Online Streaming Bill
Motion in Amendment Negatived
February 1, 2023
Therefore, honourable senators, in amendment, I move:
That Bill C-11, as amended, be not now read a third time, but that it be further amended
(a) in clause 28,
(i) on page 32, by adding the following after line 1:
“(2.1) Despite subsections (1) and (2), in the case of a violation of an obligation requiring the Corporation to broadcast a minimum number of hours of regional or local programming, as the case may be, the Corporation is liable to an administrative monetary penalty of $2 million.”,
(ii) on page 37,
(A) by replacing line 8 with the following:
“34.993 (1) An administrative monetary penalty paid or re-”,
(B) by adding the following after line 10:
“(2) Despite subsection (1), an administrative monetary penalty paid or recovered in relation to a violation of an obligation requiring the Corporation to broadcast a minimum number of hours of regional or local programming, as the case may be, is payable — and must be paid by the Corporation within 180 days of the penalty being imposed — to a library that
(a) the Commission specifies by order;
(b) serves the public in the region most directly related to the violation by the Corporation; and
(c) received, in the preceding fiscal year, funds from the Government of Canada, the government of a province or a municipal government.”;
(b) on page 41, by adding the following after line 22:
“31.01 Subsection 71(3) of the Act is amended by adding the following after paragraph (c):
(c.1) the names and total compensation, including annual salary, of all staff of the Corporation who, during the year to which the report relates, received total compensation, including annual salary, that is greater than the annual sessional allowance of a member of the Senate for that year as determined under section 55.1 of the Parliament of Canada Act,”.
Do we have people who have questions for Senator Downe? We have four minutes.
Would you take a question, Senator Downe?
Yes.
First, as I’m sure most of you know, I was a Radio-Canada journalist for 25 years. I have to say that for transparency’s sake.
Now, here’s my question. You said that Prince Edward Island did not have access to regional television during the crisis, and that’s obviously unacceptable and shouldn’t be tolerated. However, one thing you forgot to mention is that there was still local radio, so people could still get the news on CBC radio during the crisis. That being the case, don’t you think the $2 million fine you’re calling for as a response to this incident is a bit high, considering that Radio-Canada is independent and that CBC/Radio-Canada radio was still on the air?
Actually, I did forget that. I mentioned in my speech, it was the local TV news. Colleagues, the only locally produced TV news in the province of Prince Edward Island is CBC. CBC cancelled that news, so we were deprived of the TV news. Radio continued as well. Had they cancelled the news in Vancouver, would anybody have noticed? They’re probably fourth or fifth ranked. Had they cancelled the local CBC news in Toronto, would anybody have noticed? No, because there are all kinds of options — Global, CTV, it goes on. In P.E.I., the ratings are 90% plus because there’s no competition. It’s the only news service available.
The significance of it was at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, nobody knew what to do. You bought a green pepper at the grocery store; did you have to put it in your microwave or did you have to scrub it with a hose? How was the disease transmitted? People were desperate for news to protect themselves. CBC TV, at the beginning, when we needed them the most, they left. Why did they leave? Not because the local journalists were concerned about catching COVID. They were quite prepared to do what others did with hockey sticks and microphones. They were cancelled because CBC Toronto cancelled them. The only province in Canada with one newscast — the local TV newscast — was cancelled. Totally unacceptable — at the beginning of a crisis, they abandoned us totally.
What my amendment is trying to do, and what Senator Francis, obviously, understands as well, and what we heard from many Islanders, is that this cannot be repeated when there’s another crisis.
I had the CBC president sitting in my office recently. I mentioned the cancellation. She said, “Oh, it was a disruption. It came back after a few days.” It came back after a few days because the premier and everyone else were in an uproar about what the heck was going on.
That’s the problem. The $2 million a day is a bare minimum because what I found out when I checked into this is the CRTC gives a licence to the CBC. The CBC appears before the CRTC and says, “We will do the following things.” The CRTC may say, “We want you to do this,” and so on, and the licence is offered. None of that is valid because the CBC cannot have their licence cancelled unless they ask the CRTC to cancel it. So there’s no enforcement mechanism. The CRTC wrote back after three or four letters and basically said, “We give the licence, but we can’t do anything to enforce the rules.”
According to the Broadcasting Act, the CBC had to have public hearings and they guaranteed a minimum broadcasting time in P.E.I. They had no public hearings; they didn’t do the minimum broadcasting. They just, on a whim, cancelled the service, leaving the province — as I said in my speech, a high percentage of seniors, some of the worst internet connections — and you had to hope something was on the radio.
Senator Downe, your time for debate is over. There are three more senators who wish to question you. Are you requesting five more minutes?
If the Senate agrees.
Is it agreed, honourable senators?
Thank you, Senator Downe, for this important amendment that you’re putting forward. We’ve been asked, with Bill C-11, on countless occasions by the government and others to trust the CRTC going forward in order to set reasonable standards and a framework for Bill C-11. We see now a very blatant example of how the CRTC neglects to enforce licensing obligations on a particular broadcaster.
The question I have for you is the following: Can we have faith, when they do not impose the obligations already — for example, they’ve never fined the CBC when it’s well within their right to do so when they don’t respect licensing; the CBC has never had public hearings in order to justify the reduction of services — can we trust the CRTC to ultimately do the job they’ve been given to do?
Thank you. If my amendment passes, we really don’t have to trust the CRTC because there’s a penalty in it. There would be a $2 million fine for the CBC, payable to a local library in the region, for every day they cancel the service in direct violation of the Broadcasting Act.
What we found, as I stated earlier — I won’t repeat it — is that all the rules were followed, but there was no enforcement. This brings in a penalty and enforcement.
Would Senator Downe take another question?
Thank you for your speech and amendment. You mentioned a couple of times that this would be a daily fine. I don’t see that reflected in the amendment. Could you comment on that, please?
Yes. Thank you. The amendment does not specify that the $2 million is for each day of the violation. That is because — and I’m reading what the lawyers wrote; these are not my words — the Broadcasting Act already provides the following clause 28, the new subsection 34.4(2):
Continued violation
A violation that is continued on more than one day constitutes a separate violation in respect of each day on which it is continued.
That was the question I had when the amendment came — why it doesn’t say “daily.”
Thank you, Senator Downe. If you would take another question, I’d be grateful.
A penalty of $2 million a day from what is essentially a taxpayer-owned institution — is that really much of a penalty? To me, it’s the same pair of pants, just a different pocket. Could you comment on that and what kind of penalty that is when the taxpayers are the ultimate bearers of this burden?
Well, if they pull this stunt again, it would be great for the local libraries that would be flooded with money. That may be a better expenditure than the CBC broadcasting some of their current shows. This is a way of trying to put some pressure on them. If they were off for another seven days again, that would be $14 million.
I want to go back to the point. At the beginning of the pandemic, all Canadians were desperate for information, and we were counting on the CBC. We were counting on the only locally produced TV news, and they weren’t there. It’s totally unacceptable what happened. Hopefully, this amendment will prevent that from ever happening again.
Would Senator Downe take another question?
I will be quick. In paragraph (b) of your amendment, you propose to make public the salary of a certain number of people in comparison with the salary of a senator and not that of an MP. If you want the amendment to be accepted by the other place, perhaps you should include the salary of MPs as well.
My question is this. Does this not constitute a violation of privacy under the Privacy Act?
Actually, no, because as you know, senator, under the Privacy Act, anyone can waive the restrictions. The reason for this is we should not ask others for what we’re not prepared to do ourselves. In this case, our salaries are all disclosed, so it would be whatever the Senate salary is and above that for the CBC employees. It’s not a violation of the Privacy Act because we have all kinds of salaries released publicly across the government.
There’s a clear section in the Privacy Act where the person can waive. I can ask an ambassador, “Who did you have for lunch in Berlin last week?” They can say, “Under the Privacy Act, we are not disclosing,” but they can also waive that and disclose it. That’s the same here.
We are now resuming debate on the amendment. Senator Dawson, on debate on the amendment.
Thank you, Your Honour.
First of all, I’ve known Senator Downe for many years in his previous life, so his defence of P.E.I. and P.E.I.’s interests is renowned. I knew him when he was chief of staff for the premier of P.E.I. I’ve known him when he arrived in Ottawa and as a senator for 18 years. That being said, I understand that all politics are local, even for senators.
That being said, the pertinence of this amendment as it relates to Bill C-11 — I understand that even the president of my caucus agrees with him — is not obvious. That being said, I won’t get to debate on it.
The government understands the concerns underlying the proposal to ensure CBC/Radio-Canada offers programming and broadcasting services that all Canadians receive elsewhere in the country. I agree it should not have happened.
It is the government’s view that these issues are best addressed by the CRTC through its own proceedings rather than through legislation. More broadly, this bill does not make significant changes to Part III of the Broadcasting Act, which covers the mandate and operations of the CBC.
As confirmed by the department officials at committee, it falls to the CRTC to engage in matters where the corporation has not respected its licence. I would remind that under Bill C-11, the CRTC can levy administrative penalties against a corporation, just like the private sector.
I further remind senators that the government intends to address the modernization of the CBC in a more holistic manner, not in a piecemeal fashion. The modernization of the CBC remains a key mandate of Minister Rodriguez. Thank you, senator.
Obviously, as far as the salaries are concerned, you did not go through the person who was chairing the committee at that time, but Senator Plett and I remember that I was involved. You were polite not to mention my name. I obviously agree with the comments that I made. They were pertinent then, and they are pertinent today. But you were polite enough not to mention me.
Honourable senators, I rise today with great sympathy for what Senator Downe is trying to accomplish. I began my functional career in journalism, working as an associate producer at CBC Radio in Edmonton. I well remember that it was a time when the CBC in Edmonton was under great economic stress.
Not long after I was hired, they brought all of us together in the large TV studio to make a major announcement. I was terrified. I figured last one in, first one out. The ink was not even dry on my contract. Instead, they gathered us in the room to announce that they were shutting down the TV service in Edmonton and that the CBC would serve Edmonton via Calgary.
Now, if you know anything about Edmonton and Calgary and the intense pride and rivalry, you can imagine the fury in Edmonton — where, I believe, at that time the CBC News was the number one supper-hour TV news show — when someone in Toronto announced that Edmonton, a city of a million people, could be served without a CBC TV station.
The experiment was a disaster. Ratings cratered, and the CBC eventually had to acknowledge that they had made a severe blunder — and that it was part of their mandate to serve the regions of Canada, and to give back a TV station to the capital of the province, which was a city of just under a million people back then. So the TV station returned, but they never again regained the trust of the audience or the share of the market.
I understand Senator Downe’s perspective. When you come from a place that is outside the centre of the country, it is intensely frustrating to have an official in Toronto or Montreal decide whether your region is deserving of the kind of attention the rest of Canada views as normative.
But we have to give some consideration to the extraordinary crisis that we faced three years ago. As Senator Downe said, it was a time when we did not know very much about COVID and how dangerous it was, and newsrooms all across the country, both print and broadcast, sent their reporters home and did their best to try to put together makeshift newscasts and makeshift newspapers with staff having as little face-to-face time as possible.
I also have sympathy for the people who made that decision in Prince Edward Island. They did not leave Prince Edward Island without local news, as Senator Miville-Dechêne has pointed out — the radio service was still there and active — nor did they leave the people of Prince Edward Island without access to CBC television, since there was coverage from other CBC stations and affiliates throughout Atlantic Canada.
I understand how bereft people must have felt and how betrayed they were, but I think we have to remember that this did not happen on a whim, as Senator Downe put it. This was an emergency response to an emergent crisis.
That said, it’s also very important to note that Bill C-11 is mindful of the fact that the CBC must be kept to the terms of its licence and to its regional mandate.
When we discussed the first part of this amendment in our committee, we were lucky to have Thomas Owen Ripley, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister at Canadian Heritage, speak to this issue:
The government would agree with Senator Downe’s point that right now the CRTC has very limited tools in the case of violation of a licence. At the end of the day, the primary tool is actually the revocation of the licence, which is, obviously, a big stick. That is why Bill C-11 puts in place an administrative monetary penalties regime, because it allows for a greater calibration of sanctions in the case of a violation where the corporation is actually able to assess what the violation is and what the appropriate sanction is to ensure compliance in that case.
The government had to consider whether CBC/Radio-Canada was going to be subject to that administrative monetary penalties regime. The government’s decision, at the end of the day, was to actually subject CBC/Radio-Canada to that regime. If you look at 34.99 of the bill, you will see that CBC/Radio-Canada can be subject to administrative monetary penalties just like the private sector.
To be precise, if you look at proposed paragraph 34.5(1)(b) of the bill, which I have just done, you will see that the penalty for a first offence may not exceed $10 million. For subsequent offences, the maximum rises to $15 million. So that administrative monetary penalty, or AMP, regime is potentially more crippling than what Senator Downe is proposing. Nor does the money go to local libraries, which is a complicated way to set up and administer an AMP regime, from which libraries benefit; instead, the money goes back to the treasury, and then it can be used as appropriate.
I, therefore, suggest to you that to punish Prince Edward Island’s CBC station for a decision made in a moment of crisis in a time of emergency — to import a spanking for them into this new Broadcasting Act that we may not reopen for another 30 years — is a bit too moment-specific. I think the fact that proposed section 34.99 of the bill does impose a penalty regime on the CBC — and requires them to keep to the terms of their licence or, as I said, face penalties of up to $15 million — is a pretty substantive signal that the government is taking this seriously.
Now we have arrived at the issue of salaries. I have an amusing personal anecdote about this, too: When I first joined the CBC as an associate producer — associate producers were primarily young women in their twenties, and, for many of us, it was our first real, substantive job in journalism — we were not paid very much money; I believe my starting salary may have been $27,000 a year.
One day, all of us girls got together and compared how much we were making, and we realized that one was making more and one was making less. It wasn’t a very fair thing. So all four or five of us marched down to the station manager’s office, and said that we would like a regularization of our pay. The station manager was outraged. He said, “Young ladies, it is not ladylike behaviour to discuss your salaries.”
I mean, I’m old, but I’m not that old. This would have been in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
The idea that the CBC keeps its salaries opaque, and that, even if you belong to a union, you may not know what your colleagues are making are long-standing problems.
I have some sympathy for the efficacy of sunshine lists, because sunshine is a good disinfectant. However, I am mindful of what Senator Wallin said in debate when we discussed this issue at committee. Let it be said that when I left the CBC, I believe I was making the “princessly” salary of $47,000 a year. I was never going to be on the sunshine list; I was always deep in the dark. Senator Wallin had a different career at the CBC where she was like a famous star, whereas it was my job to get people coffee. She knows more about this than I do.
Here is what Senator Wallin told us in committee:
The total compensation packages inside the CBC — and I’m sure others will be able to substantiate this — are broken down. For on-air talent, you would have the union part of your job, for which there would be a fixed rate; you would have the contract part of your job; you would have talent fees; you would have expenses, which might include cars, TV, clothes, surgery, et cetera; and there are performance bonuses, which are not performance in the traditional sense that you might have in the work world — the real work world for dollars earned or contributions made; it’s performance in the more traditional sense.
So working out how much somebody gets paid at the CBC is very complicated. It is certainly much more complicated than it was down at my end of the pay scale.
Again, I appreciate Senator Downe’s concern for transparency, and for the concern that he voiced in our committee about gender equity, because there are long-standing problems in the CBC and, frankly, in the journalism world regarding what men and women are paid. When I became a columnist at the Edmonton Journal, I started my full-time columnist job after working part-time and after having been on maternity leave before that. One day, I came out of the ether, I went to my boss’s office and I said, “Look, I don’t know what any of the male columnists here are making, but I want you to look at their salaries and look at mine, and tell me if you think it’s fair.” The next thing I knew, my salary had effectively doubled. That’s how much less I was earning than the men, and if I had not asked about it, that’s how much less I would have continued earning.
I think there is a legitimate problem in Canadian media that women are traditionally paid less than men for doing the same job — and often for doing a more difficult job. But, as Senator Dawson said, I don’t think that this kind of initiative belongs within Bill C-11.
I would love to see more transparency in how the CBC reports its salaries. We pay those salaries, and we depend upon those journalists to give us the news. Keeping the CBC accountable is in the interests of the whole nation, but this amendment to Bill C-11, to put this in the Broadcasting Act — our late colleague Elaine McCoy used to say we are shooting at the wrong duck. In this case, I think it is shooting at the wrong duck.
Thank you.
Would Senator Simons take a question?
Fire away.
I’m surprised actually, senator, at some of your comments. We’re talking about the Broadcasting Act. As Senator Dawson correctly pointed out, it hasn’t been before Parliament in decades. If you’re not doing compensation in the Broadcasting Act for the CBC, I’m not sure where you would do it. It is the most appropriate place. Where would you do it if it’s not the Broadcasting Act that is before us today?
Is it the most appropriate place? I would have to question that. I mean, it’s a very fine, granular thing to put in a regulatory framework that is supposed to be broad, general application. I don’t think the place to have this discussion needs to be in legislation. It can be clearly given as a ministerial directive or policy. Frankly, it’s something that the board of the CBC should be pressured to do. To put the micromanagement of the CBC’s pay salary into a broad regulatory framework that may have to last us for another 20 or 30 years is the wrong place for the right message.
Senator Simons, I’m a little confused. You’re either for transparency or you’re not. The problem we have had over many decades is that the CBC, when it comes to dealing with certain aspects, is taken away from the realm of good governance and the board, and they are managed directly by the minister’s office and whoever the CEO is, who has been appointed by the minister’s office to begin with. The Broadcasting Act is the exact place to protect taxpayers’ money.
What would be the hesitation, if we believe in transparency, putting it crystal clear in this revamped, modern and renewed Broadcasting Act to make sure that the CBC — which is funded completely by taxpayers’ money — will be transparent like every other government agency?
Thank you, Senator Housakos. I think I gave the answer to the same question when it was posed to me by Senator Downe, that what you’re asking for is a level of specific granularity that is out of place in a broad, general framework.
Also, if I can quote from what Senator Dawson told us at committee, this is from Senator Dawson’s words:
The CBC currently discloses compensation ranges for on-air talent of senior management. They break it down by position and classification of the role. That is consistent with other organizations in the wider federal public sector. What is being proposed would be inconsistent with standard practice in the federal public sector.
You’re aware that the Transport Committee recommended this very course of action nine years ago. Senator Dawson was the chair of that committee. Senators at the time recommended this proposal. We are, in effect, doing what the Senate recommended, and for some reason you’re opposed to it. I’m not clear why. I won’t get into the other comments about CBC and Charlottetown being punished and so on. I reject the suggestion, but we don’t have time to carry on.
Any more senators on debate?
Are senators ready for the question?
All those in favour of the motion please say “yea.”
All those opposed please say “nay.”
I believe the nays have it.
On division.
Is there an agreement on a bell? One-hour bell. The vote will occur at 4:45 p.m. Call in the senators.
