THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met with videoconference this day at 9 a.m. [ET] to study Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
Senator Leo Housakos (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Good morning, honourable senators. I’m Leo Housakos, senator from Quebec, and chair of this committee. I would like to invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
[English]
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, independent senator from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
Senator Cormier: René Cormier from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Klyne: Good morning. Marty Klyne, senator from Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: Raymonde Gagné from Manitoba.
Senator Dawson: Dennis Dawson from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Manning: Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Quinn: Jim Quinn, senator from New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Clement: Bernadette Clement from Ontario.
[English]
Senator Dasko: Donna Dasko, senator from Ontario.
Senator Wallin: Pamela Wallin, senator from Saskatchewan.
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are meeting to continue our study on Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts. Joining us for the first panel, I’m pleased to present Randy Kitt, Media Sector Director, Unifor; Neal McDougall, Acting Co-Executive Director, Director of Policy, Writers Guild of Canada; Alex Levine, President, Writers Guild of Canada; and John Welsman, President, Screen Composers Guild of Canada. Welcome to our committee and thank you for joining us this morning.
There will be opening remarks of five minutes from each of the organizations before us, to be followed by questions from senators.
Mr. Welsman, given that we seem to be having technical issues with both Mr. Kitt and Mr. Levine, you have the floor. Welcome.
John Welsman, President, Screen Composers Guild of Canada: Thank you, chair and senators. My name is John Welsman and I’m the president of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada, or SCGC. I’m honoured to be able to speak with you today.
SCGC members create original music for audiovisual productions, and “screen composer” is one of the key creator roles that determines whether a production qualifies as Canadian content for CRTC regulatory purposes and for the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office, or CAVCO, tax credit purposes.
The SCGC fully supports the objectives of Bill C-11 and respectfully urges the Senate to ensure its swift passage into law. We composers are active members of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, or SOCAN, and of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, or CDCE, and our position today reflects their analyses and recommendations for Bill C-11.
I would like to use my time today to address one of the key themes from this committee’s work on Bill C-11, one that will also inform the next stages of the process and beyond: What we mean when we say “Canadian content” in a policy context.
Our view is that Canadian art is made by Canadian artists, and Canadian content is made by Canadian creators. That’s not ideology; it’s just sound business. As Netflix told you a couple of weeks ago, it’s about copyright, which is another way of saying that it’s about ownership. It’s about who owns the right to be compensated for future uses of that work.
Our view is that Bill C-11, particularly its eventual regulatory framework, should embody two key principles: One, Canadian content is content made by Canadian creators; and two, Canadian creators should not be forced to give up their legal rights in the content they create as a condition of engagement.
Virtually all government studies and reports over the past decade have concluded that the success of any cultural or economic policy comes down to who owns and controls the IP, or intellectual property. If that’s true when it comes to innovation policy or industrial design, it’s also true when it comes to cultural policy or content creation.
Bill C-11’s amendments to exempt online undertakings from the Status of the Artist Act and to dilute the importance of independently produced content in the system both make the question of IP ownership and negotiating parameters even more critical. We agree with those who have called for a return to Bill C-11’s original language on both of those fronts, but at the end of the day, wherever we land on specific definitions and guidelines, we cannot lose sight of the most critical human factor: Canadian content is created and owned by Canadians.
The global content giants are not producing film and television shows here out of patriotism for Canada. They’re producing here because of generous tax credits, a favourable exchange rate and, most importantly, our world-class creators — writers, directors, designers, actors and composers — who became world-class because of the points-based system focused on Canadian creators, the same system they’re recommending be jettisoned, even if they used the word “modernized.”
I watched their appearances, and the Motion Picture Association and others have recommended that Canadian content be content “by, with or about Canadians,” adding that none of those three qualifiers should have any more weight than the others. In other words, the world’s largest media production companies are recommending that a fictional Canadian character named John Welsman should have the same standing under Canadian broadcasting law as an actual creator named John Welsman. As a Canadian creator named John Welsman, I respectfully disagree. “By Canadians” is more important than “about Canadians.”
But speaking on behalf of Canadian creators, any definition of Canadian content must put a priority on the continued use of Canadian talent. Content created and owned by Canadians should have more weight within the legal framework than content that happens to be about Canadians. We creators are asking that Canadians remain at the heart of any definition of Canadian content and that Canadian creators retain the right to be compensated for the work and IP they create.
Bill C-11 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to underscore that Canadian culture and Canadian sovereignty mean more than foreign companies deciding what “Canadian enough” is when applying for tax credits.
I thank you for this opportunity to share our views, and I would be pleased to answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
I think now we’ve cleared up our technical issues, so we will turn it over to Mr. Kitt for five minutes. Mr. Kitt, you have the floor, sir.
Randy Kitt, Media Sector Director, Unifor: Thank you.
Unifor is Canada’s largest private-sector union, with more than 310,000 members, and we represent more than 10,000 media workers, including 5,000 members in the broadcast and film industries.
In 2009, Red Deer lost their TV station, making them the biggest city in Canada not beside a metropolitan centre that doesn’t have a TV station. Since then, employment in private conventional television has decreased by more than 30%.
Local news, in its role in holding power to account, strengthening democracy and building community, has never been more important. Social media has proven to divide us, pitting neighbour against neighbour. We are more polarized than ever, but a strong Canadian media can build community.
Also in 2009, the Local Programming Improvement Fund, the LPIF, was created. The problem was obvious, and the CRTC got it right: a fund to support local news. In 2014, however, the politics of the CRTC changed, and the CRTC said we didn’t need to fund local news anymore because advertising was coming back. They got it wrong. Eight years of decline while we watch our sense of community slip away, and we see what we feared for many years: American media dominating our living rooms while they pay zero heed to local programming and local news.
This is why we just can’t leave this to the CRTC. We need an amendment in Bill C-11 to ensure that local news has a dedicated revenue stream. To this end, Unifor supports the passage of Bill C-11 and recommends amending section 11.1(1) as follows:
The Commission may make regulations respecting expenditures to be made by persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings for the purposes of
(d) developing, financing, producing or promoting local news and information programming, including through contributions made by distribution undertakings either to a related programming undertaking or by distribution undertakings or online undertakings to an independent fund. In making regulations for the distribution of these contributions, the Commission shall take into account the local presence and broadcast staffing of the programming undertaking.
We believe that tying local news funding to actual local staffing levels is the most reliable metric to ensure that industry funds are spent exclusively on relevant and timely local news Canadians rely on.
The Broadcasting Act and the CRTC prevented foreign broadcasters from entering our market for decades, allowing for a thriving media industry that heavily supported local news. If Bill C-11 is an update — a modernization, if you will — we’ll need this amendment, as local news has been upended and needs special attention here.
Since 2012, private conventional TV has been a money loser for nine years straight for both independent and big media companies. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, the rate of profit for conventional TV was minus 7%. In 2020, it was minus 18.6%, and last year, it was minus 12.4%. These losses are real to our members. Between 2017 and 2021, employment in broadcasting decreased by 16%. Bell, Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor are companies we love to hate, but they are not so rich that we should just assume they will continue to fund local news as they continue to lose money.
Let’s keep in mind that our broadcasters, including the CBC, spent $3 billion a year on Canadian content, of which $970 million is news — money-losing news.
This bill also amends the Broadcasting Act to give broadcasters $120 million in relief from Part II fees. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters told the Canadian Heritage Committee they expected broadcasters would spend this money on local news, but that’s not binding.
Our amendment would ensure three things: make sure that the $120 million gets spent on local news, create a news-only cross-subsidy from cable to broadcast like the one we had with the LPIF and give the CRTC instructions to direct a portion of CanCon contributions from online undertakings to local news.
To sum up, local news is in crisis. Local news is essential to the public good, and we know that a local news fund administered by the CRTC can work because they have already done it successfully.
Bill C-11 is a much-needed update to the Broadcasting Act to ensure that Canadians have access to Canadian local programming that couldn’t happen if we let these internet giants control our media. Let’s not get sidetracked by noise. Let’s get Bill C-11 passed with this small amendment to ensure a sustainable future for local news.
Now, let’s all imagine a world without news. Imagine the void. Now imagine you can do something about it. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Levine, you have the floor. Go ahead.
Alex Levine, President, Writers Guild of Canada: Our presentation begins with Neal McDougall, Acting Co-Executive Director of the Writers Guild of Canada. He will begin.
Neal McDougall, Acting Co-Executive Director, Director of Policy, Writers Guild of Canada: My name is Neal McDougall, Acting Co-Executive Director of the Writers Guild of Canada, or WGC, and with me is Alex Levine, President of the WGC and a working screenwriter. We are the national association representing 2,500 professional screenwriters working in English-language film, television, radio and digital media in Canada.
Nearly three years ago, a panel of independent communications experts called the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel released its final report, called Canada’s communications future: Time to act. The urgency was right there in the title. This report is just one of several over the past few years. Each one comes to the same conclusions, namely that the Canadian broadcasting system needs regulation if it is to exist; the current Broadcasting Act needs to be updated; and we must ensure that the major online streaming services are in that regulatory framework if we want to support Canadian content in key genres such as drama, kids programming and documentaries. These facts haven’t changed. We need this regulation, and we need it now. It is time to act.
Mr. Levine: Good morning. As Neal said, I am a working Canadian screenwriter, but like a lot of my colleagues, I used to work a lot more. The bottom line is that the Canadian domestic television industry is in decline. In fact, the volume of English-language domestic production has now reached an eight-year low. Private broadcaster licence fees for English-language Canadian television production have fallen off a cliff, dropping nearly 75% from $456 million in 2013 to just $116 million in 2021.
So please make no mistake. This is an existential issue for us screenwriters. Our jobs are disappearing. Canadian screenwriters who can are moving to the U.S. in droves, searching for work. We are at risk of losing an entire generation of storytellers.
I think everyone will agree that scripted television is the dominant cultural media of our time. Television is where stories reach a mass audience, values are promoted and culture is celebrated. Ground zero for every successful television series is a screenwriter — often called a showrunner in serious television — and that person manages a room of other screenwriters and ensures the scripts reflect the showrunner’s creative vision. That’s why television is called a writer’s medium. The scripts are the blueprints for the episodes from the sets, locations, props and wardrobe to the dialogue the actors speak and even the action the director directs — it’s all in the script. So it follows that in order to preserve our culture and tell our own Canadian stories, we must ensure that Canadian television can flourish. That means ensuring a regulatory framework that continues to promote meaningful amounts of production of Canadian television written by Canadian screenwriters.
The WGC supports Bill C-11. It fundamentally addresses the decline in Canadian domestic production by making it clear that the online streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime are covered by the Broadcasting Act and by giving the CRTC the tools to regulate them so they appropriately contribute to our domestic industry. This is at the heart of what Bill C-11 is supposed to do, and this is what it does.
Mr. McDougall: Bill C-11 can be improved, however, and we have two amendments that we believe are vital to ensure that Canadian voices are at the centre of the system.
First, art is made by artists, and Canadian art is made by Canadian artists. We cannot have a Canadian creative industry that does not have a central place for Canadian creators. To that end, we have a detailed proposal on the amendment of section 3(1)(f), which speaks to the maximum-but-not-less-than-predominant use of Canadian creative resources.
Bill C-11, as it is now, will create a two-tiered system in which foreign online undertakings will have a lower standard for the use of Canadian creative resources. Given that foreign streamers may soon dominate our system, this cannot be.
Our proposal is the same as that of the CDCE and is supported across the production sector, as well as having been put forward by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
Second, Bill C-11 currently excludes online undertakings from the federal Status of the Artist Act. This represents a serious threat to the ability of Canadian creators to bargain collectively because it allows streamers to ignore guild certification and simply refuse to deal with us or any other guild. There is no good reason for this last-minute amendment. We have obtained a legal opinion demonstrating that it is fully within the federal government’s jurisdiction to legislate in this area, and, indeed, the amendment may be unconstitutional given the protections for freedom of association in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As such, we ask you to reverse this ill-considered amendment and restore the regular application of bargaining rights for federally regulated online undertakings.
Thank you for your time and we will be happy to take your questions.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation. I will start off with a question. My question is for the witnesses from the Writers Guild of Canada. You have strongly supported Bill C-11 and have accused those who oppose it or similar legislation as “also opposing corporate transparency and an open process for some of the largest platforms in the world.” You have argued that the critics of the bill don’t propose alternatives.
The truth is, Konrad von Finckenstein, former chair of the CRTC said:
I think more targeted legislation dealing with the specific problem of streamers would have been preferable versus potentially encompassing any transmission of music or video or both over the internet.
Michael Geist also said that “criticism of the bill is not criticism of public support for culture nor of regulation of technology companies.”
Is it not possible to strike a balance, gentlemen, between ensuring that the big platforms contribute in a way that is fair, but at the same time ensuring we are not giving the CRTC and the government vast, unchecked powers? Is it not legitimate to be concerned about both those things?
I know it’s very easy to demonize these foreign streaming platforms. There’s a lot of that going on. We heard some of it earlier. However, some very informed individuals have talked to us about the lack of sufficient transparency in the CRTC decision-making process. Former CRTC vice-chair Peter Menzies has clearly said that Bill C-11 gives the CRTC too much power. Should we just ignore this advice from these individuals?
Mr. McDougall: There’s a lot there. Absolutely, there’s a balance to be struck. However, the bill as it stands really comes close if not hits the balance quite well. The fact is there is professional content on social media. Right now, you can go to YouTube and you can watch a Hollywood movie or listen to professional music. All of that stuff is on those platforms.
In particular, I think I would point to section 5(2)(h), which really directs the CRTC to strike that balance, to avoid imposing regulatory obligations where it’s not necessary. So I think that balance is already in the bill.
The Chair: Mr. Levine, do you have any comments?
Mr. Levine: No, I concur with my colleague, Neal. Thank you.
The Chair: And how about the tons of witnesses that have come before us saying the CRTC has not been historically very transparent and they’re not necessarily the ideal body to go forward and make sure the regulatory process is put in place in a fair and balanced way? We’ve heard that from a number of individuals, including a couple of former CRTC chairmen themselves.
Mr. McDougall: Well, I’m not sure the standard is ideal. I think the standard is what’s going to work best in the circumstances, and I think we need to compare that against what would happen without regulation in this area, which is corporate control over these platforms.
If there are amendments or proposals to improve transparency of the CRTC, absolutely, let’s look at those. I think there already is that process there. There’s an appeal process. There’s a judicial review. There’s an open public hearing process. All of that stuff exists for the CRTC. Those things don’t exist for YouTube or TikTok.
We need to compare the kind of transparency we would get in Bill C-11, which is an improvement, in my opinion, over the current situation with the kind of corporate control and lack of transparency that we have now.
Mr. Levine: And I would just add that the CRTC has a track record of actually protecting and promoting the Canadian cultural industries that it is intending to support. It’s unfortunate that these former chairs of the CRTC are negative about their track record, but from our industry’s perspective, it has been successful in creating a Canadian industry where, in the absence of an effective CRTC and an effective Broadcasting Act, it would have failed. And we are now faced with unprecedented changes in our industry. It is time for the Broadcasting Act to be redone.
That’s why we’re all here today — because we know the current regulatory regime and the current legislation are failing us and our creative industries. I have some faith that the CRTC will be able to strike a balance with these new tools put in place to allow them to manage the future of the media industries. That’s why we’re here.
Senator Simons: Mr. Kitt. I have boundless sympathy with the argument you’re making, having spent 30 years of my professional life as a journalist. My first question is this: Won’t the problem that you’re looking at be dealt with in some way by Bill C-18?
Second, I think that we have seen such a disruption of our long-standing media paradigm. People don’t watch the news on television anymore. Some older Canadians still do, but I don’t watch the news on television ever anymore, and the news was my life. I get my news on digital platforms.
So even with all the money in the world, do you think there’s a way that we go back to a practice and a habit of people watching the supper hour or the 11 o’clock local news on a television set?
Mr. Kitt: Thank you for your questions. I’ll start with watching the news. Your last point is exactly what we’re talking about here: that we don’t do things the same way we’ve always done. The Broadcasting Act has been set up in a platform-agnostic way so we can move with the times. When the Broadcasting Act started, it didn’t contemplate the internet. It didn’t even contemplate satellite TV or necessarily cable TV, yet the CRTC took it in their powers to regulate those technologies. In 1999, the CRTC chose not to regulate the internet. In 2009, they chose again not to regulate the internet.
The last question that was asked about whether the CRTC is the right body or if this legislation can give the CRTC too much power — the CRTC has always had the power to regulate the internet and they’ve chosen not to. That’s why this legislation is needed. It’s a shame you don’t watch the news on television anymore, because people’s viewing habits change with technology. That’s why we need this bill to update the Broadcasting Act to include these technologies because we’re watching on TikTok and these places, but Canadians can’t afford to make news for Canadians if the business model has been drastically changed.
This moves to your first question on Bill C-18. Yes, Bill C-18 addresses some of the issues with regard to local news. Bill C-18 was initially designed, I think, for print media, but it has also been made platform-agnostic, which we cheer the government for doing so because it includes broadcasting and podcasting and also print media.
We are changing the way we consume our media and our news. Bill C-18 is not the one-size-fits-all solution for our local news dilemma. It’s a piece of the puzzle.
Bill C-18 deals with Facebook and Google, which have dramatically changed the advertising model. Two huge American monopolies have cornered the market on advertising and have snuffed out one big piece of the puzzle for local news and Canadian media.
However, the CRTC has not allowed American broadcasters into the Canadian broadcasting realm. If the CRTC had allowed ABC, NBC and CBS to broadcast willy-nilly in this country since the 1970s, we would not have any Canadian content at all. But no, they prevented those broadcasters from entering this country and created a system of licensing that keeps the actors and the writers employed. Also, that licensing model allowed Canadian broadcasters to fund local news.
If we are going to allow American streamers into this country, they have to contribute to local news as well as Canadian content. I think Bill C-18 is a piece of the puzzle. It is a shame that you are not watching television news anymore, but where will Canadian news land? It will land on the internet, which needs to be regulated, and we need a funding model to do so.
Senator Simons: Mr. Levine, I am going to ask a very similar question.
CTV, Rogers and Global TV are not commissioning as many television shows anymore because people are not watching television. When I consume Canadian TV content, I will tell you that I am getting it through a third party, like a Netflix.
I wonder again if what you are proposing isn’t based on a paradigm. We can mourn it all we want, but the days when people had appointment television and sat down and watched a Canadian-made sitcom or drama on a Canadian TV station are going, going, gone. Instead of trying to recreate something that is not going to return, shouldn’t we be looking for nimble ways to make sure that the best Canadian content gets seen by Canadians in the places where they are watching it?
Mr. Levine: Thank you for the question. CBC, Bell and all of the Canadian broadcasters are already on the internet. They all have their own streaming. Either they sell to a streaming subscription service with whom they are in partnership, or they have their own, such as CBC having its own streaming opportunities on Gem.
Senator Simons: People watch Gem.
Mr. Levine: Yes. How are we funded is the question. How are we funding Canadian television? We cannot fund it if we do not have the people. The most eyeballs are now going to Netflix and Disney+; they are not going to Canadian companies. As a result, the amount that Canadian cable companies are contributing to the Canada Media Fund, or CMF, to make Canadian programming has been declining. As a result, we do not have enough money in the kitty to create Canadian programming that can compete with the likes of what Amazon, Netflix and Disney+ are putting on the air.
It is not a question of where; it is a question of creating a product that people will want to watch enough of and creating enough well-produced content with a Canadian voice, a Canadian screenwriter writing it, Canadian directors directing it and Canadian stories being told.
If we allow those media giants from the United States to take all of our eyeballs without contributing any money into making Canadian production, we cannot compete. We cannot tell our own stories. It does not really matter where. It is not about conventional broadcasters; it is about actually making the content.
Discoverability is the second question.
Mr. McDougall: I would just add that Mr. Levine is absolutely right, and the entire point of Bill C-11 is to move the regulation to where the eyeballs are going, which is online.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I have a question for Mr. Kitt, and then a question for Mr. Levine and Mr. Welsman. Sir, to follow up on the question by Senator Simons about your amendment and the effects it would have — in fact, what Bill C-18 would add — why should foreign online companies like Netflix and Spotify, which do not carry any local programming contribute to improving local programming? That’s my question for you.
Mr. Chair, I’d like to ask my questions of the other two witnesses, Mr. Levine and Mr. Welsman, right away. I’d first like to hear more about the exemption from the Status of the Artist Act for online undertakings, because we have to recognize that they can be foreign and Canadian. There are Canadian online undertakings. How does exempting online undertakings from the Status of the Artist Act create a challenge for your negotiations as designers?
I have a supplementary question to that: can you comment on the different obligations for the use of Canadian creative human resources that are imposed on Canadian broadcasting undertakings and foreign online undertakings, since there’s a distinction between the two? Mr. Kitt, please.
[English]
Mr. Kitt: Thank you. I alluded to this earlier, but to recap, the Broadcasting Act has always been there to set up structures for local news. So in the 1970s, American broadcasters could not just bypass the Canadian broadcasting system; they had to license their programming through Canadian broadcasters, who profited from those licensing fees and through advertising to create and fund local news. That was how the whole system was designed.
Netflix, Amazon, Apple and the rest have been allowed to bypass the system for over 20 years. That is why we’re in this mess. The cost of doing business in this country, in my esteem, is to contribute to Canadian content, as the writers and the actors will ask for, but also to local news. That is how the system was structured. Otherwise, we will have no Canadian content or no local news.
The Broadcasting Act was put in place in the first place to protect Canadian culture, and Canadian news is a part of that. These broadcasters — I will call them Netflix, Amazon and Apple — the cost of doing business in this country should be contributing to Canadian content, local programming and to local news.
Mr. Levine: I will pass this question to Neal McDougall, who is our policy expert. He can speak better to your question. Thank you.
Mr. McDougall: Thank you. I will touch first on paragraph 3(1)(f), which is the “maximum use, and in no case less than predominant use, of Canadian creative and other resources.”
Our proposal focuses on Canadian programming and Canadian programming only; it does not refer to the so-called service production, which is where a Hollywood studio or a foreign streamer comes into Canada, creates their own programming that they are just happening to shoot here with Canadian crews on Canadian locations, but it is creatively driven from someplace else.
We are talking about Canadian programming and Canadian content. That is really what this whole bill is about.
There has been discussion at this committee at times about that foreign service production that really does not have anything to do with Bill C-11; it is a completely separate thing. Those companies are here to do foreign service production based on our low dollar and our tax credits. It is not a broadcasting issue.
When we are dealing with Canadian content, we really need the same standard for everybody; we shouldn’t have a two-tiered system. If streamers are doing Canadian programming, and what we want from them is to achieve the objectives of the act, then they need to be using Canadian creative resources to a maximum but not less than predominant level. They absolutely can do that, since they themselves claim that they use Canadian creators all the time. There is no blockage there in terms of that. That is what our proposal is.
In terms of the Status of the Artist Act, when foreign companies come to Canada, they do not and should not be held to lower labour standards than Canadian companies. Canadian workers, Canadian creators and Canadians of all types are entitled to the same level of protection, whether it is labour protection or otherwise, whether they are working for a foreign company or a Canadian company.
What we’re looking for in the Status of the Artist Act is really a status quo situation in which streamers are treated like broadcasters, which they very arguably are right now, under the technologically neutral Broadcasting Act.
Mr. Welsman: To focus on the Status of the Artist Act amendment, if I may, the impact of the amendment is that our members have lost the legal right to collective bargaining at the federal level with online undertakings, which are the largest source of employment in our sector.
As we explained in our written brief to the committee, this amendment makes it harder for Canadian creators to protect their rights and revenues when dealing with global content platforms. We share the view of those organizations that have questioned why the last-minute amendment was necessary. We view it as a solution in search of a problem.
Perhaps when the department appears before the committee, they will be able to explain why it was necessary, but in the meantime, that is why we support those who have called for a return to the original language of the bill.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: When we think of online undertakings, there are foreign undertakings and Canadian undertakings. Was this amendment created to reflect that reality of Canadian online undertakings that would also like to be exempted from the Status of the Artist Act? Couldn’t the bargaining power between Canadian creators and Canadian online undertakings become problematic in that context, if they’re also exempted from the Status of the Artist Act?
[English]
Mr. Welsman: Yes. We regard online undertakings as online undertakings, Canadian or foreign. We will have the same challenges with Canadian companies trying to negotiate a fair collective bargain for creators as we would with the American companies.
Senator Manning: My first question is for our Unifor witness.
You recommended that section 11.1(1) be amended to allow the commission to make regulations for the purposes of “developing, financing, producing or promoting local news and information.” As I understand it, the essential objective would be to have broadcasting undertakings support local news, which you argue is failing in many parts of the country. I consider myself old after your last comment because I still watch a bit of news on TV.
Have you raised this proposal with the government and have you received any response?
Mr. Kitt: Yes, we have been raising this issue for over 20 years with the government as we have watched local news, first with newspapers — as the internet was mainly originally designed for print and pictures — we started losing local news to the internet in the print and our newspaper businesses.
I saw as a television worker — I’m a video editor by trade — when I joined the union and became president of my local union around 2008, I said this whole internet thing is really going to take off, and we need the CRTC to start regulating it because what happened in newspapers in the last 10 years is going to happen to television in the next 10 years.
They didn’t. They did create the Local Programming Improvement Fund but then took it away in 2014. And we have seen, including with my Red Deer example in my testimony, local news deserts across this country where there is no local news.
There are a few examples. It is not only Red Deer that has lost their news; coming from New Brunswick, most of your news comes out of Halifax or Toronto. We just held our media council last week, and there were examples like Lethbridge. Global Lethbridge is repurposing their 11 o’clock news to have repurposed content from all of their other newscasts in the day; there will not be any original news content on their 11 o’clock news in Lethbridge.
This is a real problem, and it needs to be addressed.
So this amendment is necessary. The local news fund we’re asking for is for the vertically integrated Canadian companies, like Bell and Rogers, to take some of the profitable cable and internet revenues to fund their local news. It is also for the internet and streaming companies, whether they be Canadian or foreign, to also contribute to Canadian content and to local news.
It has been done before; it should be done again because local news is in crisis. And as you hear from the other witnesses too, media workers in this country are suffering. I do not know how many Canadians Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon employ, but I guarantee you it is a pittance.
This is also an attack on workers in this country who create our culture and our local programming and local news.
Senator Manning: Thank you.
Mr. Welsman or Mr. Kitt, we have heard from both of you this morning that there are not sufficient dollars being spent on Canadian productions and that Canadians are losing their jobs or are not working at the present time.
From other witnesses, we have heard the contrary. For myself, as we talked about earlier, we are trying to find a balance. We have heard from others that the funding is there but is just not being diverted to the Canada Media Fund, and that third parties need to get their cut and so on.
How do we find that balance in relation to getting the money where it needs to go and be spread properly, instead of the conversation being that the money is not there? It seems that some witnesses tell us that the money is there; other witnesses, like you, say that it is not there.
I am struggling to find a clear answer on that.
Mr. Kitt: Neal, do you want to take that?
Mr. McDougall: Sure.
There are so many different elements of our system that, frankly, senator, I am not sure exactly what you are referring to. Certainly, the Canada Media Fund is not involved with news, which I am not sure if your question is with respect to.
A big part of what funds the Canada Media Fund is money from cable and satellite services, which are in decline. That is a very specific area where people are cutting their cable and satellite services. They are not watching content that way anymore. That was a specific mechanism going to the CMF, and that mechanism absolutely is in decline.
The theme of Bill C-11 is that we have a system that is changing. Viewership is going from the traditional system to online, and the money is not necessarily following that. So the entire purpose of Bill C-11 is to adjust to a system-wide transformation of the broadcasting system and ensure that streamers and online players are contributing to Canadian cultural content creation in the same way we have expected traditional broadcasters to do.
Senator Wallin: Thank you. I will start with Mr. Kitt.
You spoke about being worried about money to fund Canadian content, especially news and, in particular, local news. I want to have you respond to an example other than local news stations being closed.
The CBC gets $1.4 billion, $1.6 billion per year — I’m not sure what the number is right now — directly from taxpayers. It competes with the private sector for ad dollars in all of those markets, including during local newscasts. They have also used some of this taxpayer money to set up their own streaming services to compete there. There is very low viewership on those CBC-funded services, but it is still cutting into the potential revenue for the private sector.
Do you agree that should continue?
Mr. Kitt: Unifor takes no position on whether that should continue, but we think that the CBC should be well funded. Advertising dollars, in general, have been slipping. None of these businesses can support themselves — local news definitely cannot support themselves on advertising dollars — so it is really an argument that does not matter anymore.
What we need to do is to properly fund the CBC. We need to ensure that where the eyeballs are going — which is to digital, as the other witnesses have said — the funding model also has to move to digital. That means Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook and the rest of them, whether it is Bill C-18 and that bill, that is one piece of the puzzle. Bill C-11 is another piece of the puzzle. We are going to come back in a couple of years and talk about the local journalism initiative, which is another piece of the puzzle. All of these things have to come together to fund local news and Canadian programming.
Just to be clear, this isn’t public money we’re asking for. This is industry money to be redirected, as it has been in the past, to a Canadian industry so that it can thrive once again, as our other witnesses suggested.
Senator Wallin: Okay. But still, I need you to respond to this: If the CBC is using public money to compete with the private operations that are providing local news services that you say need to be protected, is that the right way to do it? They are competing for the same ad dollars. They are reducing access to private funds — that is what advertisers are — to create this product that you say is needed.
Mr. Kitt: Right. I’m not sure if Bill C-11 has anything to do with competing for ad dollars.
Senator Wallin: It has to do with the basic question of who funds this, whether you are going to take money from streaming services to do it, whether you are going to take taxpayers’ dollars. The government already is subsidizing most mainstream legacy print and broadcast outlets in some way or another. It comes down to the money.
Mr. Kitt: If it comes down to the money, the CBC could be funded better by the government. If they need those ad dollars to create the news that they are creating, if we are going to take the ad dollars away, then the government is going to have to fund them more.
We need to increase local news, and we need it from the CBC and our private broadcasters. If that is a funding issue, I do not think that Bill C-11 goes to that issue. I think that Bill C-11 talks about taking industry money and putting it into private conventional local news.
Senator Wallin: Just a final point. So you just want to continue to have some combination of private and public money to fund organizations that it appears fewer and fewer people are watching and consuming?
Mr. Kitt: Well, that is not necessarily true, but it is moving to a different space. We are all figuring out how to play in that space. This bill is all about that: moving the money to where the eyeballs are going.
Senator Wallin: Mr. McDougall, you said that discoverability — being able to find the Canadian content that you cherish — is really secondary to harnessing more money to continue to make a product that people will watch in different forms. Did I understand you correctly?
Mr. McDougall: No. I think that was Mr. Levine who made that comment. I am not sure that he meant it was secondary.
Senator Wallin: Let’s ask Mr. Levine then. Someone said discoverability is second to getting the money.
Mr. Levine: No. I said that is the second question. The first question is how we fund it. The second question is then how we find it.
Senator Wallin: Okay. So again to you on the funding question then. Are you comfortable — if you can answer quickly — with government subsidizing not only Canadian content production but news, news reporters and news operations that actually cover the activities of that government?
Mr. McDougall: We’re not a journalistic organization. We do not have detailed positions on journalism. I did want to say to your earlier point — you mentioned the CBC gets $1 billion — the BBC in the U.K. gets $6 billion and they only have to operate in one language. So the CBC is underfunded. It is underfunded by global standards. If you want the CBC out of advertising, then the best way to do that is to fund it robustly.
The Chair: Maybe we should also make a comparison of BBC ratings with the CBC ratings, but that is another topic for another time.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Good morning, gentlemen. First, obviously I quite agree with the idea that Canadian culture is an existential issue, but I found the distinction you made between Canadian production and service production to be a bit radical, since you’ve been talking since the start of this meeting about jobs and the importance of employing Canadians in service productions. To my knowledge, Canadian technicians and Canadian talent are also employed, although I believe the copyright is often held abroad. Is that service production worth nothing? It still means a lot of jobs but, in your eyes, it seems very, very minor compared to everything else. Is that true? Maybe Mr. Welsman could respond.
[English]
Mr. Welsman: I think our members do very well. We value service production very much in Canada. It is a different category. It is the six-out-of-ten qualifier points to qualify for the tax incentives. We support that wholly.
Speaking for a moment on behalf of our members, we are at the post-production process. We are hired on very early, at the script stage often, but our work in earnest begins during shooting sometimes, and the real work is done in post-production.
There is a bit of an incentive missing in the system at the moment, which we have spoken with CAVCO about. Wouldn’t it be great to incentivize post-production being done in Canada?
I will generalize and say that typically we find the American producers will do post-production back home, which has not helped our members.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you for that response. Mr. McDougall. I believe you were the clearest on this question.
[English]
Mr. McDougall: Thank you, senator. I did not mean to minimize the impact of service production on jobs. My point was simply that it is a separate issue from what we are studying under Bill C-11. There is a separate set of policy mechanisms that support service production; predominantly there is a service production tax credit which is completely separate. It is under the tax system. It is not under the broadcasting system.
We also have a low Canadian dollar and skilled crews. All of those things attract that type of production. It is important to focus on the job of Bill C-11, which is, frankly, not that production; it is Canadian domestic production.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have a quick question for Mr. Kitt. I found it hard to follow your reasoning. First, it seems clear to me that what you’re asking for is more in line with the next Bill C-18, which is already being studied in the House of Commons. As well, I’m obviously a former journalist, and I understand the problems related to regional news, which doesn’t have enough money. However, with Bill C-18, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the major television networks will have the lion’s share of the subsidies and funds. Isn’t that reassuring for your members, your union members?
[English]
Mr. Kitt: It is reassuring to our members that we are talking about local news to start.
Bill C-18 is one piece of that puzzle. I think that the numbers that came out that the broadcasters would receive the lion’s share of the funding may be inaccurate, since Bill C-18 is set up as a negotiation legislation so that companies negotiate between themselves.
For anyone to come out and say what those deals are going to be worth is putting carts before horses because those companies have to negotiate what those deals are worth, and we do not know what that is. Those numbers were based on Australian numbers that do not add up, because broadcasters I’m not sure were included in the Australian model.
So we’re not sure what those deals are going to be worth. Bill C-18 is one piece of the puzzle with Facebook and Google, and we can’t put all our eggs in the basket of Facebook and Google. This is Netflix, Amazon and Apple, and this is Bill C-11 we’re talking about and our broadcasting model that has been upended by these foreign streamers being allowed to broadcast in this country. We didn’t allow NBC, CBS and ABC to broadcast in this country without going through Canadian broadcasters, so why are we allowing Netflix, Amazon and Apple to do it? If they’re going to broadcast in this country, they should pay and contribute to Canadian content and local news like the American broadcasters had to do in the past.
Senator Dasko: My first question is for Mr. Kitt. You’ve told us about the decline of local news. You focused on television. There was a lot of discussion about eyeballs and where all the eyeballs are going. But what about radio? I know that’s an old-fashioned word. It’s supposed to be “audio” now and not “radio,” but that’s my terminology.
I have not seen the consumer data, but I would assume that audio/radio is still an important source for local news. Do you make any distinction between the two?
Mr. Kitt: Traditionally, radio doesn’t spend the kind of money that television spends on local news. Radio is definitely an important platform for local news, and podcasting right now is an amazing source for local news — an emerging source. These are the types of platforms that need the funding.
Journalism is expensive. Local journalism and investigative journalism, really, come to mind. In Toronto, CBC is still the only place where we get good investigative local news on the radio. I don’t know of any other radio stations that are doing investigative local news. It’s expensive and it needs our funding.
Like I said, Bill C-18 is platform-agnostic. That is great. Bill C-11 needs to focus on these streamers paying their fair share in this country to support Canadian content, local programming and local news. It’s a tiny amount of money for these folks to contribute to local news in comparison to the profits they make. We think it needs to be done. It’s essential, or we won’t have local news.
Senator Dasko: Just to get back to my question about audio. If people are not watching local news on television, why are we even thinking about that? Let’s just focus on where people are getting the news — if it happens to be audio/radio. Why would we go back to local news on television if people aren’t watching it anymore?
Mr. Kitt: If we do follow the eyeballs, radio folks and television folks are doing podcasts. They’re putting local newscasts on Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. We’re following the eyeballs. What we have to do in this committee is to follow the money, and the money has to come from the streamers and go into our industries. Then, it doesn’t matter where the eyeballs are going to go. The eyeballs are going to go to local news. You said so yourself, and the other senator said so. “I’m not watching it on television, but I’m watching it over here. I’m not watching this here, but I’m going to watch it there.” If there is no money for local news or local programming, we’re not going to watch it anywhere. That’s, I think, the point of this hearing.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
The Chair: Colleagues, we have gone over our allotted time. I’d like to thank our panel for being here with us. Obviously, it’s been a helpful exchange because you have elicited a number of questions. I still had a number of senators on second round.
Thank you for your participation.
[Translation]
Honourable colleagues for our second group of witnesses, we are pleased to welcome, by videoconference, Tulsa Valin-Landry, President, Provincial Council of the Communications Sector of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. We also welcome, by videoconference, Nathalie Blais, Research Representative, Canadian Union of Public Employees, and Wojtek Gwiazda, Spokesperson, Radio Canada International Action Committee. Each organization will have five minutes. We will begin with Mr. Valin-Landry. Mr. Valin-Landry, you have the floor.
Tulsa Valin-Landry, President, Provincial Council of the Communications Sector, Canadian Union of Public Employees: Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to discuss Bill C-11. My name is Tulsa Valin-Landry, and I’m President of the Provincial Council of the Communications Sector of CUPE Quebec. With me is Nathalie Blais, a Research Representative with CUPE. Our comments will focus primarily on the French-language market.
The Provincial Council of the Communications Sector, or PCCS, represents nearly 6,700 workers in the broadcasting industry in Quebec. Our members work in all types of broadcasting undertakings, including distribution, radio, local, specialty and community television, and on the internet. They are actively involved in democracy by producing reliable news that helps fight misinformation.
Our members are also involved in producing entertainment programs. That’s a particular characteristic in Quebec that we’d like to draw your attention to, as teams dedicated to these programs within broadcasters have practically disappeared over the last 30 years because of subparagraph 3(1)(i)(v) of the Broadcasting Act. Without a doubt, the Broadcasting Act has allowed the independent production sector to grow, obtain public funding and contribute to the successful diversification of programming on television. However, this was done at the expense of the broadcasters’ workers. We therefore support the amendment of that provision, but we would like it to be clarified to confirm that the wording does include the broadcasters themselves.
The PCCS supports Bill C-11. For conventional broadcasters, which have been in deficit since 2012 in Canada, it’s the eleventh hour. There must be a healthier competitive environment with multinational online undertakings that act like steamrollers with no regulatory obligations. The bill must therefore put all industry players on equal footing to protect our cultural sovereignty and the nearly 50,000 jobs provided by Canadian broadcasters.
Bill C-11 must be seen as a remedy to the inaction of governments, which has let foreign online undertakings innovate in the Canadian market for a decade. Ten years later, American online streaming giants dominate the subscription-based video streaming market. As if that were not enough, Now Netflix and Disney+ are preparing to enter the Canadian advertising market, putting even more pressure on Canadian broadcasters.
Despite their imperfections and difficulties, Canadian broadcasting companies remain the major investors in Canadian programming in the French-language market. Foreign online players that claim to be the second-largest contributors to Canadian content, with 15% of all investment in Canada, inject only 1% of that same spending into the French-language market. On the other hand, Canadian broadcasters are responsible for 49% of the funding for Canadian programs in French. These are essential players in French-language programming that must be supported with a clear bill that will not be challenged in court at the first opportunity.
Nathalie Blais, Research Representative, Provincial Council of the Communications Sector, Canadian Union of Public Employees: To achieve that, we believe that Bill C-11 must still be amended in several areas. First, the scope of the bill must be limited to including foreign online undertakings in Canadian regulations, not all broadcasting undertakings, as is currently provided for in proposed paragraph 3(1)(a). Then, the regulatory symmetry and technological neutrality of the bill must be ensured. To do this, Parliament must give the CRTC the authority to implement the Canadian broadcasting policy objectives for all linear and online broadcasting undertakings, which is not the case right now.
In terms of employment, paragraph 3(1)(f) must be strengthened to ensure that the Canadian broadcasting system has a positive impact on Canadians. Local news and the community element must also be mentioned, in addition to independent production, in subsection 11.1(1), which deals with expenditures on Canadian programming. The mandate of community broadcasting is greatly enhanced by Bill C-11, and quality information is more essential than ever to our democracy. Parliament must therefore send a clear message about the importance of funding these types of programming without putting them in competition.
The powers in the bill should also be rebalanced by better defining those of the government and allowing the public to request a review of any CRTC decision that is not consistent with Canadian broadcasting policy. Finally, Bill C-11 must maintain the public hearings process for order renewals and strengthen the accountability of the CRTC.
Thank you for your time. We look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[English]
Now I turn over the floor to Mr. Wojtek Gwiazda. You have the floor, sir.
Wojtek Gwiazda, Spokesperson, Radio Canada International Action Committee: Thank you. My name is Wojtek Gwiazda. I am the spokesperson of the RCI Action Committee, which represents employees and former employees of Radio Canada International. Our committee is supported by the union that represents RCI employees.
I’m here to talk about article 46(2) of the Broadcasting Act and why it must be amended. Article 46(2) directs CBC/Radio-Canada to provide an international service, but it does not define what an international service is. Since this article is the only legislation that mentions Radio Canada International, we are proposing that you amend article 46(2) to clearly entrench RCI’s role and mandate as a world service within the Broadcasting Act, a role that has never been as necessary and essential as it is now.
Since RCI’s first broadcast in 1945, our mission has been unique in Canada and in the world. We explain Canada to people around the world who may know little or nothing about our country. Two weeks after Tiananmen Square, we started broadcasting in Chinese to China. When Canadian peacekeepers in Yugoslavia wanted to hear from families at home, we were there. When Canadians voted for a new government, we had live election night coverage tailored for audiences outside of Canada. We recorded and released records on our RCI label of such artists as Glen Gould, Oscar Peterson, Gilles Vigneault, Pauline Julien. We distributed English and French lessons to radio stations around the world. We hosted conferences on international broadcasting and we were quick to use the internet and set up a multilingual website.
RCI was a highly respected international broadcaster, with a loyal audience and an impact that was recognized globally and far surpassed our sources.
Up until the 1990s, the landlord/tenant relationship between CBC and RCI worked. Management of RCI and its editorial and journalistic decisions were left to RCI administrators, who had expertise in international broadcasting. But then in 1990, CBC used the budget earmarked for RCI to lessen the impact of budget cuts to its domestic service. In subsequent years, these continuing budget issues and cuts enabled CBC administrators to take over the administration of RCI — and with disastrous results.
For example, last year, contextualized programming in Canada’s official languages was eliminated when our English and French sections were shut down. In previous years, our newsroom was disbanded, the Ukrainian and Russian sections eliminated, as well as the audience relations and music recording departments. Last year, RCI’s popular website was revamped badly and is now being used to promote CBC and Radio-Canada’s domestic programming.
CBC/Radio-Canada’s priorities or budget constraints should not determine RCI’s role and mandate. That decision should only be made by Parliament. The future of RCI should not be a low priority or an afterthought.
In these times of misinformation, and when more and more mainstream media outlets are putting up paywalls, a free, easily accessible and trusted world service is more important than ever. RCI must be revitalized as a technologically savvy, market-appropriate institution.
Senators, 28 years ago, your committee set up an inquiry into the mandate and funding of Radio Canada International. I was honoured to testify before the committee then and impressed by its numerous important recommendations. Your conclusion then was that RCI was not protected enough to do its important work.
So now, senators, it’s up to you. If you think that it’s important for people around the world to know about Canada, if you think we have a duty to give free, reliable access to unbiased news, if you think areas of the world in which news is censored should have access to news from the outside world, and basically, if you are proud of Canada, then please pass our amendment of article 46(2). This is not a CBC issue. This is an RCI issue, a question of whether we’re enough of a nation to have a world service. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gwiazda. I will start off with my colleague and deputy chair, Senator Miville-Dechêne, whom I believe once upon a time I discovered here at Radio Canada International.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I want to begin my comments by saying that I was a journalist with Radio-Canada for 25 years. I was also an ombudsman. So, let me say that I have a great interest in public television and radio.
My first question is for Mr. Gwiazda. I entirely understand your noble quest but, as you know, Radio-Canada’s decisions were made at a time of budget cuts. I know we don’t all agree with the cuts and the extent of them, but Radio-Canada has made choices about domestic programming, as opposed to its foreign service. Foreign services are expensive. The BBC has kept its foreign service. You know it’s funding sources if you compare them to ours. There’s no comparison.
The House of Commons Heritage Committee has already created an amendment that seems to address your concerns, at least in some respects. It’s an amendment that says that the corporation provides programming services to foreign countries in accordance with instructions that may be given by the Governor in Council. It seems to draw a link between providing specific funding for this service and providing it. What’s your position on this? It remains a sensitive issue for a broadcaster like CBC/Radio-Canada, which wants to maintain a certain independence in its choice of services, but which, I understand, is bound by the Official Languages Act, for example. I’d like to hear from you on this.
Mr. Gwiazda: In fact, the national service is intended for Canadians. The international expertise is not there. I’d be the first person to say, as a journalist, that I don’t want a government telling me what I should do and what my editorial choice should be, except that, if a legislative text says that we have to have a world service, that has to be respected.
CBC/Radio-Canada does not respect that. When they adopted their latest policy in December 2020, they focused programming on immigrants to Canada. I have nothing against that if Radio-Canada wants to do that, but that’s not the role of a world service. Our role is to explain Canada to the world, outside our country, to people who, for the most part, are not Canadians.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Where should CBC/Radio-Canada cut to fund this world service?
Mr. Gwiazda: I think that’s a funny way of putting it, because it shouldn’t be Radio-Canada’s responsibility to fund a world service.
By way of comparison, you referred to the BBC. The United Kingdom doesn’t even have twice Canada’s population, but it spends 200 times more than we do on its world service. So, if Parliament, not Radio-Canada, decides that we don’t want to tell the world about Canada, we’ll accept that, but that’s not the problem.
There’s been a desire to have a world service since 1945. Until 1990, Radio-Canada respected the fact that RCI had control. Yes, there are budget issues, but we have to have very detailed control on that under the Broadcasting Act, because otherwise RCI is very vulnerable. We need it; otherwise, there’s no point in having a world service.
In 2012, the government of the day asked Radio-Canada to cut 10% of its budget, and Radio-Canada decided to cut based on priority. They cut 80% of the RCI budget. Of the 16,000 cuts in the francophone sector, 10,000 were at RCI. How can we expect any degree of fairness in a world service within Radio-Canada when there is no independence in funding? In 1990, before Radio-Canada took our money, $20 million a year was allocated to RCI alone.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I understand. Thank you.
Senator Cormier: Thank you to the witnesses. My question is for Mr. Valin-Landry and Ms. Blais. First, I thank you for your lengthy brief. I’ll focus my questions on your proposed amendment to subparagraph 3(1)(i)(v), which asks that maximum use be made of Canadian producers, whether independent or affiliated or from a broadcasting undertaking, an amendment in which you add the words “such an undertaking.”
You represent 6,700 people in Quebec. How many of those people work in television? That would be important to clarify my questions.
Ms. Blais: About 1,200 of our members work in television, but about 6,700 with broadcasters.
Senator Cormier: You are requesting an amendment. We’ve heard from a lot of witnesses from elsewhere in Canada who have asked to go back to the original amendment by independent producers. Am I wrong in saying that much of the in-house production from broadcasters like Québecor and Bell Media, among others, is related to news and sports and current affairs programming, which is geared toward those areas?
Mr. Valin-Landry: At this time, yes. Entertainment programming has declined considerably since the 1990s.
Senator Cormier: I know that the Canada Media Fund allows these broadcasters to dedicate up to 25% of their performance envelope to in-house production and affiliated producers in kids’ content, drama series, documentaries and variety programming. Are they using all those funds? Do they have the appetite to create kids’ content, drama series, documentaries and variety shows that independent producers who are at the forefront of Canadian content creation and production are doing?
Ms. Blais: We can’t speak to the appetite of broadcasters. It would be up to them to answer. However, it’s true that they don’t use the 25% of funds allocated to them under the Canada Media Fund, as they’re not entitled to the provincial tax credit in Quebec. As a result, in the current situation of decline, in which broadcasters have seen deficits since 2014, they are no longer producing anything in-house that isn’t subsidized.
With this amendment, we hope that broadcasters will have more freedom to use the economies of scale that are possible with in-house production crews. Currently, virtually all production crews have been diverted to producing news or sports programs. That has prevented job losses, but there are still people who have the knowledge to do that job.
The only reason the employer does not use our members for this type of production is that there’s a form of discrimination in the funding of production. We want all Canadian producers to be on an equal footing, for broadcasters to be free to choose to produce with an independent producer, an affiliated producer or in-house, given their financial difficulties. There should be more support for Canadian producers as a whole.
Senator Cormier: I have a question for you. You mentioned equality. Do you agree that this reality means that independent producers are actually dependent on broadcasters? So, as opposed to broadcasters who produce and broadcast themselves, shouldn’t the imbalance be taken into account?
That’s why so many witnesses are asking that we go back to the original provision, which essentially affected producers by giving priority to independent producers. I’d like to have your view on this, on this imbalance between independent producers who are left to their own devices and who depend on broadcasters, and broadcasters who are themselves able to produce and broadcast.
Ms. Blais: In fact, it’s clear there’s an imbalance. However, in a new environment where online undertakings are integrated into the Canadian broadcasting system, independent producers will have many more opportunities to work for other online broadcasters than in the current system, which is more closed. Theoretically, if online broadcasters are asked to use Canadian labour, to produce Canadian content, logically, they should be turning more to independent producers than to broadcasters. So, we believe that some balance will be established in that way as well.
That concludes my response.
Senator Cormier: I have a quick question for Mr. Gwiazda. Can you tell us who RCI’s audience is? I think it’s an important concept; it’s important information in the current context. That’s my first question.
Mr. Gwiazda: In 1990, it was said that there were between 6 and 11 million listeners. That figure didn’t really reflect reality. That was when we were on shortwave, and we were a radio station. Now, there’s only a website. To give you an idea, we can’t… In English, we talk about silos. We shouldn’t talk about radio as opposed to the internet. If we’re talking about ways to tell the world about Canada, we were also doing it by putting programs in different countries.
One of our programs, a co-production with China, had 200 million listeners. So there were a lot of listeners, depending on the means used. Now, with the website, which is really poorly designed — There’s not even a search function on the website that Radio-Canada launched a year ago. I have serious doubts about how the website works, unlike before. Has Radio-Canada improved things? I have no idea.
We also need to realize that the situation is very different from 1990, when we had 200 people. Half our staff and budget were cut, and in 2012, 80 of 100 people were cut. Now, 10 out of 20 people have been cut, so the voice of Canada is now about 10 people.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Gwiazda. Senator Cormier’s time is up.
[English]
Senator Simons: Thank you.
I will continue right on. If I recall my history, RCI was very much born of the Cold War. It was funded at the time, quite liberally, by whatever the department was called then — Foreign Affairs or External Affairs — so it was not just on the CBC fund; it had a lot of funding from the government — I do not want to say as propaganda but as a counter-propaganda network. It was our propaganda, so it was “good propaganda.”
But once the Cold War ended, I think a lot of the political will to fund RCI disappeared from the governments of the day. The shortwave towers, as we know, were largely taken down. So we are left in a situation where we have an instrument that, I agree with you, could still be very useful in today’s very complex political world, but it seems to me that Global Affairs Canada has lost the will to use this as a political instrument. That has left CBC on the hook.
I am looking at the section of the act. It says that the CBC shall “provide an international service in accordance with such directions as the Governor in Council may issue.”
I do not know if it is our place as the Transport and Communications Committee to be directing Global Affairs, because it is presumably up to the government to decide. You may hate the search function on the website — I have not looked at it, but I take you at your word that the search function is terrible — but I don’t think that we can fix that.
Mr. Gwiazda: First, one of the problems that we had was obviously the possibility that we might be propaganda. There may have been times where you might have said that. I started working as an employee in 1980; I worked in the 1970s for RCI. So from 1980 to 2015, when I retired, I was a witness to everything that I have talked about here. I can tell you that our journalistic policy was more stringent than that of the CBC just because you could never count on somebody hearing you the next day. You could not make a retraction the next day.
Regarding the Cold War question that you brought up, when we shut down most of the Eastern European languages in 1991 — when that decision was made — Eastern European listeners were totally upset because they said that it was the time when they needed to know how a democracy works.
I don’t think that you should think of RCI or the BBC World Service as a political instrument. If you do, then you are harkening back effectively to the Cold War.
We are saying that right now, in the period of misinformation and in a time when a lot of mainstream media outlets are putting paywalls up, there has to be a place where you can get free unbiased information. That is what Radio Canada International can be, and that is what it is supposed to be. What is not understood by the CBC — and I think the whole concept of a world service is perhaps not well understood in Canada — is that the way we explain things to people outside of Canada cannot be copied and pasted as it is right now in English and French from the CBC/Radio-Canada websites. If you say, “in Quebec today,” one, what is Quebec? On Radio Canada International, we would say, “In the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec.” You would give all of these possibilities for people to understand.
I want to give you one example of the impact of RCI because it is important that you realize that for a trading nation like Canada, we have to be known. Up until recently, we had a very good reputation. The door was already slightly open.
The story I am going to tell you is about an 11-year-old boy in Pennsylvania in the 1970s. He starts listening to a radio broadcast. He hears about the referendum in 1980, the Meech Lake Accord. He starts to get really interested in Canadian affairs, so much so that he starts studying political science. He comes to Laval University and does a master’s degree. Then he does a doctorate in Canadian studies. He becomes a political scientist in Canadian studies. Parallel to that, he becomes a foreign service officer in the United States and ends up in charge of an economic Canadian outfit within the U.S. department.
Think of all of the impacts that man has had on so many different aspects of Canada’s personality, Canada’s trade and Canada’s perceptions. Put that in economic terms, and then we go back to Senator Miville-Dechêne’s point of, “Well, the CBC can’t afford it.”
Well, Canada can’t afford it?
In 1990, our budget was $20 million. Because CBC is no longer transparent about how much it spends on us, it is probably about $1 million or $2 million. In 1994, this committee heard from Keith Spicer, a journalist, broadcaster and, at the time, CRTC commissioner. He was asked how much RCI should get. In 1994 he said $45 million, $50 million.
Senators, you have to give a message to governments that we need a world service. It has to be funded and it has to be protected.
In 1991, the only change that was made to article 46(2) — the one that we want changed — was that the words “the Corporation may provide” an international service were changed to “shall provide.” That happened after CBC took our budget and tried to shut us down and said to the government, “If you want an international service, pay for it.” There was a quiet period in the late 1990s where suddenly CBC was quite happy with us because the government guaranteed $15 million a year, $5 million capital investment. The minute that stopped, Radio-Canada started integrating us into the Radio-Canada system. We used to have relations with head office. By 2000, it was the vice-president of French radio.
The Chair: I hate to cut you off, but Senator Simons’ time has elapsed. I tried to be as flexible as I could be. I can put Senator Simons down for the second round.
I have a brief question, and it is a follow-up to your comments. We look at the CBC through the years. It seems to me it is not Radio Canada International that they cannot afford. CBC cannot afford anything. The truth of the matter is the ratings are down. They are wholly dependent on $1.4 billion of taxpayers’ dollars, yet their ratings do not justify the $1.4 billion. That is a decision taken by politicians here in Ottawa because we think it is a good product.
Of course, they do have regional services that they offer which I do believe are community-essential. They are supposed to offer local news in many parts of the country, which they slashed out many years ago. One wonders really what their mandate should be.
With all of the new platforms that have arrived on the scene — Google, YouTube — clearly, Canadian artists, journalists, freelance journalists and independent content providers are taking full advantage of this. Never before have we had as much exporting of Canadian content around the world free of charge because of these platforms. On the contrary, these independent Canadian journalists — and we’ve had some come before this committee — are thriving. They are utilizing and transforming this into a business, into revenue and so on. There has also been a spinoff effect in our tourism industry. Tourism has been rocking in the last few months, pre-COVID as well in this country. Our tourist agencies are clearly looking at these platforms and some of the exporting of Canadianism as one of the driving forces.
Why shouldn’t we be exploiting these current platforms more in order to get our desired effect of what you have been talking about this morning instead of trying to legislate old methodology that just does not seem to fit in today’s world?
Mr. Gwiazda: I am not sure I understand what you mean by “old methodology”?
The Chair: What I mean is a cable provider who is subsidizing with taxpayers’ money Radio Canada International with a platform that clearly today is not drawing eyeballs, not drawing revenue and so on and so forth, and yet we have a digital platform available. By the way, CBC, Bell and all our traditional broadcasters are going toward that digital platform, spending billions of dollars — hundreds of millions of dollars collectively in the industry — to go toward digitalization.
Mr. Gwiazda: I think that what I’m asking, senators, is that you dream a bit. Do not think about how we are going to scrounge up some money. Flip it around. Realize that because of the technology that we have now, with the click of a button, we can get information out in all kinds of applications, streaming, podcasts, all of that.
Originally, when we were sending programs to other countries, they would be on LP records. Then it was on tapes. Then it was on cassettes, and now it is a click.
What I would suggest to you — and this is unfortunately a line that the CBC is using vis-à-vis RCI — is we have to be in the digital and internet age. We were on the internet at the same time as the CBC and, in fact, we were on the internet before there was a World Wide Web. I know because I put it up there on the National Capital FreeNet system.
There are all of these possibilities of sharing Canadian reality with people. That is understandable.
One of the services that we had was “top of the month,” where it was Canadian songs that were popular in Canada that month, and 250 stations around the world would put that on. So with all due respect to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is not the message with RCI. The message is the message. It is all about the content.
How you put it out is dependent upon where you are going. If we want to get information to the United States or Europe, we use all of the internet. But we were not getting into China when our two Canadians were imprisoned there. We were when our shortwave signal was going in. That was one of the things that CBC/Radio-Canada cut in 2012 — our capacity to get into closed societies with shortwave. What I’m suggesting is a hybrid kind of media-savvy, market-appropriate system where you ask where we want to talk to people and which is the most effective way to get ahold of those people.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
Senator Manning: I will follow up with my question to Mr. Wojtek Gwiazda. How is that for Newfoundland English? You have expressed concern with respect to section 46(2) of the Broadcasting Act and requested that this section be amended to give protection to the international role and mandate of Radio Canada International. You expressed considerable concern about the way the CBC has governed the activities and the very position of Radio Canada International, that it has never been supportive of RCI.
In your years leading up to where we are today, have you had any discussions with the government on your proposed amendment? And what, if anything, have you received in response? More importantly, has there been any understanding of your position on this?
Mr. Gwiazda: When Bill C-10 came out, I had extensive communications with advisers in the Canadian Heritage Minister’s office, who assured me that they were all for an international service, who also assured me that Radio-Canada and CBC totally understood what an international service was, but they were not willing to move on it in this legislation, which, as you can understand, given that the last time this legislation changed was 1991, that concerned us. Honestly, if you are talking eyeballs and impact, RCI will not be around.
It may seem at first glance that our proposed amendment is large and long in comparison to what was accepted by the Canadian Heritage Committee in the other House, but when you look at it, what are we saying? Basically, the service should do programming primarily for non-Canadians outside of Canada. That we should do it in our official languages seems like a minimum. Radio France Internationale does things in French; BBC does it in English. We should certainly have programming in English and French.
We are saying that we should maximize the way of utilizing any available technology. The other aspect we are adding here is that there should be an executive director of Radio Canada International who is responsible for the administration and editorial decisions of the service, who is specifically there to give a kind of semi-autonomy that we had up until 1990 where it was the executive director of Radio Canada International who made all of the decisions with his administration, but also consulted with Foreign Affairs.
I agree that Global Affairs should be involved. But we do not want to be seen as the spokespersons of Global Affairs.
Nobody says about BBC World Service that it is a propaganda unit from the United Kingdom. That is where we want to be. However, we can’t be there if all the tires on our car have been taken off and our gasoline syphoned. Put the gasoline back. Put the wheels back on our car.
You know, if you gave us two or three years, we could turn around the service just like that. Because what has been lacking is the understanding of how proud we are to talk about Canada and to talk about it in a way that people outside of this country will understand.
Senator Manning: If the amendment is not adopted by the Senate and supported by the government afterwards, what do you see the future of RCI is? Will it survive?
Mr. Gwiazda: If it gets accepted?
Senator Manning: Yes.
Mr. Gwiazda: I think it could be remarkable.
Senator Manning: If it doesn’t, will RCI survive?
Mr. Gwiazda: It is already a pale shadow of what it was. In 1994, I was specifically asked by one of the senators of the committee if we were fulfilling our mandate when we lost half of our staff, and at that point I said no. But one of the amazing things about the staff of Radio Canada International is that even when our resources are taken away, we keep hanging on desperately to audiences. And we do the best job we can.
But I have to admit that if this does not get through — look at it from the point of view of the CBC. They have this international service, and we’ve been a pain in their neck for 30 years because we keep complaining about what they are doing to us.
It is a death by a thousand cuts. Every December in the 1990s, we waited to see whether our Christmas gift was going to be our layoff notice. It happened three times in the 1990s. It is a horrible situation to be in, and we should not be in it.
Senator Manning: Thank you.
Senator Wallin: As I understand your comments here, the CBC and maybe Radio-Canada have taken the money that you feel is yours. I think you said they have used it to turn programming toward immigrants in Canada. That is one role.
The other role is news for Canadians abroad. Canadians abroad now have hundreds of services they can access — everybody’s websites and feeds and online — so that is looked after. Because if they are Canadians abroad, they will understand what Quebec is and that it is the French-speaking province.
That brings you to the third role, which is trying to serve others in countries who are fighting with censorship. Can you create a business model around that and propose that unique service? Because the others are being looked after.
Mr. Gwiazda: I disagree with that. If you do not have contextualized information — yes, people can access CBC/Radio-Canada and get information, but they are not going to understand if —
Senator Wallin: No, if they are Canadians abroad, they do not need that.
Mr. Gwiazda: But that was never really part of our mandate. A lot of that — whether it was Canadians abroad, immigrants or such — were ways that CBC/Radio-Canada tried to justify the existence of an international service. Sometimes even our own administrators, unappreciated year after year, would bend over backwards to satisfy and make us somehow acceptable and useful when we should have stepped back and said, “Look, like the BBC World Service and like in many other countries, there has to be a source to find out about Canada.”
Especially in terms of Canada, we do not have the equivalent of TIME, Newsweek or CNN that is seen around the world.
Senator Wallin: But you can see a lot of those things online. That is what I’m saying. If you are a Canadian somewhere else, you can inform yourself. So I’m trying to figure out what it is that you specifically want to do that is so unique it needs separate funding from government, or maybe you make a business proposition in the private sector.
What is it that you want to carve off to create in this new world where people have different access?
Mr. Gwiazda: We have been in this new world since 1996, when we were on the internet and using every single technological means. How does the BBC World Service carve out a role? I think one of the problems in North America is that we do not understand how important world service is. When we were being heard in the Middle East, car radios had shortwave in them. People would be listening to us there. I could spend hours giving you anecdotes about how people heard about their own reality or Canadian reality in the most remarkable situations.
Senator Wallin: What I am saying here and what we are trying to figure out is that you are having an issue with your bosses — with the CBC.
Mr. Gwiazda: No. Again, our issue is that Parliament has said there should be an international service. If you do not want an international service, then get rid of article 46(2). But if you say you want an international service, make sure that it will be an international service and don’t try to find a niche here or immigrants here or Canadians abroad.
What we’re saying is we want to have a real international service, and, therefore, you have to define it because unfortunately the people who are administering us — yes.
Senator Wallin: Ms. Blais said something that struck me. She spoke about the need for the accountability of the CRTC. This bill will, of course, give the CRTC extraordinary powers over not only broadcasters but the world online — the internet and the streamers that feed it.
Do you have a very short version of that? Should this committee be a place where the CRTC will be accountable? Do you think they only need to be accountable to the minister of the day?
To whom do you want the CRTC to be accountable?
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: Ideally, we would like the CRTC to be accountable to the House of Commons. It could also be accountable to a committee, but the report that’s produced through the minister currently provides very little information on the achievement of Canadian broadcasting policy objectives.
I think that’s where the accountability of the CRTC has to be reframed, not in terms of the objectives the CRTC has set for itself, but in terms of the objectives that are set out in the legislation.
[English]
Senator Wallin: I am not sure what you are saying.
Would there have to be another agency, then, to overlook that? How do House of Commons or Senate committees do that unless we go to an American style of committee where we would call these people in front of us on a weekly or monthly basis to talk about their activities?
[Translation]
Ms. Blais: You’re going much further than our own thinking about what that might look like. What we want, however, is that, regardless of the type of report the CRTC submits, it should really be related to the objectives that the CRTC is required to achieve, pursuant to subsection 3(1) of the act. Currently, the CRTC is gathering all kinds of information under the new version of the Broadcasting Act proposed in Bill C-11. It will need to collect more information and report on what it can achieve. For instance, in terms of accessibility, there are obligations that are more important now than they were in the past, but the CRTC does not necessarily compile the information required to produce an adequate and complete report.
[English]
Senator Wallin: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. It is now coming to 11 a.m., and we have finished our work with our second panel. I would like to thank our panel for joining us today and contributing to our study. Thank you for your presentations.
(The committee adjourned.)