Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 10 - Evidence, November 6, 2014
MONTREAL, Thursday, November 6, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 9:01 a.m. to continue its study on the challenges faced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in relation to the changing environment of broadcasting and communications.
Senator Dennis Dawson (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I declare this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications open. Today, we are continuing our study on the challenges faced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in relation to the changing environment of broadcasting and communications.
This morning, Michel Nadeau is with us, and he will testify about the governance rules. Mr. Nadeau, the floor is yours.
Michel Nadeau, Executive Director, Institute of Governance for Private and Public Organizations: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Michel Nadeau. I worked as an editorial writer for Le Devoir for 10 years, from 1974 to 1984. After that, I had a 20-year career with the Caisse de dépôt, where I held various executive positions. That was before commercial papers, I would like to point out. For the past 10 years, I have been responsible for governance and the operation of boards of directors, an area in which I think Canadian businesses can improve their performance.
This morning, I would like to talk about two ideas that I will expand on. The first is the future of conventional television. What is the future of conventional television in Canada? As for the second, I will provide four points that could help the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as conventional television evolves in this country.
What has been striking in recent years, since the early 1990s, is the Internet's arrival in the world of communications. We have a global, instantaneous and often free universe. The Internet has greatly changed the world of communications.
Take advertising, for example. Last year, 24 per cent of the advertising budget was set aside for Internet services. That means that 24 per cent of the $12 billion that Canadian businesses spend on media advertising — so $3 billion — is given to the budgets of various Internet networks.
Obviously, if 24 per cent was injected into this area, there were losers. The first major loser is print media, so daily newspapers and magazines. Daily newspapers were the strongholds of the Canadian economy. I am a Southam fellowship holder, and I can say that Gordon Fisher is extremely proud of the Southam chain. It is a jewel in his crown.
Today, when we look at our major daily newspapers, unfortunately we see that the merger of Sun Media and Postmedia has meant that half of the daily newspapers in major Canadian cities will be owned by hedge funds where these major daily newspapers are being picked apart. The building was sold. The printing house was sold. Printing and advertising sales are contracted out and, soon, there will be nothing left but the newsroom.
Therefore, the daily newspaper model is no longer working. Some daily newspapers, as seen in this morning's Toronto Star, are migrating to tablets, including La Presse. The reason for that is people with deep pockets. The sale of Harlequin enabled the Toronto Star to offer its services on tablets. La Presse obviously has a major shareholder who can make a long-term vision possible. However, there is no proof that the tablet model is profitable.
So in terms of print media and magazines — I am the board chair for the magazine Protégez-Vous — we are seeing the difficulties that print media has experienced. Print media used to have about 35 per cent to 40 per cent of advertising revenues; these days, it is less than 20 per cent.
The state of our print media is tragic because it must continue printing a newspaper while still carrying out its activities on the Internet. Both avenues are being developed at the same time, which obviously leads to losses.
Unfortunately, that is what will happen with conventional television. When I was little, I lived in the Quebec City area, and my father appointed which one of the kids had to change the button on the television to go from 2 to 4, from Radio-Canada to Télé-Capitale. Those were our two choices. We had one television. The only place you could see moving images was on the TV or at the movies.
Obviously, that is not the case anymore. Cable and satellite have led to a profusion of specialty channels; we have choice. This has allowed television companies to survive. Specialty channels are similar to free daily newspapers, which have allowed print media to survive a few more years. So specialty channels have led to growth in the world of television.
And now something major is happening, which is that television now offers a host, a plethora of new services, like Netflix. People are going to be spending more and more time in front of the TV, but will be watching less and less television.
I think that in 15 or 20 years, live television will make up maybe 2, 3 or 4 per cent of the time we spend in front of the TV because it will be a computer. Our TVs will be connected to the Internet. We will have access to all the Google and YouTube banks on our TV, just like Netflix, as I mentioned. There will be a wide range of services available. However, the extremely limited choice, between Radio-Canada and TVA, or the five or six specialty channels people used to watch, will obviously change a great deal.
I do not know if you read the article on page B10 of The Globe and Mail this morning, but I believe that television in the United States is experiencing major problems when it comes to advertising sales. Television advertising revenues remained steady despite shrinking audiences because it was a way of having access to large audiences.
However, I think the coming years will be key, unfortunately, because of the wealth of what is on offer with smart TVs and the small version — our cellular telephones — which are being used less and less as telephones. They are mobile televisions. So TVs and their little mobile sisters will take up more and more of the time people spend on media.
We are seeing that people 55 years of age and older are watching television 39 hours a week, while young people are watching 21 hours a week. Therefore, I think that conventional television is going to run into major problems. What about Radio-Canada? I think that Radio-Canada can and must play its cards — and by the way, I am a very big supporter of Radio-Canada.
First, Radio-Canada has a strategic plan for 2015: be everywhere for everyone. This is a mistake, of course. Eaton's, Simpson's and Dupuis Frères wanted to be everywhere for everyone. People want to be everything for everyone. Sears and The Bay still want to be everything for everyone, and they are having major financial problems.
I believe we have to let go of this concept of filling in this 24-hour-a-day schedule. Radio-Canada needs to focus on three main areas: information, dramas and variety shows. Having successful programs in these three areas that reach Canadians and provide a solid alternative is the first point.
The second point is that young people no longer watch traditional television; they are watching less and less. I think that Radio-Canada, which took chances with specialty channels a little late with RDI and Explora, should review its strategy. I think it would be a good idea to launch a new specialty channel for 2 to 24 year olds, meaning everyone who is really hooked in to social networks, who are in the digital world. I think that world is entirely different from my own and probably from yours, as well.
My teens are discouraged when they see their father, and they often tell me, "Dad, you are the only Canadian, along with Stephen Harper, who has not increased your number of friends in the last few years." I say to them, "The reason is because I do not have a Facebook account."
We need to find an alternative for young people, a channel that would be based on social networks because they are not television viewers anymore; they are television participants. The young population wants to take part in these television programs. So this is an entirely new approach, and Radio-Canada should be innovative, a pioneer in this area, and provide fully digital television for two-to 24-year-olds. I say two-year-old because I have a baby who is more skilled at using my telephone than I am.
Therefore, I think it is important to create a strategy to review the television, which was designed for individuals over 50 or 60. Obviously, the strategy for that area needs to be reviewed.
I would say that the third aspect is that Radio-Canada needs partnerships. Radio-Canada has always taken on initiatives alone. Today, newspapers have been reduced to newsrooms. Everything else has been sold, has been given up or has gone to contractors. We need co-operation between the daily newspapers, between Le Devoir, and in Acadia, between L'Acadie Nouvelle and Radio-Canada Moncton. We need partnerships. Radio-Canada should not continue its evolution alone. That is my third point.
The fourth point, obviously, is Radio-Canada's rigidity. A lot has been invested in the concrete, the trucks, the infrastructures. Now we are giving it up. Some of these things are being sold. But I think that Radio-Canada needs to create a much lighter administrative structure for itself. It needs governance that is much more credible.
I think the Radio-Canada board is falling short when it comes to governing a communications company in 2014. I have a lot of respect for our lawyer friends, but do four of the 12 members of the Radio-Canada board need to be lawyers?
So, a much lighter structure, partnerships, increased flexibility and much less rigidity are needed. We know that the real work at Radio-Canada takes place in the basement, but you have a very large tower that rises 25 or 30 floors above. It seems to me that it would be appropriate to lighten this operational structure.
To conclude, Mr. Chair, I would say that Radio-Canada needs a unique value, an essential value: the desire for excellence. Radio-Canada should not be striving for the highest ratings. It needs a reasonable audience. It needs to respond to performance criteria, no mistake. I think the current ones are not clear. Radio-Canada must act with the $1.5 billion that Canadian taxpayers invest in it. I also think it is important that Radio-Canada is accountable, like all other organizations in Canada.
Once again, we do things very well. I think we can do without late-night programming, and other programs, like "Pour le plaisir," with its rather pleasant chatter. The private sector does a good job with this kind of program. Radio-Canada should look elsewhere.
Should Radio-Canada get involved in sports? I have heard that it has signed on for the next two Olympic Games. We hope it will be profitable. I raise the issue, but once again, I think the three major areas of information, dramas and variety shows are a priority.
To conclude, I would say that it is important that Radio-Canada's credits and budgets be maintained. Should a percentage of budget spending be allocated? I think we are talking about $200 million to $300 million in a budget, in budget spending of $260 billion. What is at stake with respect to certain other objectionable expenses?
There are large corporations like Bell Canada that are omnipresent. Now, you are going to see a concentration of print media in most Canadian cities. The Kent report would never have tolerated this kind of concentration. All the newspapers, the weeklies belong to the same individual, and that individual is tightening the screw to squeeze out every last cent.
Therefore, it is important for the public sector that Canadians have a forum, an important meeting place. I believe it is extremely important that Canada's parliamentarians in the upper and lower Chambers agree to restore their support for our large national Crown corporation.
I hope I have answered your questions in the time I had.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Thank you, Mr. Nadeau. This is very interesting. I was thinking we had heard a great presentation on the lack of governance, as we did yesterday. Apparently, the way Radio-Canada manages and spends its budgets is one of the more mysterious things in Canada.
It is a communications company, but we do not know how it spends its money. I would have liked for you to go into that a little more. You say that conventional television is outdated, and that we need many specialty channels. Then you say that, obviously, some are having trouble.
Yesterday, we spoke to various client groups, and francophone client groups outside Quebec. We spoke to aboriginals. We spoke to different age groups. We saw a company that serves mainly young people on an educational basis, including TV5 and one of its affiliates. So how would Canadians be well served, according to Radio-Canada's vocation? Should it not be required to serve all the client groups that are often ignored by the private sector because they are not profitable when it comes to advertisers?
Mr. Nadeau: I believe Radio-Canada should have two budgets: one for the main activities of the Radio-Canada channel for the three main areas I mentioned, and the specialty network for two- to 24-year-olds, as I recommended.
With these two streams, we should try to reach as many Canadians as possible, Quebec, obviously, for Radio-Canada, and the rest of the country for the CBC. Obviously, for the other audiences, for Moncton, Edmonton and the other areas of the country where there are concentrations of francophones, I think that Radio-Canada still has a place.
But I must say that this, too, will be difficult. Once again, you have a television screen that will offer something else. We are in a completely different place now, compared with where we will be in five or 10 years. Introducing a smart television with an integrated computer changes everything.
When you can go on the Internet and divide your 60-inch screen into small pieces, that changes completely. Competition is tougher. It was easy when our choice was channel 2 or channel 4 in Quebec. We had two, and we could choose one of them, because there were no others.
But now, the specialty channels have broadened the choice. Once again, we know that people watch six or seven channels, on average. With the Internet, you are going to build your own programs. That is why I think the specialty channels will result in major write-offs. If I want to launch a life channel, I go on the Web and, with four or five dietitian and decorator friends, we launch a decoration channel, without any constraints.
There are obviously major challenges for minority populations outside Toronto and Montreal, because there will be so many other solutions. I hope we will continue to support the anglophone minorities in Quebec and the francophone minorities outside Quebec.
But I think that this should be the subject of very specific budgets, for a matter of survival. The additional cost of a television viewer, obviously, costs much less in Quebec and Ontario than north of Edmonton, for example.
Senator Housakos: Good morning, Mr. Nadeau. It is clear that the communications industry has changed greatly in the past 10 or 15 years. We are seeing rapid and incredible changes every day. We now live in a world where the Internet is of utmost importance and has a large presence. Currently, the word "globalization" has emerged in communications.
What do you think the new major challenges are for French-Canadian culture, specifically for francophone media in Canada?
Mr. Nadeau: I believe that, for the media, it is the desire for excellence. With television in the past, you could change channels, but the number of choices was limited. Now, Netflix gives you an impressive number of films. YouTube provides access to excellent documentaries.
However, if so-called conventional television does not offer very high quality options, excellent options, you go to YouTube or Netflix, or even to social networks. It will be very easy because you will have your regular television at home, and you will have your mobile television — your cellphone — with you. Therefore, the quantities, the options will be much greater. You will need to make choices. We cannot be everything for everyone. We have done well in Quebec, and the CBC has, as well, to a certain extent, but it is obviously more difficult with the American competition. But we have done well with programs like "Tout le monde en parle," serial dramas and others, to draw a million, a million and a half viewers every week for half an hour or an hour, several times during the week. That is excellent.
Once again, we need to focus our resources on programs that do well. We need to strive for excellence through partnerships with allies to try to give francophones something excellent. Because now, you have seen that TV5 offers great alternatives, too. Cultural programming at TV5 is well established. It is very pleasant, very nice in Quebec. People send flowers, provide a bit of flattery, while in France, the programs are much more aggressive.
Therefore, I think the challenge and duty for francophone media and English-Canadian media, as well, will be to focus on excellence, with all the parties in place, because competition will be much, much stronger.
When I say that traditional television will account for 4 per cent of everything we can see on a screen, 4 or 5 per cent, that means that there will still be 95 per cent of constant demand: Netflix has new films, and so on. YouTube will have new documentaries.
So you have a media time, you have a media budget that is limited, and we cannot spend our lives in front of the television. So in the 40 or 50 hours I spend watching the small screen, I am going to gravitate toward things that interest me. I had only traditional television in the past, but I will have much more choice in the future. So, aim for excellence.
Senator Housakos: My second question has to do with governance at Radio-Canada/CBC. When you look at Radio-Canada's performance, its ratings are quite reasonable. It holds an important place in Quebec society and in Franco-Canadian society. You look at CBC's performance, and its ratings are not good.
It recently lost a major icon, Hockey Night in Canada, and lost significant revenue as a result. I believe that because of the weakening of English CBC, Radio-Canada often pays the price. I think that it has perhaps long been time for Parliament and the governments to examine the opportunity of creating two independent corporations for strategic reasons: Radio-Canada that will meet the needs of French Canadians and francophone communities, and English CBC, which will try to succeed in the communities where it is currently developing.
Do you share this opinion, that Radio-Canada becomes a victim when the time comes for budget and other cuts?
Mr. Nadeau: I have a lot of sympathy for the CBC because you offer the best television on the planet, quote unquote, compared with American television, with Hollywood. Once again, I say "the best" with much skepticism, but it is there.
Obviously, once again, does the CBC make strategic choices? This idea of being everything for everyone, of offering programming 24 hours a day. There is a programming schedule, but does every hour or half hour have to be filled, do we have to have a program in each spot, and be the best between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m.? No.
Perhaps choices need to be made, and you should try to gain viewers between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. As for the rest, too bad; the Americans will have it. But we need to put the focus on some things. As for distinguishing Radio-Canada and the CBC, the transportation and other equipment is used by both networks. I think that there is a synergy there to strive for.
Could we not be more efficient? I saw that Radio-Canada sent 250 people to Sotchi, and I think that is far too many. Could we not do better? There is another Quebec company I must mention. Quebecor's multiplatform facet is most evident. A journalist who goes to Paris and does an interview with Mr. Demers, does the audio with a microphone, then uses an audiovisual camera, and then writes down his comments. So there are three interviews. But Radio-Canada would have three teams.
Therefore, as I mentioned, there may be a flexibility, an agility and a nervousness that Radio-Canada could improve in terms of its performance.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you, Mr. Nadeau, for being here. It is very much appreciated, and your comments are most relevant. I would like to go back to the start of your presentation, which is broader, and then talk about the impact on Radio-Canada and on the CBC. You say that the typical audience is younger than us; the direction is toward very short things, 10-second clips, two- or three-second text messages, much less newspaper reading, less in-depth programming.
But the media has a historic role in the democratic system, as well, from the perspective of saving information, education, and so on. But given this tendency toward very short clips, how can they satisfy this very important role? One of the pillars of democracy is media. How do you see that?
When we look at how the media is acting, especially American media that is always looking for the spectacle or scandal, the often outrageous thing that will draw attention — but obviously we react to the audience that is always looking for news that will last a few seconds to draw attention — how do you see the trend with respect to our democratic system?
Mr. Nadeau: Obviously, when you use Twitter, so 144 characters, you are used to speaking in summaries, in 40-second snippets. I often go to Radio-Canada and TVA, and I developed the habit of expressing myself in three sentences to communicate the essence of my thought. I know that I could talk for 10 minutes, but they will keep three sentences, and I know which three they will keep.
Clearly, it is challenging to be very superficial, because the audience is no longer used to in-depth discussions and all that. However, I am watching what is going on in France, and what is going on with PBS and the BBC — obviously, you are going to tell me that those broadcasters are a little marginal in some cases — and there are still possibilities for debates.
This morning as I was coming in, I was listening to Paul Arcand on 98.5. He had a good 10-minute row with Quebec's Minister of Transport. It was only 10 minutes, but there was substance, there was something to discuss.
I think that it is all in the qualifications; the reporter needs to be willing to spar and realize that there may be some broken glass. But there needs to be a willingness to go in depth and then spar a bit.
If you do not want to hurt anyone, obviously you cannot do any damage in 40 seconds. However, the opposite is that it is moving toward media voyeurism. In 1978, I co-founded the Canadian Centre for Investigative Journalism. Everyone does investigative journalism these days. People go after your expense accounts. No one is trying to find out if the president of Hydro-Québec is doing a good job. No. They want to know what his expense account is, and if he gets a bonus. It is irrelevant.
So we need to take the time it takes. Obviously, there are people who will disconnect, some will channel hop. I think a Crown television channel has this mandate of not having the largest audiences because the information is not spectacular; it is not entertainment. So it is really important to conduct reasonably long, in-depth interviews.
Once again, there is the constraint of the programming schedule that French television does not have. In France, programs often run past the hour; it is accepted and that is all. They go on because there is still something to say. They run to 75 or 77 minutes, when it was to stop at 60.
I believe that the willingness of Radio-Canada's senior management should be very clear: We must offer Canadians something different, and not just a copy of what the private networks are doing, although they are doing a very good job.
You saw TVA's results yesterday. You are going to see those of Bell-Astral, the cuts they will make following the acquisition of Astral's networks and specialty channels. Watch: I think the private networks are also starting to have difficulties.
I believe that Radio-Canada should make a name for itself. It will not provide the best audiences, but it will enable it to go a little more in depth, while being interesting.
Senator Massicotte: My second question has to do with Radio-Canada's governance. As you know, under the legislation that established Radio-Canada, there are a few objectives and there may be a few nuances. However, the CEO reports to a board of directors, and he also has a link with the minister. Management is independent from the government as such, except that the budget is determined by the government, through the House of Commons and the Senate.
So there is independence in programming but, indirectly, the one who holds the purse strings greatly influences the results. Is this a good structure and would there be a better one?
Mr. Nadeau: I believe that the prince's whims should not be a variable. I believe that Radio-Canada's budget should quite simply be a percentage, 0.35 of the budgetary spending. So, regardless of the party in power, if the Government of Canada's budget envelope is $275 billion, operation expenses would at that point make up 0.35. I am just tossing out a figure like that.
But I think that the budget is essential in cases where autonomy is too easily influenced or harmed through budget constraints. I do not think it is appropriate to say "be nice and you will get your $100 million."
So it would be a set percentage of the budget envelope. Obviously, this is an exception, but I think that in the case of Canadian culture, Canadian identity, for Radio-Canada, which is an important link, we should make this exception and a percentage of Canada's budget should be given to Radio-Canada, no matter who the chair of the board of directors is.
Senator Massicotte: Obviously, appointments to the board of directors somewhat represent the government itself; perhaps they have messages to share. What do you think of that?
Mr. Nadeau: I think that Radio-Canada's board of directors should establish a skills profile. Who should be on it? For the all-star team in hockey, we know the players' skills profiles. We want two good forwards, a good goal keeper, someone in the centre, two good defense players, and so on. So we have a skills profile.
Senator Joyal: And good commentators, too.
Mr. Nadeau: Naturally. But I am talking about the team on the ice. We have a skills profile. I believe that Radio-Canada should equip itself with a skills profile. Take my magazine, Protégez-Vous; I am not a tablet guy at all, as I just said. I have two kids who live on tablets and all of that. So I went to them because the future of print media is on tablets, on iPads and so on.
So I think we should establish a skills profile. With respect to the 12 members, I have nothing against the idea of having someone in law, in accounting, in taxation, but it has to be someone who is familiar with communications.
If we look at the profile of the 12 people who currently hold these positions or responsibility, I am not blown away, if you will, by their knowledge of new media and developing the budget envelope for Canadian business advertising.
It is the same for any business. In real estate, you want someone who knows architecture, engineering. In retail, you want to have a diverse range of experts, men, women, a range of experiences, people who have already handled something in their life because that will make for good discussion.
Once again, as you know, democracy is not the vote; it is the debate that comes before it. So I think that there are many things that could be improved. I could tell you more and provide more detail about Radio-Canada's governance, accountability, performance indicators and program follow-up; I think there would be a lot of work to do there, as well.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Plett: Thank you, Mr. Nadeau, for being here. I think you have covered most of what I wanted to ask, but I will follow up on some of it.
One of the points that you made very clearly was that CBC is possibly trying to be everything to everybody, and shouldn't be doing that. You used the illustration of Eaton's and The Bay, and so on. Yet, probably the most successful chain of stores that we have in Canada right now is Walmart, who is really everything to everybody. So I guess they are bucking the trend in that, although I do agree with your comment about CBC. This is more of an observation.
Mr. Nadeau: The most successful chain is Dollarama, which is a dollar chain store.
Senator Plett: Fair enough.
Some of the issues that we have heard have been — and you talked about some of it — about the inefficiencies at CBC. We've been across a good part of the country, from Halifax through to Edmonton and Yellowknife, Winnipeg, Toronto, and now Montreal.
CBC is selling off a lot of their assets, their buildings, and they are leasing. In Toronto, we were told with regard to their ten story building that they could now get away with five stories. Halifax, I think they're going down by 60 per cent. In Halifax, they showed us a wonderful production studio that they built at a cost of $800,000. Now, that cost a few jobs, because they can now do with three or four people what they were doing with nine people, at a saving of about $600,000 a year. In a year and a little bit that production studio will be paid for.
Is CBC being a little bit too reactive as opposed to proactive? It seems like they wait until their budget is cut, and they say, "Oh, now we better do something." Why would they not have done some of this before? You talked about Sochi, and I agree that it was great watching the Olympics. But my colleague and I, over dinner last night, discussed some of that. What would a private corporation have done in Sochi? I mean, how much money did CBC lose giving us that production? So, are they being a little bit too reactive? Their budget gets cut, "And now we'd better start slashing here and slashing there, and lay off 1,500 people." If they can do with 1,500 less people what they've been doing till now, they should have had 1,500 less people before the $115 million got taken away from them. Could you make a few comments in that regard?
Mr. Nadeau: I think you are right. Unfortunately, you are right. The problem is with governance. You have management and managers in every corporation. They are doing the job of managing the corporation on a daily basis, and we put a lot of emphasis in Canada "managing the corporation." But governance — that's why I'm involved in governance — is the supervision of the management, and we are not used to that. To ask a manager, "Hey, are you doing a good job? Are you doing the right thing?"
I was discussing the case of the airport in Canada. I think it's probably the worst case of governance in this country, in regard to organization. I stop there. If the management is not challenged by the board, by the stakeholders, they will react very smoothly, very slowly. They will wait until the budget cuts, which in effect replaces the strong will to be performance efficient, until they are forced to do it. I'm a shareholder of a large corporation. I know that if they reduce costs, I will have higher dividends, more profit. So, there is a benefit for me in efficiency.
Unfortunately, our Crown corporations are not challenged enough by the media, by public opinion, by Parliament. I think the board itself is not doing the job, is not really challenging the manager. "Hey, guys, dear colleagues, you should do more with the same amount of money. We are living in fiscal constraint, you should be performing more."
Unfortunately, the only way to get this performance is by reducing the Parliamentary allocation. But I think, the Institute of Governance for Private and Public Organizations, the media in Quebec, should say, "Hey, Mr. Lacroix, are you doing a good job? Give us the indicators — not the percentages in your annual report, the indicators. Are we getting for our money of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion, a fair reward for our investment?"
I don't know what you can do, but I think the media, the different groups and Parliament should be much more active in challenging the performance of our Crown corporations — CBC/Radio-Canada, and all the others.
Senator Plett: I certainly agree with you that we should be challenging them, and maybe that's what these hearings will be about in the end, hopefully writing a report that will challenge some people.
Senator Housakos and you have talked about ratings. What better way of judging somebody's performance in the media empire is there than ratings — how many people buy my newspaper or watch my television show? It may not be possible to answer in one hour, but if you have a bit of an idea of a better way of judging performance than ratings, I would like to hear it.
Mr. Nadeau: It's not easy, and we could have a long debate. I may be driving my car listening to the radio, but what is the quality of my rating? I'm maybe looking around or speaking on the phone. So the quality of my hearing is relative as is the quality of the audience. Just the figures is not sufficient. I think we should try, perhaps, a type of advisory board. Some people, besides the Board of Directors, could bring wisdom. Wise people could evaluate how radio Canada is performing and not just the numbers. The Toronto Star is a much better daily newspaper than The Globe and Mail. In Quebec City, Journal de Québec is better than Le Soleil.
Ratings should be part of the solution, but it should not be the core of the solution, because it's so important, it's the culture of this country. The culture of this country is to have a meeting place for all Canadians. It's true that not all Canadians are willing to participate in the public debate, but those interested should have an agora, a place to debate, a place to share their values, and I think that CBC/Radio-Canada should be a part of this system.
For me, it is a qualitative judgment, where people from outside, some 10, 15 people, make up an advisory board and say, "Radio-Canada, in order to really fulfil your mission, you should put more emphasis on this, on that and have a debate on the issues." Radio-Canada will be free to do what it wants, but for me, it's not just the numbers. The performance indicator for corporations is very easy, it's the bottom line.
Senator Plett: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Demers: Thank you very much, Mr. Nadeau. I hope to stick with your approach. This morning, I heard the interview with Mr. Moreau and Paul Arcand. I thought it was an extraordinary debate of a kind we do not often see on television. Perhaps you can comment on that.
Several years ago, Radio-Canada lost "La soirée du hockey," and now the CBC has lost it as well. Even if we televise on the CBC, the CBC is not entitled to any revenue. What is the future there? Increasingly, we are seeing advertising at sports events in the United States and North America, like at the Super Bowl, for example, where 30 seconds of advertising can bring in $4 million.
Now, if there is an ad on television, you can mute the sound, ignore what is going on, switch to something else, or just not watch it. With basketball, recently, billions — billions — was paid for television. There is a team here, in Toronto. The same is true for baseball and so on.
Hockey was moved this year to Sportsnet. Based on what I have heard, the agreement is for 12 years, and there is absolutely no way that they can, in the long term, justify or even manage to pay this exorbitant sum. The National Hockey League is the one that profits.
Could you tell me how you see this in the future? Because we spend billions on watching sports.
Mr. Nadeau: Sports brings together a significant part of the public, obviously, depending on where in the season they are. Advertisers now aim to reach a lot of people at the same time, no matter what the consumer product is.
Obviously, the beauty of the Internet is that you can reach the audience you want. But there are people who want to reach everyone, be it coffee, consumer products, Nike, Sony, Toshiba, and many others. Sports provides large audiences at very limited times during the year, such as the Grey Cup, and during the finals and elimination rounds. That is where hockey clubs make money.
When I was with the Caisse de dépôt, I was involved in the sale of the Montreal Canadiens to the Gillett family. That is where I saw that you need to be in the elimination rounds and fill the Bell Centre between hockey matches in order to make money in hockey.
So I believe that sports make a lot of money, obviously. But certainly the club owners are not naïve; they will resell to Rogers, Sportsnet and TVA. There will be major challenges with that. There is a bidding war that is not obvious. I think that if the private sector wants to gamble on this, it will. It may succeed. Perhaps it will do well with different variables: stars, the intensity of the race, and so on.
I do not think it is up to a Crown corporation to take this kind of gamble. When the next two Olympic Games in 2018 and 2020 were announced — I do not remember which cities — someone said that we would probably recover our costs with those events. I understand that the Canadian identity is strong; the Olympic Games are intense moments for the country, but I think it is not essential and that the private sector could do it. The private sector will do it.
So, people were bothered by losing René Lecavalier and Jacques Demers' "La soirée du hockey," but I think we can have it on specialty channels, which makes financial sense. They are experts. Sports fans go to RDS, to TVA Sports. Radio-Canada cannot compete because Radio-Canada is in survival mode and is saying that if it does not have the Canadiens game, people will not watch Radio-Canada.
Radio-Canada does not need the Canadiens game. It needs good informative programs, variety shows and dramas. So, in my opinion, sports are not necessary.
Senator Demers: Thank you very much, Mr. Nadeau.
Senator Joyal: Thank you, Mr. Nadeau. I appreciated what you decided when you were at the Caisse de dépôt et placement. I know that you were challenged when you were there, but the years that have followed have shown that you were right. I think that is to your credit.
Mr. Nadeau: I must admit that a lot of people were very critical of the Vidéotron and Quebecor transaction.
Senator Joyal: The results speak for themselves.
Mr. Nadeau: There is a debate around the member from Saint-Jérôme, but that is another matter.
Senator Joyal: I think there is some confusion about what we have a right to expect from Radio-Canada. We want Radio-Canada to be everything for everyone. We want Radio-Canada to have huge ratings. We want advertisers to throw themselves at Radio-Canada. We want Radio-Canada to be providing information left and right, with every tweet possible and imaginable. At the same time, we want Radio-Canada to make us laugh, cry, applaud, and so on.
I think there are lessons to learn from the restructuring of print media. I know the La Presse newspaper a little better than the others. Basically, the columnists are what make La Presse. We are talking about Nathalie Petrowski, Alain Dubuc, Cassivi and, obviously, Foglia on the weekend. So there are four or five columnists who are La Presse's public anchors.
As you say, the rest of the news can be read on any platform. But readers of La Presse want to know what one or more of these people think. I think that Radio-Canada sort of follows the same model, if you will. Radio-Canada definitely needs to be informative. But I see Radio-Canada more as providing thoughtful information. You can have your tablet and follow the news every day in 40 or 150 words, and become attached to your tablet, but it does not make you think.
What makes you think and what fuels debate in a democratic society — because I think that is the only reason we should be spending money on a public broadcaster — is that Radio-Canada improves, elevates democratic debate, and gives Canadians, who do not necessarily have a large audience, a chance to express their point of view.
When Radio-Canada discovers talent, there is not a large audience for budding artists. There is a large audience when they reach a certain level of national or international recognition. I think there are reasons to invest in a Canadian public broadcaster basically because there is a positive contribution, because Radio-Canada will make a positive contribution.
You do not read Le Devoir because it has a circulation of 350,000. When people read you in Le Devoir, it is because they want to know what you think, because you have some credibility. It seems to me that Radio-Canada needs to frame itself like that. If people tune in to Radio-Canada, it is because, fundamentally, they believe that Radio-Canada will teach them something that they cannot learn elsewhere, because commercialization is not the only driver here.
I think we need to find a middle ground when it comes to advertising. To what extent does Radio-Canada have to rely on advertising in contemporary media that, as you have shown, has skyrocketed? As you say, advertisers are going to be where they can sell their coffee, their shoes, their electronic toys, and so on.
We need to accept that Radio-Canada does not necessarily have the highest ratings to justify its existence. That is not the only thing Radio-Canada should be evaluated against. I think there is a tendency to quite simply say that the higher Radio-Canada's ratings, the more justification there is in using public money. I would almost say the opposite is true: the more Radio-Canada reaches the public, the less interest there is in investing money, because people are going to buy the product anyway.
So, in fact, the quality of what Radio-Canada brings to public debate, to the discovery of talent and to the expression of the Canadian identity through the many things it creates that would not necessarily apply in standard business is what justifies its funding from the public purse.
I think the commercialization aspect is in a way corrupting our perception of the public broadcaster. As I said, there is an oversimplification that can be made of Radio-Canada's performance in terms of its future, and I am not sure I heard it from Mr. Lacroix when he gave his presentation on renewing the mandate or how Radio-Canada was going to operate from now on.
Mr. Nadeau: You are right about the advertising budgets. In 1997, advertising brought Radio-Canada $364 million; in 1998, it was $383 million. In 2011, 15 years later, it was $368 million; and in 2013, it was $330 million.
That is $330 million in a $1.8 billion budget, so about one sixth. So we are seeing that we are making a lot of waves, kowtowing a lot, prostrating before advertisers for 18 per cent of the budget.
Obviously, we need to seek out advertising, but once again, you are right, Radio-Canada's thought and politics should not be targeted in the ad, because we are seeing that it does not increase, it does not budget, no matter what we do, and it even decreases. We need to try to get some. I am not for abolition; it means $300 million less for Canadian taxpayers, but not at any cost.
There is a proliferation of information on the Internet. Sources of information have skyrocketed because of the Internet. But you need to have frames of reference, such as the René Lévesque with the Point de mire that explains how this works, what the politics are.
With the outcome of the recent American elections, I would have liked to have had someone take an hour to explain in detail what changed and what will come of it. What changes with the Republicans at both levels of Congress?
I think there is room for that. People will need a frame of reference. Le Devoir plays that role. Le Devoir has 24 pages; La Presse had 60 or 70, and now it is about 40 or 50. But Le Devoir's 24 pages contain the essentials. Today's upstanding citizens want the essentials of what is said to be important in our society, and Radio-Canada must provide it.
Radio-Canada must use its serial dramas to tell us about the major issues relating to psychological and other forms of harassment in our society in 2014. Variety shows need to present talent without slipping into commercial radio by always playing to the same 15 hits. We need to seek out new talent. "Un air de famille" is an excellent show where we see ordinary families go on television. It is glory for a day.
Radio-Canada must be the reference, must be what we cling to in order to understand the world. This does not mean having the most information. Yes, we need to have fun, we need to be moved, we need to be informed, but most of all, we need to see our values. We need to do business with people who have a desire for excellence, not a desire to be the lowest common denominator.
If I was in the information business, I would certainly want the largest audience possible for my advertising schedule. So I would target the lowest common denominator. That is not the case for Radio-Canada.
The Chair: Very quickly, Mr. Joyal, if you want to ask a final, brief question. This will be the last word for you, Mr. Nadeau, because we have other witnesses waiting.
Senator Joyal: In the plan that Mr. Lacroix has presented, what do you feel is the aspect that is most open for discussion?
Mr. Nadeau: I have not analyzed Mr. Lacroix's plan in depth. But, for me, the most significant aspect is the place of young people. As I told you, young people are now spending only 21 hours in front of the television, watching traditional television, that is. But my teenagers spend 50 or 60 hours, perhaps even more, in front of their computer screens. I do not see them at night, but I know that is where they are.
I believe that young people are going to turn away from traditional television, and that scares me. Young people from 2 to 24 live in social networks and the digital universe. We are fine with Radio-Canada: we like Mme Bombardier, we like Mme Dussault. We have opinion leaders who, as you say, could have more character, more personality, more perspectives, like the columnists at La Presse. However, that belongs to our generation, not to the 2- to 24-year-olds. No more can we say: "there is a good show on TV, come into the living room and watch." No. Not a hope. Unless I order pizza; then they will come. Otherwise, I am on my own.
That is what worries me: the next generation. Radio-Canada must not become television for old people. They have to update the formula to attract a young audience.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Nadeau. Thank you for your cooperation, my dear colleagues.
[English]
Our next witnesses are from the Quebec Community Groups Network, Walter Duszara and Stephen Thompson.
Please proceed, Mr. Duszara.
Walter Duszara, Secretary, Quebec Community Groups Network: Good morning Senator Dawson, Senator Housakos and honourable senators of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communication. I am Walter Duszara, the Secretary of the Quebec Community Groups Network, a not-for-profit organization representing Canada's English linguistic minority communities, which we refer to collectively as the English-speaking community of Quebec. With me today is Steven Thompson, the Quebec Community Groups Network's Director of Policy, Research and Public Affairs.
Our community counts a membership of over 1 million people, half of all Canadians living in the official language minority communities. Of these, 850,000 live in greater Montreal, 300,000 in the other regions of Quebec. We are community of many identities, representing many cultures and religions. Counted in our community are 36 per cent of Quebec's immigrant population and 34 per cent of this province's visible minority population. We are very proud of our diversity, a strength that sets our 'community of communities apart.
Like most people, members of our community hold multiple identities. Research continues to demonstrate that the strongest of these identities relates to being Canadian, and being English-speaking Quebecers. We are least likely to feel a part of the "Quebec Nation" or identify as "Québécois."
Despite high levels of bilingualism, we overwhelmingly consume English media; 80 per cent of radio listening, 70 per cent of newspaper consumption, and over 80 per cent of television viewing is primarily in English. Why? Because that is where we feel we are represented.
The purpose of mentioning these facts is to demonstrate that English-speaking Quebec, despite its heterogeneous nature, is a unique culture within Canada, and possesses an identity different from the majority society in which we live. We are not — nor do we wish to be — unassociated or unattached in Quebec; we are integrationists by nature. But we are particular and special, and have always been recognized as such, from Canada's beginnings 150 years ago.
That is the root of why CBC's conditions of licence require the corporation to provide local programming that reflects our community. And that is why we applaud the Federal Court's decision of 9 September that confirms CBC's duty to our community under Part VII of the Official Languages Act.
In preparation for this appearance, the QCGN held a number of consultative meetings with a cross-section of our 41 members from across Quebec. We were not surprised by the level of attachment we heard to the CBC in general, and CBC Radio in particular. This Committee heard testimony in Quebec City on the 23rd of October from two QCGN member organizations; Ann Marie Powell from the Megantic English-speaking Community Development Corporation, and Jean-Sébastien Jolin-Gignac from the Voice of English Quebec. The closeness that these two organizations reported between their communities and CBC Radio's Quebec Community Network, echoed sentiments held across the province.
CBC Radio is the media glue that binds us, a proactive and welcome presence, whose importance, especially to the isolated communities and vulnerable populations like seniors cannot be overstated.
The community did not find itself reflected in CBC's non-news programming. However, high praise was recorded for CBC news programming, which was described as "the most credible source of information" and the medium that "connects us to the rest of Canada."
We have information regarding our community's access to the Internet, use of smartphones and other data, which we have shared with the committee's researcher. Please note that the data was collected in 2010, and will be updated this year for publication in 2015. We can discuss the highlights at your pleasure.
Senators, we are a unique community, not an extension of the English majority in the rest of Canada, or the francophone majority in Quebec. CBC, and in particular CBC Radio and CBC News, is a real and physical presence in our communities. This is where parents find out about school closings, church socials, arts events, the daily details that bind communities together. CBC Quebec can and wants to do more, and we believe CBC has an obligation under the conditions of licence to provide the necessary resources.
Thank you for your attention, we look forward to our discussion this morning.
The Chair: Do you want to add something, Mr. Thompson?
Stephen Thompson, Director of Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network: No, sir.
The Chair: Senator Housakos, the floor is yours.
Senator Housakos: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome. Your group also represents multilingual Quebecers, multilingual Canadians, as well, or the English minority language group?
Mr. Duszara: We represent English-speaking Quebecers, and English-speaking Quebecers include multilingual Quebecers.
[Translation]
I will be very pleased to answer you in French, my third language. A lot of people in our community group use English, but I will not call them anglophones because I do not like that word.
[English]
Senator Housakos: I got from your testimony that obviously it's important that CBC fulfils its mandate. Of course, the CRTC made it conditional upon getting their licensing renewed, that they fulfil their responsibility to provide services to minority language groups right across the country.
We've heard from francophone groups across the country a number of complaints vis-à-vis Radio-Canada being too Montreal centric, not responding to their particular local needs, their broadcasting not being representative of who they are. Those are the complaints we heard from franco-Manitobans, franco-New Brunswickers and franco-Ontarians.
Can you clarify for me, do you feel that the CBC has done a good job reaching out and being representative of the English minority group in Quebec?
Mr. Duszara: I will share with you my life experience. I'm not an expert in communications, but I am an expert citizen, and I spent a good ten years living in the regions, living in the Sherbrooke area, at the time working for the school boards in the area as Director General, and in other capacities. I can tell you here today that CBC is an important part of the net — how should I describe it — the tapestry that responds to the needs of the community of English-speaking people who live in the regions, and it plays an important role for English speakers in Montreal.
The roles sometimes are different, because the make-up of the community is different. Over the years, through a dialogue that was established and maintained with personnel who worked for CBC, there was always an adjustment that was made to reflect and respond to the needs of the community.
So, yes, CBC has made efforts to respond to our needs. CBC has responded in many ways, particularly through their radio services, to the kinds of needs of the community. And, yes, the CBC television services leave something to be desired.
Senator Housakos: It's funny you say that, of course, because my colleague, in an earlier questioning, was talking about ratings and how important ratings are, and for us Parliamentarians, it's the only gauge we really have to evaluate if taxpayers' dollars are put in the right place.
CBC Radio has great ratings, and they are not only competitive, but the ratings show that in many parts of the country's communities, they're considered No.1. As you say, TV has a lot left to be desired.
The anglophone community in Quebec has other options. There are other options when it comes to TV programming, when it comes to even radio programming for anglophones in the province. If you look at various examples, they outperform the CBC. The ratings of the local CBC English news in Montreal, for example, are terrible, disastrous.
So where are the hundreds of thousands of anglophones in the Montreal region, where are their eyeballs at 6:00 at night, when it's time to watch the news? Where are they getting their information?
Mr. Duszara: I agree that there is more than one option available to anglophones on the Island of Montreal, and in fact off the island. However, I don't think that that indicator of number of eyeballs on the TV or a number of ears tuned into a station is the only useful indicator to use. I'll paraphrase a quote from, I think, Albert Einstein, and he said something along the lines, "Not everything that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts."
A lot of the discussion that I heard this morning had to do with, in the jargon of management, input and output indicators. I don't think that that's where we should stop. That's where management stops very often, but I think we should look at impact indicators.
The CBC has a large mandate. It has to contribute towards creating and maintaining a Canadian identity. It has to contribute towards showing people that they belong to something bigger than their small local community, developing a kind of an identity that is Canadian vis-à-vis the rest of the world. These are huge objectives. It's when we try to measure those objectives that I think we come to the issues that really are important, not the discussion of buildings and structures, but the discussion of what is it that CBC gives us as a community. What does it give us as citizens of this country that nobody else will give? And that impact indicator is not what's being measured by the number of viewers or the number of listeners.
Senator Housakos: Let me follow up on that. At the end of the day, that's the bottom line of what this committee is trying to come to terms with. In the last few decades CBC's revenues have gone down drastically, their subsidy from the government has gone down radically, their ratings have gone down significantly, especially CBC English.
Do you feel today, in 2014, we're any less Canadian than we were 10 years ago or 20 years ago? CBC, for me, was always Saturday night watching "Hockey Night in Canada" with my family. Of course, they won't have that any longer, so now I'm going to go over to Rogers or I'll seeing my son watching "Hockey Night in Canada" on his iPad or his big screen computer. Does that make him any less Canadian?
The question fundamentally is, we've seen the weakening of CBC/Radio-Canada and we're trying to figure out how we can stop the bleeding, but as a result of that weakening, have we become less Canadian, in your opinion?
Mr. Duszara: If I look at my children, they are less attached to the CBC, and to any other source of information, than I was at their age. However, I still think that there is something in the CBC that does contribute dramatically to our view of the space that we occupy and the time that we occupy.
I make reference to a number of programs that, to this day, I listen to and I started listening to when I was a young teenager: "Ideas," "Quirks & Quarks," "Cross Country Checkup." The CBC morning shows, Peter Gzowski from years ago, and they continue, you know, the classical music that was available at the time. These were all things that kind of brought you together, that made you feel that you were part of something bigger.
"Cross Country Checkup" is an excellent opportunity for people to hear voices of Canadians on various issues, all the time. If you're living in a city, a town or a village, and you hear someone from your town or village speaking to an issue, at the same time that somebody is speaking to that issue from Vancouver or Newfoundland, that makes you feel part of something bigger.
Now, how can you maintain that in the future, with all the other competitors for your time and attention, that's a big challenge. I think that the public radio or public broadcaster has to come back and take a look at its mission. If its mission is to contribute to building the Canadian identity, and maintaining and ensuring that the fabric of Canada and the links between its citizens all across the country are strong, then that's where you have to focus.
Senator Plett: I want to continue right along the line that Senator Housakos did. Can you just clarify for me — and I know you said it in your presentation — what is your viewership in Quebec, how much of it is in Montreal and how much of it is outside of Montreal?
Mr. Duszara: I don't have those figures with me.
Mr. Thompson: There are 1,058,000 people in our community, 800,000 —
Senator Plett: In entire Quebec?
Mr. Thompson: That's correct, 800,000 on the island, 350,000 off the island.
Senator Plett: Are you happy with the status quo? Should CBC be doing a better job, or are you feeling threatened that you're going to lose what you have now?
Mr. Duszara: I think CBC is doing a good job with the resources that it has. I think CBC could be doing a better job with an increase in their resources. I think CBC needs to rise to the challenge of the diverse needs and diverse aspirations of the community of English-speakers in Quebec. We have identities that are not the same, we have issues that are not the same, but we also have many qualities that are the same. You cannot respond to a complex and diverse society as we are in Quebec, with a program that is developed and produced in Toronto, that attempts to reach everyone, because it won't.
We need to be able to have programming that is responsive to that character of the population that we call English-speaking Quebecers, which is different from Ontario's English community and B.C.'s English community, or Ontario or B.C.'s or Manitoba's French speaking communities. There has to be an approach that cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach, it has to be tailored and it has to be responsive to our needs. It has to attempt to ensure that it responds to us as English-speaking Quebecers, and in a way that tells us that we still are part of this thing, this bigger thing called Canada. It's not a ghettoization of services, it's a service that is tailored to and engages us in a broader discussion and reflection of what it is to be a Canadian.
Mr. Thompson: I think it's important, as well, senator, to clarify that we're talking about CBC as a monolith. Our relationship with CBC Quebec is very close, and they do a lot for our community. What they can do for our community is dependent on the resources that they can get from Toronto, which is where the CBC English service is run from.
Let me give you an example. Several years ago, CBC News didn't cover stories off the Island of Montreal in the winter because they couldn't afford snow tires for their vehicles. Now, that situation has changed.
But what CBC Quebec can do for us is dependent on the resources they get from Toronto. And, yes, we feel that our relationship with CBC Quebec is very close, they do a lot with our community. Yes, sir, they could do more if they had more resources.
Senator Plett: As Senator Housakos already mentioned, the complaint that we've been getting across the country is that the CBC is Montreal and Toronto. Being from Winnipeg, that's what I hear all the time, whether it's from the francophone side or the English side, it's Montreal and Toronto, and we don't necessarily want Montreal and Toronto news.
But resources mean clearly, in the case of CBC, more tax dollars, which probably isn't going to happen. I asked this question of the previous witness: Do they just need to become more efficient?
On efficiency, can they do more with the resources that they have? While in Halifax, I asked some witnesses from New Brunswick a question. They talked about francophone services in New Brunswick, and we were talking about how many people should there be for them to provide services. So, I'll ask you the same question in English. Obviously, 800,000 people in Montreal is significant. For the rest of the province, 300,000 maybe isn't quite as significant, when you have 6 million or 7 million people, or whatever there is in Quebec now.
I asked what constitutes a significant population, and I got two answers. One answer was, "Well if there's a school, a francophone school, it would possibly constitute a significant population." The other answer I got is, "If there's more than one person, it's a significant population." I think that's going a little bit too far.
What would you consider a significant population out of the 300,000? If there's a community of 30 English-speaking Quebecers, does that constitute a significant population and should they get all the services in English?
Mr. Thompson: That is a superb question, thank you for asking it. We testified earlier this week on Bill S-205, which is in front of the Senate Official Languages Committee, and it's a bill to talk about things like significant demand.
Currently, significant demand is looked at in three ways. If it's how many people in a town or a city, it's called the "5,000 rule," if there's more than 5,000 people; if there's more than 5 per cent of the population in a given area; or based on the nature of the service being provided, post offices, airports. So, those are the three factors that work into the calculus of what defines significant demand.
Right now that's a matter of regulation. It's the regulations that accompany the Official Languages Act, and sections 4 and 5 lay those out.
What is a significant population? If you have a community of 30 people, who are otherwise isolated, who are a vulnerable population — they don't speak the language of the majority where they live; they don't have access to the Internet; they don't have access to a medium where they can make those choices — if their only connection to the outside world is a medium in which they see themselves reflected, is that significant? It's a judgment call. I think we would hesitate to put a defined number on the word "significant," it's a judgment call. A qualitative judgment has to be made on what is significant.
If there is one anglophone or one francophone left in a sea of francophones or a sea of anglophones, that's a significant person. If the value of linguistic duality from sea to sea to sea is a core value, yes, one person can absolutely be significant, but it depends.
Senator Plett: I agree that every person is significant. I do not agree that the population is significant. I think there's a distinct difference there, that each and every person in this country, no matter what language they speak, is significant. So, let's be absolutely clear on that.
My final question, though, is the desire going up or is it going down? Are there more people in Quebec today who would like English services than there was a year ago, or are there less?
Mr. Thompson: That's an excellent question. The numbers that we quoted in the opening statement come from two sources when we talk about identity, the multiple identities. One of those sources or one of those research documents is a sample across ages and across the province. Who do you think you are? We're Canadian. We're English-speaking Quebecers, this is who we are.
The other study that we quoted involved English-speaking Quebecers, kids, currently attending McGill University. The beauty of this is that you can determine whether there is stability in the identity or are identities changing amongst young people? There's a remarkable stability in the identity.
So, the answer to your question, senator, I would suggest, is that the demand to see ourselves reflected remains constant — that we are not losing our identity, we are not losing the desire to see ourselves reflected. Therefore, the importance of a service like CBC is remaining constant.
Senator Plett: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I would like to make a comment about your predecessor's remarks. He said that the future of minority communities lies with the Internet. Five people can get together to do the production and everyone is happy. So I would like your opinion on that.
You mentioned Sherbrooke. My senatorial designation is in the Townships and we know that Townshippers are historically more English-speaking than in other areas of Quebec. And what about aboriginal people in remote regions? Do you consider those populations, who are often more English-speaking than French-speaking, as part of your clientele?
Just now, my colleague was talking about Montreal. As I understand it, in terms of strengthening the Canadian identity, the threat is in regions other than Montreal. In the regions, the population is smaller but the needs are greater. Do you agree with me?
Mr. Duszara: My opinion is that the needs are more pressing in regions other than Montreal for Aboriginal communities. The English-speaking Aboriginal population is about 60 per cent of the total.
In terms of the services that can be offered to that population, we must not forget that we already have a structure in place. We have facilities to serve the population. We cannot compare providing services to the regions to pizza delivery, where only one person is required to deliver the orders.
Our signals and our facilities serve a huge area. We have a network of signals all over Quebec including a number of radio stations where services are shared. As I was travelling across Quebec from one place to another, I often had to change radio stations. I made sure that I was always tuned to Radio-Canada.
You can do that between here and Quebec City, between Quebec City and the Gaspé, and from Quebec City to Chibougamau. You can do it anywhere in the province. It contributes greatly to establishing and maintaining a sense of belonging for our community.
That demand, that need, will remain into the future. As you continue your discussions, do not forget that, at the outset, we are not starting from scratch. Structures are in place. We can build on them. Things are already in place so that we can reach that population and meet its needs.
Our group is of the opinion that this important institution, which serves our community and contributes to its vitality, must be maintained. However greatly diverse the population is, we believe that it is essential for the future of that community. That is also part of the CBC/Radio-Canada mission.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you all for participating in our committee. When you describe Radio-Canada as a designated service, I am curious to know what the audience is and what your interests are.
You say that you are a community of anglophone, not francophone, Quebecers. That is not the same market and it is not a community of anglophone Canadians. You make reference to Toronto.
Aside from the desire to get local news, what are the other singularities of your group in comparison to anglophones in Ontario? Apart from the desire for knowledge, what is happening in your own community? Is there another significant difference?
Mr. Duszara: The fact that we are in the same Quebec boat makes a great difference. Our situation brings with it different problems and contexts. We have our strengths and our weaknesses. That is all part of our environment.
In that environment, we are going to have to share our ideas, communicate among ourselves. And always with the will, even the desire, to preserve our Canadian identity and our ties with Canada.
Senator Massicotte: Let us take a look into the future. According to studies and surveys, quite a large proportion of children of university-educated parents end up leaving Quebec.
In 20 or 30 years, how big will this population of anglophone Quebecers be?
Mr. Duszara: I have four children; they have all finished university and are now professionals. They have had the opportunity of working outside Montreal, outside Quebec and even abroad, in places like Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Italy and Algeria. They all came back to Montreal and have chosen to stay here. There are many opportunities elsewhere, but they feel at home here.
Senator Massicotte: Good for them.
Mr. Duszara: The same goes for their friends. We all have to make choices in our lives. Sometimes, we are in control of our situation, sometimes not. We may have to leave.
However, when I was working in the school system, I never heard parents say that they wanted their children to leave. It is quite the opposite: "I would like my child to stay and find a job that matches his strengths or her education." That is what parents want.
Some forces drive us away and other forces keep us here.
Senator Massicotte: I hope what you say is true. When you see a community of 1.2 million today. . .what will happen in 20 or 30 years?
Mr. Duszara: We saw a major migration in the 1970s and 1980s. We can even establish links between political events and various migrations of people.
No one wants to put his or her future in peril. If some people feel a little threatened by the force of events, it is possible for them to leave, and that happens sometimes.
But it does not indicate a situation that people want. They did not feel that they belonged in their region, their city, their province.
Instead, external forces drive them to leave. For some young people, job opportunities push them out. If that situation can be reversed, if we can project an image of a vital, strong, English-speaking community, we will be able to encourage people to stay, or to come back.
People have to know that sufficient linguistic resources are available to them, that it is possible, for example, for them to work in a French company. And that their knowledge of French is sufficient for them to make a contribution to the strength of that company. We will be able to attract people from outside.
But we have to be sure that we have institutions, organizations and conditions that are attractive and that are going to bring people here to Quebec, and especially to the regions, from outside, from the other provinces, for example. It is mostly the regions that are losing their young workforce. They are going elsewhere because fewer opportunities exist here.
[English]
Senator Joyal: You mentioned in your presentation the recent decision of the Federal Court in relation to CBC. I'm referring to the decision of the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada in Dr. Karim Amellal against CBC/Radio-Canada. Is it the one you are referring to in your presentation?
Mr. Thompson: That's correct.
Senator Joyal: It was a decision was given by Justice Martineau on September 8. Do you know that this decision has been appealed by the Canadian government? Are you aware of that?
First, could you tell us in how you see that that decision is favourable to the maintenance of your identity as a community group? Perhaps you are not familiar, I don't want to embarrass you, but since you have referred to it.
Mr. Thompson: It's hard to embarrass me, senator.
Clearly, for any official linguistic minority community in Canada, French or English, Part VII of the Official Languages Act is critical — the support that federal institutions have a duty to provide, and Crown corporations, and others subject to the act.
Part VII is part of an expression of the government's duty to support the constitutional language rights of Canadians, and we believe that it's government's duty to be constantly expanding rights, not contracting them. So any expansion of Part VII, we feel is completely consistent with building and expanding constitutional language rights. We don't think that Part VII is onerous or is a burden, and let me give you an example. Three years ago, we were asked to appear before the Senate Official Languages Committee on Air Canada. I said, "Sure, we'll come." My boss said, "What are we going to say about Air Canada before the Official Languages Committee? Do we have a problem getting served in English?" I said, "No, let me think about this."
Air Canada is subject to the Official Languages Act, but they'd never considered that they have Part VII obligations to our community, official language minority community. They'd never thought of that. We mentioned this at the Senate, and that gave us leverage to go and meet with Air Canada and say, "Hey, you have Part VII obligations toward our community. Now, we're not asking for you to do anything special, we're not asking you to go out of your way, but what is that you do right now that allows you to make a positive contribution to enhancing the vitality of our community?"
Air Canada has a significant marketing budget, it publishes enRoute magazine. It sponsors community events. So without additional resources or going out of their way, they were able to sponsor the Sheila and Victor Goldbloom Awards that our community holds annually here in Montreal, to recognize important leaders in our community. And they also ran some articles in enRoute magazine about some of our remote communities in the regions, who rely on tourism. Perfect, Part VII done.
CBC has a condition of licence, which ELAN, our community experts, will talk to you about in a minute.
There are CRTC obligations imposed on CBC, but those are regulatory obligations, and by definition they're temporal in nature. So, for this particular set of licences, CBC has an obligation. What about the next time or the next time? Backing all of that up should be the Official Languages Act, Part VII. CBC's position that Part VII didn't apply to it was found by the Federal Court to be untenable. We shared the commissioner's enthusiasm on the September 8 ruling.
What that decision does, if the appeal is denied, is places into law this obligation that CBC has under Part VII. It won't be regulatory in nature and it won't be a CRTC decision; it will be law. That strengthens official language rights in Canada, that's a good thing. That would be our position.
Senator Joyal: You did not intervene, I understand, at the first level. Is it your intention to intervene now that it is under appeal, to explain your position the way that you have just described it to us?
Mr. Thompson: We do not have the resources to make those types of interventions. We make our community's position clear through public opportunities like this.
Senator Joyal: Mr. Lacroix, the CEO of CBC, as you know, has announced a plan for restructuring the services and the implementation of the services. Do you feel that in the announcement of his plan, there has been due attention paid to what you are constitutionally entitled to expect from a Crown agency like CBC, in relation to the maintenance of your identity as a group, protected and recognized by the Constitution in various sections? Is this plan announced by Mr. Lacroix respectful and paying due attention to what you are entitled to get?
Mr. Thompson: We had an opportunity to meet with Mr. Lacroix about three weeks ago, and we had about an hour-and-a-half to two hours of his time. There was a community consultation here in Montreal, where he briefed us on 20/20, their strategic plan. He was very open about the challenges faced by CBC, which others have talked about. Mr. Nadeau was extremely eloquent this morning.
Mr. Lacroix said something disturbing to us during our meeting with him, and that was that there would be no resources provided to non-news programming that reflected our community, for now. That is a condition of their licence. We asked a supplementary question to make sure that we understood Mr. Lacroix, and he repeated that, no, there would be no money now for non-news programming, that we feel would fulfil their CRTC conditions of licence.
The CBC's plan right now, as Mr. Lacroix explained it, is that as they draw down their infrastructure costs, they will take those savings and funnel those to non-news programming, but their priority right now is on news programming.
So, no, we're not happy with what's happening right now, in the immediate future. We don't know what CBC is going to do in the future, because the way CBC is structured, it makes these decisions as a corporation. You have input, but it's making these decisions from the top, not from the bottom. So, we can take Mr. Lacroix at his word, that if there are savings incurred, that those savings will be directed to non-news programming.
Clearly, we don't think that's good enough. If I have an obligation to do something, I have to do it. I don't think it's acceptable to say, "I can't do it because I don't have the resources." But that's not our problem, that's Mr. Lacroix's challenge.
Senator Joyal: Did you raise with Mr. Lacroix the argument that is spelled out in the decision of the Federal Court in September, that you have a constitutional right to expect that CBC is going to do something in relation to their obligation?
Mr. Thompson: I don't think it was that type of meeting; it was a consultation on their 20/20 strategic plan. There are others in our community who will testify in a minute, who have been very eloquent in front of the CRTC and with the CBC, to the point out CBC's constitutional obligations.
Senator Joyal: Are you aware that an official complaint has been lodged with the Official Languages Commissioner in relation to Mr. Lacroix's announcement in relation to the restructuring of CBC's services and direct emissions of the services they should provide to a community like yours, and to the other francophone minorities across Canada?
Mr. Thompson: I don't, but I'm not surprised.
Senator Joyal: Is it your intention to take your views to another level of government so that you could expect that what you're entitled to get from that service will be provided to you at a point in time?
Mr. Thompson: Absolutely, we would do that. We will wait for this committee's report, we would then use this committee's report as the policy leverage, the evidence leverage document, and then working with our community partners like the English Language Arts Network and other community leaders, we would form a community position and advocate.
Senator Joyal: Have you developed links with the francophone minority's representative groups across Canada? They share similar positions and principles as you, in respect to what CBC or Radio-Canada should provide in terms of services to you.
Mr. Thompson: Yes, sir. The English Language Arts Network does work with its francophone counterparts in the rest of the country on this issue. They're up after us.
Senator Joyal: Would it not be, I should say, a wise initiative to share concerns with them, and go together to the court to represent your views, so that, in fact, the principle that is at stake is similar throughout the community groups?
Mr. Thompson: It's an excellent idea, senator. It's a question of resources and rabbits. How many rabbits can you chase?
Senator Joyal: Who provides you with a budget?
Mr. Thompson: Well, if it's based on a constitutional language right, then there are sources of funding through the Language Rights Support Program.
Senator Joyal: Exactly. As you know, there is that source of financial support, especially since there is already a decision, a first decision that recognizes the principle and which provides a legal base, a foundation for the reasonableness of the position that you would be advocating. So, in my opinion, there are resources there that could certainly be helpful to you, in order to make sure that your views are represented and acted upon at the highest court level.
Mr. Thompson: Thank you, sir.
Senator Joyal: You have not answered my question. Where does your budget come from, your general budget?
Mr. Thompson: The majority of our budget is from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Senator Joyal: How much is it?
Mr. Thompson: It was $780,000 last year.
Senator Joyal: Does your membership contribute fees?
Mr. Thompson: There are no membership fees in our network.
Senator Joyal: So that's essentially a public budget that you receive?
Mr. Thompson: That's correct.
Senator Joyal: Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Thompson, Mr. Duszara, thank you very much for your presentation.
As our next witnesses, senators, we have with us Mr. Gerald Cutting and Ms. Rachel Hunting from the Townshippers' Association; and we have Mr. Guy Rodgers from the English Language Arts Network.
Who will start? We were told by the previous witnesses that you cooperate a lot? Mr. Cutting?
Gerald Cutting, President, Townshippers' Association: Good morning, Senator Dawson, Senator Housakos and honourable senators. Thank you for this opportunity to address our concerns at this time. My name is Gerald R. Cutting, President of the Townshippers' Association. I'm proud to say that I am a seventh generation townshipper.
To my immediate left is Madam Rachel Hunting, Executive Director of our association, and she's proud to claim to be the eighth generation of Huntings. We as families were in the townships before the townships were a part of Canada.
With active programming addressing heritage and culture, community development, health and social services, aging populations and youth, Townshippers' Association is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that has served the English-speaking community in the historical Eastern Townships since 1979.
Our three-part mission is to promote the interest of the English-speaking community in the historical Eastern Townships, strengthen the cultural identity of this community, and encourage the full participation of its members in the community at large.
We are here today to express our profound concern that programming specifically directed at the English-speaking minority of the townships is at risk. With recent cuts to budget, and consequently programming, we feel that our community is particularly vulnerable. English-speakers in the townships are not simply an extension of the English majority outside of Quebec. Our community needs programming that is sensitive to the needs and identity of life in a rural minority context. Our population is scattered over a vast territory approximately the size of Belgium, so surely you can understand our concern here.
Furthermore, for isolated rural English-speakers living in areas of the province, who are still without adequate, affordable or reliable access to infrastructure supporting high speed Internet, radio remains an important means with which to access community, and stay connected to other English-speakers across the province.
In light of this reality, the broadcasters 20/20 strategy of "reversing and inventing," to quote CEO Hubert Lacroix, its current radio and television priority to, and I quote, "Lead now with mobility, to lead with whatever widget you use," is problematic for our minority language community.
With broadcast towers throughout our region, CBC Radio is widely available to community members, unlike TV programming, which is for the most part now Toronto based, we have to look at what is, in fact, one of the most important of the concerns that we have, considering that CBC, in terms of its Quebec community network, keeps the townships community up-to-date concerning provincial, national and international events, while also providing important local coverage of issues and events.
The hosts of the Quebec AM program have for many years played an important role in our annual Townships Day festival, welcoming local English-speakers and visitors as MC's to our opening ceremonies, and throughout the day mingling with and interviewing community members, as they explore a new region.
In recent years, we've seen their ability to support our annual cultural festival dwindle. This year, the townships were fortunate to have Quebec AM host Susan Campbell with us throughout the day, but sadly, she was a team of one. The absence of her colleagues and a visible CBC presence during the event did not go unnoticed by community members. In fact, association personnel were asked outright why the CBC chose not to show our event the same level of support when it was held in their region, as it had given in the previous years' editions. Prior to cuts in CBC television, Montreal based commentators were also frequently present at our events.
It is difficult to keep our youth rooted in a region where their language and cultural identity is under-presented in daily media. It is even more difficult to combat younger generations interpreting this under representation as synonymous with being undervalued.
Community based programming is beneficial to the creations of bonds between people and place. To have an entire program centred in one's own area does wonders to foster a sense of pride and community ownership. For example, before finally ceding to increasingly yearly cutbacks, the CBC Radiothon Fundraiser for the Centre Hospitalier de l'Univeristé de Sherbrooke Foundation brought in more than $200,000.00 in donations from members of the English-speaking community during the three years from 2008 to 2011.
Rural English speakers are not unfamiliar with the loss of the community centred CBC program, cancelled in 2013, the Farm Panel. It was part of "CBC Radio Noon" for more than 20 years, giving the farming community across the province a voice and a connection, and giving listeners an inside look at farm life and the issues that linked the English-speaking farming community to the consumer. In the competitive world of broadcasting, surely this personal contact with the listening community must be of value.
To conclude, we strongly recommend that the CBC be held accountable in terms of its obligations as a national broadcaster in regard to its mandate to provide English programming in rural Quebec that, as stated in section 3 of the Broadcasting Act, reflects "the different needs and circumstances of each official language community, including the particular needs and circumstances of English and French linguistic minorities."
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cutting.
Mr. Rodgers?
Guy Rodgers, Executive Director, English Language Arts Network: Good morning Senator Dawson and the honourable senators of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. I am Guy Rodgers, Executive Director of the English Language Arts Network, which represents about 8,000 English-speaking artists in Quebec; musicians, film makers, visual artists, dancers, writers, and other cultural workers. Our members live in many regions of Quebec, particularly the Outaouais and the Laurentians, the Montérégie, the Eastern Townships, Quebec City, and of course Montreal.
ELAN is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. When ELAN was founded, we were the only community group consistently representing Quebec's English-speaking community at CRTC hearings.
In the past two years, one of our ex-board members has become Executive Director of the newly created Quebec English Language Production Council, which represents production and industry issues. ELAN collaborates, as QCGN mentioned, with them and its members to represent the broadcasting concerns of Quebec's minority official language community, both in greater Montreal and communities widely dispersed around the regions of Quebec. So we are pleased that a number of these communities have spoken to you directly.
When CBC's licence was under renewal by CRTC in 2012, ELAN and the Quebec English Language Production Council made representations from the perspective of Quebec's English-speaking minority community. One of the CRTC commissioners grilled CBC senior management about their language responsibilities, and the executives made it clear that they think of Canada as a patchwork of geographic regions. They did not feel they had any particular obligations to minority language communities within those geographic regions. The transcripts of that discussion are actually quite illuminating.
The CRTC disagreed with CBC executives, and imposed conditions of licence regarding minority language obligations. So, the Quebec English Language Production Council was gratified that CBC must "devote at least 6 per cent of the current broadcast year's programming expenditures on Canadian programming from independent production companies, and must devote at least 10 per cent of its annual programming development expenditures to English language programming from the independent production companies in Quebec."
These measures will provide some much needed support for Quebec's minority language producers. However, producers are concerned about reporting standards, and whether the information CBC provides will prove that they are actually meeting these licensing requirements.
It is important to note that producers and community have different expectations about local production. The industry is concerned about who produces and where production occurs, because that determines their budgets and the number of jobs that can be created. The community is concerned about what is produced. A program might be shot in Old Montreal, but if it is actually set in Europe, it has no value as local content. Similarly, a program shot in English about the francophone majority in Quebec makes no contribution to regional reflection for the English-speaking minority.
Television is complex, and it is not CBC's most successful business line. As you have heard from regional communities, CBC Radio is much loved and highly valued. The local staff of CBC Quebec, although they are becoming fewer and fewer in number, are deeply committed to providing an excellent service that connects the community, tell its stories, and provides regional reflection in ways that no commercial broadcaster even attempts.
CBC Radio is hampered by dwindling resources and could do much more with relatively small increases in those resources. Because no one from West Quebec is scheduled to speak with you, I want to bring their unusual situation to your attention. West Quebec is cut off from the rest of Quebec's English-speaking community because they do not receive Quebec community programming. Technically, it is easy to understand why West Quebec receives the Ontario broadcasts, but it does not decrease their sense of isolation from important community issues within Quebec.
I wish to conclude these opening remarks by mentioning a few points that I hope we can discuss this morning. Like many Canadians, ELAN's members have been paying close attention to the CBC's new strategic plan. The framework describes a number of important changes. The shift from broad to focused will be assisted if executives in far off Toronto actually give CBC Quebec more resources and freedom to focus on its local audience.
The shift from conventional to digital is important and inescapable. ELAN has spent a great deal of time in the past couple of years thinking about the consequences of the digital shift, and we have discussed mutually beneficial partnerships with local CBC management. The shift from producer to multi-platform broadcasting has the potential to create local content that strengthens independent producers and local audiences.
I want to close on a final thought that is of importance in particular to minority language communities. One of the most important rolls of a national broadcaster is to facilitate a national dialogue which connects Canadians across the country, and within regions. The sharing of ideas stimulates unity. CBC/Radio-Canada is in the unique position of being able to stimulate a dialogue between English speakers and francophones. Whether the issues being discussed are national or regional, CBC/Radio-Canada could play a roll of including minority language voices in the conversation. This would involve little or no additional financial cost, but can provide significant social benefits.
Thank you. I look forward to answering your questions and discussing some of these ideas.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Rodgers.
Before giving the floor to Senator Plett, could you send us "the best of" of those transcripts between CBC. . .
Mr. Rodgers: Absolutely, my pleasure.
The Chair: Not necessarily the whole transcript.
Mr. Rodgers: Well, there are about 20 minutes, and I could reduce it down to the highlights. It's very interesting.
The Chair: Okay.
Could you define for me for my colleagues "West Quebec"?
Mr. Rodgers: The Outaouais region, places like Wakefield and Chelsea. They're right across the river from Ottawa and they receive the Ontario CBC, so they don't know what's happening in the rest of Quebec.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Maniwaki.
Mr. Rodgers: Maniwaki, all those places along the west border, yes.
Senator Plett: Thank you to all of you for being here.
I'm going to ask some of the same questions that I asked the witnesses prior, because I think much of that is very relevant.
Mr. Cutting, is you said in your presentation that you feel that the programming to the English minority is at risk. What indicators are there that it has been at risk? Is that just a feeling because CBC has had to rein in some of their spending, if you will, they have had to become a little more efficient? Have they given you an indication that they are planning on doing anything adverse insofar as English language programming?
Mr. Cutting: Let's look at some concrete examples, and I'll let Rachel fill in. When we're told by the people that we have been working with in CBC, particularly in radio, over a number of years, "Sorry, we can't do this anymore. Sorry, we can't, we don't have the funding anymore," what we begin to see then is something that I think rural people in general have come to expect unfortunately, that rural people are expendable because we are in small numbers. We don't live in the major centres. We tend not to be very loud; we tend not to be the kind of people that take to the streets. We tend to be the kind of people that try our very best to adapt to the circumstances, whether that be the English community or the francophone community outside Quebec. This has become a way of life.
What we're sensing now relates to the fact that "Farm Panel" has been cancelled and that people who used to show up all the time are saying "We can't do it anymore." What's next? It is, I think, quite natural for us then to hypothesize that this signals the beginning of something that could be very serious.
I must reiterate, as I have time and time again, that the connection between small communities in the townships historically has been the radio. It still continues to be the radio. While we have a wide variety of choice of what stations to listen to, if nobody is talking about you, then there is, again, a natural consequence to the community, and that is the young folks. You know, we represent two generations here. Unusually, we are together, because we're committed to our community. But what we need to see here is, is our national broadcaster committed to us?
Senator Plett: Well, first of all, when you talk about small communities, I couldn't agree more. I'm from a small farming community of 1,500 people.
Mr. Cutting: That's pretty big, some places.
Senator Plett: Well, that's pretty big some places, you're right. And we are at 1,500 only because some people from the city have moved in, and we're becoming a bedroom village. Nevertheless, the feeling is there, whether it's in my community, which is mostly German-speaking, or the francophone communities right around us. I think they feel the same thing.
I guess what I'm getting at, this is not a situation that is unique to English-speaking Quebecers, this is a situation that is unique to French-speaking people in the rest of Canada, and in general to people in small communities, that Toronto and Montreal are taking the resources.
In that regard, Mr. Rodgers, you talked in your presentation about dwindling resources. Now, are the dwindling resources to CBC as a whole, or is CBC using the resources to maintain everything in Montreal and Toronto at the expense of others? Are they saying, "Well, the government cut us back again, so now we have to pass on those cuts," when we have seen that, in fact, they have in many cases been living beyond their means and are now possibly becoming more efficient.
Do you feel that you are the resulting recipient of Toronto and Montreal getting more and you getting less?
Mr. Rodgers: Well, I would approach it from a different angle, because we're talking about how to cut up a small pie, and we could argue at great lengths about that. The point is that CBC was created as a national broadcaster for all kinds of reasons, about connecting communities, national identity, national unity. CBC has a role to play. It's true that reduced resources make it very difficult to play that role properly. Would we point the finger unnecessarily at Toronto? I think the Toronto/Montreal question is partly about vision, about management, about control. I mean, I know that our francophone colleagues across Quebec listen to Radio Montréal, because, you know, it's mostly about and by Montreal. We have the same feeling about Toronto. We're not the only ones suffering, but I think that it's easy to cut a small amount. You know, one presenter in a community is a small cost.
Rachel Hunting, Executive Director, Townshippers' Association: A community supporter retires and they're not replaced. Exactly.
Mr. Rodgers: The impact is tremendous. It's as if the entire signal was dropped out of Montreal.
The fact that, yes, we continue to maintain a national product focused in Montreal and Toronto, that does maintain a dialogue between Canadians is important. But those small connections in all of the regions are vital to that national dialogue.
Senator Plett: Are more people today wanting English services in Quebec than there was a year or two, three or four years ago, or are there fewer people wanting the services? I know there will be those who will strongly disagree with me, but I believe the demand for French services in Western Canada, certainly as you go west, goes down. And so, I guess we need to always try to balance the extent to which we provide services?
Mr. Thompson said, and rightly so, that every person in this country is significant. My argument was, well, the population isn't necessarily significant. But are there more people today who want the services, or are there fewer people?
Mr. Rodgers: I think this raises an important question from our point of view that I'd like to address.
In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, very few anglophones in Quebec were bilingual. During the shift toward Quebec assuming its identity and its language, a huge number of people left, about 350,000. I mean, the population of the Plateau is 25,000 — a huge number left. The people who stayed, stayed because they wanted to speak French. If you look at the number of anglophones who are now bilingual, it is well over 50 per cent, 60 per cent, 70 per cent, and in the younger demographic very high.
So they are committed to staying in Quebec, they are committed to being part of the conversation. There is an aspect of that, "Yes, we are Canadians. Yes, we listen to "Cross Country Checkup." Yes, we listen to Radio-Canada." There also is a dialogue within Quebec, a unique conversation about the minority community within Quebec, and the only media that can play that role is CBC/Radio-Canada. If we lose that, then something that is essential to Canadian identity will be lost.
Ms. Hunting: If I could add to that, it's also important for younger generations, like my generation. If you're fully bilingual and you're working in the province of Quebec, chances are you're working in French all day and your colleagues are mostly francophone. You live and work in your second language, and when you consume media, when you want to see your heritage or your culture reflected in the media that you consume, the CBC is really your only outlet for that kind of programming, and it's important. It's important to the maintenance of that culture and the strengthening of that identity to have that.
Senator Plett: Mr. Cutting, you said the CBC should be held accountable, and I agree. By whom?
Mr. Cutting: We could have a very long debate on that, so I'll try and deflect it in this sense: If CBC is responsible for its programming, to whom are they responsible? I say the first answer is that they're responsible to the listener. They're responsible to the listener in the sense that the programming there must be, in a very classical sense, both entertaining, and it must also teach, and it must also reflect. The responsibility, then, is that if the CBC is the mirror of the citizen, then each citizen should be able to see their image in that medium so that each and every one of us, in a certain sense, as we're doing today, is speaking to the issue. We are taking a certain measure of responsibility. Ultimately then, who is the employer of CBC if we want to establish, you know, a chain of command that moves up and down.
Finally, I would have to say that it has to come down to the elected representatives and the appointed representatives. I don't want to say anything offensive to anyone today. What it comes down to, is that there is role on the part of government to ensure that that mirror is going to be held up for all citizens. We need to find ways and means of ensuring that is there, and we do have the democratic processes in place to be able to do it, but they must be exercised. They must be exercised in such a way that we don't use the only measuring stick that is often used, and that is efficiency, which translates into cost.
We lose young people every year. Our population gets smaller, not every year, but it does dwindle because young people don't see themselves reflected.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Cutting, I am your senator. My senate designation is Bedford, including your property on Tibet Hill. It really is in your neck of the woods.
So I am very happy to offer my services as a result of your recent comments. In large part, I share your opinion. We in the French-speaking community are richer if your community continues to make progress too.
I was under the impression that, in terms of radio, things were quite vibrant. There is room for improvement, but, in that aspect, there are fewer weaknesses. The problem is more with television.
Mr. Rodgers, I had the impression that you were more on the television and visual side. I was wondering if you produce for television as well as for radio. I have no problem listening to very good English shows on CBC Radio, especially when I come back from Ottawa. You are not the only ones it serves.
Mr. Rodgers: We listen to French radio too.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: We have that privilege in Quebec. When you talk about your concerns on the production side, should the decision-making for anglophones be done in Montreal rather than in Toronto?
It is absolutely absurd that people from Toronto, who have never been to the Eastern Townships, are making decisions for a population and an area almost the same size as Belgium.
Must we take that back? Do the improvements have to be made for radio, or for television?
Perhaps each of you could express an opinion on that.
[English]
Mr. Rodgers: There are a lot of different questions there.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Yes.
Mr. Rodgers: As I tried to express in the opening remarks, the Quebec English Language Production Council represents TV producers. They want to produce. They don't really care if the production talks about Quebec or is situated in Quebec, they want to produce in Quebec. I think it's a general truth that television is less close to the audience than radio. Radio is much more intimate, the coverage is closer. So, there's a different relationship between television and radio, I think they're two quite distinct phenomena.
So the producers, who are one of our sub-members, care a great deal about television and production, and it's almost too bad they're not here to speak for themselves about that.
ELAN has spent the last few years working with QCGN to represent community, and I don't think television is as central to people's identity and values, as radio. Radio is extremely important, and I don't think we can stress that enough.
[Translation]
Mr. Cutting: I will try to answer your question. Let me give you an example. "Republic of Doyle" is a Newfoundland production where we see the capital and the people of Newfoundland.
Of course, 100 per cent of the entire population of Newfoundland are not sitting in front of their televisions to watch "Republic of Doyle" each week. But because the Newfoundland community is pictured, mirrored in it, it counts for something.
If you are asking when there has been a show on television where we could say that the plot is set in the Eastern Townships, in Thetford or Sherbrooke, I have no example to give you and I am not sure that there ever has been one.
I can give you another example. The show "He shoots, he scores" or "Lance et compte" is a Quebec production that everyone could feel part of because it showed our people.
When you meet some francophones, especially from the Gaspé or the North Shore, they speak two languages but share exactly the same images. In terms of television productions, could that spirit be any closer? We could certainly say that, rather than going to Toronto, let us go to Montreal. One day, perhaps, it will be Sherbrooke or Thetford.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Agreed.
Ms. Hunting: That is important too. A transfer from Toronto to Montreal would certainly be good for the nuances of Quebec and the reality of the two communities. But we must not forget the difference between English-speakers off the island of Montreal and those living here in Montreal, in a major urban centre.
They do not have the same realities, they do not have the same life experience or the same needs when it comes to consuming media. Stories from Montreal are not automatically going to get people from Bedford, Coaticook or Cowansville excited.
We also have to make a major distinction between programming for a rural community. That is just as important for rural francophone communities too.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I think you have answered my questions nicely. Especially, of course, Ontario in relation to Quebec and the rest of Canada, anyway.
Even inside the anglophone community, you want there to be something specifically rural. Is that what I understand?
[English]
Mr. Rodgers: The function is probably not necessary if it was just a budget and control. I mean, I don't think we have to have an English Radio-Quebec. It really is the question of giving the Quebec region the budgets and the autonomy to do what it has to do and what it should do.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I was not talking about the administration, like who cuts the cheque. I was mostly talking about the programming decisions.
Mr. Rodgers: Mostly, those are the decisions.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Yes. That is clear then. Thank you.
Mr. Rodgers: Yes.
Senator Demers: As I understand it, Radio-Canada is a public service. As I understand it, you pay your taxes. Whether you have 10,000 people or 500 people, you have the right to receive the same information as they get in Montreal, or in Sherbrooke, which is a little bigger.
Now, because cuts are being made, in smaller places, they are going to cut a reporter, for sure. I know that was done in Moncton on occasion. They shut the door behind people and do not hire anyone else. As Senator Hervieux-Payette said, even if you are a small community, I do not understand why you do not have the right to know what is going on in Ottawa or Montreal.
Like all of us, you are taxpayers. The government contributes $1.2 billion, but, at some point, it looks for that money in your pocket. That is how it works.
In my opinion, it is unacceptable. I would like your opinion on the matter, because, a few years from now, you will have no information at all, or almost none.
Mr. Cutting: Currently, no one at CBC/Radio-Canada in Sherbrooke is working part-time. We have expressed our concerns, and one of them is this: what will they want to produce when they see the figures? It is always easier to say, one part-time employee, check. Then one more person is lost. They have to travel from Cowansville to Thetford, Sherbooke or Coaticook.
Can a part-time person really do a good job? They do what they can. When something happens across a number of regions, choices have to be made. And what happens? If you are a small region, you are sacrificed because they have to save money. That is the reality.
Ms. Hunting: The Eastern Townships have more than 46,000 English-speakers. That is 5 per cent of the total population. But do not forget that the number is growing.
In 2006, there were 42,000 English-speakers. That is quite a large number of media consumers.
Mr. Rodgers: We can share the same information from Toronto or Montreal. But what is most important is to share information coming from the regions. It is not just about receiving the same information from the large centres. All rivers run to the great lake in the centre. All regions are important.
Senator Demers: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Massicotte: I sensed an angst when you talked about the fact that Radio-Canada or CBC is providing enough services, obviously there's a lesser attachment to the community, and there's a cycle there. How do you separate the contribution of CBC to that angst, which is obviously not very positive, or how do you compare that to the angst that was caused in the last provincial election when we talked about the Charter and so on. I suspect that when you talk about your children leaving the territory to go elsewhere, the Charter did more harm to your community and to the angst than what Radio-Canada or CBC is doing.
How do you separate the two to find out where the problem lies, and what do you do with that?
Ms. Hunting: I don't know if you can separate the two. It's an example of the situation that English-speakers face in the province of Quebec. A good example of the difficulties that are posed in the province is the retention program we run, a recruiting and retention program through the Place aux jeunes en région envelope, which is provincial funding. Through the program we recruit and bring in potential migrants from big city centres to live in the regions, and establish themselves in the regions, and have families and work there.
The Townshippers' Association runs the only English-speaking program. We're the only project that's dedicated to recruiting English-speaking professionals and graduates to come and live in the six MRCs around Sherbrooke, in the Estrie region. It was a really hard sell last year, the last 18 months, when you have highly mediatized political debates and commentary, and angst, and all of this going on. It's difficult for the people who live in the regions, it's difficult for people who are interested in investing in the regions, and it's difficult to keep our youth in the regions and convince young people to move there. It's a combination of not seeing themselves reflected in the media. It's a combination of perceived lack of opportunities and also a perception of being pushed out, of not being wanted.
It's not something that you can separate sectorially. There are cause and effects that happen across all spectrums of the community.
Mr. Cutting: If I could just flip your question around in this sense: yes, when Bill 60 was first introduced, I think there were a number of people who were English-speaking or allophone thinking, "Oh, oh, perhaps it's time to pack the bags." But the fact is that people came out. We were there and we made a presentation on Bill 60. I think a number of people came out, and organizations, and said, "This bill is really not a reflection of ourselves. This bill does not represent who we are as Québécois; it does not reflect who we are as Canadians."
I would say that the fact that this bill died perhaps is going to have a reinforcing effect on those people in the sense that if citizens start to speak out and come out, and explain, and confirm our real values as Canadians and Quebecers, it's going to be more interesting for young people, whether they speak French, English or another language, to think about the democratic process and how it does work if it's exercised.
So I would suggest to you that perhaps the fact that Bill 60 didn't make it is going to reaffirm in many people's minds that, you know what, you can stand up for what seems to be right and what seems to be democratic, and what seems to be something that we want to see as a reflection of ourselves.
Senator Massicotte: I hope you're right. The history has not always been very welcoming to your community, not only the Eastern Townships, but I hope your optimism is well based and will prove itself to be accurate.
Thank you.
Senator Joyal: Welcome. It's a pleasure to see you, Mr. Cutting, Ms. Hunting, and Mr. Rodgers.
Have you had the opportunity to meet with the Radio-Canada or CBC direction to express your concerns in relation to the announcement that has been made regarding the budgetary cuts that CBC faces?
Ms. Hunting: Townshippers' weren't able to participate directly in the meeting because we had another commitment, but we did participate in the consultations with the Quebec Community Groups Network, and sent our message through them as part of their meeting.
Senator Joyal: And Mr. Rodgers, have you?
Mr. Rodgers: I was invited to meet with Mr. Lacroix. I had a double booking and couldn't make it, so I followed QCGN and some other people who were there. We collaborate quite closely with our francophone colleagues across Canada who are quite concerned about this whole thing. We have made and will continue to make representations on behalf of the English-speaking community.
Senator Joyal: Did you make written representations?
Mr. Cutting: I would have to say that the consultation that took place with QCGN and what evolved out of that reflected our views. In that sense, as the umbrella organization that represents all of our associations and organizations, we felt that our voice was heard through our representatives.
Senator Joyal: Mr. Rodgers, in relation to the printed media — I know it's a peripheral question, but it might help us to understand the particular situation in which you find yourself — is the printed media, like The Gazette or La Presse, facing the same kind of problems, whereby the number of readers has gone down, and they had to wind up or find some alternative solutions. What is the situation of the printed media in relation to your own reality?
Mr. Rodgers: Well, we can talk about Montreal, and then we can move onto the townships. There is a digital shift in all of the media; it affects broadcast media and it affects print media. In Montreal, we had two weekly independent papers that were of great benefit to arts and culture; they both folded a couple of years ago. The Gazette has faced significant repeated cut backs, so they have changed the amount of content, although the local journalists try very hard to cover as much as they can, given the space available, in the same way that CBC locally tries to cover as much information as possible.
The strategic plan, the framework of other digital shifts online is very significant. We had some funding from Canada Council to really examine where the media is going, how audiences and artists, in our case, can connect to one another. I know that CBC is really thinking very hard about how they can connect on the Internet as well, and have a regional representation. We have been in conversations with regional CBC about how that can be effected, and how we can help them connect with their audiences in the greater Montreal region, and all of the other regions of Quebec.
Senator Joyal: So am I to understand that there is no printed media in the townships or regions to which you might resort to express your views and cover the reality of what happens.
Mr. Cutting: In the townships, there is the Sherbrooke Record.
Senator Joyal: The Record.
Mr. Cutting: It has been in existence for a very long time.
Senator Joyal: What is the financial situation of The Record? Has it threatened to wind up or is it like La Tribune in Sherbrooke which is part of the Gesca group, and of course they benefit from the support of the whole group. But what about The Record?
Mr. Cutting: The Record has, I would say, for the last 20 years been in an ongoing discussion as to whether or not they should cease daily production and go weekly. I think the reasons for that are around issues dealing primarily with budget. Ownership of The Record has changed hands quite frequently, and depending on who happens to own the paper at the time, it's seen as something that has potential or it's seen as something that is basically, "Gosh, how we can dump this?"
I think they try to do their best with local coverage, but again, they are confronted with having a number of people who are writing who are part time. What often happens is that they simply don't have the personnel to cover a lot of the events. They have to be selective, as do the people in CBC Radio.
So what we often see is that if you really want to get a more broad-based coverage of local events, you'll subscribe, like me, to both La Tribune and The Record, and then you might even read, online, The Gazette and La Presse, or another one of the papers. In terms of getting a rounded picture, it's easy to get a subscription to The Gazette online, but you don't find out what happened down at the local legion last night, about someone who rescued another person who was drowning, or what the local events are. They aren't in The Gazette.
So I would say that the written media is definitely going more digital, and I would say that, particularly amongst the younger generations, there is a tendency to go digital. But if you really want to find out what's going on, and what's going to be up, tune in to the Quebec community network. "Quebec AM," I start every day with, and I get a sense of, "Oh, well this is happening over here, over there." I would have to say that it reinforces my suspicion or my hypothesis that as some forms of media become less important, other forms of media may increase.
Television, I think, is one of those; it's quite dispersed. But how do we get in touch with each other if we're driving or whatever? We have to have, I think, a multi-media mix in order to be fully informed, in today's context.
Senator Joyal: In other words, you cannot really count on The Record in the years to come to reflect your identity or the reality of the world and the community in which you evolve?
Mr. Cutting: That's a very delicate question. I don't want, in any public sense, to ever be known to have said that The Record is not going to make it. I think that there is a potential for it to survive, but it's one that they have been struggling with. It's a small market, and media survival, especially the written media, I think we've seen across North America, is a challenge for owners, editors and publishers.
Ms. Hunting: In our rural context, also in the townships, The Record faces a similar problem that the association faces when we try to disseminate print media, which is that younger members of the community are completely comfortable and willing to get involved with the digital world and access the content online. Older populations and older generations may not have access. Infrastructure-wise, there are still pockets of the Eastern Townships that don't have high speed Internet and don't have adequate access. Also, getting familiar and being able to use the technology might not be an option for some of the elderly people in the community.
So The Record still wants to maintain that connection to the older generations and the population it's been serving for X number of years, but in order to maximize their budget and remain afloat, they may have to shift toward a digital reality because it's more economically sound for them.
It's a difficult situation, and as Mr. Cutting was saying, it's not a reflection of the willingness or the need or desire to provide that information, it's the "How can we do this effectively and within budget?"
Senator Joyal: So do I understand that you would be really affected if La Tribune were to wind up in the printed form and go digital.
Ms. Hunting: Yes.
Mr. Cutting: Yes.
Ms. Hunting: It would impact the level of the access to information that our community has, absolutely, yes.
Senator Joyal: I mean the regional information, essentially.
Mr. Cutting: Yes. Again, taking us as the example, I like to open up the newspaper with a cup of coffee and leisurely browse through this, and read that, and maybe go back to it. While Rachel will be on —
Ms. Hunting: Scrolling.
Mr. Cutting: That's the reality we deal with, and I think the people who are in the media business are struggling with that.
Again, we come back to how do we ensure that? We're here today to talk about CBC and what we would describe as both their commitments. To take it a little bit further, I would say that there's a moral obligation there, too. How does a major provider come up with the answers that are needed to address the solutions to the problems that we see now? I don't have all of the answers, and I think that the only way to finally find those answers is to engage in dialogue and to find ways and means of putting together the kinds of strategies that will meet the requirements for the future.
Senator Joyal: Do you think that the local radio station could compensate for anything that the CBC radio could not provide to you?
Ms. Hunting: There's CJMQ in the borough of Lennoxville and Sherbrooke, and there's CIDI in the Montérégie East that's based in Knowlton, and they're struggling with funding. They have volunteers coming in to run programs and do recordings, and they're in the same financial situation that the rest of the media outlets are facing. So, again, it's not a question of their desire or willingness to take up the slack, it's that the ability is not there.
Senator Joyal: Thank you.
Senator Housakos: I have a very general question. Every group of witnesses that has come before us over the last few months has been prepared with their list of wishes, and obviously they always see the world from their own perspective. So, we meet minority language groups outside of Toronto who are anglophones and they say, "Well, there's not enough being done for us and, you know, CBC is very Toronto-centric." Then we meet minority language groups in Quebec and they legitimately say, "We need the CBC to do more for us."
We all agree that we need a public broadcaster. We all agree that there's so much need in this vast country of Canada, with two linguistic groups and so many regional and community interests, but we also live in a reality where fiscal restraint and constraint is starting to become a major problem. Taxpayers have reached their limit. There's been successive compression on revenue that's been going to the CBC. The changing environment, which is really the scope of our study here, is so blatantly obvious. We've gone into a digital era, the CBC/Radio-Canada are competing with vertically integrated communication organizations that are in various platforms that the CBC just wasn't and has had a hard time getting into.
The CBC has spent — you talked about a digital strategy — as far as we can understand, tens of millions of dollars to go digital. No one can give us an answer what the tangible results have been so we can quantify them.
Going forward, we have to come to a certain realization in the communication industry, be it print media, radio or TV, that the industry has changed and that none of them can be all things to all people, and compete across the board. There has to be decisions made. This is my personal view, but I think they're going to have to start becoming niche oriented in what they do. Most communication companies are doing that, they're going into sports broadcasting, i.e. TSN, RDS. Others are going into a format which is more drama oriented, others are specializing in news.
At some point, Radio-Canada and CBC have to come up with a strategy that says, "You know what? We can't do news, we can't do international news, we can't do drama, we can't do local coverage. We can't fulfil our mandate of responding to minority language groups across the country. We don't have the capacity to service the remote regions of the country, we don't have the capacity." They have the capacity to do either one or two or three of these things very well, but it's, I think, unrealistic right now for government and for citizens to think they have the capacity to do all those things.
Recently, I've gotten answers from them to the effect that 40 per cent of their budget goes into news, which I think is a lot of money, 30 per cent of their production budget goes into radio, and coast to coast to coast, they say that nobody does better than radio. The other 30 per cent, I'm not quite sure where it goes. But talking to the artistic community, arts and culture, they seem to getting out of that business in leaps and bounds, and sort of abrogating their responsibility in that regard.
I've had a long preamble. I know what you'd like from CBC/Radio-Canada. What is it that you think that CBC/Radio-Canada should get out of, that they shouldn't be, you know, spending resources, time and energy on, because that need has come and gone?
The Chair: Senator Plett.
Senator Plett: Senator Housakos really said much of what I wanted to say, but I'm just going to go one step further. Senator Housakos has said, rightly, that we are multicultural now. I mean, yes, we have two official languages, but we are multicultural, and everybody is Canadian. CBC has a mandate to provide Canadian content. So, what is Canadian content in a multicultural society?
My question is this, and you suggested Senator Joyal asked a sensitive question, mine will be maybe even more sensitive. I, Senator Housakos, and I think everyone around this table, support a public broadcaster to some degree, but to what end?
Senator Housakos' family is from Greece, and Greece used to have a public broadcaster, and they no longer do. I'm being told nobody really knew that they no longer had a public broadcaster. What would happen if, all of a sudden, overnight, Canada did not have a public broadcaster? Would the sun still come up the day after and would we continue to operate, and would you still have services? It's a loaded question, I know.
Mr. Cutting: Of course, the sun would come up. When we turn on the TV or the radio, we would listen mostly to programming where the accent would be a Midwest Nebraska accent. We of the English language would, in fact, be listening almost exclusively to American broadcasts.
You want to know what I would suggest to cut: anything that isn't Canadian. If there is a public mandate for the CBC, it's to promote Canadians doing Canadian work. If nobody else is doing that, then by all means, get out of the business. But what are we going to be looking at? It's not going to be Canadian. We may have the occasional BBC program, but that will be on late at night. Are Canadians willing to become, in that sense, I would suggest, radically Americanized in terms of our perspective of ourselves.
I have a number of relatives and friends who live in the United States. There is a certain concern there that programming be done in a way that it appeals from Maine to California, so the down home Yankee accent just doesn't cut it. You can have programming that is supposed to be reflecting the south, but you don't hear any genuine southern accents too much anymore.
I would strongly suggest that's not the way to go. Yes, it's going to cost money, there's no way around that, so we have to get back to something else. How do you wisely manage the funds available in such a way that you try to meet commitments and, more than anything else, ensure that it is a reflection of Canadians to Canadians.
When I talk to people who listen to Radio-Canada, they don't seem to have these same sorts of problems, because in the French language it is about being in Quebec — and there are still a lot of programs that are translated from English into French. Again, I would say that if we want to be really in a certain concrete fashion pro-Canadian, we've got to make pro-Canadian decisions.
The Chair: Honourable colleagues, I would like to thank the panel for their presentations.
Senator Joyal: May I have 30 seconds?
The Chair: Certainly, Senator Joyal.
Senator Joyal: I think we are entitled, as minorities in this country, to have a government that reflects our reality in its decision making, just as much as when the government uses a language, it reflects our reality in the decisions it makes for services that the government decides to provide. That's my strong personal belief, and I have always fought for that, and I will continue to fight for that. I think that you are entitled to be represented in that kind of reality.
Mr. Cutting: Thank you, senator.
Mr. Rodgers: Thank you.
[Translation]
The Chair: We are continuing our study of the future of Radio-Canada. This afternoon, the witnesses are from the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, in the persons of Jacques Létourneau, president, and François Enault, assistant to the executive committee and, from the Fédération nationale des communications, Pascale St-Onge, secretary-general.
Mr. Létourneau, the floor is yours.
Jacques Létourneau, President, Confédération des syndicats nationaux: I am going to give an overview of the brief we submitted to you. Pascale and François may have something to say in the question and answer period.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on the future of Radio-Canada. First, I would like to indicate that the Confédération des syndicats nationaux is a trade union organization with a Canadian charter and a representative base in Quebec. But, with the CLC, the other labour organization in Canada, we are part of major delegations with the Canadian government, such as the ones to the ILO or the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
We represent over 325,000 members, in public and private sectors, and also in communications, including 1,600 information workers at Radio-Canada.
As the representatives of those working men and women, we are concerned by the current situation at the crown corporation. But our concerns are not limited to our organization simply because we represent Radio-Canada workers.
We are a progressive trade union organization in civil society, concerned by issues such as democracy and the right to access quality information. So we not only represent working men and women at the bargaining table, we represent CSN members in society's major issues, including access to information.
It is in this spirit that we are presenting our brief to you today. You will not be surprised to learn that we are extremely concerned for the future of Radio-Canada. You can see that concern in our brief, in which we review the crown corporation's broad mandates and the waves of budget cuts that have affected it in recent years.
Transformations and organizations happen because environments change. As a trade union organization, we are well aware that the world of communications has changed. We can no longer consider the idea of communications in the same way as we did fifty years ago.
We are aware of the transformations in technology and the arrival of new platforms. In the past, we have negotiated adjustments that have allowed the world of communications to evolve. We could give you a host of examples, in the written media, in television and in radio.
At the same time, when we talk about transformation and evolution in the face of new realities, we still want to be assured that fundamental principles are observed, such as the quality of information.
We have absolutely no desire to take anything away from the various private broadcasters in the country. But we feel that Radio-Canada has a fundamental obligation to guarantee information that is accessible all over the country.
A few weeks ago, my colleague Jean Lortie came to talk to you about Radio-Canada in the regions and the importance of preserving it. At the same time, we say that we must work to ensure not only quality content, but also that the content reflects the reality and uniqueness of Canada.
For a trade union organization like ours that is primarily concentrated in Quebec, Radio-Canada in French clearly has played and must continue to play a role in making high-quality information accessible.
The budget cuts that have occurred in the last twenty years or so have not just affected the employment structure — about 4,000 jobs have been lost. They have also, and especially, affected the content and the quality of information.
In our brief, you have seen our concern, especially for radio, at the change in direction in terms of sponsorships and advertising. It is not that we do not see funding as a major dimension in the conversation, but we feel that Radio-Canada's role must be supported by the efforts of the taxpayers, since it belongs to all Canadians and must therefore be based on progressive taxation. The Canadian government must provide financial support and must respond to the needs and the transformations, rather than simply pinching pennies.
The swing to the private model, especially in terms of advertising, concerns us because of the content. Often, the advertising people want to finance more popular programs. Sometimes, the more socio-economic or political programs may be overlooked in favour of a show that is a little more popular.
We are not against popular television. But we feel that Radio-Canada must observe some fundamental principles in terms of content.
We are concerned by the number of closures, such as the costume department, which is perhaps the last straw. I was absolutely blown away when we were told: "the costume department had a $70,000 deficit last year." As if that compromises the state of Canada's public finances.
We know full well that the costume department does not just represent the heritage of what we watched on television when we were little. We know that the costume department still plays an important role, not just for Radio-Canada, but for cultural organizations too.
When we want a world where culture is strong, we do what we must to maintain important services. We rely on a number of studies showing that the crown corporation is probably the least funded in western countries.
The funding is less in New Zealand and the United States, about $29 per capita. If we wanted to get up to the average amount of funding, it would be between $65 and $68. In our case, we need $40 per capita to guarantee a base funding that allows quality production to be maintained. In our brief, you will find items showing the importance of public funding. We are asking for Radio-Canada's funding to be increased, not the opposite, to be reduced.
On the issue of regional representation, as Mr. Lortie and Pierre Roger of the FNC have stated, and, in my capacity of president of the CSN, as I can tell you from experience: when you go to Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, to Abitibi, to the Gaspé and to Estrie, the reporters providing the coverage make sure that the different points of view in our societies are expressed through Radio-Canada. I am not saying that the private sector does not do that, but Radio-Canada does it remarkably well, whether it is about the opinions held by political parties or the opinions held by organizations in civil society.
I must tell you that the delivery and quality of regional services help assess the level of access to information. We are almost going back to the very beginning of Radio-Canada in the sense that Canadians across the country must have access to quality information.
As president of a labour confederation and representative of a trade union organization, I am very concerned about the idea that Radio-Canada's regional offering might be scaled back in the future.
Finally, the focus is on governance, which is an intricate matter. At the same time, there is a certain lack of transparency in the way Radio-Canada's senior management and board of directors operate. Appointments are made through the governor and are directly linked to the Prime Minister's Office.
We should seriously consider implementing more democratic mechanisms that could even reflect, similarly to how things work with the Auditor General, the sentiment and political position of the various members making up the Parliament of Canada.
It is therefore important to reflect on this issue once again. We need to make sure that the separation between political power and the crown corporation is clear. It is important to note that Radio-Canada belongs neither to the party in power nor to the Parliament of Canada, but to all Canadians.
This is the first part of our contribution. We would be pleased to discuss it with you.
[English]
Senator Plett: Thank you, Mr. Létourneau. Your last comment I agree with so strongly; that it belongs to the Canadian people, to the tax payers of Canada. You are absolutely right. It does not belong to the government in power.
Your brief says that you need adequate funding by the federal government. I want to say also, sir, the federal government doesn't have any money. They are administering the money of those same Canadians' who own CBC, they are the administrators and the keepers of that money, and they need to do that in a responsible manner.
I want to spend a bit of time on cuts and your desire to have more public money. A few years ago, CBC had cuts of about $400 million. Yet, CBC continued to grow. They still managed to acquire more space. They managed to, over a period of time, lay off some people, and then they started to grow again.
I'm wondering how they managed to do that with a $400 million cut? Now, of course, the cut is $125 million, and now they are laying off 1,500 people. How can they lay off 1,500 now when they have the cuts? If can do with those 1,500 less people, they should have maybe been thinking of doing that a little sooner, maybe thinking of becoming a little more efficient.
There are many things that have changed over the years. We have the iPad now, which we didn't have a few years ago. When we visited Toronto a week or so ago, we were told that they can now have a production studio in a room of this size, whereas a few years ago it needed a huge production studio. We were in Halifax, and they have built a production studio there at a cost of $800,000. Now, at the end of the day — and I'm sure you and all of us are concerned about people losing their jobs — six jobs were sacrificed. Because of this $800,000 production studio, they can now do with three people what they did with nine before.
Should we not at least focus as strongly on the efficiencies and trying to live within our means? You and I need to live within our means in our home, and the government needs to live within their means when they administer tax payers' dollars. Should CBC not live within their means, and are they in fact doing so? It's not just a matter of giving more money, somewhere along the line we still need to all try to balance our books. CBC has lost money continually. They are losing ratings continually. Don't we need to focus on some of that, as well?
[Translation]
The Chair: Mr. Létourneau.
Mr. Létourneau: Do we answer each comment?
The Chair: Yes, at the outset. I will probably speed up the process in a little while.
Mr. Létourneau: In terms of the ability of Canadians and the Canadian government to adequately fund Radio-Canada, I will say that our interpretation of the state of Canada's public finances is not at all the same as the interpretation of the Conservatives.
On the contrary, recent studies have shown that, once the budget is balanced in the next few years, the federal government will rake in significant surpluses. I think the Conference Board showed that, while surpluses are going to pile up in Ottawa, the provincial deficits will increase.
So I think that the Canadian government's flexibility shows that it is possible to do a good job of funding our crown corporations. We took a poll of Canadians that was commissioned by an independent firm, not by CSN. The poll showed that Canadians are ready to pay taxes when the taxes are used to fund the social safety net and major corporations such as Radio-Canada so that they can have access to quality information.
The taxpayers are the workers who pay taxes in Quebec just like in Ottawa. These taxpayers are going to become aware that the Canadian tax system must help develop crown corporations for the collective and common good.
In that sense, I think there is some flexibility. By the way, the Canadian government has no qualms about providing financial assistance to revitalize Canadian patriotism for major events. These are political choices.
In the case of Radio-Canada, unfortunately, we understand that the current government did not make the political choice to support Radio-Canada, quite the contrary. The choice is clear and we are deeply concerned about it. I repeat: the choice of Canadians in terms of radio and broadcasting is to have a crown corporation that is evolving and growing. You are right.
We can no longer think of television the way we used to back in the days of black and white television or transistor radio. The world of communications has changed. We are able to support those changes, but not at the expense of a collective heritage such as the one we have built with Radio-Canada.
[English]
Senator Plett: Of course, I don't entirely disagree with the argument. I guess maybe I disagree with whether or not it's being done.
You talk about taxes and about the reduction of taxes. I'm from the province of Manitoba and you're from the province of Quebec, the two highest taxed provinces in our country. So I certainly support a reduction of taxes provincially, as well as federally.
But when a government does have a surplus, I would never suggest, and I don't think you would suggest that they spend that surplus foolishly. I mean, if they can reduce taxes, if they can pay off debt, that should be the number one priority.
So, again, my question is, about the ratings that continue to go down. You say you've done surveys. Well, we've done some surveys, too. In the province of Alberta, 2 per cent of the people watch CBC. There's something inherently wrong there when we continue to give more and more money and people don't watch it. I, by the way, do watch CBC. I've said it in this committee many times. If there's a single station that I watch more than any other, it's CBC, because I prefer their news. I watch on my television mostly the news. Other things you can watch on the iPad or Netflix, but I want my news up-to-date and I watch CBC.
The Chair: You're in the 2 per cent.
Senator Plett: It is 2 per cent in Alberta.
[Translation]
Mr. Létourneau: That is great news in terms of your experience with CBC. Our access to quality information comes from Radio-Canada. I do not think we can rely on ratings only. I am not familiar with the ratings in Manitoba; you know them better than I do.
However, I am surprised to hear that so few people watch CBC. At the same time, I repeat what I said earlier. We do not think that the government monopoly has to take up all the space. On the contrary, there is enough room for a public broadcaster and private broadcasters. In my view, they can even complement each other very well.
As soon as the public broadcaster is weakened or impoverished, an imbalance sets in, unfortunately. In our view, that goes as far as threatening the right to access to democratic information and quality content.
In a democracy such as ours, it is in our interest to make sure that Radio-Canada will receive the proper care from the Canadian government in terms of being treated as a government priority for funding.
Do you have a comment to add about CBC?
Pascale St-Onge, Secretary-General, Fédération nationale des communications: CBC? Actually, I would like to focus a bit more on Radio-Canada, since they are the people we are representing. In 2009, CSN conducted a CROP poll to ask Quebecers about their attachment to Radio-Canada and the contribution they were ready to make to fund Radio-Canada.
In 2009, the cost per capita was $34 per year. Today, we are at $29 per year. We can therefore assume that the figures and percentages that I am going to list and subsequently circulate to you are even more valid today than they were in 2009.
So at the time when we asked them these questions, the federal government was funding CBC/Radio-Canada to the tune of $34 per year for the French-language and English-language networks.
In your view, in order to help maintain and develop the services of CBC/Radio-Canada, should the federal government. . .? And the options were: 1. Increase the funding to more than $34 per capita per year? Twenty-nine per cent of the population answered yes; 2. Lower the funding to less than $34 per capita per year? Only 9 per cent of the population answered yes to this question. 3. Maintain the funding at $34 per capita per year? In this case, 57 per cent of people said yes.
We can therefore say that 86 per cent of the population was in favour of either maintaining the funding at $34 per capita per year or increasing it. When we asked to what extent taxpayers were ready to increase funding, 35 per cent of the population was favour of increasing the funding to between $35 and $39.
Between $40 and $44, 27 per cent of the population. Between $45 and $49, 9 per cent of the population. And $50 or more, 18 per cent of the population.
So 28 per cent of the population was ready to increase funding to more than $45 per capita. In our view, those responding to the poll were also taxpayers. We can claim that, at least in Quebec, taxpayers want to fund their broadcaster so that it can adapt to new technologies and have a presence on all platforms, while maintaining the quality of the content.
The Chair: Did you have a supplementary?
Senator Housakos: Who conducted the poll?
Ms. St-Onge: CROP.
Senator Housakos: CROP? Who paid for the poll?
Ms. St-Onge: CSN.
Senator Housakos: CSN. Was the poll conducted in Quebec or across Canada?
Ms. St-Onge: In Quebec.
Senator Housakos: In Quebec. Thank you.
Ms. St-Onge: All the statistics and the protocol are indicated in the poll that we are going to share with you before we leave.
Senator Housakos: Have you conducted a comparable poll about CBC in the rest of Canada?
Ms. St-Onge: We focused on Quebec.
Senator Housakos: Okay.
The Chair: Senator Hervieux-Payette, go ahead.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: First, I echo your comments about the board of directors. What do you think about clients who can contribute to a better representation? This morning, we were told that many people know nothing about communications. We should put ourselves in the clients' shoes.
We could have one francophone and one anglophone from academia, chambers of commerce, unions or the cultural sector; they could be producers, actors, as well as international representatives.
They would be familiar with the sectors that the corporation wants to cover and they would be appointed by their own groups. In terms of the president, I agree that he or she should be appointed by Parliament, like the Auditor General. People like that would likely serve all Canadians fairly.
Second, yesterday, we heard people talk about stable funding, which would go up every year because there are more households. We could charge a fee per television set, per family or per address, like in Sweden, England, Australia and several other countries.
As a result, the funding would remain stable. It would not depend on budgetary constraints. We could have another economic disaster and end up with a deficit. Taxpayers who do not want the service would just have to go on their computers.
Would you like that aspect? Do you feel that social media are a threat to television? We often see them pitted against each other. The more I look at social media, the more foolish I see it to be. The same goes for Facebook and other media. I cannot say that I am overly impressed with the quality of the information I receive.
So there may be social media well equipped with hundreds of journalists across the country and abroad, but I do not know of any. So is social media a real competitor?
The first question has to do with the board of directors; the second has to do with the fees that could be changed and finally, the third has to do with social media as competition.
Ms. St-Onge: In terms of the board of directors, we are all in favour of having as many members as possible from culture and communications sectors. So we are in favour of having a make-up similar to the one you suggested. The governance rules are clearly explained in our brief.
In terms of stable and multi-year funding, we have been advocating for that for a very long time. If we leave the broadcaster at the mercy of the political party in place or of market fluctuations, it may well be very difficult to plan for the short, medium or long term. That applies to content, programming, employees, jobs, and so on. Yes, we clearly want stable and multi-year funding.
Also, in terms of stable funding, the more the public broadcaster is at the mercy of advertising, of revenue from advertising or the private sector, the harder it is to maintain quality, especially during an economic crisis. As we saw in 2008-2009, the advertising revenue of all media was significantly affected.
We also represent people who work in the private media and they are feeling the impact. During this turmoil, it is increasingly important to have a public broadcaster that can maintain quality and continue to provide services to the public. It is important that the public still have access to quality information, entertainment and quality culture as well, reflecting Canadians.
In terms of social media, we could indeed be tempted to see social media as a natural competitor to traditional media. However, we know — and statistics show it — that, although we thought that there was going to be a wealth of information on social media, the situation is quite the contrary. That is, the same information is being relayed everywhere and the information often comes from traditional media.
As a result, traditional media have not lost their place in Canadians' media universe. Instead of saying that social media are competition, I would say that they are complementary and provide a different way of sharing information.
However, we need to continue to receive the information from sources that have left their mark, have a reputation and have their seal of quality. There is so much non-verifiable and unchecked information circulating on the Internet that we need to have meaningful benchmarks in place. Radio-Canada has always been a valued benchmark recognized everywhere, not only in Canada, but around the world.
The Chair: I think Mr. Létourneau wanted to add something.
Mr. Létourneau: Yes, very quickly, on the issue of funding, as you brought up the user pay principle. In terms of Radio-Canada, our position is very clear that it has to be accessible to everyone who has television or radio at home, regardless of their ability to pay.
I personally really like RDS and Mr. Demers' hockey commentary, but I pay for RDS and that does not bother me. People who do not like sport will not pay for RDS. However, for such basic information and considering Radio-Canada's role in our society, I do not think that we should be getting into user pay.
Even if people do not tune in, everyone should be able to have access to that information when they flip through channels on TV or on the radio, regardless of their income or where they live in Canada.
In terms of social media, I share your concerns. At the same time, I do not think that we will be able to get around the development of social media in the next few years, as Pascale said. I think they have to be complementary.
In other words, social media can be used as a platform to fuel certain debates, whether on television or on the radio. But I do not think that social media will replace more traditional media, especially in terms of the quality of information. At any rate, this will not happen overnight. I would find that very surprising.
I think we need to see social media as something complementary. At CSN, we have traditional media such as magazines, but they are increasingly accessible on platforms. So I think we want the best of both worlds.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Earlier I forgot to say that there should of course be an equal number of men and women on the board of directors.
Mr. Létourneau: We agree with you.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: This is for the well-being of those who will draft the report.
Mr. Létourneau: We will agree with you.
Senator Joyal: Welcome, Mr. Létourneau, Ms. St-Onge and Mr. Enault.
The premise of Radio-Canada's restructuring, as announced by Mr. Lacroix, is based on recognizing that generalist television channels as we knew them are dead; this is over, just as we have gone from the supersonic era to the interstellar era. We take it for granted now that the model as we knew it is no longer relevant in today's reality.
How do you react to that fact? Because one gets the impression to some extent that television is going to go through what print media is currently going through. You represent several journalists' unions; perhaps you could also explain this to us a bit. You are going through that print media transformation as we speak.
Public opinion seems to agree with Mr. Lacroix, because we can see that print media are all converting to the tablet, and so the written word will remain; perhaps there will be La Presse once a week. In any case, you know that debate. I see that you are smiling; I know that this is your daily reality.
How do you interpret or react to that observation that there is now a complete restructuring to be done of generalist television, and that it will in fact disappear? Consequently, the rational adjustments that this implies will have to be made.
Ms. St-Onge: Indeed, we feel there are mutations at this time in all media, whether as you say the print media or television. However, we are not yet ready to say that the level of transformation that is currently affecting print media will prevail for television.
There are certain changes in consumption modes at this time, but especially in the larger centres. For instance, high speed Internet is not necessarily accessible in all regions of Quebec and Canada.
So I think we are not ready to say that even at the technological level, people in Canada, and especially in the more remote areas, will now begin to consume television content solely on the Internet.
We feel that there are still a number of years left for television. I would add that the changes in the media industry have always been a part of the landscape. Media have repeatedly had to adapt, either the print media as concerns printing methods, for instance, which changed in the 1950s, or to other changes.
And yet people continued to consume information through traditional media. What we demonstrated with La Presse — because the CSN, the Fédération nationale des communications, represents La Presse newspaper workers who innovated with their tablet model — is that not only can employees and unions adapt to such changes, but in addition they can do so while preserving the quality of content.
This is indeed a transformation universe that necessitates major investments; at La Presse, for instance, we are talking about approximately $40 million in investments to develop the digital platform. So it is important to continue to adequately fund our Canadian broadcaster so that it can continue to adapt and follow the pace of evolution, while preserving the quality of content.
Senator Joyal: Mr. Létourneau, could you also comment on this?
Mr. Létourneau: Yes, certainly.
Senator Joyal: Thank you, Ms. St-Onge.
Mr. Létourneau: Yes, especially since the lady represents the La Presse union, so she knows this file very well.
Senator Joyal: That is why I was listening to her attentively.
Mr. Létourneau: She knows the file very well. I totally share the opinion Pascale has just expressed regarding transformation. I do want to insist on union participation, or the lack of it, in these transformations. Because one often gets the sense that people think that unions do not accept change and transformation, whereas in reality unions are made up of workers, artisans who ply their trade either in the communications field or elsewhere.
Generally speaking, with perhaps some exceptions, when the management of public or private enterprises — and I think it is important to mention it — decide to call on all of their workers, be they professionals or not, to get involved in the transformation or restructuring of a business, whether it is a crown corporation, a public service or a private business, that is a win-win situation, for the men and women who work in the business.
I am saying that because there is at Radio-Canada a business model that concerns us. The analyses are done here at the top, using the pretext of transformation and change, and then this is applied top down, without any real consultation and involvement of the workers. We think that people live through change, and they do not necessarily want to stay 10, 15 or 20 years behind the times. People will, in the professionalization of their work, start to use social media more.
If we support each other and trust them, people are able to deal with change, they can change, and they can make the necessary transformations happen.
Senator Joyal: Do I understand that you were not involved in the redefinition and deployment of the new approach Radio-Canada proposed through Mr. Lacroix?
Mr. Létourneau: Let us say that it is somewhat laborious.
Senator Joyal: There were no consultations?
Mr. Létourneau: Pascale can answer.
Ms. St-Onge: There was indeed a certain consultation process, where managers asked union organizations to present their vision in the context of the preparation of the five-year plan.
But this consultation process was aborted. There was a first document the unions were able to table, but the consultation of the artisans themselves, who work at Radio-Canada, stopped right there; it did not go any further. In any case, the announcement of the five-year plan was expedited because of the last cuts, and also because of the turmoil around the change in name from Radio-Canada to Ici Radio-Canada. So there was an acceleration in the roll-out of the five-year plan, and the consultation of the workers and unions was very limited. It stopped after the first phase.
I must say that the recommendations that were made by the unions were not really heard or applied either.
François Enault, Assistant to the Executive Committee, Confédération des syndicats nationaux: This is not only true of the CSN and the communications environment. The CSN has repeatedly worked in partnerships to help enterprises catch their second wind.
We do not only have expertise in communications. We can provide concrete examples: recently the Le Concorde Hotel in Quebec was reopened and we worked with the future owner. The Davie shipbuilding company, which had closed, now employs 1,000 men and women. So we do have the expertise to cooperate and work with people in order to make sure their jobs are saved.
Pascale was talking about La Presse earlier. La Presse has managed the technological shift, but it did so by investing more in the newsroom and by adding people. It did not succeed by cutting, but by adding people in order to have quality information.
The tablet example is being used to cut in communications, cut services and cut the quality of what used to be delivered to taxpayers. That is quite different. We are not in denial about the shift to tablets, but journalists will continue to be essential, and those who want what Radio-Canada does and did very well will continue to look for it.
I used this as an example, earlier, in Quebec: even if there were a few people missing, given the coverage of the events that had just occurred the day before in Parliament, Radio-Canada sets the standard. If it were not there, clearly private broadcasters would not provide the same quality of information that they are obliged to provide now.
Radio-Canada imposes a standard and that is very important. Investigations are carried out. We talk about them in our brief. Take the Charbonneau Commission; without boasting about what happened in Quebec, if Radio-Canada journalists had not forced the issue, we would perhaps not be where we are today.
So that is really important. We do not deny that change is happening, but currently, we always say on the union side that we are robbing Peter to pay Paul. However, we have to continue to offer services while knowing full well that there is going to be a shift one day, but it should not happen at the cost of the quality of what we are producing now, the high-quality journalism we produce in Quebec and Canada.
Senator Joyal: I think that is a very important issue, and you are the best witnesses regarding that aspect of the committee's reflection. In other words, there is no management-employee committee — to simplify the vocabulary — in which you are involved regarding the negotiation of changes and the progressive implementation of those changes, so that the enterprise can continue to exist in a reasonably acceptable climate?
Ms. St-Onge: The best person to answer you, really, on the way in which things work internally now is Isabelle Montpetit, the president of the union that testified here yesterday. We are the federation that represents it.
I know there are parity committees tasked with studying the application of the collective agreement when there are cuts, but I doubt that their purpose is to participate actively in the development of the five-year plan and its repercussions.
Senator Joyal: There were only cuts in the five-year plan?
Ms. St-Onge: No.
Senator Joyal: So, the five-year plan is obsolete, finally?
Ms. St-Onge: The objective of the five-year plan in fact is to apply new cuts at the public broadcaster so as to have a margin, if you will, in order to develop, according to what we are told, new contents and new avenues. In fact, that is being done on the backs of the employees.
We gave you the example of La Presse, earlier. During the economic crisis in 2008-2009, there were some very arduous negotiations at La Presse, and employees conceded approximately 20 per cent of their working conditions.
Afterwards investments were made to develop the digital tablet. At that time the newsroom more than doubled, and then people based themselves on the La Presse brand, the quality of its content, in order to make that technological shift.
At Radio-Canada, we are seeing the opposite. What we see is that there are cuts to content in order to develop, according to that we are told, new platforms or new methods that remain quite nebulous. We do not see the investments, however, in the newsrooms, in employees, artisans, who in fact prepare all of the content.
Senator Joyal: I would like to ask you a question about one of the comments you make in the conclusion of your brief.
In the conclusion, you say, in the middle of the first paragraph on page 13:
Public interest information, which is essential to citizens' participation and to democracy, is becoming rare in a context were advertising, which has little interest in this type of information, greatly influences media programming.
In others words, the more we depend on advertising, the more we will see an increase in variety and leisure programs and the less will be invested, in practice, in public interest programming. Because public interest programs, despite the words "public interest," do not have the same viewership, obviously, as programs that showcase singers or popular rock bands or humour, since these are so popular.
It seems to me that a public broadcaster has a responsibility to present and structure public debate. As you said so well, in my opinion too, the Twittersphere and social media present bulk information, in sequence, and it accumulates a little bit like a rail derailment, where all of the cars pile up one behind the other and at a certain point you cannot see anything.
In my opinion public television has the responsibility to try to understand what is going on and to elevate the level of the national debate, if you will. You are the first to have mentioned it; the public broadcaster has the obligation to serve as a reference, to set standards of excellence, be it as regards the spoken language, the professional approach, or broader coverage of topics that may be of less interest to the masses but are nevertheless quite essential in a healthy and dynamic democracy.
How do you see the relationship between advertising, advertising revenues, and the reality of a national public broadcaster?
Ms. St-Onge: I can only acquiesce to everything you have just said. Editors, editors-in-chief or newsroom directors in the private sector will tell you: currently they are all feeling the enormous pressure of advertising on content.
There are lot of testimonials to that effect; among others, the director of L'Actualité spoke about this. In fact, it is increasingly difficult to resist that pressure because everyone is fighting over that advertising dollar for their survival.
In our opinion Radio-Canada must not get into that game, and should not have to fight to get a part of the advertising pie; if it goes to Radio-Canada it will not go to the private broadcasters who also depend on it.
This speaks to the importance of adequately funding Radio-Canada. The public broadcaster, especially given the immediate and instantaneous reality we experience now — we saw this two weeks ago with the events at the Canadian Parliament — is necessary, as well as its professionals, to put events in perspective and sort the true from the false, as well as presumption from reality.
Radio-Canada was praised everywhere in America because of its coverage of the events. To us this was an absolutely terrific demonstration of the role CBC/Radio-Canada plays and must continue to play. And so with regard to what you just said, we are in complete agreement.
Senator Housakos: Welcome to all three of you. I heard your message clearly. You believe that clearly the solution to solve problems at Radio-Canada/CBC is an increase in federal subsidies.
The other perspective is that you have members you represent who work at Radio-Canada/CBC, and you also have members who work for TVA, for private broadcasters. Private and public broadcasters share the same market, and things have become very competitive. There are drops in revenue in every direction for all of those who work in this field.
Private businesses have a simple strategy, which is to try and find more income. Radio-Canada also has to find more revenue.
Aside from the idea that the federal government should provide more funding year after year to Radio-Canada, do you have any other suggestions to make on the strategic plan, on how work is done at Radio-Canada/CBC, aside from the public envelope? Is there another way of doing things? Do you have some other idea to help this enterprise to respect its mandate while not spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars?
Ms. St-Onge: There are a few models that could be considered, such as a fee model. We could take inspiration from things that are being done elsewhere. When you say "continue to provide more and more funding to Radio-Canada," in fact, the reverse is what is happening; it is receiving less and less funding. That is a choice. You say that the market is very competitive, and you are correct, the market is extremely competitive. We see that with the members we represent in all of the media you mentioned. That is why we are wondering why the public broadcaster should be swimming in those waters.
In our opinion, it is a choice, and Canadian men and women have the right to decide whether they want a quality public broadcaster and want to continue to invest in it, and at what level. I think it is time to consult Canadians on this matter. It is time to consult Canadians on what they expect from their public broadcaster.
On the other hand, I think we also have to find solutions so that CBC/Radio-Canada does not behave like a private broadcaster, always looking for new revenue, aside from those that come from parliamentary appropriations.
Mr. Enault: Without saying what we could do or should not do, I think we have to listen to people and speak to them. I will give you an example: three weeks ago I was with Pascale and certain members of the Radio-Canada union at the chamber of commerce at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, where Mr. Lacroix had been invited by the chamber of commerce to explain his new platform. The president of the chamber of commerce of Montreal, Mr. Leblanc, said this right off the bat, "Mr. Lacroix, what can we do to help you, to save Radio-Canada?"
That was not a union talking; it was the president of the Montreal board of trade. There were two union tables there: one FTQ table and one CSN table. There were no other unions represented in the room, and Mr. Leblanc asked that question.
But in the 45 minutes of his intervention, Mr. Lacroix never replied to the question. There were people there from the business world, with money, who were ready to lend a hand. We are no longer turning to business people, nor to unions, nor to others. There is a type of imposition of the line to be followed, without knowing where the mandates are coming from.
So, it is a bit complicated. People can say anything, but the first thing is collaboration. When unions in Canada and business people are concerned by the situation of Radio-Canada and no one is listening to us, first, at the very least, we have to be able to sit down together and talk about things to find solutions.
The entire community wants to save Radio-Canada. Senator Plett said that he goes around everywhere, and that is not what he hears. I was in Wabush for three years and that is quite far from Montreal, and Radio-Canada was important there.
I have lived in the Magdalen Islands, where Line Danis is the voice of the Islands. I think it is not true that people do not want Radio-Canada, but we are not listened to by all categories of citizens overall.
Senator Housakos: Our committee did a study on CBC/Radio-Canada, the public broadcasting corporation, and unfortunately, I learned very quickly that there are two realities in Canada and that there are two realities for CBC/Radio-Canada.
When people say that the ratings are terrible for CBC/Radio-Canada, they are talking about the CBC much more so than Radio-Canada. The figure you shared with us regarding the opinions of Quebec men and women is one which I believe; I am a senator from Montreal and a Quebecer, and I know that most Quebecers are quite attached to Radio-Canada.
The ratings in Quebec, in French Canada, are much higher than those for English-language CBC. I have often said that unfortunately Radio-Canada was the victim during two, three or four years of the weakening of English-language CBC. But that is another debate. I do not know if you want to share your opinion on that.
I always say that the time has now come to divide that corporation in two, because the objectives of Radio-Canada, its market, its ratings, and even its revenue are much greater than the CBC's revenues.
The CBC lost "Hockey Night in Canada." That means a loss of $250 million per year in revenue. If you add all of these losses of revenue from advertising at English CBC over the past two or three years, they are much higher than the cuts the federal government made in its funding.
Senator Joyal: And this has repercussions on Radio-Canada.
Senator Housakos: Absolutely.
Mr. Létourneau: Clearly our concern is first and foremost Radio-Canada. And we said so in our brief, from the outset, when referring to the place Radio-Canada has occupied with regard especially to the francophonie in this country, but especially in Quebec; this cannot be dissociated when we are discussing the future of Radio-Canada. Whatever we think of the Canadian or Quebec political dimension, the fact remains that there is a distinct society reality, with its own needs in terms of social, political, cultural information, as well as affirmation, all of which is undeniable. So, French-language Radio-Canada should not be footing the bill for the difficulties the CBC is experiencing. That seems very clear to us.
Ms. St-Onge: If there is a problem regarding Canadians' attachment to the CBC, I think that rather than destroying Radio-Canada and the CBC, perhaps people need to think about this and try to understand why, and see what can be done differently in order to better meet the needs and aspirations of Canadians.
In my opinion, this does not eliminate the relevancy of Radio-Canada, because we know that Canadians, particularly on the anglophone side, and this may be what explains the difference with Radio-Canada, are increasingly being invaded by content coming from the United States, American content.
In fact, as Canadians, as Canadian citizens, must we define ourselves in the same way as Americans? Are we a distinct people, or are we amalgamated with the United States? If that is not the case, and if Canada is a distinct people, then we must give Radio-Canada and the CBC the tools to represent Canadian citizens adequately and meet their needs and wishes regarding what they want to see and hear on television and radio, on CBC and Radio-Canada.
The Chair: Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and today we will close with Senator Massicotte's last question.
Senator Massicotte: I thank all three of you for being here with us. My question has been answered, but I am going to ask Mr. Enault for a response.
Personally, I am surprised and disappointed that despite the efforts of certain artists and journalists to launch a popular movement against the cuts, this does not seem to have been picked up. Certain efforts were made, but things never got going, and it has not snowballed. We do not hear about it in Ottawa. I am disappointed. That is a personal opinion. You say that on the contrary it is very evident. But we do not see it and that is unfortunate.
Mr. Enault: I invite you to be present on Sunday, November 16, in the street, because you will see a citizens' demonstration we did not organize; citizens really did decide to launch this.
When we are asked to demand certain things, clearly we are going to appear as well, but I think that is only the beginning. This may not have been concrete enough to get people's attention; I think that the last straw, unfortunately or fortunately, was the Costumier.
Senator Joyal: People made thirty-six thousand tweets, I believe.
Mr. Enault: Yes. I think it has taken off now. You must also understand that the people we represent, because of their professions, cannot walk around with placards for or against Mr. Harper or Jean Chrétien.
They are journalists, they are professionals. So they have a duty to be reserved, they cannot do just anything, anyhow, anywhere, as people could in some other private or public enterprise. These people are professionals. Clearly, it is a bit difficult right now.
What you must understand beyond all that, and you must know this, is that Radio-Canada has at the same time taken steps to merge the accreditations of the four unions in Quebec. So, at the same time, we are holding discussions to find solutions and determine which will be the appropriate unit.
So, all of these things are happening. Clearly, the best way of having things accepted in life is to keep people busy with something else, and while their backs are turned, get these nasty things by. That is what is happening to us currently, to some degree.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. St-Onge, Mr. Létourneau, Mr. Enault, thank you very much for your presentations.
Colleagues, we will meet in the foyer in 15 minutes. For those who are going directly there, we will meet at 3 o'clock in the Radio-Canada central hall for our visit. Thank you, the meeting is adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)