Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Communications
Standing
Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 8 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 9, 1997
The Subcommittee on Communications of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 4:30 p.m. to study Canada's international position in communications.
Senator Marie-P. Poulin (Chair) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chair: This meeting is now called to order. We continue our special study on communications.
[Translation]
I would like to welcome Ms Guylaine Saucier and Mr. Perrin Beatty from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to our committee. We greatly appreciate the CBC's cooperation in the field of communications as we move toward the year 2000.
[English]
As you know, this subcommittee is composed of several other of my colleagues, but they are presently awaiting a vote in the chamber. Senator Spivak, from Manitoba, and I will be your audience today.
As you know, the Senate asked the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications to compose an official subcommittee to look into the international competitiveness of communications for the year 2000 for Canada. We know this is a complex issue in our rapidly changing world, but we decided to tackle this from four points of view: the technological aspect; the human resources aspect, that is, the people we have; the cultural aspect, or the stories we have to tell; and also from a commercial aspect.
In the next few weeks, we will be presenting an interim report on what we have heard so far. We have been working on this, with our colleagues, since the end of June, and we have heard many interesting remarks from the industry. We have met with quite a broad cross-section of the industry. We felt quite strongly that our interim report would be more complete if we had the opportunity to speak with our only national public broadcaster. The public broadcaster plays such an important role in the Canadian stories which we have been hearing and seeing for the last 60 years.
We want to give you this opportunity to contribute to our interim report.
[Translation]
Therefore, we greatly appreciate your being here and call on you now to make your presentation. Senators Spivak and I will have to leave to vote. The bells will ring at 5:15 p.m. and we will have to go down around 5:25 at the latest.
[English]
Ms Guylaine Saucier, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: We are honoured to be here. We have eagerly awaited this opportunity to appear before the members of your committee today. We are eager because we agree with other submitters that the next few years will see a major shakedown in global communications. As Canadians, we must approach this shakedown with both vision and practicality.
[Translation]
The CBC plays an important role by contributing to a shared national consciousness and identity. Our mission is to reflect the country's reality to Canadians. Our mandate, as set out in the Broadcasting Act, is eminently clear: to reflect Canada's national identity and acknowledge its regional diversity. We must adapt to the unique needs and circumstances of each official language community and we must recognize Canada's multicultural and multiracial character.
Another of the CBC's responsibilities is to inform, enlighten and entertain audiences across Canada. This is indeed a formidable task, but throughout our 60-year history, we have made every effort to fulfill this mission well.
[English]
Most Canadians, looking to the past, would agree that the CBC has been a mainstay of the cultural life of this country. Over the past two years, our board and our corporation have wrestled with whether we can and should continue to play this role. Before we could address those issues, we needed to re-examine what constitutes Canada's cultural life and, to do that, we looked for a working definition of culture itself.
Culture is a process in which a society's knowledge and values are developed and defined over time, ultimately shaping and shaped by its citizens. The cycle is continuous as we integrate culture into our personal lives and public discourse and transmit it from one generation to the next. This creative process is neither spontaneous nor does it come without cost. Our culture is part of our social capital, in essence, a belief in shared values and a willingness to collaborate in a common cause. The return on this capital is in the form of economic and social benefits which emerge from a shared vision of community.
In a world in which technology tends to produce a globalization of culture, a shared vision of a community is more important than ever. If we agree that such a national vision will not fall from heaven but that it must be created and passed down from one generation to the other, then it is evident that Canada must have a clear cultural policy and the tools and means to implement it.
As you know, the CBC's mandate, established by an act of Parliament in 1936, is to help nurture, promote, and spread the values that define the Canadian identity. By ensuring that all Canadians understand our common values, we increase the likelihood of the survival of those values.
The need for a strong cultural policy in Canada is far greater today than it was in 1936. Back then, free trade was only an economic theory. There was no 500-channel universe, no information highway, not even a Sports Illustrated Canadian edition. One might say we did not have to work quite so hard to be Canadian then. Now we do, and a clear cultural policy must be in place to guide our efforts.
[Translation]
In my view, any Canadian cultural policy must provide us with at least the following three benefits.
First of all, it must guarantee continuity and ensure that culture is passed down from generation to generation. This is not the mission of private enterprise and its technology, but rather that of the artists whose voices recall our history. For this reason, we must encourage new voices to speak out, namely writers, producers, actors, singers and musicians. Celebrating regional culture comes at a price, but it is vital to our cultural survival. That is precisely the mission of the CBC.
Secondly, a cohesive cultural policy must ensure that citizens continue to enjoy ever-wider access to the democratic process and to have the opportunity to exercise their rights as citizens. One commentator recently stated that the CBC must embrace Canadian dialogue by seeking out the participation of those whose voice would not otherwise be heard. Nothing could be truer. The CBC's news and current affairs programming already provides the Canadian public with an unparalleled forum in which everyone can express his or her viewpoint. Through townhall meetings, round tables and investigative documentaries, we contribute significantly to Canadians' shared national consciousness and identity.
Thirdly, a Canadian cultural policy must work toward uniting Canada and reflecting our regional differences, while celebrating the often different values and experiences that we share.
[English]
However, the CBC is not the authority to create a national cultural policy. Our responsibility as Canada's central cultural institution requires that we maintain the development of Canada's culture as our ideal.
Since I became Chair of our board, we have worked hard to reinterpret our mandate in light of the times. After lengthy deliberation, we set down five key objectives to keep us on track. I want to share them with you because, for us, they are contributions to Canadian culture which cannot be compromised.
First, we must help to sustain a strong culture in each of the two official languages and make those cultures present to each other.
Second, we must reflect Canada's regions.
Third, we must increase our ability to reach as many Canadians as possible in Canada and then abroad.
Fourth, we must provide impartial and diverse information relevant to all Canadians.
Finally, we must look to the future and ensure a Canadian presence on the information highway.
[Translation]
At the CBC, we make a habit of stating that Canadian content determines our successes and our failures. We realize full well that in most cases, if we fail to bring Canadian stories to the Canadian public, no one else will do it, as no one else is required to do so by mandate. Those private broadcasters who do offer programming with Canadian content do so as an adjunct to their primary mission, which is to earn profits for their shareholders. They cannot provide the same level of Canadian content that we can or offer it to all regions of the country in a way that is profitable to them. Public funds are necessary in order to fulfil this mission.
For this reason, our biggest task, and one that is equally important to you, is to ensure that regardless of the circumstances, our services continue to mirror the lives of Canadians and to build bridges between them.
This being said, it matters little that the number of specialty services, American direct-to-home satellite services, CD-ROM technology and Internet home pages have proliferated. Canadian stories need to be told. The CBC has made an enormous contribution to the evolution of our country and it will continue to do so for generations to come. Canadians are, however, undergoing profound changes. All of our institutions have been rattled and even our means of communication, whether radio, television, telephone or the Internet, have been undergoing phenomenal technological changes.
What is the true role of the CBC in this rapidly changing universe? Let me read to you a brief mission statement which was drafted some time ago but which still translates the vision that has been guiding us for the past 60 years.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a public resource, owned by all Canadians. Our services in French and English inform, enlighten and entertain. We contribute to Canadians' shared national consciousness by celebrating Canada's cultural and regional diversity, building bridges between our official language communities and helping our citizens take full part in their country's life. We create, procure and present distinctive, high-quality Canadian programming and offer the best from around the world.
[English]
That statement is the solid foundation on which we will build our future, but to what principles will we adhere as the building process moves forward?
I do not want to drown you in lists, but, if you permit me one more set of ordered points, I believe you will see clearly how we intend to continue to be a vital force in the cultural life of Canada.
These are our new operating principles. The first is that the CBC will survive and prosper only if it can differentiate itself from other broadcasters. Our programming, therefore, must be both unique and marketable, and it must complement that of private broadcasters.
The second is that we must at all times be fully accountable to the citizens of Canada, our shareholders -- accountable for levels of service, for the quality and innovation of our programs, and for the development of Canadian talent and culture. We must also be accountable to Canadian taxpayers for the operation of an efficient and productive corporation.
Third, we recognize that while we have no captive audience, we have a visible and respected brand -- the CBC brand -- a brand that stands for creativity, insight, and daring. Our brand is our greatest asset; it is our badge of quality, intelligence, and objectivity, and we must live up to its reputation.
[Translation]
Fourthly, we must communicate openly with our own employees, not only in the conference rooms and management offices, but also in the studios. Our producers, directors, researchers, cameramen and journalists across Canada are the ones who create the programming which enables us to fulfil our mandate and they are entitled to know what role we expect them to play in shaping the future of the CBC.
Lastly, we must be willing to adapt at any time to change as soon as it happens. Most Canadian organizations have had to radically alter their make-up and approach in order to survive, and that was true of the decade that is coming to an end. There is no reason to believe that the next decade will be any less chaotic. At the CBC, we will do what we have to do to adapt to change while seeking to protect that which sets us apart. In conclusion, since Confederation, successive Canadian governments have understood the need to have institutions which safeguard Canadian values and cultures against American influence, and now against the globalization of culture.
[English]
Today, politicians must make tough choices, but the choice these days is increasingly to support our national identity and value system. We do indeed cherish what is distinctively Canadian and are willing to make sacrifices to preserve it.
[Translation]
If there is one thing that I know for certain, it is that the CBC will continue to do good work and to remain a pillar of Canadian culture. In short, if the CBC did not already exist, you would have to create it.
[English]
Mr. Perrin Beatty, President & CEO, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: I am honoured to be here. This is the first time since I left Parliament in 1993 that I have appeared before a parliamentary committee.
I cannot imagine a more appropriate chair for this committee than you, Madam Chair. You and I jointly form a CBC-Parliament executive interchange program.
The Chair: It is called switching places.
Mr. Beatty: Yes, and I am delighted. I thank you for having us.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, I have followed your meetings with great interest and I have been struck by the number of important questions raised. The wide range of issues that your committee has had to examine clearly illustrates the complexity of our situation. I greatly appreciate the time that you have spent looking into this matter and I hope that my comments will prove useful and timely. I want to focus on the cultural aspect mentioned in your invitation. I will also speak about regulations, funding and the role of cultural industries.
I took over as President of the CBC barely two years ago, but since then, the Corporation has undergone major changes. Drastic cuts in funding and their effect on employment and programming have been very painful indeed. However, even without these substantial budgetary constraints, we would have had to deal with the phenomenal growth of technology and competition. The changes that we have made and that we continue to make are designed to help the CBC face the new realities which, while they may present new opportunities, also pose a threat to Canadian culture.
[English]
The most complex reality with which your committee must struggle is the challenge that new technologies pose to existing cultural and regulatory policies. In a world which does business by satellite and through the telephone wires, provincial and national borders soon fade. There is less protection from geography every day, and, because of that, the efficacy of regulatory protection is declining.
I see three distinct pressures at the root of this change. The first is the deployment of NAFTA and other treaties that remove protectionist trade barriers. The second is the increasingly aggressive stance by Washington in the interpretation of culture. The third, and perhaps most pervasive of the three determinants, is a wider international climate which puts a premium on open competition in the so-called "global economy".
NAFTA and other international trade agreements have helped hasten the decline of protectionist measures and gradually changed thinking about the idea of national cultures. While direct government spending on purely cultural activities may not be at issue, such treaties may call into question a range of other measures, including both indirect subsidies such as Telefilm spending on broadcast programming and protectionist measures such as the CRTC's policy of delisting foreign specialty channels which compete with Canadian specialty services.
In these matters, it is important to understand the dividing line between "culture" and "cultural industry." American stakeholders take a much narrower view of "culture" than do Canadians. Washington's aggressive stance in these matters may well reflect an American conviction that the United States has an unalienable right to do business in Canada.
The tide against protectionism in the cultural industries continues to rise. In recent months, global agreements have been hammered out which lower trade barriers in both the telecommunications and information technology industries. This move to open barriers, while a threat to certain established cultural policies, is not simply the product of trade economics -- nor, to be fair, is it entirely bad news for Canadian business.
However, while we should celebrate our own successes -- I shall mention a few of them in a moment -- we must also admit that, paradoxically, Canada's very success in the global entertainment business raises some serious problems.
We must be clear about the difference between providing television for business reasons, to make a profit for shareholders, and for cultural reasons, to promote a sense of what it means to be a citizen of Canada. The difference is reflected in industry policy on one hand and cultural policy on the other, which in turn reflects the difference between a genuinely Canadian program made for Canadians and a product made in Canada primarily for export to other countries.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with making money, creating jobs, and building prestige for Canada in world film and television markets -- far from it. However, let us remember that it is not just Canada out there marketing its wares.
The result of open borders is that our cultural industries will experience more, not less, competition from foreign services. There is a real risk that private Canadian broadcasters will eventually find themselves put out of the profitable business of importing American TV programs for exhibition in Canada. Not surprisingly, our private broadcasters have been talking more and more about the importance of developing Canadian programming as a business rather than just as a regulatory obligation.
Protections enjoyed by private broadcasters, such as simultaneous substitution, help generate revenues to cross-subsidize their efforts in Canadian programming. The more these protections are called into question in the open borders trading environment, however, the more important it becomes for Canada to have a public, not profit-making broadcaster -- like the CBC -- whose mission is to make culturally significant, genuinely Canadian program material.
[Translation]
It is important to have a healthy public broadcaster to act as an instrument with which to deliver public policy. This is important not only because the protectionist framework supporting the private sector is threatened, but also because, regardless of the outcome of trade talks, private broadcasters are far more likely than the CBC to bet on types of programs that are not very profitable. In other words, the CBC is not just any Canadian broadcaster.
As a national public broadcaster that is publicly-funded, it goes without saying that we are keenly interested in how the funds allocated to us are used to build the necessary cultural and communications infrastructures.
[English]
How best should precious taxpayer resources be used? We see two vital tasks ahead as we learn to cope with the lessons of open borders and the global economy.
We must create more shelf space for the exhibition of Canadian cultural products. This is becoming particularly important in the broadcasting sector where the proliferation of channels available to the consumer through digital technology is only beginning. Since we can no longer keep out competition, we must ensure that Canadians are present in as many places as possible -- on the conventional broadcasting dial, in specialty and pay audio services, and in cyberspace.
We must also do everything possible to make distinctively Canadian programming better. That will take money -- public money -- because this is the kind of programming that is less likely to attract American network buyers. Our cultural program efforts must, however, be of sufficiently high quality that they can compete for the Canadian audience.
Traditionally in this country, infrastructure has been built with at least some public funding. We built a railway across the country largely on the strength of government land grants to the CPR. We built a nationwide radio infrastructure by creating the CBC, and later we did the same for television.
At the dawn of the satellite era in the 1970s, the Canadian government found another innovative way to use public money to build Canadian cultural capacity. At that time, the CBC had an excellent land-based system. Its shortcoming, however, was its inability to serve about 70,000 Canadians who lived in the far North. The government of the day saw the opportunity. Satellite technology could address the imbalance. The hurdle was the cost: a Telesat transponder would have set the CBC back just short of a million dollars, which was a hefty sum in those days. The government asked the CBC to buy three transponders and helped to make it financially possible for us to do so. Not only were we able to serve the high Arctic, but our investment was the key to the survival of Telesat. That is how governments financed infrastructure then, and the investment of CBC, backed by public funds, helped launch an industry that has kept Canada in the satellite business to this day.
The CBC is no longer in a financial position to help the government underwrite costs for Canada's communication's infrastructure. Another opportunity is now looming, however, and the profile that Canadian culture enjoys in the future depends on our ability to approach this opportunity with vision now. The opportunity I speak of is direct-to-home broadcast satellites. As a nation, we cannot afford to be left out of the DTH market -- neither in the technology nor in the services it makes available.
DTH services are among the fastest-selling consumer electronics products ever. Almost 5 million U.S. homes subscribe to the services. Even though the service is not yet legally authorized in Canada, approximately 200,000 to 300,000 households in our country buy the service on the grey market. That grey market exists for technological reasons. DTH signals can be picked up by dishes on either side of the border. It exists because Canadian public policy has yet to catch up with the technology. It exists because American regulators did not give Telesat the green light last summer that would have allowed a Canadian satellite to broadcast American services to Americans. It exists because we do not yet have the hardware.
Our federal government has taken steps to ensure that DTH becomes a Canadian medium. Telesat has filed its proposal. In the meantime, AlphaStar has been granted a licence and will use an American satellite until a Canadian one becomes available. Ahead of us lies the challenge of proving that Canadians can take DTH technology and make it our own.
Another opportunity for the CBC lies in what we call new media. The World Wide Web is still a fairly recent phenomenon. In part, it is limited because fewer than 10 per cent of Canadian homes have gone online, and in part because high-tech production values like streaming audio and video are still the exception rather than the rule on most web sites. Nevertheless, there is a wide consensus that the web will continue to experience dramatic growth in terms of both consumer acceptance and the creation of revenue streams from advertising and transactions. Conservative estimates put online penetration in Canadian homes at 30 per cent by the year 2000.
These developments, particularly the growth of new media like the web, raise interesting questions about our cultural institutions because new communications technologies tend to have a disruptive influence on the status quo. The first and most fundamental question is: Are they good or bad for Canadian cultural institutions?
Like other sweeping changes that preceded them, the new communications technologies are a mixed blessing for Canadians. Like free trade, they are effacing borders and the regulatory protections that go with them, putting cultural goals at risk. Yet, within our own borders, they are opening up new, competitive pathways into Canadian homes, offering more opportunities to reach audiences.
The emergence of new online media as exemplified by the web raises particular concerns. One of the most pressing of these concerns lies in the fact that computer networks are unregulated and, apart from the control of problems like pornography, will probably remain largely unregulated in the future. In small nations like Canada, so the argument goes, neither the protection nor the financial resources are likely to be available to level the playing field with the Hollywood majors and other global content producers.
Let us consider the general concern that unregulated online media will automatically give the upper hand to large foreign content providers. It is certainly true that global entertainment brands like Disney will achieve a presence on the web that Canadians will not have the resources to match. Yet, online media have corresponding advantages for smaller players. Chief among these are the facts that it does not take much to get on and that there is plenty of room for everyone. The web does not yet offer anything like the ubiquity or production values of ordinary television programs, but even a substantial web site like the one operated by the CBC can be launched at a tiny fraction of the cost of launching a product or service in the conventional print or electronic media. The web has quality limitations, but it is free of the issues attaching to spectrum scarcity and the licensing requirements that typify broadcast media. The web is also the largest storehouse of information ever assembled, and it is distributed around the globe with no central control point or gatekeeper. Almost all of this information is available to anyone with a modem-equipped computer.
These attributes are especially significant for Canadians because they create opportunities for niche content players. While we cannot hope to compete with the Americans in the entertainment genres which they have mastered, Canadians have shown themselves able to compete in more specialized areas such as documentary, animation, comedy, and special effects. We should not forget that Canadians have contributed to the software and special effects industries out of all proportion to our numbers. These are potential growth areas for Canadian cultural institutions entering the new media.
However, most important in cultural terms are the more tangible and human benefits of online and therefore interactive media. Largely immune to the barriers of time and space, they allow people to talk back.
Despite some misperceptions to the contrary, the web is a superb mechanism for overcoming isolation and building communities. This is particularly important for Canadians, given that they live in a country with too much geography.
We note with interest that the government's Information Highway Advisory Council is calling for the establishment of a $50 million a year Canadian multimedia fund to support the development, production, distribution and marketing of multimedia products which reflect Canada, with one-third of the money earmarked for French-language products. The council also recommends the indefinite extension of federal funding of $150 million a year for the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund. These recommendations fit perfectly with our desire to expand the presence across both regulated and unregulated media and to exploit opportunities for French-language content, especially in new media.
To return to a basic question: Is this the right business for the CBC to be in? We believe so, and here is why. First, we have always been in the vanguard of both technical and creative advancements in Canadian broadcasting.
Second, the new media are not replacements for conventional media. Broadcasters across North American are diversifying into new media because this approach allows them to offer a wider array of services and to build audience loyalty.
Third, the CBC has an obligation to go where its audiences go and to be responsive to the changing needs of listeners, viewers, and computer users. It would be a disservice to our mandate and to our audience if we did not start to build a presence in new media, even as the broadcast media continue to get far and away the lion's share of our resources. To take one example, although French-language resources are under-represented on the Internet today, the CBC is looking to the tremendous community-building potential of the web so that we can begin to make up some of the discrepancy in French-language content.
No matter what the broadcast technology, our challenge is to provide a Canadian service so appealing that even those who have already invested in the grey market will want dishes that provide the Canadian service.
Whether the result is to win back Canadian viewers or to encourage them to subscribe to new Canadian services, the incentive we must use is the same. It is not the portability of the computer, the size of the satellite or the chip, the price of the dish, or the size and clarity of the screen; it is the quality of the content. We must provide Canadians with services and quality programming they could not otherwise enjoy. It is as simple as that.
New technologies allow us to produce low-end Canadian programs quite cheaply, but will anyone watch? Our audiences are increasingly sophisticated and demanding. What worked 10 years ago will not work 10 minutes from now. The mix must be right. We must be Canadian in all things: Storytelling, comedy, variety, news and sports.
At CBC, we have proof that real Canadian stories and perspectives are indeed valued around the world. To pursue international sales, we maintain three offices -- one each in Toronto, London and Los Angeles -- which move CBC programming to the world. There is a growing appetite overseas for Canadian drama. Movies, mini-series, and long-running series sell competitively, and we are proud to showcase our top productions from the genre. Individual programs from the acclaimed series Nature of Things also continue to sell like hot cakes. Many of our buyers know the series well and have come to rely on it as a source of mature documentary programming.
However, some of our programming will not find an international market. Our first responsibility is to tell stories about Canada to Canadians, and we will not disguise Toronto as Chicago or pretend that Vancouver is the Bronx simply to make it easier for us to sell our programs into the American market. While I understand the economics that drive many private broadcasters to do so, Parliament created us for a very different purpose.
In your invitation for comment, you asked what the appropriate role for our cultural institutions might best be. Others before your committee have addressed this issue, and I should like to add a few comments as well.
First, on a personal note, as a parent, I am deeply concerned about what my children see and where it comes from. I worry about how to ensure that their development is shaped in a healthy way in a less regulated system. However, when regulation is no longer effective, our best response is to make programming more appealing than the competition. I want to ensure that our values are out there somewhere, readily accessible, and as attractive, compelling, and exciting as anything that comes here from south of the border. This is not xenophobia or anti-Americanism; it is straight old-fashioned Canadian pride. How do we do that?
First, we must be clear about what it is that our public cultural institutions are designed to accomplish. They are intended to promote genuinely Canadian cultural products and services addressed to Canadian audiences. They are not, in the first instance, designed to create jobs, help our balance of payments, or make profit-making companies more profitable, although they may do all these things as a spin-off benefit flowing from a primarily cultural mandate.
Second, in the new media order, Canada must create a cultural presence and provide as many genuinely Canadian alternatives as possible. In other words, we must fashion shelf space for ourselves in both regulated and unregulated media. If we do not, we run the risk of being overrun by the offerings of global media companies. We have our own social and cultural values, our own history, political and legal institutions, and we believe the CBC and its sister agencies have a profound responsibility to portray these values and institutions in our broadcasting system and elsewhere.
Third, we must take full advantage of tools and resources at our disposal. Canada has never needed a national cultural infrastructure as much as it does today.
To build and maintain it, we will need to marshal both content and technology resources and recognize that they are mutually dependent. We cannot create the programs and then overlook how best to create the delivery pathways that will take them into Canadian homes any more than we should focus all of our attention on distribution at the expense of original content that reflects our own values.
Finally, the CBC must consolidate and expand its role as Canada's primary instrument of cultural policy. In the multichannel universe, no one broadcaster, including the CBC, can hope to maintain a dominant position, nor can Canadian broadcasters and other content providers hope to stem the tide of foreign services let alone the on-rush of unregulated new media like the Internet, but the CBC can do something valuable and entirely appropriate in the emerging environment. It can offer Canadians a genuine cultural alternative across conventional and new media alike. It cannot do so alone. Its success will require partnerships of various kinds. Nevertheless, a responsible and assertive answer to the cultural dilemmas raised by trade and technology can do no better than start with Canada's national public broadcaster.
Let us continue to build the kind of institutions, infrastructures and attitudes which, through alliances of new and innovative kinds, will help to build a strong Canadian presence both here at home and out there on the new world stage.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Beatty and Ms Saucier. Your presentations were very interesting.
[English]
For many reasons, it is quite obvious to all of us that the time is now for the CBC, not only because you are moving your head office. You have gone through many years of difficult financial rationalizations. Major choices were made by the board over the last 15 years. Communications internationally are ripe to welcome a high-quality national broadcaster, and the government of the day has given its support to the national broadcaster for the next few years in terms of capacity to plan with stability.
What are the three key things the national broadcaster will be doing to contribute to the objective of raising Canadian identity in the next three years? We have appreciated the values you have communicated to us and the importance of the organization; however, concretely, on the ground, what are the three key things to meet these values and objectives that were so well expressed by both of you?
[Translation]
Ms Saucier: I would like to make a comment, Madam Chair. Since I come from Quebec, my perspective may be somewhat different. Even though I am from Quebec, I have travelled a little in Canada and I thought I understood English culture a bit. Since joining the CBC and coming into contact with our artists, writers and producers, I realize just how little francophone Canadians and anglophone Canadians know about each other's culture. I think that from a practical standpoint, we will have to encourage more programming in Quebec that informs the population about the rest of Canada and vice versa. This programming will have to focus on very specific themes which will provide access to the other official language culture. This is one important approach that the board will be taking in the coming months.
[English]
Mr. Beatty: There is no question that Parliament gives us, in the Broadcasting Act, the responsibility to help create a shared national consciousness and identity. As a priority, this has certainly gone up our list through exchanges and cooperation between our four media in terms of the perspective we offer of the country as a whole to try to create bridges among Canadians. This is a unique institution. We have a vital role to play which will assume an even higher priority for us in the future in creating that shared national consciousness and identity, serving as a bridge.
The Canadianization of English television is a critical step for me. Even at a time when we were dealing with a $400 million challenge in our budget, we took the decision that we would, this past year, Canadianize prime time, and prime time this year was about 95 per cent Canadian. The results have been extraordinary for us. We found that our audiences went up following Canadianization, which is an encouraging sign that Canadians were looking for material that spoke to them of their own values and their own experiences. That is, I think, a critical role. We will fully Canadianize the English television network, daytime as well, beginning in September of 1988. That is a vital contribution that Canada's national public broadcaster can make.
The other area is the whole area of ubiquity, of moving into new media. We do not see ourselves as being hardware-driven. We are not the owners of studios or microphones or transmitters. We are a Canadian cultural content producer and disseminator. As new media develop, whether digital radio, the Internet, digital television, or speciality channels and so on, we will be there. We will try to ensure a solid, attractive Canadian presence in each of those media. In this way, we will be able to make a very important contribution to the development of Canada's national image.
Senator Johnson: I have long been a supporter and spokesperson for the CBC, as a friend of public broadcasting in this country, especially as a Western Canadian. Can you tell me where the next cuts will be coming from, or is the downsizing coming to an end?
Within that framework or the emphasis on telling our stories, as you both mentioned, and relating our culture to each other and abroad, what will be the content focus as we proceed again to do what we must with the CBC, considering the financial limitations that are being imposed on the public network?
Mr. Beatty: In terms of reductions we have been making, we are about three-quarters of the way there. We will be announcing further reductions of staff in December of this year to take effect at the beginning of the next fiscal year, but all of this was announced in September when I disclosed the plans that had been approved by the board for our strategic options as a corporation. We are on track.
Senator Johnson: Are you still on that track?
Mr. Beatty: Yes. It is a painful process, and I do not want for a minute to understate that. However, the encouraging thing is that corporation has come through with our numbers for television, on both the English and French sides, increasing this year at a time when we were making major economies. We have also been able to move the corporation closer to its mandate.
I mentioned earlier, in the case of English television, the importance of Canadianization. You do not fund us to distribute American commercial programming in Canada. That is already done. Every second of American commercial programming we have on air takes us away from our mandate. We have been able, at a time of great pressure, to bring ourselves closer to mandate.
You will see significant impacts in terms of changes to our schedules when we go into the new program year in September. We will be taking a decision between now and then as to what the new schedule line-up will be. You will see changes in established programs in both radio and television. In a normal year, about 30 per cent of our schedule would change. It will be more substantial than that this year, and you will be seeing changes at all levels. This will be as much a reaction to the rethinking we have been doing of the role of the corporation as it is simply driven by the financial exigencies.
Senator Johnson: In your rethinking, will your focus be on providing Canadian cultural content as opposed to anything else?
Mr. Beatty: Yes, with a small "C" on culture.
Ms Saucier: I would place a bit of emphasis on the fact that, with the added $10 million for radio, we will try to focus on what we call new voices. An important part of our mandate is to find new talents and to help them develop. That is at the core of the mandate of the CBC, as far as I am concerned.
Senator Spivak: Recently, I read an article in the New Yorker which dealt with the film industry. It quoted Hollywood producers who said that no one knows anything and that the demand for content is infinite.
I mention this because I did not quite understand your message, Mr. Beatty, about some products we do for ourselves and some we do for export. The point is that if no one in Hollywood knows anything, what will the cuts do?
The proposition, then, is that the most important thing Canadians can do is to develop and support our own creative talent, as the Australians did and as we did in the field of animation. What will the cuts to the CBC do? What have they done in terms of production? I know there is a new production fund, et cetera.How do you view that?
Ms Saucier mentioned the $10 million extra to the CBC. It is not $10 million extra; it is just a little bit of the cuts being given back. Those are the facts.
When you look at the whole picture, I find this rather surprising. Given the economic position that the cultural industries have in Canada -- it amounts to something in the order of $29 billion -- and given the fact that we have oil depletion allowances, et cetera, how will those cuts affect production? Why do you suggest that we ought to differentiate between things that we produce for ourselves and things that we export?
Mr. Beatty: Senator, you will not be surprised that our function here is not to argue for cuts.
Senator Spivak: I understand that. How will the cuts affect productive capacity? Do you see that as an independent function, or is it something within the CBC?
Mr. Beatty: There is an extent to which we have been able to respond to the budgetary reductions through making efficiencies. However, I do not want to kid anyone. As you take massive amounts of money out of the corporation, it means that we cannot do the job as effectively as we would like to be able to. It means there are services we cannot provide but which we would like to be able to provide.
Having said that, this is still a $1 billion corporation. It is one that will remain at the centre of Canadian cultural life. We see our mandate as focusing much more on the issue of speaking to Canadians about who they are.
Picking up on your second point, senator, let me give you an example of the difference between cultural product and culture.
Rumble in the Bronx was shot in Vancouver, but portrays Vancouver as the Bronx. It speaks nothing to Canadian cultural values. It creates jobs on the street for people involved in production, and it injects money into Canada, but it does nothing to give Canadians a sense of who they are.
The Chair: We must leave to attend a vote in the Senate.
We appreciate your formal statement. You can be sure that it will be integrated into our interim report which will be released in a few days. We will identify questions for further research; and we would appreciate your reappearing before us in the next few months.
Thank you.
The committed adjourned at 5:25 p.m.
Upon resuming at 5:40 p.m.
The Chair: Mr. Silcox, thank you so much for coming forward to speak to us on Canadian culture. We are extremely grateful because your reputation precedes you regarding your hands-on experience in the senior management of cultural industries and your caring for our history and our stories.
When the Senate decided that it wanted to take a step back and look at the international competitiveness of Canada in communications, it asked the Subcommittee on Transport and Communications to set up a special study. We felt that our plates were quite full. We decided to take four bites at it, namely, technology, human resources, culture and commercial aspects.
We are quite aware that such an evolving area is not only complex but also rapidly changing. We also feel that there is un fil conducteur that has been there for many generations and that will continue for many generations. We should like to know what you think our country must do to ensure that it is growing and yet maintaining.
Mr. David Silcox: Thank you for letting me address you on this subject. I have provided a short paper which contains some of my ideas about culture and its place on the national agenda and in relation to Canada's international position as a nation. I thought I would leave the paper with you to go through -- that is, unless you have any questions about it.I know that you did not get it until today, but there may be something for you to consider later.
The Chair: We have received it.
Senator Spivak: Yes, and we have read it.
Mr. Silcox: I am sure it was edifying and satisfying and will provide a great deal of grist for your final report.
I wish to make a few points based on my experience and knowledge as an assistant deputy minister here in Ottawa and as a deputy in Ontario. However, you probably do not want to hear about my views concerning whether or not Northern Telecom will actually survive global consolidation, which an interesting subject.
First, I need not belabour the point that communications is Canada's history, starting with exploration and fur trading, canals, railroads, telephones, airlines, pipelines, and broadcasting. From Alexander Graham Bell and Harold Innis to Marshall McLuhan, it has been a national preoccupation -- probably more preoccupation with communications per capita because of the size of our country than most other countries.
Second, while we have found it expedient to separate the carrier and the content when we deal with communications issues, they are not separable. They are two sides of the same coin. I wish to stress as emphatically as I can that software is the most important part of the hardware-software package that makes up the communications system.
Technology changes and will continue to change. The changes will come from different parts of the world and from different sources, but human needs, the content needs, are ones which relate to a specific place, namely, our country. The software side of communications is what is really important.
I can give you an example of how they interpenetrate each other and cause difficulties. All of the IBM computers coming into Canada now are loaded with Microsoft. American encyclopedias are part of the Microsoft package. The Canadian encyclopedia cannot get on the pre-packaged piece of the computer industry in a way which would suit Canadian parents and students who want to learn something about their own country.
Culture is a critical part of a much larger part of the communications industry than most people imagine it is. I have given you some statistics in the paper.
The cultural sector is the fourth largest sector in Canada in terms of its dollar impact and the ninth largest in terms of its national payroll. It is huge. Culture is the largest part of the content in any communications system. You must pay particular attention to what is actually put into any kind of communication system that we have or that we try to develop.
You are concerned to a significant degree with export potential in communications. When I look at the cultural dimension of the communications business in the light of the possibility of doing things with markets outside of Canada, I wish to stress, as hard and as emphatically as I can, that an export business flourishes as the result of a flourishing domestic market. It is not the other way around. We must have things happening in Canada -- that is, a vigorous, healthy, lively, productive sector -- before you can actually get things that are exportable to other countries.
Some things will be exportable because they are good and because their quality and universality make them welcome elsewhere. Many of the things we make in Canada will be exportable because they are clever or have good marketing expertise behind them. However, much of it will not be exportable because we make it for ourselves and only we, as Canadians, are interested in consuming it. We are our own primary market. Perhaps if we had a less distorted market in the cultural sphere, we would be exporting even more. I am referring to the fact that our magazine stands, cinemas, and television channels are actually dominated by foreign content.
It is strange -- and you have heard this before -- but we always refer to "Canadian content" where all other countries refer to "foreign content". We have it the other way around because we have become accustomed to being such an open country and having such open markets that we do not even think of foreign material as being foreign. We accept it as being partly ours and refer to what is really ours as Canadian.
Other people are attuned to this idea of having a vigorous domestic market. Edgar Bronfman, head of MCA and Seagrams in the states, was addressing a group of distributors in Los Angeles. He made the point that, except where governments limit or forbid their distribution, U.S. movies dominate the world. He was talking about the move to globalize television programming and said that much of what was to be used in television stations around the world would be from the U.S. He also said that that is not only because they have so much talent but also because, for years, U.S. producers had a vast domestic market to support the creation of television programming. As a result, they have the infrastructure, experience, and skills to produce even more of it. The same thing could be true for us. If we actually invest in our own domestic activities, we will have more to export.
I make the point in the paper as well that cultural policy is something which is somewhat nebulous and sometimes difficult to get hold of. I believe it is something that evolves, changes, and adapts to changing circumstances. I do not support the occasional suggestions made that we need a great umbrella cultural policy for the country before we can do anything. I think we should proceed on a piecemeal basis and develop a sense of direction about what we want to do.
When I compare what Canada does in the cultural sector with what other countries do, I get quite discouraged because we do much less. You may think we do a great deal, but in terms of both the direct and the indirect form of support that is given by the federal and provincial governments, we are well behind France, which is at 80 per cent; U.K., which is at 75 per cent; and the U.S., which is at 58 per cent, largely because they have huge indirect support through taxes. Canada is at 47 per cent support for the performing arts.
Finally, as a country, we must make a major international initiative in culture. Approximately 10 years ago, a study was done on what we should be doing as a country in representing ourselves culturally abroad. It was pointed out then that we were spending $4 million a year on the whole world, and Australia was spending $8 million in the same year with one of its favourite trading partners, Japan. The current budget at Foreign Affairs is approximately $4 million and it is simply inadequate. I cannot believe that we have a multi-billion dollar trading relationship with the United States and are not doing anything in the way of cultural and educational exchanges to support a major trading partnership like that. It is no wonder that Americans do not know very much about Canadians; we do not do anything to try to let them know who we are, why we are different, and what we represent.
The first thing Canada must do to be more competitive in the communications world is to be visible. We are the smallest of the G-7, so we must try harder. We are not unarmed Americans with a health plan; we are Canadians. We are quite distinct. We are quite different.
Noam Chomsky was once asked if he could tell the difference between Canadians and Americans. He said that Americans have very high and noble ideals and that they go to hell imposing them on every one else. Canadians also have high and noble ideals, but they get to heaven by finding ways around them. I think we are practical enough to find ways around some of the high ideals we have and actually get down to some practical business. If you want to be competitive, you must get out and be visible internationally. We are not doing enough in that area.
I was talking to someone at Foreign Affairs recently who referred to the policy called "getting hold of the levers of policy change at Foreign Affairs". He said that there were these large levers up at the highest offices and they were connected down in the bowels of the bureaucracy to large elastic bands. You pulled the levers and, the moment you let go, the bands went back again.
That is the way policy evolved at Foreign Affairs. I am now open to questions.
The Chair: Thank you for your paper. It is extremely interesting and valuable to us. The presentation is easy to read, and you give a lot of input. Your comments are simply the icing on the cake.
Senator Spivak: Mr. Silcox, I also found your paper extraordinary, mostly because it so clearly exploded so many myths -- for example, that we do not spend too much money on our culture. Everyone forgets this is a huge part of our economy.
There is another myth about content. Everyone is concentrating on the technology, but it is content that counts. As I said earlier, apparently, in the United States, they know that the demand for content or product is infinite.
You have a few specific suggestions in your paper, and the first one is the film distribution aspect. You say that film distribution is important enough that the federal government should simply move ahead unilaterally. I do not know what you mean by that. Would you elaborate?
You mention two other specific things. One is a hole in the infrastructure which is the publishing development corporation. That is new to me. This is an area which everyone says is a problem.
I heard a woman named Sullivan speak about Canadian literature. Apparently Canadian literature is in its very flower because of all of these small publishing companies that gave a chance to brilliant minds and let them develop. Now they can go all over the world.
I see, too, the idea of moving export away from Foreign Affairs and attaching it to the Canadian Council. Why do you think that is such a good idea? We heard from the third pillar people, the ones who move the levers. We heard an interesting presentation on literacy but also about the export of knowledge. Apart from switches and technology, we have this amazing resource of knowledge. This is happening all over. Mining companies and engineers are going all over the world.
Those are the things I found interesting, but I did not quite understand what you meant by the film distribution.
Mr. Silcox: Distribution, and film distribution in particular, is one of those grey areas where it is not clear whether the federal or the provincial level of jurisdiction applies. You could say that, because it is imported, it is federal and could be controlled under Customs and Excise. That is partly true. It is also true that the provinces control distribution within the province, as they do in the case of bookstores and anything that deals with property. This grey area has never been tested in the courts to determine whether one level of the government or the other has a clear responsibility in this area.
Senator Spivak: Communications is in the federal domain.
Mr. Silcox: Communications is, but only electronic communication. Broadcasting is, but film distribution is not. Film distribution is a different matter; that is a physical thing which moves around and plays in Cineplex or Famous Players.
Senator Spivak: You are talking about foreign film distribution. Are you saying that Canada should take over completely?
Mr. Silcox: Approximately 97 per cent of the films we get in Canada are foreign. What I meant was that I believe the federal government should take some steps to put some kind of restrictions or conditions on those who distribute films in Canada. They could do so without the provinces getting overly exercised about an intrusion into what they might see as their responsibility.
For example, the federal government could put an import tax on films. They could set conditions under which film distributors operate in Canada. Certainly, Quebec has set conditions -- and they probably would object -- on film distributors in terms of providing French language first-run films within a specified period of time. That is what I was referencing there.
Senator Spivak: The last person who tried to do something about the film distribution, as I remember, was Flora MacDonald. She was shot down. How do you think the Americans would react if things like this happened?
Mr. Silcox: It would be tough. There is no question that the American film business believes that Canada is the first domino in what will be a domino process around the world. If they give anything to Canada, they will have to give it to France and Germany, et cetera, so they must be tough with us. I do not think it is fair or right, and we ought to take them on. However, the consequences could be bloody.
Senator Spivak: Perhaps we could trade for water.
Mr. Silcox: It is possible. Film distribution it is one of the things we should consider when we deal with softwood lumber or wheat or other issues. It is one of those things which the Americans do not take off their agenda. Cross-border television, film distribution, and maintaining their priority in our market are all big priorities for them, and they will keep it that way.
Senator Spivak: What impact would this have? Is this a major impact on either competitiveness or the boosting of our own creative capability?
Mr. Silcox: It would make a big difference if 5 per cent of the gross generated by primarily American films in the Canadian market went back into Canadian-made productions. That is what happens in other industries. The profits generated are used for further development in that country.
In the case of film, it all goes back to Hollywood. There is no questions that they spend some of it here. They buy advertising and prints. In fact, they come and make film, but they actually do not put much back into the Canadian film business. I find that regrettable, and I think something should be done about it. We have been saying that for a long time. C.D. Howe, bless him, sort of gave it all away in 1947, and we have never got it back.
There was a historical time when the Allan brothers of Brantford, Ontario, where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, owned the largest film distribution business in the world. That was 1922, but they were done in after about a year and a half by Adolph Zukor and the integrated American studio system. For a short time, we actually were a player.
Your other question was about the publication development corporation. The book publishing business in Canada is a large and complicated one. It is partly cultural and partly commercial, and it serves two purposes. It is one of the areas of the arts. The film business has Telefilm, but the publishing industry does not have the equivalent of Telefilm. That would be useful.
At the moment, the publishing industry is split between the Canada Council giving some block grants for some purposes, largely culturally, and the Department of Canadian Heritage, which gives a number of grants as systems of support for the industrial side of things.
It would make more sense to have something focused which responds more quickly, more readily, and more appropriately to the publishing sector. I am talking about an organization that would not be huge by any means -- something in the order of $25 million or $30 million. That is not big, but it would make a huge difference to the industry. They are generating a good deal of export activity now, which I think would be encouraged by the creation of such an organization. Governments do not like to create more agencies, boards, or commissions, but I think this would be a useful one.
Senator Spivak: Why has that not happened? Why have we not done all of this? It sounds so logical.
Mr. Silcox: Sometimes those things just never seem to coalesce. It is a question of timing, responsibilities in one sector versus another, and turf in the bureaucracy. It needs someone to drive it forward to make it happen. The Canada Council happened only because someone wanted it to happen and the money fell in over the transom. We are just waiting for someone to come along and do that.
Senator Johnson: Are you satisfied with the framework of institutions as they now exist in Canada? You mentioned that the publishing one is missing. Do you see them growing, staying as they are, or being downsized? It is happening in certain areas.
Your paper is fantastic. I have given several speeches on culture, trying to point out how good it is as an economic factor in our society. It is not something which the majority of people have picked up. In fostering them as we have through our various institutions in Canada, I think we have made people more aware, and I am a big supporter of that.
However, in the new era that we are studying now, how far do you think we can go with these, and how long will they stay?
Mr. Silcox: I think the framework is right. I think we have the right kinds of institutions for the things that we do and to produce the things that we want. I know what this sounds like, but I think they are underfunded for the mandate they have been given. I do not mean by that that they should not be efficient and accountable. The Canada Council is a good example of an organization which has had to go through a process of downsizing. Frankly, they were spending too much on administration. I think it was the right thing to do. It was too bad that it took that kind of financial reduction to make them do that, but they should never have arrived at that position in the first place.
When I was the Chair of Telefilm Canada, it had a total budget of $8 million. You could not do much with that. One film cost $8 million. Canada should be making 30 to 40 feature films a year; and we are not. We are quite good on the television side, but the feature film side is still quite weak.
Senator Johnson: Are you speaking of government-funded films or more assistance to film-makers?
Mr. Silcox: It depends how you do it. The United States provides money through tax provisions which make the production of feature films possible.
Senator Johnson: Have we not tried to do that with Telefilm?
Mr. Silcox: We have, with a certain amount of write-offs. It started and then they clamped down on it again because it got out of control. Terrible films were coming out of it. It was used the wrong way by some of the wrong people.
The cure was worse than the disease, in my view. The level at which Telefilm operates ought to be related to what is available through tax concessions so that you get the right amount of capital into the industry.
Whether to do it through an enhanced write-off or to give the money directly to Telefilm is a choice the government would have to make. I would prefer to see Telefilm operating at $225 million to $250 million a year rather than the $150 million it is at now.
Senator Johnson: Film makers in Manitoba are telling me that Telefilm is no longer relevant to them in the context of financing their films. They can go to the United States to get money. They may not be making Canadian films all the time, but many of them are Canadian, and they are doing some good ones. They are discouraged with Telefilm. I do not know what to say to them. I know what Telefilm does and what it is trying to do, but they say that if you are good enough and you have a crew, you can get money now.
Senator Spivak: They are getting provincial money.
Senator Johnson: They are getting American money too.
Mr. Silcox: I think there is a lack of capacity at Telefilm to respond to that. While I welcome provincial involvement, it is important for the federal government to be the leader in this.
Senator Johnson: I agree.
The Chair: Mr. Silcox, you were talking earlier about the importance of the quality of the domestic growth in terms of cultural products in order for the country to be competitive internationally. In the investments that governments make, what should be privileged? Would it be cultural infrastructures to which artists can be integrated and grow and so on, or services that can be offered, or is it direct moneys to the artists?
Mr. Silcox: I think it is a combination of both. I believe that if you put your money on talented and creative individuals, it will eventually come back. The success of the Canada Council is some evidence of that. We now feel as a country that we have good writers, composers, dancers, dramatists, and so on. It is important to always have that there.
On the other hand, artists cannot work without some kind of an infrastructure. That infrastructure must be lively and healthy, and it must feel confident. The difference between us and many of our European friends and neighbours is that they feel confident about their own cultures. It is not that they are more cultured than we, or that more people go to the opera there than go here, but they simply embrace that as part of their life while we tend to be a little skeptical about it. The cultural sector is still an area where you can take cheap shots. I do not think you find that to the same degree in Europe as you do here.
It is about confidence. It is up to government leaders -- federal, provincial, and municipal -- to say, "We believe in the talented people in our society. We support them, and we want them to be successful." I have not heard the Prime Minister making too many speeches on cultural issues. He did refer to it a few years ago in the context of a tourism speech, but I should like to see hear more from those who are leading the government and those who are in opposition.
The Chair: Mr. Silcox, thank you so much. We appreciate the time you have taken to prepare the notes you have provided and to appear here this evening.
Our next witnesses are representatives from IBM, Ms Shahla Aly and Mr. John Warner. Thank you for coming here this afternoon to discuss Canada's competitiveness in communications and what Canada must do to remain at the leading edge in the year 2000.
We truly appreciate your discussion paper entitled "Multimedia Content & Services in a New World: A Rationalized Convergence Policy Framework for Canada". You have flagged important issues in this new world of telecommunications, and the members of the committee are grateful.
Please proceed with your opening statement.
Ms Shahla Aly, Vice-President, Commerce Services, IBM Canada Inc.: Thank you, Madam Chair. I am the Vice-President and General Manager for E-Business Services at IBM Canada, with a very major focus on deploying the Internet within Canada for competitive advantages for Canadian businesses.
Before I introduce my colleague, let me say how pleased we are to be invited to speak before the Senate committee and to present our views on a rationalized convergence policy framework for Canada.
We will take you through the IBM discussion paper. I think you received a copy of it in advance. Hopefully you have also received the three-page summary on our recommendations.
I will first give you some background on IBM Canada so that you can understand why we see ourselves as a major stakeholder in the deliberations of your committee.
IBM has Canadian roots. We go back into the late 1800s. By 1917, our operations had grown significantly. We were the first foreign subsidiary actually to use the words "International Business Systems" or "IBM" as our logo.
It is 80 years later, and IBM Canada employs over 13,000 people across the nation. Last year alone, we added 2,800 Canadian employees to our payroll. We also employed 1,500 Canadians in temporary positions. We gave work to 400 students in different work terms and spent over $44 million in educating and training employees in Canada.
The majority of our employment growth has been in the services business, which is a business delivered by people for the Canadian business community. In 1996, services was our major source of revenue. Domestic revenue was $3.9 billion, and almost half of that was Canadian professional services. We had exports of $5.6 billion, which indicates that we are Canada's largest high-tech exporter.
In reviewing the testimony from earlier hearings, some alluded to the fact that the Internet is very much in an R&D phase. Right now, we see that the Internet is way beyond the R&D phase. It is into the commercial phase and the electronic commerce phase, and it is humming.
That does not mean that I will sit here and deny that there are problems with the Internet. There are problems with the Internet, some of which are real and some of which are perceived, but that is all right because Internet technologies are emerging technologies. They are not yet established. The problems we are seeing are traits of any emerging technology.
However, it is critical for any nation or business community to recognize that they must embrace these emerging technologies when they are still in the emerging phase in order to either achieve a competitive advantage or maintain a competitive advantage. History is replete with examples of organizations that did not recognize the technology when it was coming up and, therefore, lost their positions in the marketplace.
We are enabling our customers to transact electronic commerce on the Internet. The Bank of Nova Scotia is now enabled with respect to Internet banking. Canada Life allows its users to go and look at policies on line. We have done work for Desjardins, which is a very delighted customer of IBM, again allowing a full range of banking services on the Internet.
When you look at these technologies, you need strong, technical organizations like IBM and others to steer the rest of the business community in this maze of confusion. Not not only are there many technologies, but they constantly change. We bring to the table the "enablement" of these Canadian businesses with the collateral, by the way, that we gather from IBM globally. From IBM globally, we have all kinds of intellectual capital being brought to the table for software and hardware, and Canada benefits.
IBM is both a content creator and the operator of the largest, global, advanced telecommunications network, the IBM global network. It has more than 30,000 business customers and is present in 850 cities.
With me today is my colleague, John Warner, who co-authored the IBM discussion paper you have all received. He was the official shadow for our former CEO on the Information Highway Advisory Council. At this point, I will turn things over to Mr. Warner.
Mr. John Warner, Government Programs, IBM Canada Inc.: The title of our paper is somewhat cumbersome, as I am sure you have gleaned, so I have retitled the presentation more succinctly. It is "Canadian Content and the Internet", which is the essence of what we are discussing.
I spend every day, all day, on the Internet, so I understand what is out there. The Internet, quite frankly, is a tremendous Canadian content success story. We think that is because of the characteristics of unlimited capacity and low entry costs to promote creation. We now have world-wide web pages from every corner of Canada, representing primarily commercial but some social and cultural material as well. The unregulated environment of the Internet -- it is treated as a telecommunications-enhanced service network -- has been key to that success.
I have some examples of web pages which I will not put up in the interests of time, but suffice it to say that there is everything out there from commercial content to the Inuvik home page and the Nunavut home page. A 13-year old girl in Brossard, Quebec, has her own home page. These are examples of the things you can find on the Internet.
The first question most people ask is, "If the Internet is so successful, why did IBM put together this discussion paper?" We hear many things that make us question what the policy framework for the Internet is or should be.
The government response to the IHAC report said something to the effect that the Broadcasting Act, the central pillar of cultural policy, must continue to meet the challenges of the new environment. In the government's convergence policy statement from last August, the government said, in effect, that this issue of Canadian content on the Internet is quite complicated, and they will continue to study it and get back to us.
Most recently, the CRTC Chair, Françoise Bertrand, in a CBC interview, was musing and in essence said that the CRTC does have a role in bringing Canadian content to computer networks like the Internet. There was some implication that there was a role for regulation.
That is what led us to commission the discussion paper. Quite frankly, we were confused. As Ms Aly pointed out, we are dependent on the Internet. We think that is the core of our business. Quite frankly, we also think it is the core of Canada's knowledge-based society as we go forward. We are interested in ensuring that it continues to be a success assess.
The discussion paper is based on five fundamental assertions:
It is essential to link industrial and cultural policy objectives. Neither can be looked at in isolation.
Both are best met through an increased reliance on market forces. We think the Internet is a perfect example of how effective that has been.
Policy to the extent that it is needed should focus more on promotion than protection. I have been involved on the Information Highway Advisory Council and was on two of its steering committees, the Internet steering committee and the content and culture steering committee, and both have concluded that same point -- that we must focus on promotion rather than protection.
The policy must reflect the new characteristics of the new media, and that is where I will focus in the balance of the presentation, as it is a key conclusion.
Finally, marketplace certainty is a critical success factor. We do not think we can continue on with an uncertain environment and expect Canada to flourish in the information society.
The last half of the paper deals with where we should be going. I have skipped the initial chapters.
In essence, we make the case that traditional broadcasting services are different from what we call new media services in the sense that they are mass-appeal, mass-influence, one-way, scheduled services. It is a push type of technology. They have the problem of having limited channel capacity -- cable television or airwaves -- and a limited customer base -- Canada -- which results in high-cost productions being necessary to attract this limited customer set.
Conversely, new media services or the Internet type services are on-demand, transactional, two-way, and non-scheduled. It is a pull technology versus a push technology. They have an unlimited channel capacity. There is a channel for every Internet user, unlike television. They have the same global customer base for all, which promotes a broad range of affordable content and services.
Jerry Miller, who chaired the Internet steering committee, said in the IHAC meeting last Thursday and Friday that he did a search on Canada just to see what would happen, and he got 10 million hits. There is a great deal of Canadian presence on the Internet, and we think it is because of these differences in characteristics.
This brings me to the model which we concluded was probably a viable approach.I will not deal with the traditional broadcasting because I am sure you are as familiar as I or perhaps more familiar with what the traditional broadcasting model looks like. The particular aspects of it that are of interest to our study were the licensing, foreign ownership, Canadian content, and expenditures on Canadian content.
We concluded in our study that the two-way, interactive, new-media services, because of their different characteristics, should be treated differently in a policy framework. We also concluded that there are two types of new media services: the ones we call transitional and the ones which are ultimately new-media services. The transitional ones are still two-way and interactive, but they are delivered over tradition distribution mechanisms like cable television.
For example, a movie-on-demand service over cable TV would fall in that category. We suggest that because it has a little of the characteristics of the old world and the new world, that is, a limited channel capacity on cable or the airwaves and has a limited audience reach, that perhaps some of the characteristics that apply to the traditional broadcasting could be applied. We are suggesting they could be either licensed or exempted, depending on the service. Perhaps foreign ownership limits could make sense in that case. A prominence of shelf space requirement could be placed on those kind of services, and they could be asked to make contributions to a new-media production fund.
Once a service is available on a global network like the Internet, however, our conclusion was that if you put requirements on Canadian service providers in that environment, you disadvantage them on a service that is, in essence, global in nature. If Canadian service providers were asked to be licensed or had content regulations, they would not be as effectively able to compete with their counterparts in other countries because, quite frankly, from an Internet user's perspective, they do not know or care necessarily where the information is.
The other concern we had was that if there are many obligations put on Canadian providers, those providers would either go out of business because they were not competitive or they might be compelled to move their business to countries where they did not have the same restrictions.
Our conclusion was that, for a number of reasons, and you can read them in more detail in the paper, completely interactive, two-way, transactional services offered on on-line networks did not and perhaps could not be effectively regulated under the broadcasting policy framework. The Information Highway Advisory Council, in one of its recommendations, came to that same conclusion and in essence questioned the effectiveness of applying broadcast regulation to the Internet for Canadian content.
We would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
The Chair: What is your time line for moving from the transitional to the new media, based on your experience with the company and your analyses?
Mr. Warner: The kinds of services that are in the transitional category are there for the most part because they have high band-width demands. They need capabilities that currently are not available on services like the Internet. Movies-on-demand is an example. I do not have a crystal ball, but perhaps ten years down the road the Internet would have the capability of allowing someone to download a movie.
In my view, downloading a movie on the Internet is much more akin to renting it from a video store than it is to watching it on television. It is something that you as the end user must initiate. You would be required to pay. No one will give anything that has commercial value away on the Internet.
Senator Spivak: They are now. Things are for free on the Internet, by and large. When people are asked to pay for something, they are not buying it.
I do not know why you think the Internet is a strictly market thing when it did not start as a market thing and the market has had to adjust to the Internet rather than the Internet adjusting to the market. It is certainly a viable commercial thing, but many of the things that happen on the Internet happen for free. That is how it developed. It developed as a series of computers. We do not yet know if the idea of attempting to put movies on the Internet will work.
Why do you think people would rather use the Internet than, say, pay-per-view or whatever, if they have to pay for it? What is the advantage?
Mr. Warner: I do not think that at all. I do not see the Internet as replacing anything; it is just another vehicle. I think back to the movie industry when VCRs were first brought out, and I recall them being very concerned about videotapes replacing the motion picture industry.
Senator Spivak: That is right.
Mr. Warner: What resulted instead was a brand new industry. The bulk of the revenue for the movie industry is from videotape sales or rentals. I see the Internet as being very much like that. It is another vehicle that will be available to people who have something that they want to sell, lease, or give away to people. There are many things being given away right now on the Internet, but they are, for the most part, not things that have a high value. Things that are being sold somewhere are not being given away on the Internet, for the most part.
Ms Aly is our electronic commerce expert.
Senator Spivak: You read all kinds of things, and it seems that industry is still sceptical about the kinds of returns that are possible on the Internet. I am not sure why that is. I am sure anything can be exploited, but I imagine it must be because of the way the Internet developed.
Ms Aly: Certainly that is a factor, and you rightly point out that when the Internet first started as Arpnet, it was mostly for academics, and there is this sort of rule in the academic world that things are given away for free and freely shared. Part of it also is that, from an on-line perspective, as things were put up on the Internet, the technology at that point in time did not cater to the ability to sell content. The technology is rapidly evolving to the point that people who own content, such as a small article, or Statistics Canada which has all kinds of reports to sell, have the ability to sell it. Right now the only thing they can do is almost give it away for free.
The pervasive business model for textual content of is of two kinds. You either subscribe to a web site on a yearly basis, or, if you are connected to on-line information like Infoglobe Services or Lexus Nexus, you pay by connect time. The technology that is coming down -- IBM is putting it forward, and I am sure a number of other organizations are evolving to as well -- is the ability to wrap your digital content that you personally have come up with in an envelope and sell it.
The Chair: Could you explain exactly what that means?
Ms Aly: Right now, if a newspaper were to go up on the Internet, it would be difficult for them to sell it on the Internet in a way in which they could make money. They tend to say that, in order to subscribe to their website, in order to get beyond the first page, you must pay a subscription fee. A subscription fee normally reflects the entire content of the web site. Just as when you and I buy a newspaper and we only want the business page, we must buy the whole thing. Technology will improve and allow you to buy per article, using technology like cryptolopes, something developed by IBM.
To address your question of where it is going and why it is not more pervasive, we are seeing it as an alternate channel. It used to be that the only way you could do banking was to go to the bank. Now you expect the bank to provide ABM services. Would you do banking with a bank that did not have a banking machine? Would you subscribe to a bank which did not give you the card to withdraw money? It is just another channel.
Senator Spivak: That is perfectly evident. I understand the commercial uses of the Internet for people doing business.
Ms Aly: Yes.
Senator Spivak: I am not sure that they know exactly how to get around the fact that people can travel through the Internet and whether the technology will advance to the point where you will not be able to go further unless you pay.
Ms Aly: That is right.
Senator Spivak: I want to get to the linking of the commercial and the cultural and having them all handled by market forces. In my view, there ought to be a public library, no matter how you get to it, through the Internet. You should not have to pay for it. That is something a collective society needs to do.
It is the same thing with the bulk of culture. It seems to me that we still have an interest, no matter what the technology, in ensuring that we survive as a country, and we will only survive as a country if we have a collective culture that everyone sees. If we make it all homogenized and confused -- that is what is happening anyway; there are many centrifugal forces -- we will disappear as a country.
I am not, I must say quite plainly, in favour of linking commercial and cultural forces to the market and saying this is the way we should go in the future because the technology will make it impossible for us to do otherwise. I do not believe that. Look at all the technology that has come along, and so far Canadians have managed to eke out a small portion. They have not done well enough; they could have done much better. However, where they put their mind to it and put some money behind it, they are away to the races, and they are particularly away to the races because there has been public funding, not because the market has supported it. I disagree with your fundamental conclusions. Unfortunately, I must leave.
The Chair: We had a vote today in the Senate, and I must say it really mixed up our day.
Senator Spivak: I enjoyed your presentation, and I would appreciate a chance to discuss this further because this is part of the essence with which we are struggling.
Again, I see it quite clearly from a business point of view. Most businesses could not exist and will not be able to exist unless they go on-line, but culture is something quite different. Please forgive me; I do have to leave.
Ms Aly: Senator Spivak made an excellent point. The fact is that you can still choose to put things up on the Internet and not expect to get revenue for it. In fact, putting things on the Internet makes it so much easier for Canadians in general.
I speak from personal experience. My daughter recently had to do a report, a project, on Canadian artists. We went the usual route. We went to the public library, one of the largest libraries in Toronto, and we were only able to find two books pertaining to Canadian artists. We either were not able to get them or they were out. We went on the Internet, and in 30 minutes we found all the artists we were looking for -- the web sites and the information for her to have her project ready.
Simply because there will be this large commercial slant on the Internet does not mean that there is no room for a public offering as well.
Mr. Warner: I echo that. There will be many different types of content on the Internet. There already are. Because of its characteristics, it is so affordable that anyone can put content there.
There is a wealth of culturally significant information there. The government has many programs. The SchoolNet program, as you know, will have every school and library in the country on-line by the end of this year. There is an enormous wealth of content out there. There will be much commercial content, but there will also be free content. The government, like everyone else, has figured out that they can actually save money by putting content up on the Internet, content that used to be supplied by people at the end of phones or in offices.
The same is true with commercial content. We used to have an awful lot of people answering phone calls from people who said, "My computer is doing this," or, "How do I get this fixed?" That information is all up on the Internet and made available free because it saves the companies that put it there money by providing it via alternate means.
There are many different flavours of content. The conclusion we reached -- and as I said, my experience in IHAC brought me to the same conclusion -- is that because of its different characteristics, the best way to ensure Canadian content is through promotion mechanisms. We are not for a minute suggesting that we should not have mechanisms to promote Canadian content. Federal cultural institutions should be given the means by which to get their works up on the Internet. A absolutely smashing program done by Industry Canada allows students to put in summer job bids to create web pages of culturally significant materials. They have a summer job, they are provided with the equipment they need, and they actually create web pages of culturally significant materials.
Those kinds of things are absolutely wonderful for creating cultural content on the Internet, but they are promotion mechanisms, not protection mechanisms.
Ms Aly: It is also wonderful to look at the extended reach of the Internet. Children living in remote parts of Canada have access to the same sort of information that would normally be reserved for a child who has access to a large library in a city. More and more, people are recognizing this. One need only consider what was done for the Vatican library. Sitting in this very precious library were scripts and history that only a few could see because you simply could not afford to allow people to go through those historical documents. The same thing is being recognized by libraries across Canada. They, too, will be putting up their content on the Internet and it will be available to everyone. I do not think there will ever come a time when that book is out. It will be available to all children and all citizens of Canada.
From a government perspective, to add to what Mr. Warner said, Revenue Canada's site is one of the most complimented. Citizens of Canada are appreciative of what Revenue Canada has done, which is as simple as putting its forms up on the Internet. In the private sector, you often hear reference to that site.
Mr. Warner: How more culturally significant can you get than that?
The Chair: Mr. Warner, you mentioned that, in approximately 10 years, people would be able to download a movie from the Internet at a cost. You referred to a system IBM has developed with regard to charging for the movie. I did not quite understand. Could you be more specific, please?
Mr. Warner: The 10 years is my personal crystal ball. Your guess is as good as anyone's. That timeline has to do with the limitations of the network design itself -- that is, how big it is, how fast the local access lines are, how much network capacity there is in the network, and that sort of thing. I am not sure whether it will be exactly 10 years.
The charging mechanism is another aspect. In other words, once you have the technological capability for doing it, you must somehow have a mechanism which ensures that the people who own the property can be properly compensated for what is being downloaded. We call that cryptolope technology. "Cryptography" and "envelope" together create "cryptolope". It allows you to take your digital material, whether it is a movie or a recipe for your mother's plum pudding, and put it in this encrypted envelope. Anyone can download the envelope, but you must pay to open it. You can also forward it on to anyone else, but they must pay to open it.
Anyone with intellectual property for which they want to be compensated can carve it up into as many pieces as they want. They can put free ticklers out which say, "Download this, and you will find out the world's secrets". After you download the envelope, it says, "Now, for 59 cents, you can open it." You can carve your content up as finely as you want and charge for it.
The Chair: As you know, when you order a movie through your cable company, you are charged for it on the bill from your cable company. In the example you have just given, how would you bill that 59 cents?
Ms Aly: It would be added to the credit card number you submit.
The Chair: Would you be required to submit a credit card number every time you wanted to do this?
Ms Aly: It would depend upon the mechanism employed. Some sites will recognize that people want to buy on a per article basis, such as columns from newspapers. This is still an emerging technology. It will accumulate and come up as a transaction, but it will be credit-card based.
The Chair: One of the issues we have discussed, and we have only touched the surface of it, is privacy. How would we ensure that there would not be a problem in that regard?
Ms Aly: I do not think we can now say that it may not be a problem. The Internet certainly gives you the ability to collect an enormous amount of information about a consumer.
The Chair: I am referring specifically to the privacy of the credit card number.
Ms Aly: We have gone through several phases on that issue. The security technologies that are now in place -- and they are called SSL and SHTTP -- replicate the same level of security you have today with your credit card. The amount of security you expect with regard to your credit card when you go into a store today exists with the technology.
A number of organizations transacted business on the Internet last year. For example, on the Olympic site alone, a site which IBM ran for the committee, we sold over $5.5 million of Olympic tickets and peripherals. All of those transactions were done with credit cards.
However, I see reflected in your question the fact that the consumer base is still somewhat leery about submitting their credit card on the Internet. If there is a perceived problem with security, the problem exists. As a result, Microsoft, Visa, MasterCard, IBM, and others have come together to arrive at a new protocol called "secure electronic actions." It will be rolled out between mid-year and the end of the year.
I presented at a conference a week and a half ago, and the executive vice-president from Visa was on record as saying, "When SET technologies are rolled out" -- these secure electronic transactions -- "we guarantee that your credit card will be safe on the Internet." A certifying authority will give a digital certificate to a bank saying that it is an okay bank. The bank will give a digital certificate to a merchant like Eaton's and say, "You are Eaton's". They will also give a digital certificate to a consumer. When the consumer decides they want to do business with Eaton's, their computers will talk to each other and verify the certificates.
More important, something else will happen, something which does not exist in today's world. When a consumer orders five line items from Eaton's, the merchant can only look at the line items; they will never see the credit card number. The credit card number will automatically go to the bank. The bank is the only identity in this three-party transaction which ever gets to see the credit card number. That kind of security does not exist today. Three pilot projects have already taken place: one in Belgium, one in Japan, and another that is not disclosed. The first two have involved Visa and MasterCard.
When the SET technology rolls out by the end of the year, the floodgates will be unleashed. The Internet did approximately $0.5 billion in commerce last year. That is a great number because it is a small amount. We could, as Canadians, be at the leading edge of this when it becomes available.
The Chair: How could we be at the leading edge when the floodgates open?
Ms Aly: Many progressive companies are located in Canada. L.L. Bean is one of our customers. This American firm decided to put its catalogue up on the Internet last year. They received a multitude of orders. They never expected that 20 per cent of their orders would be from Japan, which is what happened.
A Canadian organization could have almost the same advertising budget as a huge American conglomerate. I saw on television something about the owners of a small lodge in Fundy Bay. They never had the ability to advertise other than in the local papers. They do not have that kind of budget. They are not the Hiltons or the Intercontinentals. They put up a web site.
The Chair: I will attempt to translate what you are saying into what I call support systems. In order for Canada to be at the leading edge commercially when the floodgates open, governments must ensure that moneys and assistance are made available to companies so they can prepare the information and have it translated into the right language and the right format so that it can be made available through the web sites. Is that what you are saying?
Ms Aly: Also, information should be available so that companies understand how to get up on the Internet. It would be great if money was available as well.
The Chair: Mr. Warner mentioned summer jobs and Industry Canada. A student can be hired to prepare culturally significant information for web sites. A student would hook up with an institution or an individual artist. I was linking that to your idea of being at the leading edge when the floodgates open.
Ms Aly: That is one aspect. We can also ensure that the world knows how to come to us.
Japan has been advertising in newspapers for quite a while. Their ads say, "If you want to do business with Japan, here are all the web sites." If someone wants to do business with Japan, you need not go to the Japanese consulate in Canada. They can tell you where to obtain manufacturing or R&D information, or whatever else you might need.
Many countries have caught on to that and are advertising in our press, for instance, and well as in other places. We need to do that sort of thing in order to get ready as a country.
The Chair: We must let other countries know how to get in touch with us.
Ms Aly: Absolutely. How does someone in a Third World country know how to go about buying something from Canada? If they had access to the Internet, they could learn how to do that, if we were there.
Mr. Warner: The essence of our conclusions in the discussion paper is that we need a clear policy framework within which to operate. We cannot have the uncertainty of not knowing what the rules are because people will not invest in an uncertain climate.
The Chair: We read that clearly in the industrial and cultural areas.
How competitive will the prices be on the Internet?
Ms Aly: If you refer to the prices for goods and services, it is an interesting debate. Now it is a global marketplace. We advise customers on this. Up until now, some global companies have had the luxury of selling for one price in Canada and for another price in the United States. We all know you can go to Buffalo and get something cheaper. They will now be required to carefully manage the prices.
This will have an effect on prices because it will be easier for people to determine that things are available at a certain price in a certain country. There will be an effect, but we have not seen anything tangible so far.
Mr. Warner: Say, for example, that you rented a movie in ten years by downloading it from the Internet. If it costs you $2.99 to rent it in your local video store, what would you pay for downloading it from the Internet? It could be $1.99 because it is cheaper for them to do, or it could be $3.99 because it is more convenient for you.
Ms Aly: I have been in discussions where banks have had that question posed to them. "If you are up on the Internet and we are banking with you on the Internet, obviously there will be a reduction in your costs. Will that be passed on to the consumer?" Some banks have acknowledged, "Yes, it costs us less to work on the Internet, but we are not closing branches yet, so the main structure still stays." However, I can see some institutions giving a break to those customers banking on the Internet.
The Chair: My next question concerns buying habits. Last night, we sat as the full Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. One of the witnesses said something extremely interesting. As we move on to the digital world and permit the customer to choose their services through the individual menu, it would seem that market research tells companies that Canadians and Americans would still want to buy packages. In other words, instead of buying one huge box of cereal, they will still want to buy 12 packages. This gives them more choices, and it is easier and faster. What does your market research tell you in this regard?
Ms Aly: Perhaps I do not understand the question correctly. If they wanted to buy packages, that ability would still exist on the Internet. If they wanted to buy 12 mini-cereals instead of one large ones, they would go to the appropriate grocery store's web site and be able to buy that.
Mr. Warner: I am thinking of buying a book on home health care which is six inches thick versus buying just the remedy for whatever ailment you have. We spoke recently with a Canadian book publishing company which has such a book, and that kind of application is well-suited for an online network like the Internet because that is exactly what you could do. Instead of buying the whole book and having to plough through it when you get a particular malady, you could go onto the Internet and look up exactly what you wanted and only pay for the solution to your problem instead of $39.95 for the whole book.
The Chair: My question is more general than just the Internet. I know that IBM invests quite a bit of money in market research, and I was looking forward to meeting with you to learn what your research tells you in terms of the buying habits of North Americans. Buying habits probably apply to every field.
Ms Aly: Certainly people do like to buy in packages or to buy something complementary. People are catering to that on the Internet.
For example, if you were to go on the Internet and buy a dress or a suit, you could, in that same transaction, say, "Now give me the six shoes that complement the dress, the belt, the shirt, or whatever else," and you could put a whole package together.
Mr. Warner: Six shoes?
Ms Aly: You are shown six shoes, and you choose one. If it were me, I would choose all six.
I am sure research is available on that, but we do not have the exact answer to that now.
The Chair: Do you have any other comments that you feel would be useful to our committee in the preparation of our preliminary report?
Ms Aly: We talk about the commercial and cultural aspects of the Internet, but there is also a very humane aspect of the Internet as well. Everyone has access to equal information.
A friend of mine had to go through a hysterectomy at the age of 26. During that hysterectomy, something went wrong and she lost total control of her bladder. At that point, she was told that she would have to be on tubes and antibiotics for the rest of her life. She had two small children. Of course this is quite traumatic for anyone at any age, but for her it was quite a blow. She lives in Toronto. She went from doctor to doctor for three years and was told that nothing could be done.
Her husband went on the Internet last year. He went from web site to web site and found one web site which described the exact condition that she had within one hour. The web site, by the way, had been put up by a doctor who had come up with a pilot operation for this condition.
If this had been a movie, this doctor would have been in Russia or England and there would be fund-raising to send my friend over there. In this particular case, the guy lived three miles from their house.
They had never had access to information or the ability to make their own choice because the doctors they had seen did not really believe that this operation would work. She went to see that doctor and, in August, had an operation. As of September, she has been as normal as anyone else in this room.
People can put out solutions and information which levels the playing field for the average Canadian. I do not know if you saw the movie Lorenzo's Oil, but they spent six months in libraries trying to find solutions to their son's problem. Here, within an hour, they had answers by doing just a few word searches. There is a humane aspect as well.
The Chair: We might use that story in our preliminary report.
Ms Aly: I would be happy to provide you the details if you want them.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.