the United States. We do not like Bryan Adams more because we are Canadian, we like Bryan Adams because of his rock music.
Although I do not want to introduce bias, there is always the problem of American culture, which is obviously very strong. When we have, for example, companies such as HBO, which produces quality television series, it is not unusual that an English Canadian would perhaps be more interested in watching an HBO series than a series produced in Canada. This is about financial means but, it is also about cultures that are much more similar. If we take Nickelback and a similar U.S. group, why would Nickelback be more Canadian? However, Daniel Bélanger and any American artist are very different. There is the difference of language and culture. That also happens in film, and in many other things. Perhaps that explains our attachment to Radio-Canada. We must also not forget that the quality of certain television series produced by Radio-Canada is exceptional.
When you look at what is happening in fictional programming, for example, in France, versus the quality of a Quebec show such as "19-2," Société Radio-Canada is well out in front for francophones. Even if we had additional French television stations besides TV5, I do not think that Quebecers would watch television series from France because the quality of Radio-Canada programs is a notch above.
In the case of the CBC, the situation is altogether different. There are major players like HBO, for example, and I am talking just about television series. The news is another story.
The lure of CNN for global news compared to a continuous news channel like Sun News, for example; so, measures have been put in place. Have we found a solution to that? I'm not sure we have a solution. I would love for English Canadians to be patriotic and watch CBC all the time, so that it could be a successful station and so it does not affect La Société Radio-Canada. Unfortunately, it's just not that simple.
One answer to that, however, is at the local content level. We were talking about digital television earlier, for example. With digital, borders no longer matter. We can look at the website from just about anywhere, you will tell me. Some content can be blocked, but my response is that it isn't too hard at all to gain access to unblocked content. Someone who watches Canadian Netflix can gain access to American Netflix without too much difficulty, and we have to remember that. Digital locks and other deterrents will not change people's viewing habits.
Then again, I like watching Radio-Canada or CBC because I want local content, because I want to know what's happening in Canada, because I want to see Quebec artists, because I want to watch television programs produced here. With this approach to the Web, I think we need to keep that in mind. We shouldn't be trying to compete with American productions on the same playing field; we really have to develop this identity in terms of local content, particularly in terms of news content, where we actually have something. I have been talking about Radio-Canada a lot, but let's look at CBC's coverage of yesterday's events; the coverage was fantastic. Many sources, both on social media and in the digital world, were saying that Canadian media coverage was better than American media coverage. These are things that we can play with in order to possibly increase ratings.
Senator Housakos: Thank you, Mr. Lehmann.
Mr. Lehmann: My pleasure.
The Chair: Thank you. As I said, it is very important that you understand that just because we are few in numbers doesn't mean this evidence isn't just as important.
I want to take this opportunity to emphasize that, because our next witness just entered the room and we are going to ask him to go next. Mr. Thibodeau, please join us. If you like, you can even sit together, if you don't mind.
Claude Thibodeau, President, Productions Claude Thibodeau Inc.: Hello.
The Chair: As I explained earlier, Mr. Thibodeau, before you arrived, we had two options after everything that happened yesterday: either cancel our hearing or go ahead with a smaller number of participants.
My name is Dennis Dawson, chair of the committee. This is Senator Housakos, deputy chair of the transport and communications committee.
We didn't know if we'd be able to hold our hearing. Some other senators had to leave, but we didn't know if our senators would be able to attend. They were in lockdown until a certain point, until 10 p.m. last night, in Ottawa. Being from Quebec City and knowing that the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications rarely sits in Quebec City, I decided, with the support of the deputy chair and members of the steering committee, to go ahead. There will be fewer senators in attendance, but the evidence will have the same value with respect to the transcriptions. We thought it was important to come to this region.
We are continuing our tour; next week we go to Toronto and Montreal. We've already been to Halifax, Saint-Boniface, Edmonton and Yellowknife. We decided to go ahead because, as I said, the quality of the presentation, the analysis of the presentation, is the same, and I'm not sure I could have convinced my colleagues to give the transport committee another chance to come here to hear from witnesses.
Mr. Thibodeau is president of Productions Claude Thibodeau Inc. I have known Mr. Thibodeau for a long time; he has been fighting important battles in the field of radio in Quebec for about 30 years, and I think his testimony here today will resonate beyond the Quebec City region.
I want to emphasize again that we are not looking at the CBC/Radio-Canada of the past or the present; what we really want to talk about is the future of CBC/Radio-Canada in a rapidly changing technological environment, and in the case of Mr. Thibodeau, in an environment where the Broadcasting Act has not been modified since 1991 and perhaps needs to be re-examined.
Mr. Thibodeau, you have the floor.
Mr. Thibodeau: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Fortunately, both national capitals weren't disrupted at the same time. So, that is what —
The Chair: But they both have been in the span of 30 years.
Mr. Thibodeau: Yes, that's right; that's what allows your visit here today. So, thank you very much for inviting me to deliver a short presentation.
I looked into your procedures in terms of how you carry out your deliberations, so I will try to conform to them as much as possible.
For the benefit of those who don't know me, as Senator Dawson said, indeed, I worked as a media professional for about 40 years. I am now retired, but I was drawn into some epic battles with the CRTC in the 1980s. I think they were all successfully resolved for all parties involved, fortunately.
I don't want to bore you, but my career path has included working in AM radio, for those who remember what that is, FM radio. I also worked in the private sector. Furthermore, I even had the opportunity to work for Radio-Canada for a few years, here in Quebec City, and after that, to get some experience in television in the private sector, with TVA and Global, as well as a short period in management as editor and president of Le Soleil newspaper, under the leadership of a distinguished Canadian citizen, Mr. Black, who, I hope, has been released from prison.
My professional circumstances gave me the opportunity to travel throughout Quebec and Canada, and to take part in many industry committees, such as the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the BBM executive committee.
I'm not telling you all of this to boast, but simply to make sure you understand that the comments and clarifications I am about to make are inspired by my extensive practical experience and by the many opportunities I've had to rub shoulders with my English Canadian colleagues in both radio and television, as well as the music industry, which was a real eye-opener for me because, clearly, the realities facing our anglophone colleagues and how they deal with them are very different, as the person who spoke before me said, from what we are up against here in Quebec.
To briefly go through the notes I had prepared in advance, if there is one thing that has really struck me over all these years about how CBC/Radio-Canada operates, it is by far the institutional approach it takes.
Of course, if we look at the context in which CBC/Radio-Canada was created, the context in which it was built to serve the Canadian community, it was soon established by successive governments as an institution. Over the years, I have been surprised to see just how little its self-perception has changed and how, in some ways, it has become so rigid and inflexible in how it thinks, making it almost impossible for it to adapt to Canada's different realities and wide-ranging geometry. Instead, it tends to prefer a one-size-fits-all approach, as the Japanese like to say.
It is also in my nature to qualify my words here today, based on what I see as CBC/Radio-Canada programming, not necessarily how it is managed and how much it costs, but what it chooses to offer and the strategic choices it makes, which, in my opinion, in some cases deserve praise and in other cases should be criticized.
I listen to the radio a lot, and I cannot help but draw a comparison, this year for example, between a great Canadian broadcaster you must have known, Peter Gzowski, the late Peter Gzowski, and the profile of the program he hosted at the time, his national radio forum, Morningside. If I compare another program that is also very interesting called Q, which is broadcast by CBC Radio and is brilliantly hosted by Jian Ghomeshi, I cannot help but notice a clear difference between a time when CBC Radio celebrated what I would call "Canadianness" and the fact that today, radio that is much more — how can I say this? — contemporary and international, like what Mr. Ghomeshi does, as he seeks out guests and subjects that will titillate Canadian listeners from a pool of interesting subjects that are very international.
So when I hear Jian Ghomeshi having an interesting conversation with an American musician, of course I can appreciate the quality of what he does, but I realize that we are a far cry from what Gzowski, for instance, and his contemporaries established as CBC/Radio-Canada's mission.
It is also clear that CBC television is hardly asserting itself in the global market of the rest of Canada. The market shares are rather anemic, unfortunately; we are talking about between 5 and 9 per cent. I am therefore not surprised that so many people across Canada, especially CBC officials, are currently wondering about what direction CBC/Radio-Canada should take in these circumstances.
Let's do a quick comparison of Radio-Canada radio and television in French-speaking Canada. SRC Radio is doing generally quite well in Montreal, where it is quite successful in terms of both reputation and ratings.
It boasts pretty good results at its main regional stations throughout Quebec, with results that have actually gone up over the past few years. That is definitely my analysis, in favour of increasing local content in the programming of the respective stations in the various territories that it serves across Quebec.
Furthermore, offpeak and weekend radio programing at Radio-Canada stations across Quebec's vast territory has really diminished.
Over the past two years, and I know this is true across Quebec, they have been relying more and more on volunteers, believe it or not, to participate in Radio-Canada programs, not only as occasional guests, but even on a regular basis. It is quite surprising, and even embarrassing. Not that these people are not producing quality radio, but that CBC/Radio-Canada has been reduced to that is a little surprising.
It is clear, however, when you look at the behaviour of listeners in Quebec vis-à-vis Radio-Canada programming that many people seem to regard Radio-Canada and the radio it is currently producing in Quebec as some kind of refuge from the ambient mediocrity in the rest of the media whose quality of language, quality of words, has deteriorated dramatically.
Therefore, if for no other reason than to celebrate this reality, I applaud the Radio-Canada artists who are holding the fort in most cases to maintain quality standards that are quite evident and are definitely appreciated.
I have also noted — and I will try to be quick here — that Radio-Canada radio has adopted an accounting logic in how it has carried out its activities across Quebec over the past few years. I question that strategy, if you are wondering about how Radio-Canada could make certain strategic choices in the coming years.
What I mean by "accounting logic" is that, when you are new to working in the radio and television industry, you quickly meet an old hand who has been around a long time and who tells you, "young man, there are two ways to do radio and television: you either make radio and television mirrors, or you make radio and television windows." When you ask about this, you are told: "It's easy: a radio mirror or a television mirror is when programming reflects the realities of from the region and it shows them who they are. A television window or radio window is when you take a team in a given city, such as Quebec City, and they are asked to produce a show there that is not necessarily representative of Quebec City and that is intended for the entire market."
An example of this kind of show would be Radio-Canada's television program "La Semaine verte," which is produced in Quebec City but is destined for a much bigger market in which the viewers may not always identify with the values and standards that are purely local.
This concept has gotten a bit twisted over the years. It makes me smile to think that, two years ago, when Radio-Canada television endorsed the principle of and licence for "Les Dragons," or "Dragon's Den," it benefited from some special circumstances, some legislative attempts to focus on local production, to bring production of "Les Dragons" to Quebec City in a makeshift studio — a good one, I should mention — in a public place in Quebec City. The claim was that it was a local production and thus they could take advantage of some tax and other provisions that are provided for this type of production.
When I tell you that the corporation's mission has sometimes been a bit warped in order to comply with accounting logic, with some opinions or with some licenses that are granted in accordance with legislative attempts, I think this is an example.
I think that many of Radio-Canada's regional radio stations have lost a lot of range of service over the past few years, because there is a limit to what the administrators can repeat, when they tell us that their budget is being cut, that their budget is being reduced, and that this will not affect the services that the population will receive. I would be the first to say that this is not true.
Furthermore, I cannot help but notice, sadly, that one of the most critical columnists for the National Post said a few years ago, "Radio-Canada is too expensive. We should allow it to stop broadcasting two days a week to save money. The airwaves would go silent for two days and we would see whether a lot of people start calling in to ask what happened to Radio-Canada. People from CBC/Radio-Canada would never do something like that because they know that the phone would not ring."
I am not saying that I agree with this, but in some ways you can see that at regional stations, Radio-Canada's programming has declined in many respects, and I think that, unfortunately, listeners have decided to live with it.
SRC television works very well in Quebec. My predecessor quite rightly pointed this out. SRC does a really good job of exporting content from Montreal. Only Télé-Québec produces more from Montreal, and it collects taxes to provide services across Quebec, but does not produce anything outside of Montreal. Did I mention that? Nothing outside of Montreal.
At least Radio-Canada maintains some production centres in certain markets, but obviously television programming is primarily Montreal-centred. If we accept CBC/Radio-Canada's logic of splitting the Canadian territory into various sub-regions, including the Atlantic, French-speaking Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and the West Coast, it would not be shocking to hear that television viewers in Vancouver, for example, would unfortunately be very disappointed if they were told that their daily news would come from Toronto and that the news would reflect Toronto's realities. It would immediately become clear that this is not a good programming strategy.
In Quebec, Montreal is often chosen as the source for programming. The people there are excellent artists who do good work, but they deprive certain regions of a window or a mirror, to get back to what I mentioned earlier, something that I think is a bit lacking. If there is one thing that I want to impress upon the committee, it is my recommendation that the committee be cautious of any attempts on the part of some senior managers at Radio-Canada to damage, set quotas for or streamline activities in the regions.
In conclusion, I especially want to point out that as a result of my practical experience over the two years in which I had the privilege of working for Radio-Canada, I observed that in many ways, production costs at Radio-Canada are not always managed based on optimal criteria.
I can give quick two examples. I have clear memories of doing a promotional tour in the Quebec region with a Radio-Canada executive who brought along his press secretary to every activity. I would obviously tease him and say, "Are you bringing your press secretary in case you have to give a quick comment on Radio-Canada's drop on the TSX in Toronto?"
He did not appreciate my comment, but that is a prime example of how Radio-Canada often manages itself as an institution.
Another example is something that I find rather shocking — it is a practical example of what goes on, and I will leave it at that. The oldest among us will remember that in 1993-94, television networks in the modern world suddenly had access to a new tool when microwave trucks became available.
Microwave trucks were short-wave transmission trucks that would enable a television station to get close and provide live coverage of the start of a riot or demonstration and to instantly broadcast images of the scene that were of relatively good quality.
At the time, all broadcasters in North America and Europe were looking to shock viewers and give them an up-close look at what is going on that very minute, as we saw yesterday on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
The use of these tools quickly became something that was required and was never questioned. However, the costs associated with the daily management of these types of tools are constantly increasing. This includes the costs of a dedicated team to run the trucks and the priorities of editorial decisions of whether or not to use these technical tools to cover stories.
The way of doing things became distorted, in a way, because suddenly there was a tool that had not been available before, and accountants on the inside never questioned or challenged the logic of automatically using these types of tools.
I will conclude by saying that when you see Radio-Canada in Quebec City, for example, cutting back on its locally produced weekend programming, but never questioning the decision to provide over-the-top coverage with the help of these toys or technological tools, a wise old owl like me starts to question things, when I look at the product and the way it is produced, and knowing how much it costs.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Thibodeau. I am not listening to the translation, but I would like to know how "vieux snoreau" was translated.
Mr. Thibodeau: I do not know.
The Chair: I will listen to it again.
I agree with what you are saying about mobile units. It is not always a good idea to do the weather from Place D'Youville when Radio-Canada is across the street. It is true that they are playing with toys when they do the weather on Myrand Avenue with a truck outside, when the studio is in the same area.
You mentioned Télé-Québec, and I think you are the first person to mention it since we started our meetings. With Télé-Québec, the new station UNIS — the Canadian subsidiary of TV5 — TV5 and Radio-Canada, would there not be a much more rational use of Canadian and Quebec taxpayers' money instead of having these four services that are currently offered? Would there not be a way to save money or come up with a strategy for these people to work together instead of competing for the francophone market?
Mr. Thibodeau: Are you specifically talking about Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec?
The Chair: I am talking about Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec, UNIS and TV5. Does the francophone market in Canada have the means to support four subsidized tools like that? I did not mention the private sector, which has its own resources, but would taxpayers not be better served if that money or those services were shared?
Mr. Thibodeau: The short answer to your question is yes and no. The long answer to your question is that, in my opinion, there have been several milestones in the evolution of radio and television regulations over the years.
A very important turning point came at the beginning of the 1980s, when the legislator and the CRTC were wondering about the relevance of improving television programming in two ways in Canada, by allowing for the arrival of new networks. In some places in Quebec, people will remember the Pouliot family, which obtained Télévision Quatre Saisons at the time, and at the beginning of the 1980s, from 1982 to 1985, we saw the arrival of a slew of new specialized channels, such as MusiquePlus. You are as familiar with them as I am, and the offer programming in this sector has only continued to grow.
At the time, the legislator thought two things. First, that we had to protect ourselves by offering a Canadian version of all new services that the American market proposed on its side of the border to prevent these American stations from stealing viewers in Quebec, and especially in English-speaking Canada. Every time there was something new south of the border, its French- or English-Canadian equivalent was produced.
Let us look at a well-known example. In 1981, the specialized music video channel MTV arrived in the United States. Two years later, I believe, a licence was issued to Moses Znaimer to create MuchMusic in Toronto, and since this is Canada and we like to keep things even, a year later a licence was issued to MusiquePlus, which was created in 1985 if I am not mistaken.
I am using this example because it is indicative of the philosophy of improving television programming in Canada. They would look at the United States, the circumstances that led to the creation, launch and popularity of a service like MTV, and in Canada, people would say, "We need to immediately look at a similar service as quickly as possible. Let's do it and let's create MuchMusic and MusiquePlus."
There were opposing logics behind the creation of these services. In short, in the United States, the music and recording industry was coping with the increasing costs of promoting new artists, and since it could no longer maintain sufficient profits to justify constantly launching new artists, it considered what it could do to control costs.
Someone had a brilliant idea: "We'll create videos, films that go with the songs, and we'll create television channels to broadcast them. That will help us control our promotional costs."
People liked this model. All television stations in the major American markets started broadcasting videos and, as the phenomenon became extremely popular, people in the American music industry said, "We may have created something good. Maybe we should create a channel that we can control ourselves so that we could avoid the costly step of knocking on the doors of radio programmers across North America to tell them, 'You should play the new track by X, Y, Z. It's really good. Can I invite you out to eat so we can talk about it over a good steak?"'
All of that lobbying and promotion disappeared because American teenagers were coming home from school at 4 p.m., turning on the television and watching MTV. They were being bombarded with a massive number of videos. The station even had to decide whose music and videos it would not play.
When MTV was created, Canada thought it would be a good idea to create a similar offering in the form of MuchMusic but was dismayed to learn that no one was producing music videos for the popular singers in Canada because it was too expensive.
What did we do? We provided huge subsidies, of course. I am not disputing the fact that this was the appropriate course of action. I am just noting that subsidies were provided to support video production and hence the entire industry.
When Canada adopts a model and a way of doing things, we often establish a service that is similar to one that is being offered in a competitor country because we are concerned that it may cross our borders. We do not do it in order to meet the same accounting standards.
To answer your question as to whether there will be economies of scale that will ensure that public television stations, such as TV Ontario, Télé-Québec and the CBC, work better together, no doubt there will be. I believe that to ask the question is to answer it.
However, since they are all institutions, they will fight hard to avoid handing over any responsibility for carrying out their mandate and they will also not be able to tolerate the economic reality that is completely different from ours any better than they were able to before.
The Chair: Did you have anything to add, Mr. Lehmann?
Mr. Lehmann: Yes, I would just like to take a brief moment to come back to two points that he made about digital technology. When he spoke about institutions, it really hit home because, if there is one thing we have learned about digital technology, it is that, in general, the institutions and the industry have a hard time keeping up with the very rapid changes it brings about.
Something about that resonates. When we talk about thinking about the future and that sort of thing, there is a conclusion that can be made with regard to digital technology if we look, for example, at the music industry, which refused to change with technology and thought it would be saved by iTunes. However, two weeks ago, we learned that iTunes dealt the industry a blow by giving away a U2 album.
What that means is that music is not worth anything anymore and that a move is now being made toward subscription services. However, we know what kind of effect subscription services have on copyright. The music industry is going to encounter another crisis that is even bigger than illegal downloading, but no one in the industry seems to see it coming.
I therefore think we need to consider the matter of institutions. Mr. Thibodeau spoke about centralization in Montreal. In my opinion, centralization leads to the adoption of a one-size-fits-all approach, where one location decides what is good for every location. We should be doing the opposite. Instead of centralizing, we should be moving forward with decentralized structures that are more flexible.
My second point — and I will keep this brief — is about the shift to digital and digital platforms. He mentioned Télé-Québec and the lack of production in the regions.
If you are looking for a good example of what should not be done when going digital, you need look no further than La Fabrique culturelle, which, in the beginning, had many partners who were very enthusiastic about participating in the project and about transforming much of the cultural industry. Later, we realized that the site was basically using a similar approach to YouTube, meaning that others were expected to create content that users could access for free.
This was very poorly received by the community, and I think it is a good example of what to avoid when going digital.
The idea of counting on others to create content affects the quality of the content and has a much more serious impact on production. It is an escape hatch for Télé-Québec but, in my opinion, it causes unease.
The Chair: Mr. Housakos.
Senator Housakos: Thank you.
Mr. Thibodeau, can you name three things that the CBC and Radio-Canada are doing really well?
Mr. Thibodeau: Three things? Yes, of course. Three things that Radio-Canada is doing really well —
Senator Housakos: That are among the best in the business. I do not want you to name things that are already being offered by competitors, but things are unique, that can only be found at Radio-Canada or the CBC and that do not exist elsewhere.
Mr. Thibodeau: Both SRC and CBC radio often make programming choices that do not make any sense from an economic perspective. No commercial broadcaster would make those choices because it would not be economical to do so.
Many of Radio-Canada's competitors in private radio and television networks have often criticized Radio-Canada for stepping on its competitors' turf or for using formats or approaches that are too close to those used by private broadcasters, which rely on advertising.
In that regard, Radio-Canada often demonstrates great independence, which is worth celebrating. That is something that I applaud.
One remarkable thing that Radio-Canada and the CBC both do is air a certain number of programs to showcase new faces and new talent, which allows Canadians to discover new people. I am not saying that this accounts for the majority of the programming, but both Radio-Canada and the CBC still do this.
I commend them for that because commercial broadcasters are always looking for someone or something that will provide them with instant commercial benefits, in other words, celebrities, or household names. Meanwhile, Radio-Canada and the CBC have both proven themselves to be television stations that take risks.
I am not sure if they air this sort of programming as much as they used to, but I believe they still air it and I urge them to continue to do so. That is two things that Radio-Canada does really well.
The third thing that Radio-Canada does really well and that, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly rare among private broadcasters is that it continues to be a staunch support of the use of correct, high-quality language, and it avoids using shock value to titillate the public.
If I had to name three things, those are the first ones that come to mind.
Senator Housakos: Are there two or three things that Radio-Canada and the CBC could do better, things that they are not doing well? If you could provide recommendations to the heritage minister and make suggestions to our committee about what should be included in our report, what improvements would you recommend be made as soon as possible?
Mr. Thibodeau: I think that more local and regional programs should be offered to local and regional audiences. The person who is responsible for accounting at any television or radio station, the financial director or head bean counter will always say that it does not make sense mathematically or financially to interrupt a network program in a certain region in order to broadcast a local program because it is redundant. The station is paying for content that is not being broadcast in region A because it is being substituted for another program, which may or may not cost a lot of money. If we listen to the heads of finance at the networks, then a one-size-fits-all approach will be taken everywhere in an attempt to achieve the lowest possible production cost for each hour of broadcasting. Ultimately, this is acceptable for a private broadcaster but, in my opinion, it is an unreasonable way for a public broadcaster to do things for two reasons: first, the public broadcaster does not have the same mandate as private broadcasters and so its goals should not always be the same. Second, the public broadcaster receives most — or all if we are talking about radio — of its funding from taxpayers.
It is therefore my opinion that Radio-Canada and the CBC must take advantage of every opportunity afforded to them to increase their local and regional radio and television programming.
Senator Housakos: Here is my last question. Do you think that it still makes sense for one company to manage both Radio-Canada and the CBC? Several witnesses said that it would be better if there were two separate budgets and two separate entities or corporations. You mentioned earlier that the reality in French Canada is very different from the reality in English Canada. Perhaps it is time to see whether it would make sense to create two administrations with two separate strategies to meet the demand.
Mr. Thibodeau: I would not discount that line of reasoning if the guidelines for implementing such an approach were adequate, known to all and rigorously applied. I would not take issue with such an approach.
The Chair: The board of directors is generally linguistically proportionate, which means it is made up of 12 honest Canadian citizens from across Canada and there may be two francophones from Quebec —
Mr. Thibodeau: Balanced.
The Chair: — and about 10 anglophones. The anglophones watch Canadian and American television, while 80 per cent of the television that Quebecers watch is produced by Quebecers. We are asking them to sit down and make a decision regarding the future. In my opinion, we should definitely think about the highest level of governance.
We are going to be hearing from the President of the CBC and the Chair of the Board of Directors because, as you know, the board of directors does not choose its own chair. The chair is appointed by the Prime Minister.
Mr. Thibodeau: You are right.
The Chair: Does that make sense from a governance perspective? I think that, in 2014, we certainly have the mandate, as a committee, to look into that issue, to determine whether that logic should be re-examined, not only with regard to the Broadcasting Act but also with regard to the proper management of available resources.
An example was given — and I think we will end here — by one of our witnesses who said that CBC/Radio-Canada's governance is like having a board of directors that governs the BBC and Radio France from Belgium. We are talking about two completely different worlds —
Mr. Thibodeau: Yes.
The Chair: . . . to the point where, how can we expect . . . Poor Mr. Lacroix. There are witnesses who listened to what he had to say, and I respect the efforts he has made to work under those conditions because he has to deal with two worlds. As you know, there are no English programs such as "Tout le monde en parle" in Canada. They do not exist and he just lost about $100 million in advertising revenue from "Hockey Night in Canada." This is not just about advertising revenue. "Hockey Night in Canada" allowed the CBC to advertise all of its other programs. While people watched hockey, they heard "Dragon's Den" is going to be on tomorrow night —" It was a way to link to all of the other programs —
Mr. Thibodeau: Yes, but if I could —
The Chair: — and now — excuse me, I will end on this note — the corporation will be required to fill 350 hours of Saturday night programming when it completely loses its ties to hockey because it is the same world. When the decision was made, when Radio-Canada lost hockey, it was not the end of the world because it was not the most popular program. "La Petite Vie" was the most popular program at the time even though it was not the most profitable. Programs like "La Petite Vie" were two or three times more economical and much easier to produce.
So, they are not dead but the fact that "Hockey Night in Canada" will not be broadcast anymore is certainly more serious. It is the same board of directors that has to make this type of decision, and for me that is —
Mr. Thibodeau: Yes.
The Chair: — I find that complicated.
Mr. Thibodeau: You are right. Before I respond to the specific point that you made, I would like to say that, with regard to the example you gave of "Tout le monde en parle," it is interesting to note that a program like that was first created, rose in popularity and became an enormous success in France. When we look at the make-up of the national mosaic in Europe — if I were looking at the European federation or the European community — France is a bit like a province that speaks French but is located near people who speak German or Flemish or some other language. This sense of community, the sense of being an island in an ocean of other things, is very present in France. I discovered this because I worked in France for a time and I consulted with clients there. This is also one of the characteristics of Quebec.
When you have a big show like "Tout le monde en parle" on Sunday night, you are talking to an extremely homogenous audience. All of the viewers are white, non-practising Catholics who like the missionary position. You know what I mean. The viewership is very homogenous. There is no other way to say it.
However, when you listen to SRC radio — I would like to come back to the example of Peter Gzowski. I really liked his program and listened to it for years. Gzowski made absolutely extraordinary efforts to try to reflect in all of his programming what was happening that morning in Alberta, for example, that would be of interest to other Canadians and that they would relate to. However, it was extremely hard to do because, as you know, there are different regional realities all across Canada from the west of the Rockies, to the Prairies, Central Canada, Quebec and the Maritimes.
If the director or person sitting at the top of the pyramid at the CBC tries to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach or homogenous and uniform operational philosophy, it will not work in a bilingual Canada because of the two areas in which the two main official languages are concentrated. That person will have great difficulty trying to make that work in Canada because the reality of people in Victoria, British Columbia, is kilometres away from the reality of people in St. John's, Newfoundland.
So, yes, the answer to your question is that it is certainly appropriate to look into a two-headed system or something that would make it possible to better recognize and adapt the offer and approach in the area.
The Chair: If you ever have any more specific recommendations in that regard, we would be pleased to hear about them through our clerk.
Mr. Thibodeau: Mr. Chair, I do not have the same knowledge that my colleagues who are currently running the CBC have, and I would not presume to question their good management. I am sure that they are trying to do as much as they can under the circumstances.
The Chair: In that case, I would ask you to send your recommendations to us anonymously. I would be pleased not to name you as my source.
Mr. Thibodeau: I will do that.
The Chair: I would like to thank you once again. We apologize for the circumstances, but I think that the right thing to do was to move forward. As Molière said, you will be on the record. With that, I will adjourn the committee.
Mr. Lehmann: I would like to thank you for holding this meeting to hear what we had to say. You could have decided otherwise and we all would have understood, but I would like to thank you for making the effort to come to Quebec City.
(The committee adjourned.)