THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 5, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met by videoconference this day at 9:03 a.m. [ET] to study matters relating to transport and communications generally.
Senator Leo Housakos (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Good morning, honourable senators. I am Leo Housakos, senator from Quebec and chair of this committee.
[English]
I would like to invite my colleagues, starting on my left, to briefly introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Simons: Good morning. My name is Paula Simons and I am a senator from Alberta.
[English]
I come from Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Cuzner: Rodger Cuzner, senator from Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Good morning. Clément Gignac from Quebec.
Senator Quinn: Jim Quinn from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Robinson: Good morning. Mary Robinson from Prince Edward Island.
[Translation]
Senator Cardozo: Andrew Cardozo from Ontario.
Senator Youance: Suze Youance from Quebec.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Dasko: Donna Dasko, senator from Ontario.
[Translation]
The Chair: This morning, we continue our study of the local and regional services provided by CBC/Radio-Canada, focused on Atlantic Canada.
[English]
I am pleased to welcome on behalf of the committee this morning, Mr. Chris Pearson, President of the Acadia Broadcasting Corporation, and Mr. Terry Seguin, a former CBC senior broadcast journalist. Welcome to both of you and thank you for joining us this morning. You will both have five minutes for statements or introductions. After that, we will turn it over to my colleagues for questions and answers.
We’ll be starting with Mr. Chris Pearson. You have the floor, sir.
Chris Pearson, President, Acadia Broadcasting Corporation: Good morning, Mr. Chair and senators. I’m Chris Pearson, President of Acadia Broadcasting. I am also the Vice President of the Ontario Association of Broadcasters, and in that capacity working with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, and other levels of government to address some of the issues we are going to talk about today. Acadia Broadcasting is based in Saint John, New Brunswick. We currently operate 10 radio stations in Atlantic Canada, 4 in New Brunswick, 6 in Nova Scotia and we have another 6 stations in northwestern Ontario.
Acadia Broadcasting has a long history of serving communities dating back to 1928. Last year, our radio stations helped raise $1.4 million for various community and health care organizations plus donated $2.3 million in air time to charitable and non-profit organizations. We believe strongly that serving our communities includes providing local news coverage.
Several years ago, we ended our subscription to our newswire service and put more emphasis on a daily generation of stories that are not readily available through other news sources. The importance of radio and our local news team was never so evident as in 2023 in Nova Scotia. The Upper Tantallon wildfires broke out in late May and became one of the largest fires recorded in the region. It forced more than 16,000 people to evacuate the area and destroyed 151 homes. That July, devastating floods of 250 millimetres of rain that fell in a short few hours left four people dead and close to $300 million in damage. In September, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were in the path of Hurricane Lee that left hundreds of thousands without power. I experienced these events personally, as I live an hour outside of Halifax in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.
Our small-but-dedicated news team stayed on the air, providing updates throughout these events, on-air and online. Still, we wish we could have done more. With half the staff we had a few years ago, there are limits. These challenges of keeping journalists in our newsrooms comes in the context of the federal government providing other support for news media.
In 2010, the Canada Periodical Fund was established to support print magazines and to date over $75 million has gone to support that sector. Since 2019, the federal government has invested almost $129 million in the local journalism initiative. In 2019, the 25% Canadian journalism labour tax credit was introduced that explicitly excluded broadcasters from accessing it. It has since been increased to 35%, which allows those qualifying organizations to claim almost $30,000 per employee. Of course in many of our markets we compete against CBC Radio for listeners that is being funded to the tune of $1.3 billion annually.
The Government of Canada now spends more than 71% of its advertising budget on digital advertising, the vast majority of which goes to the foreign platforms like Google and Meta. When the government chose to cut back from COVID levels of advertising last year, they cut $9 million from radio, bringing it from $11.6 million down to $2.6 million. In 2020, many private broadcasters began lobbying our MPs about the increasing financial pressures on our industry and predicted if something doesn’t change, we will soon see radio stations closing; in fact, that has begun to happen.
A few years ago we had a 22-member news team at Acadia Broadcasting. Today we have an additional three stations but only 12 news staff. We had to make the difficult decision to eliminate our weekend news. Many stories we used to cover in person, to be there to ask the important questions, we now must be selective and often follow up by phone or email. Very rarely do we have the resources to follow up major crime cases through the courts. Still, this dedicated, hard-working group of journalists at Acadia delivered 660 radio newscasts per week to 16 stations, generates 150 stories for radio each week, writes another 770 digital stories per month that generates 900 page views.
My fear is there may soon come a day when many small markets served by companies like Acadia Broadcasting — there will be no one to cover those important issues of the day, to help get the news out of an impending storm, a boil-water order or missing child. Radio is a vital link between Canadians and their communities and there will be no one to answer the call. Thank you for this opportunity to share what our company has been experiencing and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Pearson.
Mr. Seguin, you have the floor, sir.
Terry Seguin, former CBC senior broadcast journalist, as an individual: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, senators. Bonjour.
My name is Terry Seguin, and I am speaking to you this morning from Fredericton. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee.
I would like to start by telling you quickly about my experience in the broadcasting industry. I began my career in 1976 at CKOT in Tillsonburg as a reporter. In 1978, I moved to Mid-Canada Communications in Sudbury doing radio and TV reporting. In 1981, I moved to Sydney, Nova Scotia, to work as a TV reporter for ATV. In 1983, I moved to Saint John to report for ATV’s newsroom in that city, and in 1985, I was offered a job at CBC Fredericton, where I hosted the supper-hour news for many years before I became host of “Information Morning,” the morning show, in Fredericton.
I retired in 2021, after 45 years in broadcasting. Over the years, I have hosted three national CBC programs on an occasional basis.
I have 11 journalism awards on my office walls, including a national RTNDA award for investigative journalism. In addition, I have a Lifetime Achievement Award from RTNDA Canada, and in 2003, I received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for my contributions to journalism in New Brunswick.
I’m not sharing this with you to publicize my resumé. I am sharing this with you to demonstrate my qualifications to speak to you this morning about the CBC’s role in the Atlantic region.
This is my third draft of these remarks. In the earlier versions, I spent time telling you how important the CBC is to Atlantic Canadians; how it lets us communicate with each other and the rest of the country; how critically important it is in moments of public crisis; how it provided important public information in the Portapique shooting spree, the wildfires in Nova Scotia, the shooting of three RCMP officers in Moncton, the shooting of four people, including two police officers, in Fredericton, and the American Iron and Metal fire in Saint John, which presented a real threat to public health; how CBC New Brunswick brought the leaders of the three parties into the legislature onto “The Morning Show” every week during the height of the COVID pandemic to explain to the province what was going on. You know, public service journalism.
But then I read the transcripts of previous committee hearings on this subject, and I realized you know all of that. You know that CBC News and current events programming have some of the highest ratings in the country in Atlantic Canada, so I thought I had better concentrate on what I know best: The news and current affairs part of what the CBC does in Atlantic Canada.
What I am about to say to you is my personal perspective: CBC employees in Atlantic Canada are stressed. They are being asked to do more and more with fewer people. There aren’t enough people to backfill when a regular employee can’t come into work because they are sick or have an important family situation to deal with.
All of the shows that I am familiar with in Atlantic Canada are bare bones. The three morning shows in New Brunswick, bare bones. The afternoon show in New Brunswick, broadcasting to the entire province, has two employees to produce two hours of programming every day, every week. You can imagine what those stress levels are like. Better yet, imagine if the CBC gave those popular shows in Atlantic Canada more funding so more people could be hired, so more community stories could be told, so new and fresh CBC journalists didn’t have to exist on short‑term contracts, not knowing how much money they can count on week to week.
No one I know at the CBC asked me to tell you this. They are too proud, and they are dedicated to the ideal of public broadcasting and the CBC. They will keep going regardless, but stress corrodes and affects the emotional temperature of the workplace, and too much stress, too much anxiety, can contribute to a toxic work environment.
I can’t think of any time during my 36-year career at the CBC in New Brunswick where we weren’t continually anxious about cuts to programming or cuts to staff, and that creates a special kind of stress. Some nights I like to fall asleep dreaming of a CBC where budgets are determined firstly on what news and current events programming in Atlantic Canada needs and then the rest of the CBC can share what remains.
How about giving CBC shows in Atlantic Canada more money so they can do more? Maybe we don’t need baking shows. Maybe we determine credible, accurate journalism is more important to the people of Atlantic Canada.
Senators, I thank you for your attention.
[Translation]
The Chair: We will now proceed to questions starting with Senator Quinn and Senator Simons.
[English]
Senator Quinn: Thank you, witnesses, for being here this morning. Being from New Brunswick, I am concerned with what I see as a degradation of local news coverage across the spectrum, whether it is TV, radio, newsprint, and I do know that you both mentioned the stressors of reductions and whatnot.
In that reality, what is the principal source of our region getting its news? Is it broadcast from outside the region? How does it work? Where do we get most of our news? I know driving back from New Brunswick to Ottawa yesterday and coming up through New Brunswick, the morning show was there, but you can tell that the quality of the morning show isn’t quite what it used to be. How do we fill all those gaps? Because I don’t see a lot of local news coverage.
We’ll start with Mr. Pearson and then Mr. Seguin.
Mr. Pearson: Thank you for the question, Senator Quinn. The fundamental problem is resources and news resources. One of the things that certainly directed our leadership within Acadia Broadcasting is that as we have cut back on news resources. To Mr. Seguin’s point, we can’t add more stress to our existing news journalists or they’ll exit, probably, the business. We’re getting more and more limited in what we can cover and how we can cover it, as I mentioned in my opening remarks.
We’re constantly looking at technology as well to help out our newsrooms, and we have been adding technology to make their jobs easier, more efficient and quicker so they can spend time reporting. At one time, all of our stations’ newspeople did their own news anchoring, and we realized that with the smaller staff, that is harder to do, so we have actually dedicated a news anchor for each region. That allows journalists to spend more time actually sourcing out news and gathering and writing news for both on-air and for our digital properties.
Really, it comes down to that. I would agree that probably what you are hearing is accurate, that the news today is not as succinct. I think the quality is still there. I would say the quantity is not. That’s a reality post-COVID.
As I stated, our newsroom has been cut in half company-wide. A lot of that was through attrition. When people would leave, we would not refill the position because the structure of the business model just didn’t work with that many people. We couldn’t stay viable.
Mr. Seguin: Thank you for the question, senator. I think the CBC chooses the stories to cover carefully that it has the resources to cover. If you don’t have enough people to send to the committee hearing or to something happening in the legislature or an accident downtown, you just don’t have those people, so you have to find ways to get around that.
I know the desire is there to provide as much local programming as possible, but the personnel creates limitations for what we can broadcast, what we can put on the air or online or on television. It really comes down to a resources issue.
Senator Quinn: Thank you for that. You both have been actively involved in the industry for many years. Is there a greater concentration of resources in other centres for news coverage, regional coverage? I ask that because here in Ottawa, recently there have been outages for CBC because of the repair or replacement of an antenna over in Camp Fortune, I think it is, and CBC would switch to Toronto, and we’d get all this news from Toronto that seemed to be more in-depth, extensive and would have more community involvement. Is that a reality? Is there a concentration of CBC resources in those larger centres, where the larger populations are, where they have possibly greater variety of source?
Mr. Pearson: I feel there would be. I think the financial resources in bigger centres are probably much greater than what they are in smaller communities and smaller cities. The bottom line is that Acadia Broadcasting and other private broadcasters and broadcasters in Canada generate income from advertising. As we saw with COVID, when the advertising overnight dropped by 70%, certainly it had an effect on our ability to do what we would traditionally want to do, provide and how we would service our communities. I think bigger centres probably just have more advertising revenues that can support those newsrooms and news teams. I don’t know that for a fact, but that’s my suspicion, knowing the industry, is that they would just have more resources and financial wherewithal to do that.
Mr. Seguin: Thank you, senator. I was always under the impression when I worked at the CBC that the regions were always impacted more severely than the major centres when cuts were being implemented. I was always under the impression that Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and even Calgary had more resources than people in the regions. Yet, even with the cuts, the CBC employees in Atlantic Canada made do, and I think that’s contributing to the stress levels that I was referring to earlier.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much to both of our witnesses. I have to tell you, although I worked in print for many years, radio is, as they say, my first love. My first job was working for a private station in Edmonton that no longer exists, CHQT. I spent six years as a CBC Radio producer, including shifts directing the morning show, so I know what getting up at 3:30 a.m. is like. Then for a time I was a producer with a network in Toronto in the big, ugly blue building.
Since we have you both here with us today, I wanted to talk about the relationship between public and private broadcasters in your region. I always did my best work as a journalist when there was competition, and I worry about a world in which the CBC is the last man standing, without competition and without a diversity of voices. I’m wondering if each of you can tell me how you perceive the relationship to be between public and private broadcasters in your region, and if there are ways that they could be complementary in helping each other to survive in a region that desperately needs strong local journalism.
Mr. Pearson: That’s a great question, Senator Simons. I would say, currently, with our being in much smaller markets within Acadia Broadcasting, we certainly know who the CBC journalists are, typically, in our markets and have a good relationship with them. We don’t share news; that’s not been the model at this point. But, certainly, I think that the difference between public and private is that we are probably in those smaller communities much more granular in our news coverage. We would probably cover things that are of a smaller scale that CBC wouldn’t traditionally, and that’s not to say across the board; I don’t want to make a broad-brush statement. I have a lot of respect for journalists at the CBC, and we have employees that started their careers at Acadia, worked for CBC and moved on.
But I think this came up in one of the other sessions that I listened to this week about the idea of possibly sharing news stories, and I thought that was kind of interesting. If CBC could kind of feed us stories that they are working on, it would help us to have more content on air for our listeners. We do have different types of listeners. CBC is much more focused on news and information, where we are focused on news, entertainment and information, entertainment being a big part of it when you think about music and what we play on air.
I do think that’s possibly something that could work if there were sharing.
We’re still competitive, and to your point, competition is good. Competition keeps us all sharp and working hard to do our best, every day.
Senator Simons: Mr. Seguin, I’ll pose the same question to you. Could you think about a model where the CBC provides training to smaller local stations and uses that as a ladder, the same way we got our start in private and then went to work for the CBC?
Mr. Seguin: I can’t come up with a model right now, but I think that idea is tenable. I could see provisions being made to introduce private-sector broadcasters to the approach that the CBC takes to its news.
One of the key differences, I think, is the CBC operates under the journalistic standards and practices, and our journalism has to be rigorous. It has to meet the requirements of the journalistic standards and practices, and if it is not, there is someone available to inform you that your work is deficient and needs to be improved.
I think you could do that. I think you could bring private sector employees into the CBC and say, “Okay, here’s how we do things, here’s what is important to us, here are the standards that we have, and any work that you do have to meet those standards.”
Again, I mentioned workload a while ago, and I mentioned stress. If you are going to ask the CBC to do that, you are certainly going to have to provide more people and more funding, because I’m pretty sure no one at the CBC has the time in their day now to make that happen.
Senator Simons: Mr. Seguin, I’ll focus back on you. When I worked at the CBC in Edmonton a long time ago, we didn’t do just local programming. We did network programming from Edmonton, and much of that network programming has disappeared over time. Have you seen a similar thing happening? For me, it is not just the CBC reflecting the local community to itself. One of the mandates of the CBC is to reflect the regions back to the centre, if I can put it in that way. Have you observed the same pattern in the Maritimes?
Mr. Seguin: Thank you, senator, for the question. I know that the CBC in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. cares deeply about the responsibility to reflect our part of the country to the rest of Canada. We have limited opportunities to do that. As you know, the CBC has national reporters in Atlantic Canada to provide national coverage, but in terms of the unsensational events, if I can use that description, I think we can certainly use more programming vehicles to explain Atlantic Canada to the rest of the country, and the world for that matter.
Mr. Pearson: I would just like to say that we as a private broadcaster follow the policy and guidelines of the RTDNA as well and have our fair share of journalism awards. The last two years in a row, we’ve won the Atlantic Journalism Award, so we do follow guidelines, as well as the CBC, around the quality and integrity of our news.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
Senator Cardozo: I want to start by saying I regret having missed the hearings last week, as I was attending the COP 16 conference in Colombia. I’ve had a chance to watch the sessions from last week, and the joy of watching a recording is that you can play and replay certain parts which I think were worth re‑listening to at times.
I thought the sessions were excellent; the witnesses were brilliant, and I just want to say that the questions were very incisive, because I think you appropriately challenged some of the norms that people have accepted in the broadcasting world.
Mr. Pearson, I want to congratulate you on the work you do. In a previous life, I worked at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and I really got to know the Irving Group of Companies and many small and local broadcasters across the country. When you talk about the work you do with local charities and non-profits, I think you really are part of the community and build a community. You play that role beyond just the broadcasting part.
Given the time limitation, I’m going to start with Mr. Seguin about CBC Radio. My sense is that what you’re saying is the CBC is, among the various media, including print — and maybe it’s more of a question — is it fair to say it’s the best source of news and information?
Second, what’s your view of what the minimum is — because I think right now you’re saying that what the CBC is providing is below a minimum acceptable level. What’s your view about what’s the minimum that CBC/Radio-Canada should be providing locally?
I want to add a point. Given that people are moving away from traditional media and getting their media from various online sources — I’ll stop there.
Mr. Seguin: Thank you, senator.
I would respectfully disagree with any suggestion that the CBC is providing a minimal level. I think the CBC is providing above and beyond — at least the CBC I’m familiar with in Atlantic Canada. My concern is the resources it has to provide that level of service are insufficient, and this is resulting in stress levels that are corrosive.
The CBC is meeting its mandate and its desire to provide the public with credible, accurate information. I think, given the media environment today — especially the online world — where the origins of journalism stories are suspect, having a credible source of journalism that deals with a high standard is more important now than ever. At a time when we are concerned about the quality of the information people are consuming, this might be, it would seem to me, a good time to provide more resources to the organizations that provide information people can rely on.
Senator Cardozo: Given that the online world is increasing, or the use of the online world is increasing by consumers and decreasing for traditional media, how does CBC keep itself relevant when its big competitor is online news feeds, and what do they need to focus on?
Some people have made the point that given that the CBC is supported by the public and the taxpayer, their feeds and their stories should be freely available to be reused by other sources.
Mr. Seguin: The CBC provides a quality online product that adheres to the journalistic standards and practices required at the CBC.
I think Canadians recognize that the CBC is a trusted, credible brand and a credible source for their information. The CBC, I know, has emphasized its online output. It’s moved away from television, because, as you have pointed out, more and more people are getting their information online. The CBC provides quality radio programming in the morning, public service journalism in the morning, and its online product, I think, is among the best in the world.
I think its reputation is why people will keep going back to the CBC.
Senator Cardozo: What would be the effect if government ceased to support English CBC for listeners across the region?
Mr. Seguin: Well, you would have a massive gap in the information flow. For example, the morning shows in New Brunswick are interviewing New Brunswickers, Atlantic Canadians, federal politicians and senators. We are providing a continual flow of relevant public service journalism.
If you took that funding away, what would there be? You would have Acadia Broadcasting, I guess. You would have CTV News, and you would have Global News, but I would submit that the products that the CBC is offering are different than what those other networks are offering.
Curtailing the CBC’s funding in Atlantic Canada, especially, would prevent Atlantic Canadians from sharing their stories, from sharing their aspirations and their triumphs. It would prevent us from telling our stories to the rest of the country.
I just want to underline that there is one national reporter for the entirety of the Maritimes. That reporter is based in Halifax, and it will go to New Brunswick, if there’s a story. It will go to Prince Edward Island, if there is a story. It’s not as if we’re overflowing with resources.
Senator Dasko: Thank you to our witnesses today.
I want to pick up this line of questioning started by Senator Cardozo but approach it in a slightly different way, Mr. Seguin. You’re calling for more resources for the CBC, but the way I look at the political environment now, maybe you will disagree with me, but I don’t think the resources are going to be increased from the public purse.
Now, of course, CBC Television — and I’m not sure if, when you started your comments, you were talking about television or radio, but obviously radio doesn’t have advertising and television does.
Let’s consider a scenario where the funding is status quo and there are no increases. How would you prioritize the mandate of the CBC and the programming that they are doing? In that scenario, what would you prioritize as being most important? Would it be national news, local news or other kinds of programming?
Take it away.
Mr. Seguin: Thank you for the question, senator.
What I would prefer — and this is what I’ve done all my career — is that I believe the CBC has an important role to play in the functioning of our democracy. I don’t want to overreach here, but I would argue that the CBC should focus on core values, providing investigative journalism and asking questions of politicians and other elected authorities about their policies. I think the CBC needs to provide an explanation of public policy to its public.
I referenced the “Great Canadian Baking Show” earlier. Maybe, when we’re giving money to the CBC, we say, “What’s really important is your local news production; you need to cover local news, local politics and provincial politics,” because that, I think, is quite important to our democracy.
Senator Dasko: Basically, you’re saying news and public affairs, preferably local new, would be a priority?
Mr. Seguin: Well, the morning show, senator, for an excellent example, which does a fabulous job of reflecting their local communities and the concerns in those communities, I think that’s a great example of how the CBC can perform its role as a public broadcaster.
Senator Dasko: Thank you. Mr. Pearson, I have a question for you. You own radio stations in Atlantic Canada and also in northern Ontario.
Mr. Pearson: Correct.
Senator Dasko: I wonder, are there any differences between Ontario and the Atlantic provinces in terms of the kind of coverage you have, in terms of the type of programming, and also in terms of the business model, the economics of running radio stations in one region versus another? Do you have a formula that is applied across both regions?
Mr. Pearson: We try to apply the same formula across both regions. Our mandate is to provide the best service for the communities that we’re in as we possibly can. That’s certainly been stretched thin over the past few years, but I think some of those northwestern Ontario communities are fairly isolated. Local news for them is even more important, what’s happening in those communities like Kenora, Dryden and Fort Frances type of thing.
I would say from a news point of view, we have been very localized in those particular communities. That’s become more and more challenging because one of the challenges that we’re having as well is getting journalists to move to some of those communities. There was a time when journalists would come out of school and they would be okay with being somewhere more isolated because that’s how they cut their teeth and get their experience and then get an opportunity to go to a larger market. That’s becoming more challenging as we’re finding that hiring quality journalists is becoming more difficult to get them into those areas. I would say that’s one difference, hiring in Atlantic Canada for journalists has been much easier than hiring in northwestern Ontario, for sure.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. Listening to your testimony so far makes me feel like I’m listening to an ABBA cover band, except I’m listening to the same song over and over again and it’s called “Money, Money, Money.” I have to say it’s perplexing because I’d like to hear why we’ve run into the troubles we’ve run into. The truth is that since 2015 there’s about a 35% increase in taxpayer funding to the CBC over the last decade. We’re at $1.4 billion. A decade ago, we were under a billion, yet there are still cutbacks and more journalists being laid off. Senate committees are compelled to make studies on why they are infringing upon their licensing obligations and providing good, solid, regional coverage in the regions of the country.
My question is very simple. Why are we giving more money but getting less service? Is it the model? At some point, the printing press runs out of ink and it runs out of paper.
Mr. Pearson: The fundamentals for us is we don’t currently get any funding for our radio stations and any other radio broadcaster across Canada. We’re strictly on our own. We have to support through the revenues received through advertising our business model.
Again, I’ve asked this question to government figures in the past about why all these other organizations get funding and radio has been kind of left out on their own, and I actually got a pretty good answer back. Prior to COVID, we weren’t really hearing much from private broadcasters. I would agree with that. We were doing well on our own and able to support our newsrooms, initiatives and programming, which also provides a lot of information for our audience. But that’s all changed after COVID. Those advertising dollars have gone away in some cases but also gone more to foreign — as I mentioned in my opening statement — digital platforms, including the government, which has been doing the same thing.
If you don’t have the advertising revenues coming in, you don’t have the ability to continue with the structure that you have in your business prior to those advertising dollars being there. For us, it’s a fundamental issue.
The Chair: Mr. Seguin?
Mr. Seguin: Senator Housakos, thank you very much for the question. Boy, you have asked a perplexing question. I don’t have the answer. I wish I could give you an answer. Maybe it is a structural problem.
I know in Atlantic Canada — and I get what you’re saying about the increase in funding. I know that the CBC consumes a lot of taxpayer dollars, but in Atlantic Canada somehow we just don’t have as much as we need to do the job that is being asked of us.
I’ll repeat myself. Maybe it is a structural issue. Maybe the structure has to be changed so that the money gets to where it’s really needed.
The Chair: Thank you for that. You also said in your remarks that there’s a lot of stress going on, it’s being felt in the newsrooms, reporters are being chopped while subsidies are going up and up.
There’s also stress right now being caused — Senator Dasko alluded to it — taxpayers are being triggered and stressed in this country as taxes are continuing to go through the roof. There comes a point where the bubble bursts. Yes, we’re trying to get to the bottom of this, why the CBC continues to get more funding. They seem to be placing it in all kinds of places except regional newsrooms. That’s more of a comment.
My question, in my two minutes remaining, is why can’t private broadcasters fill the gap adequately if CBC got out of regional news altogether? I know it’s in their mandate and they’re trying to fulfill that mandate unsuccessfully. The question I have, and it’s a fair one, if we pull CBC out of regional news altogether, would that gap possibly be filled by private companies?
Mr. Pearson: I’m not sure whether that would address the issue because you still need the revenues coming in to do that. In a lot of our markets, we’re not competing with CBC for advertising revenues. We’re more competing for listening audience and trying to capture that.
I’d like to make the point too that comments were made in one of the sessions about — I think it was by a Numeris representative about how CBC was maintaining an audience and other public broadcasters were losing audience. I would like to keep in mind for everyone that is a major market and bigger markets where we do reporting for Numeris. In smaller markets like where I am today in Bridgewater, we don’t have a rating system. There is nothing to say we’re not doing better in these smaller markets with our information and news. I’m not saying we are. I’m saying there is no measurement to say that, in fact, is happening in smaller markets. I think we have already discussed the fact that the resources tend to be greater in those bigger markets as well.
The Chair: Mr. Seguin?
Mr. Seguin: Thank you, senator, for the question. I’m having difficulty imagining the CBC not being in Atlantic Canada because I know personally what the CBC contributes to the community conversation in Atlantic Canada. I personally have been involved in every Christmas the morning shows in New Brunswick raise money for the food banks. It is a huge and incredibly successful campaign. This is beyond the journalism that the CBC provides.
The CBC has the infrastructure in place to provide important public information, whether it’s in times of emergency or whether it’s during an election.
I have great admiration for my colleagues in the private sector, but I think the CBC does a job that would be hard to replicate.
Senator Cuzner: Mr. Seguin, first, to bring you back to your time in Sydney, you would have worked at the station up on Hardwood Hill?
Mr. Seguin: CJCB.
Senator Cuzner: That would have been staffed by a pool of on-air talent, production people and technicians. Now CTV has one on-air personality that does everything out of the front of his Chevy Blazer, pretty much, is what they’re down to.
You had shared with us the numbers that are in the newsrooms now across New Brunswick and the Atlantic. Could you give us a comparative view of where it was 10 years ago? Would they have had more production people? I would think the on-air would probably be consistent, but could you give us a then and now?
Mr. Seguin: Thank you for the question, senator. Yes, it’s kind of like an iceberg situation. The on-air people are equivalent to the tip of the iceberg, but supporting the on-air people are the editors, the producers, the camera people, the directors. There is a whole infrastructure of people providing that on-air person that you see with the information that you’re getting.
I can give you one example. I’ll say for the purposes of our discussion now that 10 years ago, the CBC morning show in Fredericton had seven or eight people all working hard to provide a good, quality product to the people of New Brunswick. Today, that number is down to four. We have chopped that specific workforce in half, but we’re doing the same thing, if not more. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the same circumstance in all of the CBC locations in Atlantic Canada.
Senator Cuzner: That brings us to reflect on the comments by the chair of the increase in the money coming from the federal government but pretty much cutting the staff in half and how that disconnect is there.
Mr. Pearson, probably about four or five years ago, Acadia would have acquired The Hawk in Port Hawkesbury, CIGO. Bob MacEachern had done an incredible job of setting CIGO up as a community. It really contributes to the quality of life in that community. I think Acadia has worked hard to try to maintain and keep the focus on that.
We had testimony last week that indicated CBC was, sometimes in local markets — you would know this better than anybody — eating a bit of their lunch in the local markets with advertising dollars. Do you see that at all, that there’s competition with CBC on a local level?
Mr. Pearson: No, senator. I would say we have not directly experienced that, that I’m aware of. I’ll put it to you that way. Certainly, if I had our director of sales here, she might have different comments, but I’m not aware that CBC has been an issue. It doesn’t come up in discussions when we talk about the advertising challenges.
It really comes more from the digital platforms and the focus on digital today type of thing, which we have our own digital division. We started that a few years ago and branded it as a round table because we saw an opportunity there. It has helped to offset some of our revenue losses in radio. We’re always thinking about what we can do differently to invest more back into the company.
I appreciate your comments about Port Hawkesbury. Those are the reasons why we were interested in that market, because they had done such a good job locally, and it fit with how we like to do radio. We like to stay in small markets, and we like to be very localized.
Senator Cuzner: I have one last question, if either of you could comment on it.
Technology reduces the workforce as well. We don’t have a lot of lighthouse keepers any longer. Is it because of the change in the listeners, the landscape of the listeners, how people are getting their information, advances in technology? Is it a little from column A, a little from column B?
From a technical perspective, Mr. Seguin, would you attribute some of that to the reduction in those workforces in those stations?
Mr. Seguin: Thank you for the question, senator. Possibly technology is playing a role, but technology can’t hold the microphone. Technology can’t go to your MP’s office and say, “What about the Housing Accelerator Fund?” You need journalists who are trained to do journalism. Technology is the avenue their work is dispersed to the public, but you need the journalists there who can see, hear and ask the questions.
Mr. Pearson: I would agree with Mr. Seguin’s comments. The one thing I will say, though, is we’ve invested a lot in technology in our company and continue to invest in it as tools for our people, to make them more efficient and help them do their jobs better and not put as much stress on them. We’ve looked at it more as a tool. Going from a hand saw to a circular saw makes quite a bit of difference in how much work you can get done in the course of a day.
Senator Cuzner: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Thank you to our witnesses. Mr. Chair, you rightly indicated that funding for CBC/Radio-Canada has increased significantly over the past 10 years. Mr. Seguin, I commend you on your career and your service; you rightly mentioned that CBC/Radio-Canada’s market share and ratings are the best in the Atlantic provinces in terms of market penetration. I agree with you when you say that there are structural problems, since we notice, according to the research done by the Library of Parliament, that 83% of CBC’s funding goes to Ontario and Quebec. That is 83% of the funding, despite the fact that those provinces represent 60% to 62% of the Canadian population.
My question is the following. Should policymakers micromanage a bit and give the CBC or the CRTC some direction so that there is better per-person funding? I ask the question, Mr. Seguin, because you mentioned that there is a structural problem and when that is the case, that is where policymakers, in other words, parliamentarians, have a role to play. Does this need to be taken further? Do more specific directions need to be given for regional funding at CBC/Radio-Canada?
[English]
Mr. Seguin: Senator, thank you for the question. I know that my former colleagues at the CBC in Atlantic Canada would welcome any situation which would result in more funding for journalism in the CBC in Atlantic Canada. Whether that’s a structural alteration, I can’t imagine my former CBC colleagues saying, “No, thanks, we don’t want more money.”
It wouldn’t be spent frivolously. It would be spent improving the product that Atlantic Canadians get from the CBC.
Senator Gignac: Mr. Pearson, you come from the private sector, and both are complementary. In fact, having more money sent to Atlantic provinces for the CBC is not negative for the private sector either, because at the end of the day, we have better news coverage. Any reaction to that?
Mr. Pearson: Yes. Certainly, as a private sector operator, we are very accountable in how we spend money and create efficiencies. We feel we have a good business model, and we spend time almost on a daily basis looking at how we can improve that business model to be more efficient.
The bottom line is that we hope for a level playing field to be able to compete with any news organization because we have resources and the funding to be able to do that. It is challenging when you don’t have any kind of funding, and everybody around you that’s providing news has funding that we can’t access at this point — not to say that won’t change in the future, but to date.
Senator Gignac: Mr. Seguin, in the next panel, one of our colleagues will give testimony regarding a decision made by CBC to cancel services during the pandemic. Given your career, your background and your services, do you have any opinion about how it was possible for CBC to do that and the lack of reaction from the CRTC regarding that decision? Any thoughts regarding that?
Mr. Seguin: No, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you are asking me, senator. My apologies. If you could repeat that.
Senator Gignac: I could be more precise. During the pandemic, CBC was cutting services in P.E.I., so it is not exactly your province, but it is P.E.I. I was curious about your reaction. Maybe it was under the radar screen, because during the pandemic many things happening, but CBC cut services outright on P.E.I. on TV in March 2020.
Mr. Seguin: Well, senator, my response, based on what I’m hearing from you now, is that it would seem to be short-sighted to reduce services during the pandemic. There may be acceptable reasons why the CBC did that, but as a journalist, as a former CBC employee, I can’t imagine it was a move that was widely accepted by the people of P.E.I.
Senator Gignac: Stay tuned. You will have more details in the following hour. Thank you.
The Chair: I’m sure we will hear a lot more about P.E.I.; I agree with Senator Gignac. The time for the first panel is just about up, but the final word goes to our deputy chair.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you for your generosity.
I have a question for Mr. Seguin following his last intervention on regional funding. I am a former Radio-Canada journalist and I always noticed the huge gap between the resources in the centre, in other words Montreal and Toronto, and the resources in the regions.
You say that technology cannot hold a microphone. I continue to follow Radio-Canada because I have an attachment to it. I see that the national teams have up to four people who travel around to conduct an interview. For the regions it is the opposite: the journalists have to take care of everything themselves.
I would like your thoughts on this major difference that obviously has an impact on the quality. I am not sure that the solution is all or nothing. Technology helps reduce the television teams and I am not sure that we are there at CBC/Radio-Canada’s main production centres.
Mr. Seguin: Thank you for your question, senator.
[English]
You are right. The technology has changed. When I started out, I edited tape for my reports using a china marker and a razor blade. That does not happen anymore.
Today it is all done electronically. One person can sit at their computer and, using a program, can edit an entire piece in a fraction of the time.
Technology has made things different. I can remember going out on shoots with a cameraman, someone would be doing the audio, they would have a reporter there and there would be someone to guide the crew through its work. That has changed, and I don’t think there has been a degradation of journalistic products or quality.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My question is about the imbalance, if you think there is one, between the resources in the centres, Montréal and Toronto — maybe you know Toronto better — and the resources in the regions and local news.
Mr. Seguin: I think there is an imbalance in the resources in the bigger centres versus the resources available in the regions, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. I would submit there is a measurable difference.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you to our witnesses for being with us here this morning. For our audience, just reminding them we are doing a study on local services provided by CBC/Radio-Canada, and we’re the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications.
Thank you again.
We have with us now for the second panel a gentleman who doesn’t need an introduction, the Honourable Percy Downe, our colleague and friend, who for many years has had a lot of tangible things to say, always about P.E.I., but particularly about CBC and P.E.I. Senator Downe, I turn the floor over to you.
Hon. Percy E. Downe: Thank you, chair. If I go on too long because this is a topic of great interest to me and to many Prince Edward Islanders, cut me off, and I will be pleased to try and answer any questions the panel may have.
Colleagues, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced that it had suspended local TV evening news broadcasts. At a time when even the CBC acknowledged that “. . . Canadians everywhere are desperate for good information and the latest developments as this crisis mounts,” the decision was idiotic and an abandonment of their duty and responsibilities. Its impact was felt in places like Prince Edward Island, where “CBC Compass” is the only local evening TV news broadcast produced in the province. CBC Radio, along with private radio and local newspapers, continued to serve islanders, but our local television news was cancelled.
Up until it was cancelled, “CBC Compass” did an outstanding job informing Prince Edward Islanders about the decisions the provincial health officials had made to address the pandemic. As a province with some of the worst internet connections in the country and a higher-than-average proportion of the population identifying as seniors, information provided by Compass was essential for islanders to prepare for and cope with every twist and turn of the pandemic. Like everyone else at the time, the CBC was facing stress to continue operating, so it may have been able to make a case for its decisions, despite the fact that no private network took similar actions to cancel their local news programs anywhere in Canada.
In describing the factors that led to the cancellation of the local TV newscasts, the decision was presented as a fait accompli. That is not how things work. Why did the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, not hold the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for its decision to suspend the local TV news broadcast at the beginning of the pandemic, in direct violation of their licensing agreement? The CBC operates under guidelines set out by the CRTC as part of its licence. Under these guidelines, the public broadcaster committed, in the case of Prince Edward Island, to at least seven hours of local TV programming per week. The only exceptions being special sporting events or holidays. Moreover, the CRTC noted that “. . . the CBC cannot reduce the level of local programming under seven hours without Commission approval following a public process.”
However, prior to the CBC announcement, there was neither public process nor CRTC approval. Perhaps the broadcasters decided it was easier to get forgiveness than permission. In that respect, they were proven correct, for although the commission determined that the CBC had acted in breach of its licence agreement, it would face no penalty or no fines for doing so, and it is not as if the commission is powerless to respond or if this were unforeseen activity.
The Broadcasting Act, the legislation that governs the relationships between the CBC and the CRTC, prescribes a course of action if the CBC does not live up to its commitments. Section 18 (3) of the act states:
The Commission may hold a public hearing, make a report, issue any decision and give any approval in connection with any complaint or representation made to the Commission or in connection with any other matter . . . under this Act if it is satisfied that it would be in the public interest to do so.
Section 25(1) is even clearer in the case of a contravention by the CBC itself where “. . . the Commission is satisfied, after a public hearing on the matter, that the Corporation” has failed to comply with any condition of a licence referred to in the schedule:
. . . any order made under subsection . . . 12(2) or any regulation made under this Part, the Commission shall forward to the Minister a report setting out the circumstances of the . . . findings of the Commission and any . . . recommendations of the Commission in connection with the contravention.
Colleagues, the CBC is not just another TV network. It receives over $1.4 billion in funding from Canadian taxpayers in order to fulfill its mandate. Part of that mandate is to keep Canadians informed in good times and bad. For the CRTC to merely wave away the requirement that it imposed on the broadcaster is appalling. Perhaps the CBC could have made a case in advance of its decision, but they chose not to even try, simply stating the reasons after the fact. The CBC claims that prioritizing our local connection is the heart of our connections with Canadians. But when it decided to abandon that priority, the public body to which it is responsible failed to hold it accountable, and that is unacceptable.
This isn’t just a matter of the CBC being held to account for its past actions. Canadians knew that at the start of the pandemic, the CBC and CRTC failed them. In a future crisis, what will happen if our national institutions do not hold but rather crumble at the first sign of trouble? Are the CBC and CRTC fair-weather friends if they were not here to serve us when the need was the greatest? Who will hold the CBC to account? Who will hold the CRTC to account for their actions?
Therefore, colleagues, I believe that Canadians deserve the following: An explanation from officials of CBC as to why they cancelled local news broadcasting without going through the process outlined in the licence agreement with the CRTC; why the private sector radio and TV station did not take similar action; an explanation from officials of the CRTC as to why they did not require CBC to go through that process or why they did not sanction the broadcaster for failing to do so; assurances from both CBC and the CRTC that a cancellation of local TV news will not reoccur, particularly in a time of crisis; and four, a penalty for the CBC violation of their broadcasting licence that CBC financially increase their support for local suppertime or dinnertime TV newscasts. Thank you, colleagues.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Downe. What the committee has heard so far — and we’re early in this short study — is that the CBC is receiving more funds than ever before. They are providing fewer services when it comes to the regions of the country than ever before. We have also heard there has been no accountability, and you have pretty much reiterated that, Senator Downe. The question I have is the following: Why aren’t these two entities, the CBC and by extension the CRTC, doing their job, making sure that the CBC/Radio-Canada is respecting their licensing agreement? What are some of the steps that the CRTC and the government could have taken to hold them to account? If the mechanisms we have in place, senator, aren’t working, what do you recommend?
Senator Downe: Thank you for those questions. Well, the first suggestion I would have is that the authority of the CBC to make decisions has been centralized in English Canada and Toronto. In years past, the local CBC station in Charlottetown had more authority. This time, they were simply informed, “We’re cancelling your service.” They made the argument that it is not safe for the staff and so on. The staff were quite prepared to work and to carry on informing islanders. There was a tremendous pushback in the province, as you can imagine. The premier and the population, as one, said, “What’s this about? We pay taxes in Prince Edward Island as well. We contribute to the CBC. Why are they gone?” The first thing is that we need more local authority in the local stations.
Secondly, the CRTC, when this was over and the news was eventually reinstated, I started to try to figure out how this works. I sent various letters to the minister responsible, the CRTC and the CBC. I met with the CBC president and so on, and it was a real Catch-22. Nobody was responsible, and everybody was responsible.
They had a system in place of how the CBC would be held to account with penalties or fines that the CRTC could impose, and none of that happened. It was simply waved away. The CBC was given a free pass. As I mentioned last week, at the end of the day, I found out that, notwithstanding the public hearings — which I believe were held every five years to renew the CBC licence — the CRTC has to renew the licence. They cannot not renew it.
So the CBC comes in, and they make a whole bunch of promises. The CRTC says, “Oh, we think you should do this, and you should do that,” and nothing happens.
As I said last week as well, it is a complete charade. Well-meaning Canadians are writing submissions on what should be done. Some are incorporated into the CBC commitments. Some are incorporated into the CRTC commitments. None of them are binding on anybody, and there are no fines.
I have suggested — and Senator Housakos, you may have heard me in the past — that every day the CBC is in violation of the licence, there should be a $2 million-a-day fine donated to the local library in the area that loses the service. There should be some recourse and some penalty.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much, Senator Downe.
I feel your pain. I am still angry, because 35 years ago, somebody in Toronto thought it was a good idea to cancel the CBC supper hour news in Edmonton — a large city and the provincial capital — and to have all the news for Edmontonians come from Calgary.
That went down about as well as you might expect, and their ratings — even when the CBC climbed down and realized they made a wrong decision — the CBC TV news ratings in Edmonton never recovered from that. I understand why you are still mad. I am still mad, and my thing happened 30 years before your thing.
I want to ask: Were people still able to get CBC Radio news in Charlottetown?
Senator Downe: Oh, yes. As I mentioned in my comments, the local private station, CBC Radio and the newspapers all continued. The weekly newspapers all continued their work.
Senator Simons: For CBC fans, there was still radio news coverage?
Senator Downe: That’s correct.
Senator Simons: Did the news for Charlottetown then come from Halifax or from Fredericton? Where did the signal come from?
Senator Downe: I think the replacement may have been from Halifax or Toronto. I believe it could have been Halifax.
Senator Simons: Did the Halifax station make any specific efforts to address their new Charlottetown audience?
I know that when I used to produce the CBC morning show, if, on a holiday, we combined with Calgary, we would go out of our way to make sure that we had Calgary coverage. Did CBC Halifax make specific efforts to ensure that the news was localized for viewers?
Senator Downe: Yes. What would have happened is that there would have been a story fed from Charlottetown, I assume, into the regional newscast.
Senator Simons: As I say, I understand your frustration, but this was a one-time thing that happened during a horrific pandemic. Was the CBC’s explanation simply a monetary one, or did they have a public health or a staffing explanation?
Senator Downe: Depending on whom you spoke to, they had different reasons for cancelling. One was the safety of staff and so on. Other reasons were resources and so on. I’m not sure.
But it was a one-time thing in a crisis. I would argue that this is when you need the institution the most, during a time of crisis. There may be nothing going on today that is particularly important in P.E.I. or the region, but during a pandemic, people were tuning in. People were home. There was a high level of fear.
You were in the Senate at the time, Senator Simons. I remember that we were chatting, and you were saying, “This is a place to spread COVID, because everybody is flying in from all over the country.”
We didn’t know. Nobody knew, and we were highly dependent on the local CBC at that time for the coverage.
Like you, I share a history with CBC. I still recall when they cancelled “Don Messer’s Jubilee,” which was either the highest rated or the second-highest rated — and Senator Cuzner would know this — show in Atlantic Canada. It was cancelled out of Toronto, because it wasn’t considered culturally cool enough at the time in the 1960s.
We have a variation of that in this case. Toronto made the decision. There was no regional sensitivity, no understanding of the reason and no authority in the region to correct the mistake.
Senator Simons: I was working for the CBC in Toronto when they cancelled “Hymn Sing” on the Thursday before Good Friday. Now, “Hymn Sing’s” ratings were — you know, it was probably time — but I am always struck by the fact that they decided to cancel it over the Easter long weekend.
Yes, some of the decisions that get made on Front and John, I find deeply perplexing.
Senator Downe: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Welcome to our colleague, who is appearing as a witness. Thank you for drawing our attention to what happened in spring 2020 in Prince Edward Island. I was not aware. You are right to say that in times of crisis we turn to our public broadcaster to get good information, especially during this time of disinformation.
I am from Quebec; this provincial government is the only government in North America to have had a curfew. I believe that there would have been civil disobedience if we had shut down our public broadcaster’s television service.
You raised the issue with Senator Gold, the government representative, in October 2020. In his response, he said that he would look into it and come back to you with an answer. Did you get a follow-up of your question?
[English]
Did you get a follow-up of your question, October 2022, to Senator Gold?
Senator Downe: No, I did not.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: What other steps did you take? Did you write to the Minister of Canadian Heritage? Beyond your question to Senator Gold, did you reach out to the minister to understand the CBC’s decision and why the CRTC refused to go further, given, as you said, that its approval is required if the broadcaster does not meet its requirements?
[English]
Senator Downe: I started off writing the minister, the CRTC eventually and the CBC. I spoke to the then Minister of Canadian Heritage about it. I spoke to the president of the CBC about it on at least one, if not two, occasions.
Everybody felt terrible after the fact, they alleged, but there was no explanation of why this was one of the decisions that the CBC had made in the middle of a crisis.
The reference to local service, I mentioned in my opening remarks what a priority that is for them. That is what they keep saying. Their actions, however, are the reverse of that.
My objective, since this happened, is to make sure it never happens again, and there is a better understanding at CBC and the CRTC that this should not happen again.
Senator Gignac: I’m not an expert on the CRTC. I think some of my colleagues could help me, but it is an independent administrative body. What could a policymaker do if the CRTC dropped the ball and did not apply its own rules?
Somebody has to be accountable. That is my question.
Senator Downe: Yes, that was exactly my conclusion as well. I have a letter from the then chair of the CRTC saying that the CBC was in violation of their broadcasting licence, but there’s not really anything we can do about it. There is not anything that we’re going to do about it, which is totally unacceptable. Either we have these rules and they’re enforced, or we stop saying we have any rules about them.
Senator Gignac: To conclude on my last question, you mentioned that this affects not only P.E.I.? Was it a directive from Toronto to many other stations, or was only P.E.I. affected by that decision? How many days did it last? Maybe it was mentioned, but I did not catch how many days or weeks the broken services lasted.
Senator Downe: I’m not sure where else it applied. I think it applied in New Brunswick and some other places. I believe they kept the service operating in the North; I’m not quite sure. It was about 7 to 10 days.
Given the uproar created, the premier called the Prime Minister. Ministers were talking to ministers. Of course, the response from the government is always, “We’re at arm’s length from the CBC, notwithstanding the fact that we contribute $1.4 billion to the budget.”
CBC eventually got the message. I think the staff at CBC in Charlottetown deserve a lot of credit. They raised a commotion as well, and service was restored.
But pick a crisis. The next crisis may or may not be a pandemic. It may be something else, and then CBC TV disappears. As I’ve said, it’s in their agreement to do seven hours of local TV programming every week. They just walked away from that.
Senator Gignac: Thank you.
Senator Cardozo: Thank you, Senator Downe, for coming here and going through this, certainly for this detail and certainly for your continued advocacy on this issue. It’s a real shame that the CBC did that because, during COVID, it was really a time for government and public institutions to go over and above. By and large, they did. It was a time when government and public institutions were really able to prove they were there for the good of people and, by and large, they did.
I look at the federal government. I look at the provincial governments and the municipal governments. They all spent a lot. Indeed, that has a lot to do with why we have a huge deficit today. But the entire government apparatus went out of its way to help people, to keep people in their homes, to keep businesses alive, and we succeeded in that as a nation. This is an example where the CBC failed them.
Let me just give you a couple of points, not in any way to excuse the CRTC, but I did work there. I don’t know the particulars of this case at all, so I’m not defending them. Certainly, there were times I was frustrated at the CRTC when they’re just an overwhelmed organization, like most other federal organizations. When a lot of appeals are made to them to consider this or that, they make choices about which ones to spend time on and which ones not. Perhaps they looked at this and said there’s not a whole lot they could do, given that this was over in 7 to 10 days. As with any agency, they have to pick and choose which things they do follow up on.
During my time there, there were occasions when I thought we should have gone after one or another broadcaster on various things they weren’t doing. The process of licence renewal is a serious one, certainly from the perspective of commissioners and the staff, too, in terms of listening to what people say.
The committee members asked about some things last week on the levels of expectations that we have of broadcasters, that expectations could maybe be higher. In the bubble, they accept relatively low standards. One of the things we will be doing is testing that and pushing those limits a bit.
On the matter of the fine, I would disagree with that in terms of the public broadcasters because we’re also talking about the fact that they don’t have enough money as it is. If they don’t do something and then say they didn’t do it because they don’t have enough money or whatever, should we fine them and take another $2 million out of their budget? Does that then end up with less service at the end of the day? Whoever makes that decision isn’t affected by that $2 million fine, themselves. I’m not sure it is getting at the point of where things could go. I don’t know the solution, but I’m not sure if the fine is the way.
I have another question. You’ve talked about how this case really is at the centre of what the CBC needs to be doing in its role. What is your sense of the role of the CBC on Prince Edward Island? How is it fulfilling its functions now? Where do you think it needs to go in terms of our study on local programming? Is it enough? Is it getting too much material or content from the centre, whether it’s Halifax or Toronto? Is there enough focus on local news? Do people feel that there’s enough coverage of the city council, crime, whatever else? Sorry, I talked too much there.
Senator Downe: You make a valid point about how the fines can directly impact people. Maybe the committee wants to recommend that it affect the bonuses of individuals at CBC, which seems to be in the news a lot. That may affect them more personally in their pocketbooks. Has this decision to cancel affected islanders personally? I’ll leave that up to the wisdom of the committee.
As the former vice-chairperson of the CRTC, Dr. Caroline Simard, mentioned — and I will quote her:
By deciding not to impose conditions of licence, the Commission is at the same time renouncing the . . . powers conferred upon it in the Act.
They had the powers to do it. They chose not to do it. I appreciate they may be swamped, but, again, this is part of the lack of autonomy for the local newscast. You asked what could be done. Now, CBC is performing in Charlottetown, and they’re performing very well. There’s one area where I hear some criticism; they only have two local islanders on their on-air team. It’s important to have more because the more islanders on their on-air team, the more contacts they have across the island to hear possible stories and things they should be investigating.
A lot of people come into the local CBC to get some experience and then move on. That’s good for everybody. They bring a different perspective. They increase their skill set. But, again, the lack of control and autonomy at the local CBC regional station in Charlottetown is the main problem. They would never have cancelled the local news during the pandemic if they had that authority.
Regarding their resources, over the years, we lost the sports coverage position that used to be part of the evening news. Local sports coverage suffered as a result. That is an important part of the audience. People like to tune in to see how their local rugby team or soccer team is doing in the province. There’s a gap there now. That’s not covered.
The resources are not there that were there for the local. They do a good job. We’ve asked the CRTC last week for the ratings. I think you’ll find the ratings are extremely high. Maybe this is one area the committee may want to consider. If ratings are that high, funding should follow. If their ratings are very low in Vancouver, then maybe they don’t need as much money if they’re not serving their audience. The ratings, I suspect, are extremely high in Prince Edward Island, and they should get the additional resources to not only keep them high but to drive them even higher.
Senator Cardozo: I would quickly point out one of the things we can do with this study with the example you’ve brought to us. Given that the CRTC ends up focusing, to some extent, in areas where there is noise, demand, pressure, then if we put pressure on regarding local service, they will take that more seriously. Maybe we can focus on some of the ways they license and monitor local programming. The strongest point, and you made this point a few times, is that we don’t want to see this happen again, whether it’s in Prince Edward Island during a pandemic or anywhere else in the country.
Your example really says what we need to do, which is to focus on local, local, local. We need to talk about that, and hopefully the CRTC will also take its role more seriously, as the CBC should.
Senator Downe: Absolutely. I agree with that, senator. I think for those who are concerned about the CBC, they’re concerned about the radio and the local TV. Those are the two top priorities. Everything else lacks broad-based support.
Senator Cardozo: Thank you.
Senator Cuzner: Thanks very much, Senator Downe. I appreciate your presentation today. Just to admit to you, I was, in fact, a closet Don Messer fan and a big Charlie Chamberlain, Marg Osburne groupie. That show helped launch the careers of Anne Murray and Stompin’ Tom Connors. That would be their first exposure to a television audience.
I think your issue here helps us make the case for the importance and the significance of regional programming, obviously. When you look at the on-air personalities — Bruce Rainnie, Matt Rainnie, Boomer Gallant, the weather guy — people set up their days and their weeks around the gospel according to Saint Boomer. You build a trust with the viewership and with the audience, with the community, and I can only imagine, when that trust is compromised, when it’s breached, especially at this time — it was bizarre. In our community, everybody was focused on CBC Radio to get information and updates and truth.
My question was more in line with Senator Gignac and his question about where else did this happen and where else did this take place. You weren’t able to really provide much information. Did you ask the questions to the people that you have been in touch with? You indicated that you have been all around the table on this. Were they able to provide more insight as to how deep this went?
The response that you got about the health and safety of the people in the station, but they were okay with the people going into the radio station, is a little contradictory in itself. Did you ask the question to those people whom you met with and pursued this with?
Senator Downe: Yes, on the health and safety, we all saw reporters with hockey sticks with the microphone taped to the end of them when they were interviewing people. The staff at CBC Charlottetown was quite prepared to do whatever was necessary to provide the TV news. They were not the source or the aspiration to cancel the news. It was the reverse. They wanted to maintain the service.
As to where else it happened, I think they kept the north going, which is good, but I’m not sure. I know New Brunswick, I think, lost it as well. I’m not sure about Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. They had the Halifax outfit. You would have to ask CBC that question.
Senator Cuzner: Okay.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, Senator Downe, thank you for coming to this committee and sharing your thoughts on this issue as we continue to pursue our study on regional news as it’s being provided by CBC/Radio-Canada.
Colleagues, we will adjourn this meeting, but we will go in camera for a few minutes to take care of some housekeeping. Thank you, Senator Downe.
Senator Downe: Thank you, members.
(The committee continued in camera.)