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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, May 9, 2002

0915

The Chair (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.))

Mr. Thor Bishopric (President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA))

Mr. R.H. Thomson (Actor, Writer and Broadcaster, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists)

0920

0925

Mr. Thor Bishopric

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay--Columbia, Canadian Alliance)

0930

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. R.H. Thomson

Mr. Jim Abbott

0935

Mr. R.H. Thomson

Mr. Thor Bishopric

0940

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ)

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

0945

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Thor Bishopric

0950

0955

The Chair

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale--High Park, Lib.)

Mr. Thor Bishopric

1000

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Mr. R.H. Thomson

1005

The Chair

Mr. Claude Duplain (Portneuf, Lib.)

Mr. Thor Bishopric

1010

Mr. Garry Neil (Policy Adviser, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA))

Mr. Thor Bishopric

The Chair

Mr. R.H. Thomson

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP)

1015

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Mr. Garry Neil

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Garry Neil

Mr. Thor Bishopric

The Chair

1020

Mr. Thor Bishopric

The Chair

Mr. Thor Bishopric (Member, Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits)

1025

Mr. Rupert Brendon (President, Institute of Communications and Advertising; Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits)

1030

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Mr. Garry Neil (Policy Adviser, Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits)

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Garry Neil

Mr. Jim Abbott

1035

Mr. Rupert Brendon

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Thor Bishopric

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Garry Neil

1040

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Garry Neil

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Garry Neil

1045

The Chair

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Mr. Garry Neil

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Mr. Rupert Brendon

1050

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Garry Neil

Mr. Rupert Brendon

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Rupert Brendon

Mr. Garry Neil

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Rupert Brendon

The Chair

1055

Ms. Cynthia Reyes (Vice-President, ProMedia International Inc.)

1100

Mr. Hamlin Grange (President, ProMedia International Inc.)

1105

Ms. Cynthia Reyes

1110

The Chair

Mr. Alexander Crawley (Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film Caucus)

Ms. Andrea Nemtin (Executive Board Member, Canadian Independent Film Caucus)

Ms. Barri Cohen (National Chair, Canadian Independent Film Caucus)

Mr. Ira Levy (Board Member, Canadian Film and Television Production Association)

Mr. Stephen Ellis (Past Chair, Canadian Film and Television Production Association)

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald (President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Film and Television Production Association)

Ms. Julia Keatley (Chair, Canadian Film and Television Production Association)

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

1115

Ms. Julia Keatley

1120

Mr. Ira Levy (Board member, Canadian Film and Television Production Association)

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

1125

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

The Chair

Ms. Barri Cohen (National Chair, Canadian Independent Film Caucus)

1130

Ms. Andrea Nemtin (Executive Board Member, Canadian Independent Film Caucus)

1135

Ms. Barri Cohen

1140

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

1145

Mr. Stephen Ellis

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Julia Keatley

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Barri Cohen

1150

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Mr. Ira Levy

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

1155

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Ms. Julia Keatley

1200

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Ms. Andrea Nemtin

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Stephen Ellis

1205

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Ms. Julia Keatley

Mr. Ira Levy

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

1210

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Mr. Ira Levy

1215

Ms. Andrea Nemtin

Ms. Julia Keatley

Mr. Stephen Ellis

1220

Ms. Barri Cohen

1225

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill

1230

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Ms. Julia Keatley

1235

Ms. Wendy Lill

Ms. Julia Keatley

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Ms. Barri Cohen

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

The Chair

1240

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

Ms. Julia Keatley

1245

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Julia Keatley

1250

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Julia Keatley

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Julia Keatley

Mr. Jim Abbott

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald

1255

Mr. Ira Levy

1300

The Chair

Ms. Andrea Nemtin

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

The Chair

1305

Mr. Hamlin Grange

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

The Chair

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Ms. Cynthia Reyes

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

The Chair

Ms. Cynthia Reyes

1310

Mr. Hamlin Grange

Ms. Cynthia Reyes

Mr. Hamlin Grange

Ms. Cynthia Reyes

Mr. Hamlin Grange

1315

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Mr. Hamlin Grange

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Ms. Cynthia Reyes

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

NUMBER 063

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, May 9, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0915)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)): I would like to call to order the meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which is meeting today to continue its study on the state of the Canadian broadcasting system.

We are sorry to have a small number of members today. A lot of them are at various meetings, and will be joining us as we carry on.

We are very fortunate today to have ACTRA with us, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, represented by Mr. Thor Bishopric, its president; Mr. Garry Neil,policy adviser; and somebody who is well known to all of us, Mr. R.H. Thomson,actor, writer, and broadcaster.

I give the floor to you, Mr. Bishopric.

Mr. Thor Bishopric (President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

ACTRA welcomes this opportunity to speak with you today on behalf of the 18,000 professional performers it represents. We are the people you see and hear when you watch and listen to English-language Canadian movies, television shows, and other recorded media.

We thought we would bring along earplugs and muffles for the division bells. Mr. Chairman, we have these available, if the circumstances of November 27 and April 18 return today.

I am a full-time actor, narrator, writer, and director from Montreal who spends far too much time as the voluntary elected president of the national union. R.H. Thomson is one of Canada's most distinguished actors. Robert is also a writer, director, and broadcaster. His filmography, television, and theatre credits are extensive. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards for his work. Garry Neil is ACTRA's policy adviser.

You have no doubt come to realize over the past year how much you are attempting to accomplish in this review of Canadian broadcasting. The issues are many and interrelated. They are intimately linked with broader economic and global issues. The whole mix is changing rapidly. The change is so rapid that, while we stand by what we put forward in our written brief, we can tell you our own thinking has developed since last summer.

What we have reluctantly concluded is it is now time to admit we have failed. After half a century of government support measures for Canadian television, and an even longer period of support for movies, it remains virtually impossible for me to find a Canadian story on either the big or small screen. Increasingly the work opportunities of R.H. Thomson, Thor Bishopric, and every other Canadian actor are being found in productions that are not Canadian. They do not necessarily reflect our world view. They do not pass along our values. Entertainment programs from other countries dominate our airwaves and cinemas. Entertainment programs are the most watched form of programming and the most culturally significant.

Our failure to capture the eyes and ears of Canadians for our stories is not because we lack the talent to put together high-quality popular programs. It's not because we lack the resources. We just don't have the will.

Our failure results from a number of factors. The CBC is mired in its bureaucracy. The NFB is a mere shell. Private broadcasters prosper by bringing us slick U.S. shows, which are dumped into Canada. They broadcast as little Canadian material as they can get away with. Independent producers require foreign partners to complete their financing. Inadequate Canadian content rules reward productions that are made primarily for a foreign market with a creative impetus that is not Canadian. Industry consolidation creates giants that feel little obligation to Canadians, and the CRTC retreats from stringent conditions of licence and strong regulations.

Following a prolonged period of financial growth and artistic development, Canada's film and television industry reached a plateau in the last decade. Our industry was set to explode onto the consciousness of Canadian and global audiences. But we did not make that leap, and since then have witnessed a decline in our capacity and will to produce Canadian programs.

Mr. R.H. Thomson (Actor, Writer and Broadcaster, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists): I am R.H. Thomson. I'm an actor.

Before I go to my written text, I would tell you that for the first time more of what we call service production has been done in Canada than indigenous Canadian production. In Montreal and Vancouver there are classes in speaking American. We can go to these classes and learn how to speak American so that we can get work in productions in our own country. We're grateful for the work, and I think that production should be here. But David Hemblen, who is a wonderful Canadian actor, came up to me on a set and said, “Don't you get tired of working in someone else's accent?”

There is a shift in our community. This is linked to our decline in production. The decline in Canadian production is also linked to the distorting forces of economic globalization. But let me be clear: I think trade is good, trade liberalization is good, and globalization is desirable, but only if these powerful movements respect the aspirations and cultures of all people, and at the moment they do not.

Our powerful friend to the south increasingly dominates audio-visual markets worldwide. Their domination of the Canadian market--see for reference classes taught in Vancouver and Montreal on speaking American--has always made it economically difficult to market our own productions and to provide the public policies and programs we need to counterbalance this cultural homogenization.

These public policies are increasingly at risk from the restrictions written into international trade agreements. These restrictions are a result of trade liberalization policies, which I am not an enemy of. The trade liberalization policies entrenched in these agreements were negotiated by people who were either content with or blind to the political and cultural repercussions that come when elected governments are bound by the rules of external trade.

The political repercussion of trade liberalization for Robert as a citizen is that the powers of my elected government--you--are diminished, and my single democratic vote is downgraded.

The repercussion for R.H. as an artist is that the cultural measures that successive Canadian governments have put in place for the last two generations, which were in large part responsible for remarkable achievements in writing, publishing, broadcasting, film production, television production, and other artistic enterprises, are regarded by the trade liberalization lobby as either trade barriers or trade-distorting subsidies. We certainly cannot support that view. It's crazy.

For 14 years, since the national discussions about our first free trade agreement with the United States, Canadian artists have watched the erosion of the ability of governments around the world to promote the cultural diversity of their own peoples and to be part of charting their cultural futures.

Canadian artists have learned how economics can be used to pry open and dismantle cultural initiatives. Therefore, Canadian artists are now at the forefront of an international campaign to address the phenomenon of what we call culturally distorting trade laws. ACTRA is working through two groups: the Coalition for Cultural Diversity here in Canada, and internationally we're working with a group called the International Network for Cultural Diversity.

I'll take a few moments to tell you about it. I'm an actor. Why should I be involved in a global campaign on trade deals? We watched the FTA and NAFTA go through, and we saw the repercussions of those deals. We saw our exemption for culture and the notwithstanding clause for culture. Then we saw the content of the proposed multilateral agreement on investment and what people put on the table for the FTAA, the free trade area of the Americas.

¿ (0920)

We decided that in each of these trade deals, the cultural part of the body politic or of a nation was losing a little every time. Every time we fought a trade deal, or wanted to intervene in a trade deal, we never came out well. We always lost a little, though everyone patted us on the head and told us we were very good, we were culture, and culture should be exempt.

We, the Canadians, decided to play an end-game on this destructive path through international trade deals. We have formed a network of artists and arts organizations from 50 countries and every continent. We call ourselves the International Network for Cultural Diversity. We have no money. But the idea is that the artists of the world say that's enough--we have to form an end-game on the squeezing of culture through trade deals.

We are working on an international instrument for culture--a treaty for culture. Minister Copps is very much with us. She has proposed this instrument and she's working on it with a group of culture ministers from 46 countries, I think. We meet every year where they meet and then we put our recommendations forward. The idea is to finally come up with a treaty on culture that is global. If we can get enough countries to sign on, we will end-game the process, which has been destructive to most cultures throughout the world.

It's exhilarating to sit with members from Mozambique, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, Spain--every country in the world--and hear the problems of an architect in Mozambique, or a film distributor in South Korea, or a small publisher in St. Petersburg, who are all going through the same problems as a result of these trade agreements. Canadian artists are in the forefront because we have the most experience with these trade deals and how they distort and squeeze culture.

Thank you very much.

I should say one more thing. We are urging our government, Minister Copps and Mr. Pettigrew--who also understands what we're talking about--not to make any commitments at all on culture or broadcasting or media in the coming years until we have this international treaty in place. Because it will take a number of years--four, five, six, seven years--before this treaty comes to fruition. We are urging them most vehemently not to agree to any deals on these issues in the negotiations they will make in the trade lobby.

Thank you.

¿ (0925)

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Canadian artists like Robert are indeed in the forefront of the global cultural diversity movement, and we are proud of this. But this is only part of the solution to the challenges I outlined earlier.

Canadian artists are also working on a bold new vision for Canadian culture that will be unveiled soon. Some of the components of this vision are in the written brief ACTRA sent you, and we hope you will have a chance to review it. Among its key points are a revitalized and restructured public service broadcaster and a revitalized independent production sector with public support going to those who will work with Canadian creators and artists and who will have their own money at risk, not those who merely line their own pockets.

Central to our views is the absolute necessity to continue to regulate Canada's broadcasting system, to apply meaningful quotas, and to ensure that those who use the public airwaves for profit pay handsomely for that privilege. ACTRA has tabled some ideas about how we can create an environment in which artists can produce the popular programs that will attract Canadians. But we have much work to do on our new vision for Canadian culture. The problems are profound, the crisis serious, and a broad range of issues must be considered.

With globalization, convergence, and the continuing vertical integration of the world's film, television, digital media, broadcasting, and telecommunications industries, some argue it is now impossible to tell Canadian stories successfully. We disagree. Canadian performers will not stand back and allow a global monoculture to sweep over us.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bishopric and Mr. Thomson.

Yours has been a very powerful message on extremely important issues. You have been especially forthright about qualifying the public broadcaster as a huge bureaucracy and the NFB as a shell. It will be interesting to get your views in more detail.

Mr. Thomson, I think you've outlined the challenge of trade and its encroachment on our culture in very clear terms, for which we are extremely grateful.

I'll open the questioning with Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay--Columbia, Canadian Alliance): Thank you for your presentation. At the risk of sounding patronizing, let me say in a very straightforward way, Mr. Thomson, that I appreciate your work very much. So if anything else I say ends up ticking you off, at least we started off on the right foot.

I am rather interested in the idea that has been suggested of meaningful quotas. It strikes me that in Canada we live in a democracy, and the people who are elected to come to this place are elected by the population at large. The statement that we just don't have the will perhaps reflects a different vision of democracy from mine.

The Broadcasting Act should be structured, and we should deal with the issue you brought before us today, on the basis of us, as parliamentarians, taking a role of leadership. But at the end of the day, if the population at large is not going to watch the shows or support the actions of the government, are you suggesting the government should just go ahead?

¿ (0930)

The Chair: Are you addressing your question to Mr. Thomson or Mr. Bishopric?

Mr. Jim Abbott: Mr. Bishopric.

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Thank you for the question.

Certainly not. What we have relied on to develop and successfully distribute Canadian works in the past are certain structural supports that are critical to ensuring that our stories are told. Through the successive lessening of regulation, particularly at the CRTC, we have seen fewer controls and less money to make Canadian production possible. As a result, it is very difficult to compete with the slick U.S. fare that is dumped in our Canadian marketplace.

It is impossible to produce an hour-long, high-quality Canadian television drama with Canadian budgets, with Canadian licence fees being pushed down by the broadcasters, and when Canadian broadcasters can purchase an equivalent hour-long drama from the United States, such as The West Wing, and only pay $100,000. The budget for a similar Canadian drama would be well over $1 million Canadian.

That makes a very difficult economic model for the production entities in Canada to compete with. As there are fewer and fewer prime-time spaces available for the broadcast of that work, it's difficult to put together the necessary budgets and resources to produce high-quality dramas.

Mr. Jim Abbott: If we were to look at two shows of similar genre, such as Cold Squad and Da Vinci's Inquest, CTV has chosen to show Cold Squad on Saturday night, and I don't know what night of the week Da Vinci's Inquest is on, but it is in prime time. I would respectfully suggest that viewers make choices.

I would never do this, but the government might choose to bring out all sorts of regulations that we have to have this or that as viewers, or try to manipulate the marketplace. But at the end of the day, Canadians choose what they're going to watch.

Maybe I'm hearing you wrong, but to me you're saying let's have more regulations so we have more Canadiana on the television and people are forced to watch it. That's what I'm hearing you say.

Mr. R.H. Thomson: I have to say something here, in that people do watch Da Vinci's Inquest and Cold Squad. The audience is there. The quota, subsidy, and structural adjustments are maintaining the space in which there can be the creation of Canadian programing in an economic environment that is full of what we call “cultural dumping”.

If I make a show for $1 million and sell it to you for $100,000, I'm selling it below cost. The American producers sell below cost in our market. We can't sell below cost in our own market, so we're being culturally dumped on. To maintain a space in the economic environment, in which we actually can produce Canadian programs that are watched, we need structural adjustments and these kinds of structural things in place.

If you only regard the quality of programing based on the most people who watch it, that obviously tells me the program is the best program. It is not a way to judge things of quality or culture. If it were the mechanism to judge the best culturally, then if I were to use a food metaphor, McDonald's hamburgers would be the best food in the world because the most people buy it. It obviously is not true. It's not the best food in the world, but the most people buy it. We can't apply the argument to arguments on cultural things, expression, or artistic things. It doesn't wash.

Mr. Jim Abbott: This leads to the question of what makes Canadian content Canadian. Unfortunately, although I have asked the question numerous times of various witnesses, I've never had an answer to the question.

What makes Canadian content Canadian? How do you define it?

¿ (0935)

Mr. R.H. Thomson: Like any definition of any border, if you look at it closely, it becomes absurd. Any border you look at, even the border between Canada and the United States, if you look at it closely, it becomes absurd. On what side of the pebble is the United States and on what side of the pebble is Canada?

If you look at any definition under the huge microscope, it becomes absurd. Having said that, you do have to make certain judgments, not arbitrary judgments, on what is Canadian and what is not Canadian. If you look at it too closely, any definition becomes absurd.

The Canadian content regulations are a set of definitions to grade what is Canadian. Is the writer Canadian? Is the director Canadian? Is the highest-paid performer Canadian? It's why we have the set of rules. If you look at the set of rules in a certain way, it becomes absurd. I can pick it apart from any number of different angles. It doesn't mean it's not necessary.

I'm trying to generally address the problem of defining something as Canadian. It's a question that in its essence becomes absurd, but it's a question that has to be answered in a certain way to work in the marketplace.

Mr. Thor Bishopric: I'd like to offer an answer to your earlier question, or at least give some clarification on our position.

As the CRTC has changed its regulatory rules, we've watched the decline of Canadian production. That decline has mirrored precisely the easement of those rules. For instance, in 1999 there were 11 Canadian 60-minute drama series being produced. In 2001 there were five. That's a significant decrease in production. The reason fewer series are being produced is that there is no longer as stringent a requirement to place that Canadian content on the airwaves.

I do not believe that Canadians spoke out in unison that they wanted less Canadian content and then the CRTC democratically reduced the amount of content that was required. I reject that argument.

We require these structural supports in order to ensure Canadian stories are told.

On the question of what is Canadian content, I don't know the answer absolutely, but I know about storytelling. Robert could tell you there are five stories, and only five. I hope you'll indulge him in that very useful discussion. But Canadian stories are stories that are told by Canadians.

Canadian content is content that contains Canadians, that's all. It doesn't mean the program is necessarily situated in Kensington market or any other neighbourhood. It doesn't mean there is necessarily a particular dialect, or the expression “eh” at the end of every sentence. What it means is that Canadian storytellers are telling stories. And as we ensure that writers, directors, actors, narrators, technicians, and cinematographers are making films, crafting stories, creating works of art, we will ensure that Canadian culture is surviving. We will ensure that culturally relevant stories are being told. Then what we have is a marketplace that will evaluate those works. But at least those works will be created.

We're watching the whole system decline. Certainly from my perspective as president of the actors' union, we are seeing fewer and fewer work opportunities for Canadian artists.

What is Canadian culture? Canadian culture is the ability for Canadians to be Canadian. It's the ability for Canadians to live Canadian lives, to dream the way we wish, to tell the stories we wish, and for performers to perform--not with Canadian accents, but to perform. When we have that opportunity, we contribute to Canadian culture. The more opportunities Canadians have to live and work as Canadians in our own country, on projects that are artistically relevant to us, the greater we contribute to our overall heritage.

I don' t have a content rule or a quota rule that will guarantee Canadianness. But I know that if Canadians are allowed to work, simply allowed to work--and increasingly, Canadians are not allowed to work on foreign service production, which happens here--we will contribute importantly to our culture.

¿ (0940)

The Chair: There is a lot of passion there, Mr. Bishopric. It's very welcome.

Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): I hope my passion will be understood as well.

The Chair: We hope. It depends on you.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Since the Broadcasting Act regulation and the various measures taken to support Canadian production have taken effect you make a pretty grim assessment of the support given to the Canadian production.

I would like to know whether this assessment applies to Quebec’s production as well. I am talking about both Francophone and Anglophone productions. I realize there are still improvements to be made, but it seems to me that Quebec’s francophone production is alive and well and that the population identifies with it better, even if we might still need more regional and local content. Is your assessment as critical when it comes to Quebec’s productions?

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Thank you for your question.

[English]

I live in Montreal, I work in Montreal. In fact, yesterday I was in studio until 7 p.m. dubbing a Quebec feature film into English, and that was my third booking of the day. Earlier in the day I was dubbing a Quebec drama series into English, 2 Frères, and last night I was dubbing Nuit de noces, two excellent programs.

What we see in Quebec is a thriving cultural industry. Many of my friends, including Pierre Curzi of UDA, would contend that they wish it were considerably stronger. Obviously cultural workers are passionate about culture. In Quebec there are many differences, many distinctions, and the French language guarantees an independent marketplace.

The challenges for English productions are much different and the consequences have been far more dire. With our friends to the south and their policy of placing U.S. cultural works in Canada.... They don't refer to them that way. In fact, the U.S. industries have regarded Canada as the U.S. domestic marketplace for at least 70 years. In other words, Canada is not considered a separate marketplace. For the purposes of acquiring those territories for licence, it's all thrown into one.

Because we have so much non-Canadian content being dumped into the English marketplace, we cannot find the screens, we cannot find the TV broadcast windows. In fact, I heard a statistic at the CFTPA conference here in Ottawa, from the distributors association--and this is horrifying--that Canadian cinemas show 0.2% Canadian works. In other words, of the feature films that are shown on Canadian cinema screens, the movies we all go and see, 99.8% are not Canadian films.

The situation is radically different in Quebec. A more healthy percentage of French-language, Quebec-made films are shown in Quebec. However, it's still certainly not the majority. It's a small percentage compared to the works that are imported, as well as the U.S. production, which is dubbed into the French language.

So while we do share our concerns with our French colleagues in Quebec, and while my actor friends in Quebec have sympathy for their situation and for ours, the situation with Canadian production is far more dire.

¿ (0945)

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Thank you.

Some witnesses talked about the percentage of Canadian content, especially pertaining to Canadian music on the radio. Some would like to see the percentage diminish; I think we currently stand at 35 p. 100 for radio, and they view that as a problem. It could free part of the market but the ones that would capture the space would likely be the Americans.

Do you feel such measures would undermine Canadian radio production?

[English]

Mr. Thor Bishopric: We're certainly not here advocating deregulation. In the event that greater deregulation is determined appropriate--and we hope that won't be the case--we will propose strategies to ensure that those entities that are using public broadcast systems for profit pay handsomely for that usage. But we're not there yet, and we hope it won't happen.

What we can say, looking at the music industry in Canada, is that it proves the point. If you provide protected airwaves for Canadian music, Canadian music will flourish. And when we look at the Canadian music scene, both English and French, we've created the world's greatest artists, huge sensations--Céline Dion, perhaps the greatest crossover singer in the history of popular music, and a whole range of performers. We've taken over the U.S. music industry, not because there was a strategy to do that, not because Canada is seeking world domination, but because Canadian artists can dominate.

The Canadian experience, I believe, is one of the richest, most culturally significant experiences there is anywhere. We are different from Americans. We are different from everybody else around the world. We are unique, and we deserve our voices to be heard. More importantly, the world deserves to hear our voices. The world will benefit from hearing our stories. Stories told by Canadians are fabulous. Songs sung by Canadians are fabulous. Radio dramas, written and performed by Canadians, are fabulous. But economic pressures will make them impossible to produce. The record is very clear. That's what's happening. We can stand by and watch it happen, or we can do something about it.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: How do you think we could improve pertaining to the Canadian Television Fund, in terms of criteria that help producers accomplish their work? What would you like to see added as measures? What issues would we need to resolve in Canadian television production? We can’t forget either that Telefilm Canada is here to help independent producers.

[English]

Mr. Thor Bishopric: I can't provide a comprehensive answer to that right now, but I can touch on some of the issues and some of the improvements that would help greatly.

Obviously, in a regulated world we need regulation that works, that makes sense. Canadian content, currently being reviewed, is vital, since unless those windows are assured no one will make product to go in those windows.

Forgive me; I use the “product” word. I'm an artist. I believe films and television programs are works of art, but I have to make so many speeches before so many august bodies that I've started talking about “product” and “content”.

These are works of art. These are films. These are stories people tell because they think they'll die if they don't tell them. They're passionate about it. They want to get that voice heard; they want to get their stories out. Unfortunately, as regulation has permitted there being less and less Canadian fare produced, less and less has been produced.

An actor's perspective on what's happened within the private industry in Canada is that it's been a very unfortunate evolution. We've seen billions of dollars poured into production as support measures--billions of taxpayers' dollars. And what we see now are statements coming out of our largest producers that say it quite simply isn't profitable any more to produce Canadian content, so we'll be doing less and less of it and we'll be acquiring the content we need on the open market. The result is that licence fees are driven down, lesser-quality budgets are put in place to produce the important stories that have to be told, and fewer artists are working.

We believe these entities, which have in many cases developed their business plans along the lines of acquiring international presence--purchasing broadcast entities in far-flung nations, opening production divisions all over the world, providing the greatest possible shareholder value--we believe these manoeuvres have not been good for Canadian culture, because ultimately they're resulting in less and less Canadian culture being produced.

Canadian taxpayers' money has been used to greatly inflate the balance sheets and profit margins of these Canadian corporations, which now, in our opinion, are turning away from producing. They achieved a critical mass where they could go out into the larger communications world and acquire international companies--and what about making Canadian programming? It's not happening.

We believe that in a revitalized industry there will be a greater commitment on the part of production entities, that there will be some real capital at risk--some of the producer's capital at risk. There's an expression in this industry. It's called “OPM”. A friend of mine told me, when I was working with him to try to get a show I'd developed into production: “Thor, Thor, stop it.” I was talking about actually putting up some money to do a pilot. He said “Stop it. Don't talk like that. OPM.” I'm sorry...? “Other People's Money--that's how we produce. Other People's Money: you don't put up your own money. Don't be silly.”

From my perspective--and I'm a young, naive guy--I think that's had a devastating effect on our industry. Without the profit motive--really, in a genuine capitalist sense--nobody has built up a system here that is genuinely profitable.

¿ (0950)

There is no star system in Canada, except Quebec, where there is a very healthy star system. We see the culture thriving because heroes are created, cultural symbols who reflect to the people of Quebec what it is to be a Quebecker. That's critical.

What Hollywood has done through their star system is create heroes, but not just for U.S. citizens; they've created heroes for all of us, heroes who are so strong, so mighty, that our heroes can't compete. From my perspective, that's the result of good old-fashioned capitalism, which has caused them to look at the most successful means of domination.

Again, we're not looking at domination. We're looking at being able to tell our own stories.

¿ (0955)

The Chair: Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale--High Park, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all for coming and your repeated attempts to try to address this committee. It's quite commendable.

I have a number of questions.

Garry, I know your expertise is in the area of the international trade agreements and the WTO. I wonder if you could talk a bit about what happened at the WTO in the last round at Qatar, and what we should be looking at and how it can affect even our broadcasting services.

Robert, thank you for bringing up the International Network for Cultural Policy, which is the government side of the INCD. As you're aware, there's a draft agreement, a text already prepared that will be brought forward to the ministers in South Africa in September. So I think it's incumbent upon us as parliamentarians, as we travel around the world, to get more countries to join, to be part of that coalition.

I want you to address also what cultural measures you feel are missing. You talked about years ago there being cultural measures in place that helped us to develop these thriving cultural industries. So what do you feel is missing, and how do you restore the will to produce Canadian? It's one thing to say you want to do it, but what do you see is needed to bring that or to show evidence of that will?

On your comment, I know who you're speaking about when you talk about people or the large companies not producing Canadian, but there are independent broadcasters, many of whom live in my own riding--Tapestry Films, Epitome Pictures--who produce Canadian, who are small independent producers, who benefit from those programs. CTV recently aired their hit show, which they're using as their baby, The Jonathan Wamback Story, which was produced by Mary Young-Leckie, who producedThe Arrow. So in regard to those tax measures, you say that's being done with the taxpayer's money, but that's producing great Canadian work.

I believe at one point you said one of your recommendations was to get revitalized independent production. Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't damn the benefits, and yet those benefits also.... You can't go just by the Alliance Atlantises and Robert Lantos of this world, because the production sector is much larger than that.

Before we damn the producers, I think some blame also has to go to the CRTC in the fact that they changed what their priority programming was. The fact is, less drama is being produced because the CRTC has allowed it to happen. Priority programming is no more drama. Everybody says drama is too damn expensive to produce and that's why Alliance Atlantis is not producing it any more, but it doesn't preclude the Mary Young-Leckies, the Linda Schuylers, and the Ira Levys of this world from producing Canadian drama, Canadian works. So I'd like you to comment on that.

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Perhaps in reverse, then, I'll deal with that last issue.

I haven't mentioned any producers, and I'm not damning any of them--just to be clear. I absolutely support what you've said. There are fine independent producers in Canada who are working very hard to produce Canadian stories. Many of them are my friends. There are wonderful productions happening. What we're reflecting on is the obvious and startling decline. We are in decline.

There are wonderful, well-intentioned producers. Many of those individuals obviously have art in their soul. They are artists. They have come from an arts background and have an absolute commitment to creating works of art, to telling important stories. And they're not giving up. All this is in an environment where licence fees are declining, where the ability to produce is being challenged.

I think of the example you mentioned: if the largest producers in the country have determined that it's no longer profitable to produce drama, thank God for people like Ira Levy, whom you've mentioned, still sticking with it. But what does that say? It says that the largest, best-heeled corporations are turning their noses up at drama and it's only going to be the independents, the hungriest producers, who are going to be pursuing that type of production.

À (1000)

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: You begin to follow along the same line. But don't we see this also as a niche market for this independent...? I believe that was one of your predictions. So what do we need to do to foster that independent production sector, as opposed to relying on the large producers to produce Canadian films? We have to put things in place. I see this as a great opportunity.

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Sure.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: And when you talk about the declining licence fees, are you talking just about the larger broadcasters such as CTV and CanWest Global? What about all the specialty channels? Don't we see that as an opportunity, and what as a government should we be doing to assist and to promote all those specialty channels as the digital age comes into being? Help me here. What is it that's needed?

Mr. Thor Bishopric: There's a lot needed. You asked about the will to produce. How do we create that will to produce? The experience in Canadian production the last twenty years has been that there have been an awful lot of failed attempts. Many productions have not made their money back. They haven't been able to recoup. And we believe that part of the problem has been the declining regulation in the marketplace.

When there is a certain window for production, competition will develop in the marketplace. Producers will compete to fill that window. That type of competition, even in the area of culture, is very healthy, since it will drive up the quality of the films being produced to go in that window. As those windows shrink and decline, there is less competition among competing producers, each of them vying to get the best story from a writer, each of them vying to get the best performers for their works, and the work is not being created.

If we talk about the specialties and the opportunity they represent, you're absolutely right, there are new opportunities to place programs. But again, the number of specialties and the new digital rollout opportunities are so vast that this as well is driving down licence fees. So less and less money is available to produce these high-quality works. As a result, the competitive factors aren't there, in my opinion, to ensure the highest quality all the time, and we wind up with criticism that heck, if Canadians don't want to watch it, there's no way to force them. But given our geographical and economic situation here in Canada, we can't be blind to our responsibility, which is to ensure that Canadians have the option. Canadians have to be able, if they wish, to choose a Canadian story, and the current trend is making that impossible.

Mr. R.H. Thomson: I'd like to say a couple of things, if I may.

It's Mr. Abbott's question as well: why don't enough Canadians watch Canadian work? They do watch Canadian work. We know that. The market is fracturing, so everyone's work is less watched, so to speak. But the emotional reason Canadians do not turn in huge droves to Canadian work is that we have allowed our cultural key signature to be set by America for 80 years. It sets our cultural key signature, the style of television programming we all expect. It sets the slickness, the high production values, the acting style--I call it looking good--it sets the style, the key signature. Our key signature is not set by France, England, Spain, or Brazil; it's set by one country--the United States. So to make popular programming you have to play in that key, so to speak. And we'll never beat the Americans in that key because they outspend us ten to one. It's a box that's very hard to get out of.

I feel, though, that the public broadcasters have a larger part to play. The public broadcasters are outside of these kinds of the economic winds, or what we call the cultural dumping. The public broadcasters are outside the key signature set by an economic force coming from another country.

I bemoan the fact that the CBC was cut. I know there are problems with the CBC, and ACTRA has some recommendations it would like to see acted upon. But the CBC and the other public broadcasters have the ability to produce dramas outside of the winds of the marketplace, so to speak. The ones they have produced, like Trudeau and the history series, people watched. There's no question about that. So the CBC has backed off from this role, and I regret that in a way.

There's the recommendation, too, that the CBC be allowed to operate digital channels that also would be in that mindset not determined by the key signature of another culture, but in the mindset of a public broadcaster, which is freer than a private broadcaster. In that freer mindset of a public broadcaster, stuff can be made that could never be done in the private world.

À (1005)

The Chair: Given the importance of your testimony, I've allowed this to take quite a bit of time so we could hear from you, and especially considering that you had been here before and were interrupted. But we have several other groups, and in fairness to others who have to appear, perhaps we could press on.

I'll turn to Mr. Duplain, Mrs. Lill, and then we'll move on from there.

Mr. Duplain.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Duplain (Portneuf, Lib.): I congratulate you on your testimony and please note that I agree to a large extent with what you have said. I would like to better understand the situation and to figure out how we, as members of parliament, can help you. We know that the market is limited in Canada and that it is therefore difficult to compete with the United States.

I will ask you a set of questions that you may answer sequentially. You mentioned the CRTC has changed regulations with has resulted in lower production outputs. If I understand well, these changes pertain to Canadian content, right? You have even said that in some instances the CRTC does not intervene to penalize. Is that correct?

Can you give concrete examples of situations where the CRTC does not intervene? Thirdly, I am curious to know at which point Canadians will feel they can no longer support a cultural industry. Is there a level at which they will refuse to allow us to invest additional money even if we are able to?

My last question--you may give a succinct answer--concerns your statements relative to Canadian content and American shows that we try to duplicate. Is that not precisely a problem? Trying to duplicate to many American shows? I would like to get your opinion on this.

[English]

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Thank you. There are four questions, and given the time pressures, we'll try to be brief.

I'll answer your first question, or I'll attempt. How can you help? Well, it's bold to start out by saying we've failed in our efforts to support Canadian culture. I don't mean to be objectionable in that comment, and quite frankly, ACTRA is prepared to take some responsibility there as well. We have not had a very strenuous voice over a number of years due to internal conflicts and other problems, but at this point we're prepared to join the debate because it's critical now. Certainly my organization has gotten its house in order. We are in better communication with our sister organizations in the culture area. We are trying to put together a coalition of interest on the part of the artists' community of Canada to do something about this, to help articulate some of the answers, not simply to rail against the system or to point the finger.

You could help us by ensuring there's an open ear to listen to artists' concerns. You could help us by ensuring the CRTC and other structural supports are going to be preserved. You could help us by ensuring the CBC remains important to yourselves and all Canadians, and that it will be preserved and strengthened. You could assure us by clearly stating that we as Canadians do support cultural diversity and with certainty we will not make any undertakings within the cultural realm regarding trade arrangements.

I'll hand it over to Garry Neil for the CRTC examples you sought.

À (1010)

Mr. Garry Neil (Policy Adviser, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)): There are two leading examples of where the CRTC has played a role in this. The first is the 1998-99 television policy decision, which significantly reduced the obligations on private broadcasters to contribute to the more expensive forms of programming, like drama. They replaced previous requirements with a system of priority program requirements and they further defined and opened up the definition of what constitutes the underrepresented programming categories to include long-form documentary. So we've seen their regulatory commitments being filled by lower value programming, the so-called reality-based programming, and by long-form documentary programming, at the expense of things like drama.

The second decision that we find particularly worrisome from the commission was their decision on new media. They decided that a certain amount of what's transmitted over the Internet and computer networks is programming, and therefore could be called broadcasting, yet they would not apply any regulations. We think this decision was very short-sighted. It's absolutely critical that Internet service providers be regulated as distributors where they are in fact distributing programming.

You've asked about what limit there is in terms of Canadian public support for Canadian production. In ACTRA's view, it's a structural imbalance that will always require some forms of measures to level the playing field for Canadian producers and Canadian artists. The exact balance between measures, subsidies, regulatory systems, Canadian content requirements, tax credits, and other things can change. The particular mix of regulations and funding can change, but in fact it will always be necessary, because there is a permanent and structural imbalance.

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Just to address the nature of Canadian--

The Chair: Mr. Bishopric, there are four other groups here, and we have to give them a chance.

It's 10:15 already, so if you could make it short, Mr. Thomson....

Mr. R.H. Thomson: I'll make it very short.

I think that for the last three years the majority of my income has come from portraying Americans. As you say, do Canadians have an appetite to see me playing Americans? Is it what the market is telling me? It's what the market tells me through my income.

The greatest compliment I ever get on the street, and I don't get it often, because we're Canadians and have no star system, is when people come up to me and say thanks for staying in this country.

It is so easy to go away and work somewhere else or in the States. A lot of my compatriots have done so, and they have great and wonderful careers. It is very difficult to stay here and tell Canadian stories through a Canadian voice, but there is an audience for it. People want to hear it.

I came from theatre. We developed a theatre 30 years ago. There was no Canadian theatre. We used to do Canadian plays and 14 people came. Everyone came up and asked why we were doing a Canadian play when no one comes. Thirty years later, we pack the houses with Canadian plays. It can be done. It's a long uphill battle.

People want Canadian content. It's all I can say. I hear it on the street and from the viewers.

What structures, subsidies, and policies do we put in place to make sure Canadian content can exist in an economic atmosphere that plays against it all the time?

The Chair: I think it was worth giving you time for your message.

Mrs. Lill.

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you.

I want to get some things on record that I'm sure have been touched on, but there's no harm in hammering them in further and deeper for the purposes of our study.

You've made the point very clearly that if classes are being given in Montreal for people to speak American, we have a real problem in terms of what we are creating in this country that is essentially Canadian.

One, I would like ACTRA to tell the committee whether you believe we should be strengthening Canadian content rules. Should we be recommending it?

Two, do you believe we should be strengthening foreign ownership rules for media companies?

Three, should we be limiting the concentration of media ownership in Canada?

It's about all I need to know right now. I'm sure a lot of the other material has been covered eloquently.

À (1015)

Mr. Thor Bishopric: The real quick answer would be yes, but we'll take them quickly, one at a time.

On the first one, we should absolutely strengthen Canadian content rules.

Ms. Wendy Lill: How would you do it?

Mr. Thor Bishopric: We're proposing moving to content being 100% Canadian. We're not saying it should be done immediately, but it should be done very quickly. Canadian content is something that contains Canadians. We are arguing for more stringent Canadian content rules and a point system that requires all Canadian.

Garry.

Mr. Garry Neil: On foreign ownership rules, I think the big battle will be to maintain the restrictions we currently have. I don't realistically see us changing or strengthening them. Absolutely, we require maintaining the foreign ownership restrictions we currently have.

Yes, I think it's absolutely necessary to have some measures that relate to cross-media ownership, particularly in the whole field of maintaining editorial diversity and diversity of editorial opinion in certain markets. I would point out, one of the few U.S. restrictions there is in the cultural field is a limitation on cross-ownership of media in local markets.

Ms. Wendy Lill: One of the arguments from larger broadcasting media corporations is the more foreign ownership and foreign investment that comes in, the more Canadian content can be created. How would you respond to that particular debate?

Mr. Garry Neil: Somehow we don't think the additional foreign investment would be directed to that particular part of a business enterprise, when you have some of the largest of our media companies saying there's no money to be made in production. They can make their money in distribution activities and in broadcasting activities. One suspects it's where the additional investment would flow.

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Many of the same studio entities that run the world entertainment industry also control distribution and control the distribution market for feature films in Canada. The argument certainly hasn't worked in that area. If we don't have any Canadian feature films, and when we do produce excellent Canadian feature films we can't even position them on Canadian screens in cinemas, it would seem to me this type of promise isn't worth banking on.

The Chair: Just before we close, there are a few points that we would like to get answers on from you to help the researchers. We won't have time to go into them right now, but if we could give you a list of things, it would really help us if you could furnish the answers to us.

First of all, you mentioned declining opportunities for Canadian artists. I don't know if you were referring to drama only, because we have figures that show there's been a progression since 1994-95 that has been pretty significant in both direct and indirect jobs. We would like to know whether you're talking about drama, and in what section. Overall, there seems to have been a significant increase.

Also, I think you mentioned declining funding. I was wondering--because our figures show funding has gone up--how you see that and whether you see a breaking point in the capacity to fund.

Regarding the public broadcaster, you talked about it being revitalized, and I know in your brief you talked about public interest and more funding for CBC. Have you any other ideas you could give us?

You also referred to NFB becoming a shell. If you have any specific ideas regarding NFB and the cable television fund, how to reorganize it, this is the kind of information we would love to have from ACTRA because of your extremely important position in the industry.

So whatever you can furnish us with we would really appreciate. We'll ask the researchers to liaise with you.

À (1020)

Mr. Thor Bishopric: We will certainly provide our perspective on those issues, and we thank you sincerely for taking an interest in what our views are.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bishopric, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Neil.

I believe some of you are going to be before us in another guise, under the Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits. There's you, Mr. Bishopric. Mr. Neil will be there, and I believe you're going to be joined by Mr. Brendon, the president of the Institute of Communications and Advertising, and Mr. Robert Reaume, the vice-president of the alliance. So if we could, we'll start without delay and perhaps carry on until eleven.

Thank you very much, Mr. Thomson, for taking the time and trouble. We really appreciate it.

Mr. Thor Bishopric (Member, Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits): Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to talk with you about the state of the Canadian commercial production industry. My name is still Thor Bishopric, and I'm president of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

My career as a professional performer began at age four with my first radio spot. Since that time I've performed in well over 75 television and radio commercials.

With me is Rupert Brendon, president of the Institute of Communications and Advertising, which has represented Canadian advertising agencies since 1905; and Bob Reaume, vice-president of the Association of Canadian Advertisers, representing the major Canadian advertisers. Garry Neil is an adviser to the ACATC.

The ACATC is an ad hoc coalition of all parts of Canada's television commercial industry. We have joined together from a shared concern about the serious decline in the production of Canadian television commercials. To put our presentation into context, we have a short video we'd like to show you.

[Video Presentation]

À (1025)

Mr. Rupert Brendon (President, Institute of Communications and Advertising; Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits): Good morning. My name is Rupert Brendon.

The video demonstrates that commercials and advertising are powerful cultural tools. Because they concern everyday goods and services, the nuances of our social rituals are reflected more fully in our commercials than perhaps in any other medium. The impact of the Labatt's “Out of the Blue” and the Molson's “I am Canadian” series of commercials has been enormous, not just on sales but on our psyche as well. They touch a nerve in many.

Canada's Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps, recently showed the Canadian rant to an American audience as a concise but powerful statement of our feelings about our neighbour. This 30-second television spot is a high-profile example of what commercials can do for Canadian identity, culture, and national pride. That's one of the reasons all of us should be concerned about whether we can see Canadian commercials on our television screens.

While statistics are hard to come by, the industry estimates that when we entered the 1990s we produced here more than 80% of the commercials broadcast by Canadian television stations. By the end of the decade that had fallen to 50%. But there's more to that figure than just an overall decline. Since commercials for governments--still the largest advertisers in the country--banks, beer, and others are country-specific products and services, those commercials are all produced here. When you isolate consumer products and services, automobiles and so on, you see that virtually all these commercials are imported, a substantial change from a decade ago.

The basic reason for this is simple. It's substantially less expensive to import a television commercial from the U.S. or Great Britain than it is to produce an original Canadian campaign. The underlying causes of the problem are far more complex.

À (1030)

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Producing our own television commercials is also important for economic reasons. They are an important source of income for professional talent, including performers, directors, editors, technicians, and others who are part of the audio-visual production infrastructure. My members, English-language actors and other performers, last year earned more than $35.5 million working in television commercials. That was 22% of the overall income in ACTRA's jurisdiction. But an even larger share of our work is on U.S. commercials shot in Canada.

We know you cannot build and maintain a permanent infrastructure for the Canadian film and television industry by relying on imported jobs. If there was ever any doubt, the events of the last six months, during which U.S. producers generally stayed at home, have made that clear.

Let me add a note about why our presentation is in English only. Our French-language colleagues support our initiative, and several are members of the alliance, but the problem of declining commercial production simply doesn't exist in the same way for them. Imported television commercials must be redone for Canada's French-language market. Thus, virtually all the commercials you see in French Canada are either produced here, dubbed here, or otherwise adjusted for the Canadian audience.

What can we do to reverse the decline in production? How do we make the Canadian commercial production sector competitive again? As our name and video might imply, many of us believe that with a small amendment to the existing tax credit system you could provide an incentive for those who produce television commercials in Canada equivalent to the credit available for producers of television programs and movies. While there would need to be appropriate regulations for productions that are much smaller than a movie or a television show, we think it might work.

I will record that one of the members of the alliance, while supporting a study of the problem and possibly policy approaches, does not endorse the tax credit incentive. The rest of us do.

Mr. Garry Neil (Policy Adviser, Alliance for Canadian Advertising Tax Credits): What we would also note as an umbrella group is that any public measure addressing this issue would have to be an incentive rather than a mandatory requirement. Australia obligates broadcasters to show a certain percentage of Australian-produced commercials, but we do not support such a system in Canada. Mandatory requirements are inappropriate and probably unworkable. Because the advertising industry is specifically included in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, a mandatory requirement could result in a trade challenge.

The commercial industry knows there is a problem. The decline in commercial production in Canada concerns all of us greatly, and it should concern the Department of Canadian Heritage and this committee. Canada needs to find positive incentives to help to level the playing field against imported commercials. The advertising industry is committed to working with you, with the department, and with others to find a way to repatriate the production of television commercials broadcast on the Canadian system for both economic and cultural reasons.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: I presume you've calculated the potential cost of the tax credit to the treasury. What would that number be?

Mr. Garry Neil: I did not bring that figure with me, I'm sorry, but we do have figures on the overall amount of production in Canada. We will make those figures available. We have speculated on various kinds of commercial productions, to show what the effect would be on each of those specifically different productions that have occurred in the past. So we will provide those to the researchers.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Those numbers are very important for us, because we have to quantify what the cost is going to be on this. We can talk about the values, and so on and so forth, and most of us buy into it as a concept, but we also need to able to do a proper assessment of the problem and what it will cost the treasury.

We have a tendency in Canada to think of tax credits as benign, but in fact a tax credit is the same thing as a subsidy. A subsidy is a pay-out and a tax credit is the money that does not come back in. It's the same thing.

I noted your comment that you're not mandating only Canadian-made commercials, as Australia is. I commend you for that position and agree with that completely. But within the industry itself, are we looking at a situation similar to television shows that were referred to, in a previous presentation, as being dumped into Canada? The reality is that if The West Wing cost $13 million and CTV can pick it up for $250,000, that's probably in the range where CTV can still make a buck; otherwise, they wouldn't be paying $250,000. It was referred to as dumping. I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's all right.

In the area of commercials, why wouldn't General Motors, Ford, or the other larger advertisers that are getting the American ads and putting them into Canada...? There's a production cost to an advertisement, so let's make up a number. Let's presume that a more sophisticated automobile advertisement costs $500,000 to put together. The advertising agency in the States takes a look at that and says they already have $500,000 invested in this; or Ford takes a look at it and says they already have $500,000 invested in this, so why don't they just charge their Canadian side of Ford $50,000, or one-tenth of the cost?

We come then to the question of whether your proposal is actually realistic. This is a purely theoretical idea, but it probably constitutes a fair reflection of reality. Could Ford actually put out an advertisement of the quality, value, and impact of this $500,000 U.S.-based advertisement for $50,000 in Canada? I suspect the answer would be no.

À (1035)

Mr. Rupert Brendon: I think you're probably right. We need to work with this committee to figure it all out. It's not a simple solution, or we would have come to a simple solution that everybody would have signed on to. It's a very complex issue.

Mr. Jim Abbott: But with the greatest respect, we need a little bit more to work with. If the position I've created here--the $500,000 to $50,000 and so on--is realistic, then what is the answer? We can give all the tax credits in the world, but if Ford Canada can create the kind of impact they want to with $50,000 instead of $500,000, how will tax credits solve the problem?

Mr. Thor Bishopric: In that particular example, where they are going to be producing one high-value spot, our perspective is that spot should be shot in Canada. To that end, the ad industry and the performers just this week ratified a new collective agreement that will enable Canadian production to be more competitive, in order to attract some of that production here in Canada.

That will be an advantage for us, because, directly to your point, we concede you cannot produce a $50,000 spot that will provide equivalent bang to the $500,000 spot. It's the same argument you heard earlier.

Mr. Jim Abbott: But would you see the application of your tax credit idea to that production?

Mr. Garry Neil: I have a couple of comments. I think, as Rupert noted, this is a complex issue, and in our observation the first thing we need is some recognition that it's an important issue, that there actually is a problem. It's not just an economic problem; there's a problem with this decline in the level of production of Canadian television commercials.

We looked at the tax credit. Most of the members of the alliance support expanding the tax credit but fully recognize that this of itself would not solve the problem we've identified. Would it have an impact? Clearly it would have an impact, because suddenly you have another element in the decision-making process in certain cases, because while you postulate the $500,000 ad for General Motors or Ford versus a $50,000 Canadian ad, that's of course only one kind of television commercial that's produced. So it would have an impact.

Is there more that needs to be done? Yes. We think there would have to be more. What are the other answers? We don't know.

We tossed around a notion of perhaps again using the tax credit model of developing a tax credit for the placement of a Canadian-produced television commercial on a Canadian television show. This would have two effects: one, it would help broadcasters to sell advertising time on Canadian content programs, and two, it would act as an incentive for the advertiser when they're buying their media, when they're choosing their campaign and deciding how they're going to spend their money.

So that's another idea we have thrown around, and it is a possibility, but we understand there isn't an easy answer.

À (1040)

The Chair: Ms. Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I don’t know if my logic is sound but you might help me in the right direction.

You say publicity promotes culture. How does a commercial on a product promote culture? When people are watching a movie or a show, they often wonder why we see so many commercials, because they are annoying. We understand the link between supporting productions and generating revenues from publicity, but why would we have to grant a tax credit for producing commercials?

Some have told us that they wish publicity was included in Canadian content. Wouldn’t that have the effect of promoting the proliferation of commercials to the detriment of real cultural production? Would it not encourage more producers to focus on publicity to reap the benefits of having a tax credit?

I find what you are suggesting dangerous.

[English]

Mr. Garry Neil: There are a couple of points. First of all, we believe that television commercials are themselves profoundly cultural. And our video attempted to draw some of those Canadian commercials to our attention that do have that impact, like the rant commercial that touched a nerve in English Canada. It was a profoundly cultural experience.

Where you're talking about the producers, in fact there are different producers who generally work on television commercials. Much of the infrastructure they use to produce those commercials is the same as is used by film and TV producers, but there are not that many producers who actually produce both television commercials and television programs or films. It's a slightly different community.

And what was the third component of the question?

A voice: Canadian content.

Mr. Garry Neil: I think the proposal that's being touted is not to call commercials Canadian content, but infomercials, which are program-length commercials, effectively. There are some broadcasters who wish those to be considered as part of their Canadian content for regulatory purposes.

As an overall umbrella group, we have not had a discussion about what we think about that. I can tell you from ACTRA's side that we don't look very favourably on that proposal on infomercials.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Technically, the credit would be granted to a commercial such as the one you presented. There are many types of commercials: the ones targeting consumers for them to purchase a given product and other types as well. Do you propose any guidelines and restrictions on granting the credits?

[English]

Mr. Garry Neil: At its most simple, the way you would create the incentive would be to remove from the existing tax credit program just one clause, which says these tax credits do not apply to audio-visual production that is a television commercial. At its most simple, you simply change that definition, so a commercial would apply as any other audio-visual production. It's a bit more complex, because you would need a different regulatory system, you'd need different regulations to make it work for what are substantially smaller-scale productions than traditional television programs or films. But at its most basic, that's what it would be; it would be striking out the exclusion from the existing program.

À (1045)

The Chair: Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Just to follow up on that, Garry, where is the existing program situated? Is this something the CRTC mandates? Is this something the CRTC should mandate? You talked about the Australian model and their percentage of commercials. Where would the directive come from?

I'm going to ask the opposite of Mr. Abbott's question. Why not use the Australian model? Why would that necessarily be a bad thing?

Third--and I want you to address this first--is the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. We talk about advertising. When the magazine bill, Bill C-55, came about, there was that whole concept of advertising and whether it was a service. My understanding--correct me if I'm wrong--is that we have not taken on obligations under the GATS with respect to advertising, and that was Canada's position when we were involved in the magazine war. Why, under the Canada-U.S. FTA, would this be subject to a challenge? Are advertising services an obligation we've taken on? I don't understand.

Mr. Garry Neil: The answer to the third question is yes, the advertising services are specifically included in the provisions of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. I was around in 1989 and I went to a briefing given by our negotiators at the time. I put to them exactly this question. I said “Look, guys, in this agreement you have said broadcasting is excluded and advertising services are included. What if we ever wanted to consider applying content quotas on television advertising?” The answer I got was “What an interesting question. We don't know the answer to that question.” In the end, they said that probably because it's a broadcasting service rather than an advertising service, we could do it. But it's a question.

So there's the answer: we haven't committed advertising services in the GATS, but we did in the Canada-U.S. FTA, and that's why you have the potential for a challenge to any mandatory measure. It would be under the FTA.

Why not content quotas? Not just because of the challenge, but because we're not unrealistic. The way the business works, broadcasters choose which programs they want to put on air. They buy the programs. It's their choice. They do not choose the television commercials they're going to put on the air. It's the advertiser or the agency, the media buyers, who buy the time, and then they decide what's going to go into that slot. As long as it meets overall the regulations, the industry requirements in respect of sexual stereotyping, violence, advertising directed to children, and those other things you heard about on April 18, they can place it on the air.

They make the decision, so it would be very difficult. This is why the commission, back in 1970, when it first looked at Canadian content regulations, did not impose content regulations on commercials. They felt it wouldn't work. It's not the way the business works, because the broadcasters don't make those decisions about what commercial is broadcast.

Finally, the tax credit program is administered by the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office, CAVCO, within the Department of Canadian Heritage. The regulations would presumably be under the control, in the end, of the Department of Finance and that kind of thing. So the tax credit system is a government measure, not a CRTC one.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: I just have one last question, if I may. When the Canadian Association of Broadcasters came before us, one of its recommendations was to allow drug advertising, and I know this has been an ongoing battle with Health Canada. Does your association have a position on this?

Mr. Rupert Brendon: The ICA and the ACA are certainly in support of being able to inform Canadians about health matters, which includes prescription medicines, but that's not within the purview of this particular--

À (1050)

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: No, because it's been raised, I was wondering what your position on it was. Thank you.

Mr. Rupert Brendon: I don't speak for the ACA, but--

Mr. Thor Bishopric: Yes, indeed.

Mr. Rupert Brendon: Indeed, we are in favour of it.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Thank you.

The Chair: We will now hear from Ms. Lill.

Ms. Wendy Lill: I'd like to ask a question, again, around Canadian content and ads, because we've also been told that ad clusters around news would be considered Canadian content. Again, I understand that this is quite a knife edge for people on the artistic side of the content creation business. I'd like to know if you have comments on that.

I also want to know what your feeling is about the very strong lobby from pharmaceutical companies to get access to the market here in Canada, and about your concept of needing to find positive incentives to level the playing field for Canadian companies. It seems to me that this would become another enormous wave of pressure from, I would imagine, American and international pharmaceutical companies. So having your comments on those things would be great.

Mr. Garry Neil: Let me just comment on the ad cluster proposal. We have not taken a position. We haven't considered it, but it's certainly something we could look at as an alliance and make a comment on, if you wish.

As for the pharmaceutical companies....

Mr. Rupert Brendon: Well, it's a long, complicated issue again. I'm not quite sure that this is the right moment, but I do think that Canadians do have the right to receive information like this. In fact, enough studies have been done saying that the current law is unconstitutional, but I don't want to get into that debate here at this time.

Ms. Wendy Lill: But I'm confused. You are here to advocate for more Canadian ads, but wouldn't the ads coming in from the pharmaceutical companies represent an enormous percentage of ads that are not Canadian?

Mr. Rupert Brendon: No, we are saying that those ads would have to be created in Canada according to a Canadian set of guidelines. If you go to the website called AMI, Alliance for Access to Medical Information, you'll find some guidelines and rules set out there. Therefore, if a change were implemented, those ads could not be imported holus-bolus and run in Canada.

Mr. Garry Neil: Just so it's clear, we are not in any way arguing for more advertising on Canadian television. We're attempting to say that we need to find a way to make sure that more of the advertising on Canadian television is produced here in Canada, rather than less.

Ms. Wendy Lill: So your organization has no thoughts whatsoever on the content of the ads, such as whether the ads are about alcohol or cigarettes or pharmaceutical drugs--which is a very controversial issue in the health profession and the health coalitions.

Mr. Rupert Brendon: But not with this group.

Mr. Garry Neil: That's right.

Ms. Wendy Lill: So it is not an issue with your group. That's fine, thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bishopric and your colleagues, for appearing before us. We appreciate your points of view. If the researchers have any questions, naturally they will be directed to Mr. Neil, I guess. Thank you very much for appearing.

I now call on Ms. Cynthia Reyes.

In view of the time constraints and the very large associations still to appear, we have an agreement with Mr. Grange and Ms. Reyes from ProMedia International that they will be given 15 minutes in which to deliver their brief. If they finish earlier, we'll have time for maybe one or two questions.

Who wants to proceed?

À (1055)

Ms. Cynthia Reyes (Vice-President, ProMedia International Inc.): Maybe we'll lead on this occasion. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to all of you. We thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today.

My name is Cynthia Reyes, as you've heard. My colleague is Hamlin Grange. We have worked primarily in the mainstream media for 21 years each, and for as long as volunteers and mentors with various minority communities. In addition, we've worked with television broadcasters on just about every continent.

We know that Canada's broadcasting system is recognized, and deservedly so, in large part because of the strength of the Broadcasting Act. However, it is a changing world and a changing country. The act can be improved, and should be so that our broadcasting system remains relevant to our needs as Canadian people.

In our careers we worked primarily for the CBC. Hamlin has worked with TVO. We've worked for the NFB, CanWest Global, and The Toronto Star. We've been consultants for various media. So we have a pretty rounded view of the issues around cultural diversity and some of the possible solutions or approaches that should be offered. However, the industry speaks very well for itself, and that's not our job here. We would like to speak for the groups that are often voiceless in such fora.

Two years ago, after working with the CBC for a combined 34 years, we decided it was time to leave and to start up our own company. We decided to focus primarily on the issue of cultural diversity in television, or the lack of it as we saw it. We spent a total of seven days watching television. For seven days we watched every single channel we could get on our television set, and what we saw disturbed us. So we realized there was a problem. But what were the contributing causes to the problem?

I think people tend to be quite simplistic about this lack of cultural diversity in the media. We sometimes get very emotional, and we want to jump straight from the emotional to doing good. But we're journalists, and we thought, let's find out what's going on here.

So we spent much of the last two years doing a tremendous amount of research. We talked to hundreds of ordinary Canadian citizens. We've gone beyond that and interviewed across the country media professionals from minority communities, independent producers, and so on. We wanted to know what the obstacles are to cultural diversity in the media. We wanted to know what are the successes, because indeed there are successes. If you come to something called the Innoversity Creative Summit in Toronto on May 16 and 17, you will meet some of those successes. But more importantly, we wanted to find out what the opportunities are for all of us today.

We interviewed over 300 people. What struck us was the almost universal sense we got from everyone we spoke to, many of them from cultural minority communities, of feeling isolated from the mainstream media. It didn't really matter what their backgrounds were; there was a sense of total exclusion from the mainstream media. They feel it's over there, they're over there, and the twain doesn't meet.

In fairness, if you look at our news programs across the country, you will see that something is starting to happen. Whether that is happening because of the CRTC's requirements in the conditions of licence renewal or just because people are becoming more aware of the opportunities in doing such things, we're not sure. But something is happening, and we want to note that.

Let me deal with the independent professionals, those who do not work inside the media and who are trying to get either their ideas or themselves into the media. Their responses were much the same as those of the larger group: a sense of exclusion, frustration, and deep anger. Between last spring and fall we focused on that group. We decided to do intensive interviews with them. We wanted to get beyond “they won't let us in”, “it's racism”,“why can't we get money”, “white people are getting money to make their productions”, and so on.

We wanted to dig beneath that and see what we would find. I'm going to give you some of the main findings. They told us, and we observed, that they have a lack of access to almost all opportunities in the media, not because of a lack of skills, talent, or experience but because they're outside the loop.

Á (1100)

They told us there's a dominant culture and language and a network of players inside the media that keeps them outside because they're not privy to that. They told us their skills are acquired outside of mainstream organizations, but even when they are mature professionals with solid skills and experience, they are only considered for entry-level jobs or short-term internships. They are not considered for senior-level or even intermediate roles in media organizations in the mainstream.

They and their story ideas are often seen as outsiders, not a good fit for the mainstream. If they do get in, they find that diversity is not valued in the mainstream and they end up with a second job, that of trying to educate and sensitize their colleagues and bosses. So it's a double burden.

We also observed, however, that there is a lack of access and a lack of understanding on all sides that results in this kind of disconnect between minority communities, minority professionals, and the mainstream media. They simply do not understand each other very well. People are very comfortable in their comfort zones, so I'm an executive producer and I probably will hire somebody I know or somebody who is known by somebody I know. I have limited time in which to do it; I want to get the person I feel comfortable with, and that's what I do.

If I'm an independent producer, I can get quite comfortable saying they won't let me in and not making that extra effort to push to get in. But there are some genuine barriers and obstacles. As a number of my white media executive friends have taken to telling me, “Cynthia, do not say there's no racism, because there is, and we've seen it”.

So that is part of the problem, but it is not, in our opinion, the majority cause of the problem.

What do we do about that? Well, we're here today to talk about some things you can do and to make some recommendations. But in the meantime we decided that there was much more to be done on the level of helping to make connections, on the level of getting access, and the level of helping Canadians to understand each other, whether they were out in minority communities in the independent sector or inside mainstream media.

At this point I'm going to turn to my colleague Hamlin.

Mr. Hamlin Grange (President, ProMedia International Inc.): Thank you, Cynthia.

Mr. Chairman, just to follow up on what Cynthia said in regard to the surveys that we've done, they're anecdotal, to be honest with you, but I think they're quite telling.

Partly in response to the responses we received from media executives and marginalized communities across Canada, we created this thing called Innoversity. It's a not-for-profit initiative for, by, and of ProMedia International. “Innoversity” stands for innovation, creativity, and diversity. It's a new concept, a new way of thinking about the innovation and creativity that are evident through Canada's diversity.

The Innoversity Creative Summit, which Cynthia already alluded to, will be held in Toronto on May 16 and 17. Media executives from the U.K., the U.S., and Canada will gather with creators and media consumers from the aboriginal, visible minority, and disabled communities to share ideas and to showcase programs and solutions. It is built on principles of access, opportunity, and constructive solutions, and we certainly encourage the committee members to attend Innoversity, if you can.

A demographic revolution is taking place in Canada, especially in our major urban centres, making Canada a more exciting, vibrant country, full of opportunities for both media and the people who use media. There's a huge new audience and market of people. They share similar interests in such issues as finding jobs, educating their children, and finding acceptance and a role in Canadian society. They are well educated and an important group of consumers.

Contrary to what some people may say or think, it is not business as usual. Many individuals have told us they are so hungry for content that recognizes them that they will get it from wherever they can, even if it means using the grey market. Canadian businesses and cultural institutions must respond to a much more diverse range of consumers and customers in the marketplace, and if they don't do that, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant.

Television and other cultural institutions in other parts of the world, in particular the U.K., have come to the same conclusions. Canada's media landscape and the Broadcasting Act must reflect this new reality. It's time to be more creative, more innovative, and to think outside the frame.

We are encouraged and heartened by the efforts being made by some broadcasters to be more inclusive, especially in the news, especially in the last year, and again, as Cynthia alluded to, because of what the CRTC has done in terms of making it a condition of licence.

Therefore we respectfully make the following recommendations. We'll whip through this as quickly as possible. You have her text, and they're there for your perusal.

On Canadian content requirements, the cultural fabric of Canada is multicultural. Some of you have asked the question, what is Canadian content, and what is Canadian? The cultural fabric of this country is multicultural. The current point system encourages the use of Canadian writers, directors, producers, and others in the production of Canadian content. Points should also be given for using people of colour and aboriginals in production teams.

Canadian television should be monitored regularly, once every two years, to find out how representative their programs are as compared to the Canadian population.

Progress and success on cultural diversity cannot be achieved if we rely solely on ethnic or speciality channels. Diversity must be integrated into all programming on every channel licensed to broadcast in Canada.

There is a critical need for research to inform public policy initiatives regarding full reflection and accurate portrayal of cultural and social diversity in broadcasting. For example, new and accurate qualitative and quantitative data on media usage of ethnic groups is required.

The Broadcasting Act should be amended to strengthen the capacity of marginalized communities to intervene in the regulatory process, giving the CRTC the power to assist with associated costs.

Cynthia, if you could finish up these recommendations....

Á (1105)

Ms. Cynthia Reyes: On the issue of funding, which is obviously a big thing for the independent producers who talked here earlier, it is even more so for minority people, who often don't even get to first base on this. Funding should be made available to help minority and aboriginal groups to produce film, television, and radio productions. In the United States the situation got so bad that it took an act of Congress to actually create the consortium that funds production by minority groups.

In interviewing people we spoke to in the last year before we came here today, many of them asked, why is there not a separate envelope for them? Since it's not working the regular way, why is something not being done to encourage them to make their productions? Could there not be a separate envelope for them?

We also find that there's a lot of talk now about minority ownership of media, but the fact is that basic cable television licences are all gone, and even those with licences now have difficulty getting carriage from the cable companies. Then of course there's the whole question of concentration of ownership. The little guy trying to get in has a much harder time than a little guy trying to get in ten years ago would have had.

One proposal we've heard repeatedly as well is that a special fund be created to encourage ownership of mainstream media by minority members. We recognize that the ethnic media can and should play a significant role in helping new Canadians, especially to adapt and to settle in their new Canadian home. There should be ways found to encourage mainstream media to cooperate and perhaps to partner with ethnic media. Between those two, as opposed to one over here and one over there, partnerships could result in better service for Canadians of all backgrounds.

That is our submission, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you all for the opportunity to appear.

Á (1110)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Grange and Ms. Reyes.

Certainly you have access to the committee at any time. If you have any more detailed recommendations to submit from time to time, all you have to do is write to the clerk of the committee, and you can be sure it will receive our attention.

We appreciate your presence here very much. Thank you for appearing.

Á (1110)

Á (1112)

The Chair: We would like to welcome the Canadian Film and Television Production Association and the Canadian Independent Film Caucus. Perhaps it would be best if you introduced yourselves around the table so we know which group you're from.

Mr. Alexander Crawley (Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film Caucus): My name is Alexander Crawley. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus.

Ms. Andrea Nemtin (Executive Board Member, Canadian Independent Film Caucus): My name is Andrea Nemtin, and I'm an executive board member of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus.

Ms. Barri Cohen (National Chair, Canadian Independent Film Caucus): I'm the national chair of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus. My name is Barri Cohen.

Mr. Ira Levy (Board Member, Canadian Film and Television Production Association): My name is Ira Levy. I'm a board member of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

Mr. Stephen Ellis (Past Chair, Canadian Film and Television Production Association): I'm Stephen Ellis, past chair of the CFTPA and a producer and distributor based in Toronto.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald (President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Film and Television Production Association): My name is Elizabeth McDonald. I'm the president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

Ms. Julia Keatley (Chair, Canadian Film and Television Production Association): I'm Julia Keatley. I'm the new chair of the CFTPA, and I'm a producer based in Vancouver.

The Chair: Thank you.

Who wants to start? Ms. McDonald.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: Good morning. My name is Elizabeth McDonald. I am the president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association--

The Chair: By the way, Ms. McDonald, if I may interrupt, we have until one o'clock, so there should be lots of time for all of us.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: That's actually speaking slowly for me.

Do you want to know how you're going to divide the time, or...?

The Chair: No, there are two groups. I think if you can organize it within yourselves to--

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: We've prepared a separate set of oral remarks and line of questioning.

The Chair: Sure, that's fine. We have until one o'clock; we should have enough time, as long as you're conscious that we close at one o'clock. Thank you.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: It's too bad ACTRA wasn't conscious of that.

I am also a member of Mr. Pettigrew's cultural SAGIT and I'm on the executive of the Coalition for Cultural Diversity. With me this morning are Julia Keatley, chair of the association, executive producer of Keatley Films in Vancouver, and the creator and producer of Cold Squad; Stephen Ellis, a nature documentary producer, president of Ellis Entertainment, and past chair of our board; and Ira Levy, executive producer with Breakthrough Film & Television, which produces children's programming, documentaries, and drama such as Dudley the Dragon, Paradise Falls, and Little Miracles.

The CFTPA represents over 400 companies that finance, produce, distribute, and market television programs, feature films, and multimedia product in English. Our members are present in every region of Canada from coast to coast to coast. It is a diverse membership, but the vast majority consists of small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than four employees.

In an ever-consolidating media world, independent creators ensure greater content diversity within the Canadian broadcasting system. It is our members who obtain the rights from authors and others to tell stories; we employ the writers to prepare screen plays; we hire the directors; we hire the actors; we hire the craftspeople to make stories into programs; and we conduct all the business dealings to finance the provision of these stories to Canadians and often to foreign audiences.

Julia.

Á (1115)

Ms. Julia Keatley: The key point we wish to make to this committee is the importance of ensuring a strong and vibrant Canadian broadcasting system that will survive and continue to evolve. For this to happen, there must be room for both private and public broadcasters who provide conventional, specialty, and pay services; and there must be room for Canada's stories to be told.

Independent producers work in a broad range of formats and genres to give Canadian expression to Canadian stories, interests, and concerns. Primarily we create drama, documentary, and children's programming. When you or your family watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Red Green Show, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Cold Squad, Air Farce, Turning Points in History, Hoze Hounds, Da Vinci's Inquest, The Toy Castle, Blue Murder, Profiles of Nature, or Little Miracles, you might assume you were viewing the creative output of a particular television station or network you are tuned to. In fact, you are watching the work of thousands of talented men and women who make up the Canadian independent production industry.

From the CFTPA's perspective, the single most important element of the Broadcasting Act is its encouragement of the creation and exhibition of Canadian programming. Indeed, it was only in the 1991 Broadcasting Act that independent production was referred to directly, in section 3: “the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should...include a significant contribution from the Canadian independent production sector”.

Ensuring quality Canadian programming reflecting Canadian voices, Canadian experiences, and Canadian points of view is why we have a broadcast policy and a broadcasting act. Otherwise, the system would be driven purely by commercial forces, and we would end up with the same proportion of foreign content on our television screens that we see in our movie theatres, where the offering is approximately 98% foreign.

Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, told us at our annual conference in Ottawa this past February that no government can order citizens to watch what they do not want to watch. That is true, but what Mr. Valenti neglected to acknowledge is that you can only decide what to watch from the choices you are offered. If you take away the Canadian content regulations of the Broadcasting Act, you will not have many Canadian choices.

Stephen.

Mr. Stephen Ellis: Thank you, Julia.

Canadian expression is key to our national identify and cultural sovereignty. It's one of the essential principles of the Broadcasting Act and has been the rationale for the various support programs that both federal and provincial governments have put in place. It's the Canadian expression, in the form of local, regional, and national programming, that provides a distinct choice for Canadian viewers.

Our proximity to the U.S. means virtually all of the programming created for the American market is readily available in this country. It's a challenge no other country in the world faces. Our children need Canadian programming so they can understand we have a prime minister, not a president, a House of Commons, not a House of Representatives, not all the bad weather comes from here, and not all police carry guns.

We've stated in our written submission that foreign ownership limits should continue to be maintained for broadcast programming undertakings. We believe this is the only mechanism that will ensure a place in our broadcasting system for Canadian programming. If the committee has any doubts about the issue, we ask you to look at the program schedules of any privately owned, English language, conventional, Canadian television service any day of the week between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Two days ago, the British government announced draft legislation that includes plans to eliminate ownership restrictions for U.K. broadcasting outlets, with the exception of the BBC. Press reports indicated the door will now be open for companies like Disney, AOL Time Warner, and Viacom to buy British broadcasting entities.

Is this the example Canada should follow?

It is decidedly not. To do so risks turning a Canadian-owned and -controlled broadcasting and production industry into a mere branch plant. Foreign owners would be looking to maximize their profits and minimize their investments in Canadian content. As Julia noted, you need look no further than the Canadian feature film industry that struggles to get more than 2% of screen time in our country.

Ira.

Á (1120)

Mr. Ira Levy: Thank you, Stephen.

The Canadian broadcasting system is a complex structure that has evolved over the past several decades. Recently, we've seen waves of ownership consolidation and convergent strategies that have radically altered the familiar landscape.

In conventional television, there are considerably fewer broadcast entities than there were ten years ago. Those that remain are much larger, have greater financial clout, and are demanding more control over the content they exhibit.

The large, privately owned broadcasters who dominate the Canadian television landscape are understandably beholden to their shareholders and their attention is focused on the bottom line. This reality is pushing them to assume increased control over production and distribution rights, without fair compensation. Bottom-line pressures are encouraging them to acquire less expensive, imported programming over investing in original Canadian programming. Now the large media companies are pushing for increased access to the production funding mechanisms that are the lifeblood of the independent production sector.

We believe the general principles of the present system work. They ensure public objectives are paramount, without threatening the viability of Canadian business.

In this debate, you should understand an important truth. The various financial support mechanisms, including the CTF and tax credit incentives provided by the federal and various provincial governments, make it possible for broadcasters to license programs from independent producers for an amount that represents a fraction, ranging from 15% to 35%, of the total cost of production. By way of contrast, in the United States and the United Kingdom, licence fee levels are approximately 80%. It is 80% versus 35%.

Another important pillar for the content creation industry is the protection of intellectual property rights or copyright. Representatives from Industry Canada told you the introduction of new technology presents many challenges. There are those who would suggest any commitment to ensure a workable copyright regime in 2002 is anti-innovation. We submit it is in fact pro-innovation, because the information highway will not be very useful to the citizens of this country if it has no Canadian traffic.

For Canada to be part of the “content is king” revolution, intellectual property must be protected. It is also vital to establish a clear link between copyright and the Broadcasting Act. Producers regularly approach the CRTC concerning copyright issues that arise between producers and broadcasters. The response is usually that the CRTC does not deal with rights issues. This is not a reasonable answer at this point in our evolution.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: When the Minister of Canadian Heritage appeared before you, she suggested you ask participants in this proceeding how we can direct the maximum amount of resources to the creation of Canadian programming, to enhance its economic viability and build Canadian audiences.

Our submission provided you with lots of evidence that the independent production sector is the most important vehicle for achieving quality Canadian programming and cultural diversity within the Canadian broadcasting system at a reasonable cost. We have provided you with suggestions on how to ensure the Canadian cultural objectives are maintained.

First, government policy should continue to preserve a secure place for Canadian expression, and the CRTC must continue to ensure that broadcasters meet these obligations.

Second, it is absolutely vital that the Canadian Television Fund be recognized as an essential component to the funding structure for distinctly Canadian programming and that it receive stable, long-term funding support from the government.

Third, if we are to sustain the rich, diverse range of programming we provide to Canadians, it is essential that broadcasters continue to provide access on their channels for the programs we create.

Fourth, public agencies should streamline their administrative procedures so producers are not penalized with additional financing costs.

Fifth, we urge the committee to explore with the other participants in this proceeding how to best ensure that the various cultural objectives we have established for the Canadian broadcasting system and existing support programs for program financing are integrated into a coherent framework.

We'd like to thank you for this opportunity you've afforded us to contribute to your review of the Canadian broadcasting system and the act. We'll be pleased to respond to your questions.

Á (1125)

The Chair: Ms. McDonald, I know you've been extremely patient and you've been back before because of the bells, so we very much appreciate your presence today, especially given the importance of your organization. Your recommendations are very important to us.

By the way, we'd like to thank you very much for this publication and congratulate you on it. It's extremely useful to us in our work, and it is very well done. The statistical evidence in the charts is extremely useful. Thank you.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: Thank you. Our executive vice-president, Guy Mayson, is here. It's his project and he does it better every year, with a lot of help from the Department of Canadian Heritage and other departments within the federal government. Thank you so much.

The Chair: Congratulations.

I would like to turn to Ms. Barri Cohen.

Ms. Barri Cohen: Thank you.

Honourable members, good morning. My name is Barri Cohen and I'm the national chair of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus. I'm also a documentary filmmaker, producer, and writer. With me today are the executive director of the CIFC, Alexander Crawley, and Andrea Nemtin, a board member of our national executive and an independent documentary producer in her own right.

I want to thank you on behalf of our 560 members across Canada for inviting us to make these remarks. We're sensitive to the time allotment here, so we'll just try to sketch out a portrait of our industry and how it functions.

As we stated in our written brief, the CIFC represents documentary filmmakers and producers across Canada who operate independently of broadcasters. That is, we have our own companies, some small, some large, some with one or two employees, some with five or fifteen or more. As producers, we are responsible for making the actual content, the stuff you watch on television, about which so much is up for discussion in your review here. Our work is seen on Newsworld, the CBC/SRC, VisionTV, W, TVOntario, BC's Knowledge, SCN Saskatchewan, Télé-Québec, the Discovery Channel, Life Channel, History Channel, less so on Showcase, CTV, and Global, amongst others.

As filmmakers, we combine the specialized skills of making programs for television with the business acumen to run our companies and raise the funds to make our work. Documentary makers have become a vital component of the independent production sector, contributing over $200 million worth of production per year. According to Canadian Television Fund figures, in the last year, documentary programs accounted for over 900 hours out of over 2,400 hours on Canadian television. Our productions account for about 19%. In other words, they're triggered by about 19% of the CTF's annual funding resources.

I think we need to clarify a bit the kinds of programs we're talking about. First and foremost, they're stories of one kind or another, stories that take the form of hour-long to feature-length films and videos that we call one-offs. Often you'll see these on Newsworld or TVOntario or CBC. These are stories that can also be shaped into lots of mini-stories that can take the form of three-, six-, or thirteen-part series. The majority of these are on pay and specialty channels, and not typically on the channels one looks to for independent dramatic series.

The documentary has often been called, after John Grierson, “the creative treatment of reality”. For us, this means our work is a kind of hybrid, covering a huge range of topics and forms, such as in-depth journalism, the intensely point-of-view or documentaire d'auteur essay film, the cinéma-direct or vérité fly-on-the-wall approach to unfolding events, the historical film, the biographical profile, the science investigation film, the political or social film, the art performance film, etc. The genre is, of course, by no means limited to these sub-genres. At the best of times, the form can be seen as limited only by the filmmaker's combination of skill and imagination and by the creative control they are able to retain of the shape and content of their work.

In the context of your review, we think it's useful to link the health of the documentary form, in its creativity and diversity of point of view and voice, to how well the broadcasting system is functioning as a whole. What I mean is that I want to encourage you to think of the documentary as a good barometer for how well the system is functioning as a whole, how truly public-minded it can be, how open and diverse it is, how many considered and experienced points of view the system--the broadcasters and the funders--can willingly nurture. Conversely, when diversity of style and content is threatened, when the small companies that make the bulk of documentaries are struggling, when they spend more time on paperwork and filling out forms and less on actually honing the craft of storytelling that can attract Canadian viewers, then we know something is amiss and that the higher values of the Broadcasting Act are not being met.

It's true that documentaries per se have undergone a renaissance of volume in recent years. There's no question about that, thanks in large part to the CRTC, the new broadcasters, the Canadian Television Fund, Telefilm Canada, and the Rogers Documentary Fund, to name a few. But along the way, as the recent Rencontres internationales de documentaires de Montréal's groundbreaking studies on documentary production have starkly revealed, a Trojan horse has been unleashed, with quantity substantially outpacing quality and funding resources. The study's authors cite policies and practices in the system that threaten the diversity of documentary production.

We've provided here today copies of key sections of the report, and we encourage you to examine the entire document, which has been funded through a consortium of all the major stakeholders, including the CRTC and the Department of Canadian Heritage. I think 26 funders have worked to compile this research.

I'll turn this over to Andrea.

Á (1130)

Ms. Andrea Nemtin: Thank you.

The Broadcasting Act under review today is key to maintaining this industry and its future. It is essential, if we are to continue as a nation, to have a distinct cultural identity. This regulated system is indispensable to our political sovereignty, and it is a form of national defence really. The policies that have created these media giants in this new global environment and in Canada we understand were done to ensure a strong carriage system in our broadcasting industry. It's time now, however, for the CRTC to shift its gaze to the content issues of the Broadcasting Act.

A change has occurred in the area of content among the people who create these programs that reflect the diversity of view that represent our multicultural, multi-faith, and multi-language country. The change in this area is that it's no longer the broadcasting companies that are creating these essential programs. It's actually the independent producers, as Julia has mentioned earlier.

The private broadcasters are large, often publicly traded, media giants. They're worried about share prices, profit warnings, and advertising sales. We cannot rely on them to reflect Canada back to Canadians in the way the Broadcasting Act requires. For this portion of the act to be realized, the CRTC must create policy that ensures a viable and strong independent sector.

The current system...organizations such as Telefilm, the Canadian Television Fund, and the National Film Board have become indispensable to the creation of Canadian programs of the highest quality, and as not just producers but as citizens we thank you for that. However, in the current climate of economic uncertainty, it means that now more than ever we must work towards establishing a favourable policy environment for the creation of Canadian programming by the independent sector.

I'll hand it over to my colleague, Sandy Crawley.

Mr. Alexander Crawley: As Mr. Levy has stated, there is no doubt that large companies now own more channels, companies such as Corus, Alliance Atlantis, and there is ownership as well across media entities such as BCE and CTV. Many of these companies like to glowingly refer to the synergies created and the opportunity for seeking efficiencies, but there are three primary consequences of this state of affairs that we want to bring to your attention because they're worrying for independent producers.

First, when companies consolidate and rationalize operations, they cut jobs or combine jobs along the way. This means that three or four individuals could be programming for several channels. Often these programmers are under intense pressure to program predictable fare. Often there is the perception that their own experience in storytelling is limited. It means the same people with the same mindset are programming across different mandates in niche markets with the same pressures, all of which isn't good for us as producers and certainly isn't good for Canadian viewers.

In an environment of rationalization, productions may not get the kind of creative attention they need and producers may lose out on building the kinds of relationships with broadcasters that we rely on in the day-to-day process of making programs.

Secondly, in an environment with fewer players, there is real potential for the abuse of market advantage. In the past, a broadcaster would typically obtain rights to show a film or series, for instance, over several years for a certain number of plays with some guarantees of promotion. Now they may want to pay the same fees but ask or demand that their sister channels share the right to broadcast such programs as well for an unlimited number of plays without offering any additional moneys and with limited publicity guarantees.

We have heard from senior filmmakers and producers that this environment of what we call “forced tied sales” is going on unabated. Market advantage also means broadcasters can set up their own in-house documentary companies, as Alliance Atlantis and Discovery have done, and that these companies feed the constant demand for low-end, low-cost documentary programming for themselves while accessing public funds and tax credits to do so.

The self-dealing regulations that the CRTC has put in place to guard against such practices are not being enforced with sufficient rigour, in our opinion, and this needs to be urgently addressed.

Another avenue to explore in this area is to ensure, through the commission, that there are legally binding fair terms of negotiations or terms of trade for all broadcasters in dealings with independent producers as a condition of licence. Our colleagues at the CFTPA and ourselves have been working on this issue and we hope to achieve some success, perhaps with your help.

Thirdly, when companies become large enough, they become more appealing as acquisitions to large foreign entities. Foreign owners, we fear, would be even less inclined than private domestic broadcasters to deliver Canadian content in any meaningful way. In any case, their power would exert new pressures to water down such criteria, and this is why the CIFC does not support the notion of relaxing foreign ownership restrictions.

Barri.

Á (1135)

Ms. Barri Cohen: Thank you.

With the CRTC's licensing of so many specialty and digital channels--what some would refer to as actually over-licensing--in recent years, you'd think there would be a great diversity of programming for Canadian audiences. This isn't quite true. In fact, quite a paradoxical environment has ensued for documentarians.

On the one hand, while channels have been allowed to proliferate, in some cases irrespective of sound business plans, the new money that has entered the system has been inadequate to meet the demand for any programming, not drama, children's, arts, variety, and documentary programming.

The available pie of funds for all just got more fragmented, with less to go around for everyone. I think that's why a lot of folks struggle with the contradiction between more money seemingly into the system--which has been referred to before, and that's true--but it has been outpaced by licensing. So the pie may have gotten somewhat larger, but it's essentially more fragmented.

On the other hand, it's true that the demand for documentaries has grown significantly in this environment. This is in part because we successfully argued before the CRTC in the 1999 television policy review to allow broadcasters to count documentaries as an eligible Canadian content category for prime time, but because of a crowded market, downward pressures have been unleashed on production costs and production values.

Chiefly, licence fees that are necessary to trigger our financing from the CTF have gone down--you've heard this just recently--while the demand for creative control by broadcasters has, in some cases, gone up--and you've heard this just recently too. This has meant an increased appetite from specialty broadcasters, for instance, for sometimes very low documentary series that don't often address social or political issues but are what we might call “documentary light”. These productions are good for building companies. They're good for jobs and for training. But many documentarians are having an increasingly difficult time making top-notch--and this means world-competitive--documentaries, high-end, high-budget, serious documentaries, serious, thought-provoking documentaries that will travel well, and single or feature-length programs that are on the cutting edge of the form or are about hard-hitting social and political issues.

As Monsieur Jacques Bensimon, our film commissioner, drew to your attention in his September brief, such films involve intense periods of research, development, shooting, and sometimes long periods of editing using state-of-the-art technology. Sometimes, too, such films demand broadcast time that is feature length, say 60 to 80 minutes, instead of the now so-called broadcast hour of 39 to 43 minutes.

Such a hypothetical high-budget, detailed story that can be a good example of diverse programming just doesn't fit well with the lean, mean, and fragmented market of the multi-channel universe right now. Consequently, in this situation, despite the good words behind the Broadcasting Act, which we support, and the promises and mandates of our broadcasters, everyone loses, audiences and filmmakers alike.

Finally, I have a few remarks on Canadian content. Once again, the principle is vital. It's time, however, from the documentary perspective, for some flexibility. Canadian dollars, Canadian stories and locations, and the Canadian talent behind the camera typically guarantee full Canadian content points from funders, from the tax credit system for film and TV, from the Canadian content certification office, and so on, but all these items are not necessarily harmonized and not necessarily appropriate for the documentary. The documentary tradition in Canada has often been based on an outward-looking Canadian point of view on the world. Indeed, this is in section 3 of the Broadcasting Act--subparagraph 3(1)(d)(ii), if I'm not mistaken.

As a middle power, our voice is crucial in showing a different perspective on people, events, and stories, at home and around the world, without sacrificing our eligibility as Canadian content. For us, it's a good deal about authorship and a very distinct Canadian point of view that you may not be able to name or enumerate, but you sure know it when you compare world events and how Canadian television news handles events and how American news handles them.

Often, however, the notion that something is Canadian content only when it's visibly Canadian has been a problem for us. On the other hand, if your search for funds takes you outside the country, you find your efforts restrained because many international broadcasters are just not interested in visibly Canadian subject matter or themes, and few Canadian broadcasters are willing to pay any longer high enough fees for such programs.

Á (1140)

Relatedly, since Telefilm Canada would like to see a return on their investment, it's better to have lots of sales around the world to do so, but you'll have a hard time getting Telefilm involved if a really important story to Canadians won't travel well outside our own borders. It's a catch-22 primarily borne by the filmmakers.

Indeed, to cite once again from the RIDM documentary studies, they found from the hundreds of our members and broadcasters who recently participated in their in-depth survey that many filmmakers are working harder, earning less, making poorer-quality films--in their own estimation--than they were five years ago, often blaming themselves for somehow failing to be the impassioned storytellers and essayists they feel they can be, and blaming themselves for failing to truly challenge the hearts and minds of Canadians with outstanding work.

I just want to conclude by reminding this committee that for us what's key about the Broadcasting Act is that broadcast licences are a privilege, not a right. The broadcast licences come with public responsibilities that must be enforced. As time goes on, we continue to think it's all about business and viability. That may be part of it, but these are privileges, not rights. They're public, innately.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Cohen.

I would like to turn to questions by members. Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Thank you very much.

We've had a fair amount of representation about the importance of the CBC in particular having the ability to do production in-house. Do you agree with that?

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: No. The CBC is a broadcaster, and a very important broadcaster to the independent production sector. It is the core broadcaster in terms of telling distinctly Canadian stories. However, if you don't have those stories told by independent producers working with the CBC, what you will end up with is a mono-view of Canadian stories.

I think the reason the CBC was encouraged to work with independent producers through the Canadian Television Fund was to bring that vibrancy of stories, first of all, and second, to allow the CBC to use fewer resources to do more.

The CBC, like any other broadcaster, when it licenses to do Da Vinci's Inquest or Royal Canadian Air Farce or This Hour Has 22 Minutes, then only has to pay a portion of the cost, and it's up to the producer to go and get the money. When the government asked the CBC to continue with its mandate--to do it with less--we're the obvious instrument, and we're an excellent industry to do it with.

I don't know if Stephen, or Ira, or anybody--

Á (1145)

Mr. Stephen Ellis: I think everyone recognizes the CBC has a valid role to play in terms of news production, and obviously in the sports area as well. But as Elizabeth mentioned, over time the role of the independent sector as the source of the entertainment component of their schedule has grown quite dramatically. I think it's grown to a point where somewhere in the order of 80% to 90% of the entertainment programming in prime time on the CBC is actually provided by the independent sector, which has the advantage of providing more diverse voices. But it's also a very cost-effective situation, because as we mentioned in our opening remarks, the broadcasters--and this includes the CBC--typically only invest about a quarter of what it costs to produce. To do a one-hour drama will cost the CBC in-house four times what it would cost to source from the independent sector.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Does the CFTPA see the CBC entertainment sector--and I'm thinking of Cold Squad and other programs like it--as another potential broadcaster in the same way as CTV or Global or any of the others?

Ms. Julia Keatley: Of course, we do. They are one of our partners. The broadcasters across the spectrum are our partners in this process.

My father actually worked for the CBC for 30 years and left there in the early nineties. He was based in British Columbia and saw the evolution of where it was going in really turning towards independent production.

In terms of what Stephen has said about the actual diversity of voices we now provide, there really aren't those people inside the CBC any more. What happens is obviously they become more like a commissioning editor, but it's a very strong relationship, and you work with them as a partner. Ultimately, if they're not happy, they are not going to re-order your show or work with you the next time on the next project. So they're very much partners with us.

Mr. Jim Abbott: I do want to get to the Independent Film Caucus, and so if it's possible, could I simply have a yes or no? Are you suggesting that with 80% of the CBC entertainment being independently produced at this point, you would see it of value to go to virtually 100%?

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: Yes.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Thank you.

Now, to the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, I recognize that the CBC is going to be doing documentaries under their news organization simply because of the people they have on the ground in Afghanistan or wherever they happen to be, even in Canada, and that's totally understandable. But in the broader context of the kinds of documentaries you're doing--I suppose you've obviously listened to my question to your friends there with the television production association--do you think there is more of a place for the Canadian Independent Film Caucus and the people you represent on the CBC?

Ms. Barri Cohen: Thank you for your question.

The short answer is yes, clearly. I think, just to step back a bit, we have to make a distinction between journalism, news items for which we do rely on our top-notch newscasters and reporters who do put themselves at great risk around the world, in the Middle East, and in South Asia, and all these places.... And they may be filing three-, five-, ten-, twenty-minute stories that are news documentaries. They operate under very strict journalistic ethics and they don't consider themselves artists per se.

When you see Céline Galipeau doing a story from Pakistan, she's giving the news in a way that's fairly objective per se--one could quibble with it--whereas the documentary is a much more fluid form. What it allows you to do is to go more in-depth.

For example, I'm in development on a project right now involving a Canadian Pakistani photographer who was in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan before September 11. So I want to go back with her, one year later, and see what it looks like. That's going to involve a very detailed journey with her throughout the country. She's now Canadian. All kinds of issues will come into play. That's more of a documentary--and I'm not trying to be self-promoting; I'm just saying that's more of a longer-form kind of thing. So we certainly don't see it in a competitive way. They're very different kinds of things.

Documentaries have a natural fit with all public broadcasters, and indeed in a public space that should be increased. However, I want to say that with the CBC currently in terms of documentary, one of the sore points, if you will, with us--and some of the reasons are a bit obscure for me, but there is, for example, an independent documentary strand called Witness. If you know what's on this week, then you're ahead of me, because it's never promoted, and part of that has to do with some of the internal promotion rules.

I don't think Canadian viewers are given a fair chance to access some of this stuff. Newsworld and The Passionate Eye do a somewhat better job. We have a lot of issues with some of the actual nuts and bolts practices of how that network commissions. For example, they did commission a lot of journalistic sorts of films that they felt comfortable with because of the history and the corporate culture that the internal commissioning editors have as former journalists--who don't really know the documentary tradition that well; they've been on their own learning curve.

I won't get into some of these sorts of issues, but, yes, it's a natural fit; yes, we have problems with how they're doing; yes, we feel they can do more and perhaps have more, as Mr. Bensimon has suggested, imagination in some of their programming practices.

Another area of concern is that they have set up an in-house shop recently, from what I understand, called CineNorth, I think. I don't know what their mandate is in terms of doing documentaries. I don't know how competitive they'll be with us. It remains to be seen, and perhaps some of my other colleagues know more about that.

Á (1150)

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: All I can say is we're trying to find out more about CineNorth. We do understand that if the CBC is to open an affiliated production company under the act, they're supposed to be going to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Nobody seems to know the answers exactly--it's like looking for the Sasquatch or something--but I'm on the trail and I'm going to find it.

The Chair: Maybe this will give you some extra pressure point to find out, this broadcast here.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: But it is a serious problem. It's very clear that the CBC has an intention--they've been very open. They want to have a production company in-house. Basically, that will take work away from all of us and from creators, and they're going to compete with us.

Mr. Ira Levy: I just want to make one other point on this, which is that we're dealing with taxpayers' dollars. One thing that can be said about the independent producers across Canada, whether they're making documentaries, children's programs, or dramas, is they're fairly lean and mean. We're out there to produce artistry, to be creative, to make a living. In terms of comparisons--and it's sometimes very hard to get comparisons about what the internal costs are for producing shows at CBC--from what little we've gleaned, we are far more effective with taxpayers' dollars when it comes to making independent productions, apart from the diversity of voices and all of the other things my colleagues have been talking about.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: I think the other thing is that independent producers, when they access tax credits, the Canadian Television Fund, or Telefilm, are very closely scrutinized, for every public dollar particularly and every private dollar that goes into a production. It is always a challenge to get that same level of reporting and precision from the CBC.

I also had thought it was this government's intention that we aren't supposed to compete with the public sector, and so we do have some concerns about what's going on.

The Chair: Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Thank you for your presentation. You have brought forward several issues: foreign production; a better financial backing and overall support for independent producers; copyright issues prompted by new technologies.

When we visited the Western provinces and the Maritimes, many small independent producers told us that they were for the most part excluded from the Canadian Television Fund and from getting Telefilm Canada’s support. They told us that if we wanted them to produce Canadian content we had to be more daring in our support to producers. To agree with such a view or is that solely the mark of those far from large urban centers? Productions usually come from large centers such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and small producers feel isolated. They would like to get their share of the Canadian Television Fund. To you agree with them? Are you aware of such a problem?

Á (1155)

[English]

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: First, let me be clear about one thing about Canadian television and where it's bought--from what producers. It is up to broadcasters, first of all, to license that programming. No project will go forward to any fund unless it's been licensed. And certainly with consolidation, where the licensing is done is becoming an issue. That's one of the reasons we're talking about a coherent framework, where the CRTC licenses. In some cases there are some regional conditions of license; in other cases there are not. How we ensure that there's an opportunity for all of those stories, in English and French, to be seen across this country is going to be a challenge when most of the broadcasters are located centrally.

Secondly, I think the Canadian Television Fund has actually done an excellent job--and I'll let Julia address it as well--in attempting to finance as many stories as possible from the regions. However, once the documentary decisions are going to be out about the CTF on the English-language side--probably in another two weeks--we will be looking at an oversubscription level of 57%. That means there are a lot of stories broadcasters are willing to acquire that can't be funded. This is in a year when we don't know whether that fund will continue, be renewed, or be renewed at the level it's at. So there will be a lot of stories, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, in all of the small centres where there are very talented producers, that won't get on the air.

We know, for example, that in the prairies, a lot of times they receive licences from broadcasters who don't have the same national reach as the CBC or CTV, or they may work with specialty services. Because of the huge overdemand this year--unprecedented demand--some of those stories won't get told, because the CTF has to look and say, “If I've got to say no to this many, I guess I have to say yes to the ones that have the widest audience reach.”

Julia, who is a member of the board of the CTF, can speak to this.

Ms. Julia Keatley: I'll put on my other hat. For the last three years I've been one of the CFTPA representatives on the Canadian Television Fund board. As a person from Vancouver, I've found it a very interesting process being in the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto triangle. At the beginning I was certainly the only regional person there. There has actually been an effort by the board, on the part of the Department of Heritage, to put on both a francophone from outside of Quebec as well as another regional voice coming from the caucus.

Within the actual guidelines of the fund there's a lot of debate about support of regions, about whether there should be envelopes, whether broadcasters should have envelopes, whether different kinds of producers should have envelopes. What the fund has done--the administration of the fund, with the guidance of the board--is essentially to try to put incentives in for smaller companies so that financially these programs would get an advantage, whether it be within ranking or financially, as well as for regional programs to bonus up lower licence fees and things like that so that some of these projects can compete. In fact, that has been seen to be working, although as Elizabeth points out, the mere fact of an overdemand and the different kinds of broadcasters that are out there has made those kinds of competitions sometimes very unlevel playing fields.

I think it is something that both the fund and the administration of the fund are looking at, as well as all of us, in terms of the broadcasting system, with what the CRTC has licensed. It sometimes feels very much like a lottery, as a producer.

Â (1200)

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: The other thing is that it has to be made very clear that no producer in any part of this country will ever get funding from the CTF if the broadcaster hasn't been there first. So we do actually have to look at where the broadcasters are licensing from and whether they're being encouraged to go beyond their area code.

Ms. Andrea Nemtin: I'd like to add a little bit to that.

Our funding process is such a complicated matrix, as an independent producer, and we need to cobble together so many different bits. The trend of the provincial governments in British Columbia, in Alberta, in Ontario, is to step out of becoming involved in the productions. Unlike SODEC, which I believe is one of the main reasons Quebec has such a vibrant cultural industry, our provincial industries are cutting back more and more every year, and it's quite devastating to the producers in the regions. I think you can't look at any one issue without looking at all of them.

[Translation]

Mr. Alexander Crawley: Mrs. Gagnon, we have given you a report, they are many more. It concerns the “Rencontre international du documentaire” of Montreal. One of the authors is here, Mr. Kirwan Cox. Mr. Michel Houle has not finished his work yet, but

[English]

in a couple of weeks there will be a French.... Well, it's not a version of the report.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: That’s why I was looking for it among my papers previously.

[English]

Mr. Alexander Crawley: I'll get one for you. All we have is the executive summary that had been translated from the English report, but there is a French report coming out, which has different content, talking to different individuals. I think it's very important for you and your researchers to see that. You'll get a very accurate picture of those regional problems.

The Chair: Can you send that to the clerk so that all the members will have it?

Mr. Alexander Crawley:Oui.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I would to ask about the rights you keep once you produce something and sign a deal with a network. Are these are the rights you were referring to earlier? The producers want to keep more rights to their work for their own survival. If the financing is delayed when you launch a production, royalties are paid if you have kept rights to the production. I would like you to expand to further clarify what seems to be a critical issue.

[English]

Mr. Stephen Ellis: I'll start with that one and see where we go. At its most basic, independent producers own the copyright for their finished product, and broadcasters negotiate for a licence, in effect a rental, for a limited amount of exposure on their channel, with sometimes varying levels of exclusivity in relation to other channels. But at the end of their licence, the ownership of the program is held by the producer, and that's the copyright, the most fundamental right in the program.

The concerns of producers today and our level of apprehension in the broadcasting system have a lot to do with the technological advances that have made it easier and easier for the public to bypass the broadcasting system, using vehicles such as the Internet and different forms of distribution such as satellite dishes acquired on the grey or black market in Canada. So there's that area of the unauthorized distribution of works in which producers have invested their time and money and have taken financial risk, and they are seeing the potential for their sources of revenue to be cut off or eroded. There's also the fact that in our negotiations with broadcasters, which we've touched on, they are now such powerful gatekeepers, if you will, because it is through them that a producer gets to apply for the CTF and for funding from Telefilm and various other sources, that it gives them the power to acquire a disproportionate share of or interest in the programming that producers would like to produce and retain and ultimately generate some profit from.

Â (1205)

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: Because broadcasters are now vertically integrated and have other ownership, they will sometimes say--and it happens more frequently now--we'll buy that program from you and we'll pay the licence fee, but you must agree to distribution rights being given directly to our distribution company or we won't buy your program.

I think it was also referred to that they pay a licence fee, which is a percentage. It's not even 50%.That would be a dream. The real numbers are probably 10% to 30%. We were kind and said 15% to 35%. They'll say, for that amount of money we'll play it so many times on our A channel, and then we'll put it on our B channel, our C channel, and our Z channel. The way a producer can make money, recoup money, and all of those things is by being able to deal with each of those channels separately. We tried to address this to the CRTC hoping to avoid double-counting, but it's very difficult to do that.

Ms. Julia Keatley: I'd also like to add that the independent producers are the ones who negotiate with all the various unions, including the actors' unions and the writers' unions. We have agreements with them in place that actually account for a certain number of plays of our programs. This proliferation of the number of times a program is aired is getting very complicated for actors and writers as well in terms of how these ultimately get accounted for. It has become a very grey area. As copyright holders, that's one of the reasons we want to protect that, so that people are being paid for the work they do, for that play and the success of those programs, and that's being eroded.

Mr. Ira Levy: I'll add one other area. In terms of the leverage that some of the bigger consortiums have, there is the whole area of new media. As a producer you might be going to a broadcaster to ask them to license your television show, and what they might say in certain cases is, “Yes, we will give you this licence fee to allow you to access a number of the other subsidies that are out there or to help produce the program, and here's our share, but we would also like to have the new media application for your show, and, by the way, we'll give you $1”, which is a little galling, I think, at the best of times.

In our presentation we did talk about the future of new media and repurposing programs on a go-forward basis. It's important to realize that when you actually look at how programs are funded, you'll see that it's the producer that takes the biggest risk. Not only do we take artistic risks, as our friends from ACTRA referred to earlier, but we take creative risks and financial risks.

As Julia mentioned earlier, we actually do represent the interests of some of the people we are hiring, including performers and writers. We have an obligation to pay them residuals.

So these are extremely important areas when it comes to copyright, and that's really what the essence is.

The Chair: Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Thank you very much.

I have a number of questions, but I'm going to start with my lead-off question. Elizabeth, you mentioned this actually in response to one of your answers, but not in the substance of your presentation. The Canadian Television Fund has been renewed for one year. That's a fact. While the benefits are well known of what that fund has done, what it has created, we don't seem to scream it out loud enough.

One of the concerns is--and help me--what do we say to the people in the finance department when every year we've tried to renew it or worked to renew it, and it doesn't get done and we're always left on the...? Is it going to be another year? Will it be three years? Will it still be the same amount? The finance department always comes and says, “Hang on, guys. You told us this was going to be a temporary thing, so why should we continue to keep renewing it?” What do we say, not to the Minister of Finance but to the officials, when they say to the Minister of Finance, “We said we were going to do it; it was going to finish; it was going to be self-funding. Why do we still need to be in there?” I want you to address that.

I also want you to address something I found quite controversial when I sat here and listened to, I believe, Mr. Bishopric from ACTRA actually talk about other people's money. So, Ms. Keatley and Mr. Levy, I'd like you to tell me just how much money you make in your productions and just how rich you are and just how you're taking other people.... I found it actually quite surprising when you said you're working with the actors and representing their rights.

Also, I'd be interested to find out, Mr. Ellis, what you were talking about concerning the U.K. legislation, if you could expand on that.

You're oversubscribed; we have that at the table here. We know there are people at your table who didn't get funded this year. What's the solution? Help me make the case that it needs more money. You have this great success story: you are oversubscribed. At the same time I'm hearing Ms. Cohen say there's so much of this stuff, but it's not quality stuff. It's getting very fragmented here.

Again, Ms. Keatley, this is probably more a CTF governance question. I know the CTF has been working, but we need your voices out there as to why this fund is so important. You said it was going to expire after a little while, and why don't we need it?

The other question is, should the CRTC deal with rights issues? Yesterday the Commissioner of the Competition Bureau said, “Well, excuse me, I will continue to deal with mergers; the CRTC does its thing, but we will continue....” I take exception to that, but I want you to say if this is something the CRTC should do.

You talked about public space, Ms. Cohen, and I don't know if you've been following the hearings, but we've been also talking about something called “green space”, which I don't think we've quite defined in this instance. Is it just local? Is it what you're talking about?

One of the hardest things my friends who have been documentary producers have ever found was trying to get a licence from a broadcaster. I was quite surprised when you said all these broadcasters are actually doing that.

Last but not least is the question of self-dealing: how does the CBC get away with not self-dealing? If you have time to answer any of those....

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Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: I'm going to let other people answer. I'll take a first stab, but I feel the way my 15-year-old son does when he comes home and I say, “What do you have for homework?” Well, I guess I just got back here.

So I'll take it first thing, but I would like first to respond to Mr. Bishopric's comments about other people's money, because I thought it was offensive.

We negotiate on behalf of our members with ACTRA, so the other people's money must be the money we pay them. I have never heard a member of the CFTPA, or a member of the caucus who may not be a cross-over member, or of the APFDQ ever refer to that money as other people's money. It's money they have an obligation to spend very judiciously. They are audited frequently--all the time. It is not dealt with as other people's money. I'm sure other members of ACTRA do not feel that way, but I think he was way out of line.

Mr. Ira Levy: I would love to have other people's money. That would be a wonderful accomplishment, if we could actually do that in the film and television industry. But again, what I wrote down was OPM--other people's money. I said, no, actually the way financing works with independent producers in Canada is it's really more of an OMM, which is only my money.

This really goes to the point of how a show is financed in Canada with independent producers, and to the point that there are subsidy systems in some cases for some programs. There is an oversubscription, to be sure, which is a problem. There are licence fees. They're not anywhere near high enough to actually produce the sort of quality we would like to see on an ongoing basis, which I think Canadian audiences really do want to see.

But at the end of the day, one of the reasons why you have a copyright is because you are taking the big risk. Why do we do it? I'm not actually quite sure why we all do it. Maybe we do it out of passion. Maybe we do it out of love. Maybe we do it because we think we'll be famous--we won't be. Maybe we do it because we think we'll be rich--we won't be. But we are storytellers and it is what we do.

So in the process, one of the responsibilities of producing is to put together that financial package and to have that risk. Many times, I'm sure, when you look at financial structures for programs done by independent producers, you'll find it's the producers who are deferring their salaries and their overheads in order to get the show done. Will they make money at the back end? Hopefully, if the show works well for the Canadian audience, or if it has some potential for international sales, they will. That's the way the system works.

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Ms. Andrea Nemtin: We have too many members who have more than one mortgage against their house to finance their productions. I had somebody say to me last year, “I'm not sure I could get a third mortgage on my house.” These are people who do it for passion and do it in tough times. They have to do this, because, as Julia said, we negotiate union agreements and we have to pay the actors. We have to pay the directors. We have to pay the writers. We have to pay the technicians. They get paid before the producer gets paid.

You asked us a series of questions. I'll start it off, and then I'll let everybody go for it. On the CTF, I've been very clear about this. First of all, I would like to say, when somebody first suggested that the fund should perhaps only be for a short term, I remember being in a room in Hull saying, “I don't know if that's going to work.”

However, that's how the fund got funded then. It's very much a case of “that was then and this is now”. We have 100 more channels in French and English, all with Canadian content obligations, which are part of the Canadian system. That is way more programming than ever was there before. I talked about coherency before. We sit in hearings and we hear people make obligations about Canadian programming, and nobody says, “Where are you going to get the money?” It comes from these people here.

The Canadian Television Fund has made the difference. It has created jobs and programs. We've told Mr. Martin this. We gave him our economic study, and we're updating it right now. He will get the new one. He actually told us we were the only group that ever brought back a study when he had asked for one.

We create jobs. We're in the fastest-growing segment of the economy in this country. But to do that, we need help. We return money because we create jobs. We give young people jobs. We tell the stories. We meet a lot of the objectives.

But when that fund was started, there were way fewer channels than there are now. We could not have Canadian content obligations, but if you didn't have that, you wouldn't have a Canadian system. That's what it's about. So we've been out there telling people the fund has to be renewed.

Ms. Julia Keatley: In terms of the Canadian content and whether the fund should continue to be renewed or not, there are two examples I'd like to raise. Talking about the money at risk and the producers at risk, going back to the CBC discussion, it's better for the independent production sector to produce these programs because we are truly taking at least 25% of the risk on programs. That really means we're deferring all of our fees. The CBC obviously can't afford to do that with their employees to make those programs. So when you actually look at it on a cost-benefit analysis, they just can't afford to make them any more. We are the ones out there truly taking the risk.

On why the fund itself should be renewed, I sit here and think about encouraging new talent to stay in this country and continue to try to tell their stories and have these stories truly be Canadian. Jim raised the issue this morning of what is Canadian content. Being a producer in Vancouver, we're often fighting with the service sector to have a voice and truly tell our own stories.

I know of a local producer who took a Canadian story and had to Americanize it and set it in Seattle in order to sell it to CBS and get it financed as basically a six out of ten production. That's what will end up happening if there is no Canadian Television Fund.

You won't have a David Milgaard story; you will have the John Smith story set somewhere in Iowa, but it really would have been the David Milgaard story. I actually believe that Canadians want to watch those programs, have those choices, and see those stories told. Truly, because of the financial risk and our small population, we need part of our financing to come from there.

Mr. Stephen Ellis: I'd just like to add that stepping back and looking at the business of government investment in film and television production from an international perspective, there really aren't many, if any, countries in the western world now that aren't supporting domestic production, in order to prime the pump to keep the flow of product coming. The economics heavily point the broadcasters and the theatre chains toward accessing the product that comes from the one country in the world that can afford to pay 100% of the cost of their productions at home, which is the United States.

We mentioned earlier that we typically cover a quarter of the cost of production here at home. The U.K. is probably the second-highest to the U.S., and often independent producers can get 80% to 100%, historically. That is now dramatically sliding, as they expand their system.

So in addition to a rapid expansion of channels in Canada, which has meant the supply of funding is much smaller than the demand for it, there is a structural issue in the fact that the U.S. can pay for its product at home and then essentially sell it around the world for a small fraction of its cost. No other country has that luxury.

The fund is actually a remarkable success story in terms of a country that's been able to really maximize a relatively small investment of thousands of hours of output, because it really contributes a percentage, which is by no means the majority of the funding. But it provides the producer with leverage to attract a lot of other private investment, export sales, what have you, and create thousands of hours of programming at relatively low cost to the government.

It is indeed a partnership with the private sector, and at this time the private sector is contributing more than 50% of the funding to the CTF. Our argument is that since the demand is there in the system, the government should really be stepping up to the plate and matching the private sector investment, which is actually rising as time goes forward.

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Ms. Barri Cohen: I would just like to add to what you've heard. As one of the authors of the RIDM report said, we're on the passion planet. There are these two planets circling around each other. We're on the passion planet and the rest are on this industrial planet using some other set of criteria for thinking of things.

I know we've beaten up a bit on the CRTC, and it's true they have done a few things that have perhaps lacked some foresight. One is the overlicensing of channels, which has thrown the whole somewhat Byzantine system out of whack. The second has been the calculated avoidance of rights issue. They are connected to a certain degree.

In terms of my money, it is deferrals. In fact, the research report shows that amongst all the sources that went into documentary production, an almost equal amount was in so-called deferrals. When you're talking about a budget of a documentary that has fallen about $100,000 per hour--a little less than that--in about eight years, in terms of budgets, you're looking at that downward pressure on your own fees. This means that if you're deferring say $20,000 or $30,000 of your own fees, and it's going to take you eight months, how are you funding that? You'd better have a good banker. A lot of people are going into debt to do that, which is why they need the ownership of their own idea, because the only way they can make the money back, if at all, is in sales.

The CTF, as Elizabeth said, was created at a time when there was not a lot of foresight. We're operating with a lot of tinkering here and there, but the system has been a series of accumulated changes without tremendous coherence between them, which is why your work is so vital and important.

To answer the question directed specifically at us, I will tell you the report also documents that the average income of a documentary producer is under $50,000 a year. In the grander scheme of things, it depends how you think about it, but it's certainly not oodles and oodles of other people's money. And I don't know if that income also includes whatever you owe the bank.

Harder to fund...you mentioned the licence fees. It depends--your colleagues or your friends that you were thinking of--on whether that was a one-off, that high-end, feature-length documentary, that passionate idea. If that's the case, absolutely they will have a hard time. This has been well-documented.

We don't get the support from our public broadcasters, except perhaps Télé-Québec, TVOntario, and then, bless their hearts, BC Knowledge, SCN, and others who kick in little bits and pieces of money proportionate to their own resources to fund these films--and VisionTV, I might add. They basically will say to you, make the film as long it needs to be. I can't imagine the day when the CBC would say that to any of our filmmakers. They may have said it in the past to Donald Brittain, may he rest in peace, but they're certainly not saying it to any of our folks right now, and certainly not to any of the newer filmmakers coming along.

For those ideas, it's very hard to get the broadcast licence--even a commitment or a commitment that's substantial enough to get the project under way. Remember that in drama the director is kind of God. In documentary the director is God himself or herself. So your story is unfolding, and if you don't have the resources to get it and capture it, then you lose out.

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Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: You asked a couple of questions about self-dealing. To be clear, the CFTPA has members that have affiliated production companies. We also have conflict-of-interest guidelines, so as I answer that, there's no conflict here on this panel.

One of things we have done is asked the CRTC to enshrine that 75% of all priority programming, at minimum, be done by independent producers. We believe that should be with unaffiliated companies and also not in-house. If you're going to bring in these new voices, then you have to work with them. I think part of the problem is there's very little reporting. They are looking at reporting. The CBC was asked to report on that and their levels of independent production. We still haven't seen the CBC's report on their activities that is supposed to go to the CRTC. Talk about a lack of transparency. Private broadcasters are supposed to do this, and we're asking that they all be there. I think the CRTC is also going to have to look beyond that.

What does that mean? We're only talking about priority programming that's eight hours a week. Let's not fool ourselves when we're talking about private broadcasters. They're not doing a hundred hours of Canadian programming drama between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. It's eight hours a week, over seven days. Where can you bonus here? Of that, we have suggested that a commitment of 75% be done with independent producers. We are also hoping that the CRTC will start looking beyond not just what they do with independent producers but also what distributor they have to use to get that to ensure that it is really a true opportunity.

So I think there are ways to deal with it. It is in these areas that the CRTC has to become more active and more committed. I think part of their attitude is that their broadcasters are the licensees and so they matter. Those of us who make our living based on what the CRTC says are not as important. I would say they are working with and certainly asking more questions of Chairman Dalfen, but I think it's important that some of those rigours come in. And their reporting makes a big difference, particularly for private broadcasters.

The CRTC is the only public place where you talk about the CBC. And then, in the end, it gets into this Byzantine relationship where there's a discussion about what the decision will be and whether people will agree with the conditions of licence, etc. I don't think that's healthy for the Canadian people. When the CBC's licences are heard, lots of Canadians show up voluntarily, probably more Canadians than in any place else...about whether they love the CBC, hate the CBC. I think they should have to report in the same kinds of transparent and open ways and they should have to adhere to conditions of licence, because that's the only public forum that Canadians have.

The Chair: Ms. Lill.

Ms. Wendy Lill: I want to let you know that when we were in the east last week, in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, we heard from many independent film producers. We heard the reality of the hardship for independent filmmakers and that the producer is the very last one to get any money at all, and it's usually two years down the line.

We talked to small and medium-sized producers mainly, and they put forward a couple of ideas that are important to them. You may have just addressed it, in fact. There is the idea that they feel it's critical that the CTF remains available for them and not be hived off and taken over more and more by large film companies and by broadcasters. Sometimes companies are being bought up in the region simply for the purpose of filtering money through. This is a loophole that is terrifying them, because they're really not playing on a level playing field at all.

They're also concerned about the ownership of ideas aspect. If a producer cannot benefit from the accumulated worth of their creations, then how does one ever get ahead?

The other concern we heard was the importance of having CTF representation with small and medium-sized partners so that the decisions are being made that will reflect their interests.

Those are things that make a lot of sense to me. If you would like to comment on them, how they sound to you, if that's in fact where you're coming from, that would be great.

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Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: I'm just going to make one point.

Small and medium-sized members do have representation. Julia does not represent a big company; it's a small company.

We have two representatives. I think one of the difficulties with the CTF--I sat on the board for a while--is we have two seats on that board, while private broadcasters have four, and the CBC has one. There are all these issues. It is a large board as it is. I think we try the best with the seats we have. We work very hard to ensure it is not large companies we represent on that board.

So I think it's very hard for Julia to say I'm a small regional producer. We spend a lot of time trying to consult with people on that.

But I think, Julia, on the other....

Ms. Julia Keatley: Let me address it.

Certainly the CFTPA has put a policy in place where we balance who our two producers are in terms of the genre of programming they create. We have a small company and a larger company. Our current two companies are small and medium-sized. I'm actually the small company. I have a very small company, even though I produce a larger television series.

I'm pretty familiar with the exact issue you're talking about. I think it's being talked about in the Atlantic region very seriously. It's something people are aware of and hearing. It's a very awkward kind of thing, in that it has almost become more of an administrative issue than a board issue. How do you treat the large companies who go in and buy up and consolidate? The administration ultimately comes and says, “How do you want us to deal with this?” That's one of the reasons why there's been an increasing number of things put into place within the financing structure to support small and medium-sized companies.

Larger companies can no longer access any kind of development funding from Telefilm. Things like that are coming forward. But I think one of the things I've found, with the negotiations we go through and just being on that board and having a smaller number of voices than broadcasters, is we inherited an old system. It came out of what was the cable production fund, when the Canadian television fund was merged. A third of the financing available was actually available to the private broadcasters. This is a very odd part of the fund. They haven't traditionally taken that amount of money, although in Quebec I believe they've quite often come close to taking a third of that money. Sometimes when we're trying to negotiate on issues, we will go after that. But it's pretty hard to win that vote.

So in terms of how to deal most effectively with that money, we independent producers are voicing that concern. I think there are people within the administration who are very supportive of that voice.

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Ms. Wendy Lill: As a New Democrat from the Maritimes, I belong to a rather small party. I know the difficulty of having your voice heard if you're in a small party and you are very often overwhelmed by the majority opinion on things.

I come back to safeguards to make sure we hear very clearly and we weigh very carefully the concerns of the regions and of the small and medium-sized producers.

I'm not sure exactly how you phrased it, but you mentioned the kinds of mechanisms we can have to make sure the people I'm talking to feel comfortable, so they don't feel they're being rolled over all the time. So we need some mechanism, wording, or regulations that will hold water for the people I'm talking with.

Ms. Julia Keatley: I think the fund right now is really under review. This has been a very difficult spring, with the number of rejections there have been--57% of projects that are actually licensed getting rejected--which was spoken about earlier.

I think the kind of concern you're talking about, and having it voiced within this forum, is appropriate. I don't think the kinds of benefits allowed in the situation you're talking about are.... As independent producers, we certainly want things to be clear. If it feels like it's a self-dealing issue, or an advantage in which someone should no longer qualify as regional and those kind of things, I think our board tries to talk about it and be supportive. It says, “Okay, here's the reality,” and tries to be supportive of it.

It's a really difficult question to answer specifically, because you obviously then get lobbying on either side. But in general, we try to do what's fair. We have four representatives from the Atlantic. We just had our AGM and board meeting in Newfoundland. We've heard a lot of the same things you're talking about.

All I can do with my voice is to take it forward and really speak as a regional member on that board. There certainly are very few of them.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: We work very hard at ensuring that our two delegates to the CTF board have consulted broadly with our board. That's why we have a regionally diverse board of directors. In our written submissions to the fund on any issues, they always clearly represent all of those.

One of the greatest challenges is that 57% oversubscription. Right across the country there are small and medium-sized and large producers--there are producers sitting right here--who were rejected from the fund, some in a second year of a production. It's just phenomenal how the choices were made, and the fund did it understanding demand as it was last year. Then there were the new diginets. And the CBC was much more active this year than it was in the past year, because they didn't have Canada: A People's History. That created shelf space and opportunity that came to independents. It's great. It's fabulous. But what it meant was there's just--I think I've been saying this since the CTF--that amount of money and this amount of demand.

The Atlantic producers have an incredible tradition of storytelling. It's just outstanding. Those stories need to be told and need to have an opportunity. The same can be said for prairie producers also. There are producers in Montreal who were severely hurt. Actually, the one thing I can tell you is it was equitably damaging across the country because of the amount of demand. So there's a great creative ability. There are broadcasters who are willing to air these stories--very willing--but there's just not enough money in the system because of the licensing framework right now.

Ms. Barri Cohen: I just want to add that at the time when the CRTC began licensing all of these channels in the mid-1990s--perhaps not with the digital--there was the hope and the expectation that the CTF's private-side resources would expand in tandem with the expansion of channels by other diverse broadcast distribution undertakings also putting an amount--I think it's 5%--of their revenue into the CTF. So there was this rosy picture where, oh, this fund will grow on the private side, the public side will sunset, the private side will grow, and we can license all these channels and we'll have this wonderful system. But satellite and other BDUs that didn't quite take off--those business models--were rosier than they should have been perhaps, and so the expectation that the CTF would grow in this way didn't happen.

It's a roundabout way of getting back to the question you posed earlier. Forgive me, I neglected to mention anything about the green space idea, but perhaps I'll let you ask your....

The Chair: Ms. McDonald.

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: Also, in many cases large multiple system operators are able to take a percentage of that 5% and put it into community programming, which is very important. So it's not the full 5%. The money brought by the cable industry and by the satellite industry has grown significantly. It may however be damaged very badly by this black market satellite. We're already seeing companies such as COGECO have their revenues drop. That's going to affect the fund too in a very basic way.

The Chair: We have just over 15 minutes left, and to show you the interest that you have attracted here with what you have had to say, members have asked for a second round of questions. Before they do and I get pre-empted by them, I would like to ask a couple of questions of my own, if you don't mind.

The first one might seem a little provoking, but I think it's fair to ask it because of what we've heard on our trips and what Mrs. Lill brought up. We heard from several small production companies that keep saying, well, we're shut off from the CTF because we can't get enough access and the big people just push us aside. I was just reflecting that the CTF board of 16 or 20 people is composed of the very people who give grants to themselves in effect. Just as a thought, what would be your reaction if somebody were to say the CTF board should be composed of people with tremendous background in the media and communications industry but not the people who receive grants themselves, such as CBC or you or somebody else? Would it be a fairer system? Is it outlandish to ask this?

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Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: I sat on the board of the CTF, and that's certainly not how I got paid. The governance issues have been dealt with by the CTF. They've done a number of studies. The board of the CTF never deals with funding decisions. From my observation, it's very hard to get people who are very knowledgeable in this industry who actually aren't involved in it in some way. It's one of the challenges in finding new people for the Telefilm board. Most people can't do it. The CBC board has the same issue.

The CTF board is an incredibly hardworking and dynamic board of people who are trying to figure out how to most responsibly spend the public-private money that's there. They create policies that become guidelines, etc. But they don't make decisions about any program. In fact, probably one of the reasons the CTF has been able to survive as long and as well as it has is because the people understand the strengths and weaknesses of the system.

But one of the issues with the CTF is there's just not enough money. Both Julia and I know how many projects were funded in Atlantic Canada. Overall, percentage-wise, based against the economy and everything, they probably did well--better than the prairies, I think. It's a really hard situation when you have a 57% oversubscription rate.

Ms. Julia Keatley: To address your question specifically, I think it's quite easy to look at the outside and say this could be a very conflicted board. When I first came on the CFTPA board in 1995, I remember sitting in a meeting in Ottawa trying to get the CBC and Telefilm to give us some information in advance on their rules and guidelines for the year. It was after April 1, which was when their fiscal year started, and we weren't getting anything. This controls our livelihoods, to a large extent.

One of the things that works extraordinarily well by having a private and public board is that it truly has made both sides of the organization--the licence fee program and the Telefilm equity investment program--more transparent and responsive to what is truly going on in the industry, for both broadcasters and producers.

What you need in that situation are truly strong conflict-of-interest guidelines to govern that. The expertise and knowledge that gets discussed around that table truly makes things move faster, to be able to respond to a rapidly changing universe. I don't think an appointed board of non-interested parties could bring that to the table.

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The Chair: Ms. Keatley, I would really like to say I hope you appreciate this wasn't in any way directed at people. It was just to find out for our research what type of reaction it would have, and I think you have answered it extremely well.

I have just two questions that you won't have to answer now, because time is running, but I would like to put them on the record so you can maybe get back to us.

First, I think Ms. Cohen raised the question of the tremendous amount of paperwork. That's come up time and again during our trips and hearings. People say they are overwhelmed, especially the people in smaller organizations, by the lack of harmonization of the paperwork and applications among the different players and agencies. Perhaps you could give us some ideas on how you see better paperwork being instituted.

Secondly, if you had your choice, how would you change the Canadian content rule? What would be a better way to do it? If by any chance you could send your answers to our researchers, it would be extremely helpful.

Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: I'd like to do a comparison between Cold Squad and Da Vinci's Inquest, because from a layman's perspective, the two programs appear to be so close.

How would the producer of either of those shows make the determination that they would approach or try to get a broadcast licence with CBC versus CTV, or vice versa?

It's my understanding there is a fairly substantial difference in the cost per episode between the two. I don't know if that's correct, or even whether you would know what the cost of Da Vinci's Inquest is. But I've been told there is a pretty substantial difference in cost between the two.

When the CBC were here, I believe it was Mr. Rabinovitch who suggested that the difference between the two shows--because we were talking about the fact that one show was seen in prime time weekdays, and the other show was rather “shuffled off to Buffalo” on Saturday: those kinds of decisions. Da Vinci's Inquest probably wouldn't have the same kind of international appeal Cold Squad might have, because Da Vinci's Inquest is “darker”, or whatever the characterization was he was trying to give to it.

I'm trying to sort this out. I don't want to put you on the spot--I really don't--but I'm trying to sort out the difference between those two. Because it's “Canadian content”, it's Canadian content, and according to one of the culture gurus of Canada, one is darker than the other.

Ms. Julia Keatley: I can actually answer all your questions. Ironically, I do know our budgets are actually relatively similar. The only difference was in the early years of the show: they actually got more financing than we did, because at that point I think people thought we didn't need two series out of Vancouver. That's changed in terms of attitudes. It handicapped us a bit at Cold Squad, but essentially the budgets are the same.

In terms of where they aired, having had conversations with Chris Haddock, whom I know very well and who produces Da Vinci's Inquest, I don't think he's terribly happy about having been moved from Wednesday night to Monday night to Sunday night on the CBC schedule.

As for Cold Squad, we just went--last year, I guess--to Saturday night, which we're not terribly happy about. But we were established for four years on Friday nights, which enabled us to build quite a substantial audience. When we have discussions with a network such as CTV about these kinds of things, the difficulty we get into is of course simulcast programming and the available time slots. That is the primary difference between the CBC and the CTV, where CBC is no longer purchasing American programming and being tied into a simulcast time slot is a bit of an odd.... They have more flexibility. But I certainly know Da Vinci's Inquest people aren't that happy with their time slot. In fact their numbers have gone down substantially.

In terms of our argument, in terms of our numbers, we've actually been able to carry our audience to where we go, which has been part of the track record and why we're going for a sixth season. It becomes a truly ironic thing for a Canadian independent producer, when you have a network you're dealing with like CTV that keeps buying the most successful American programs, to sit there wishing for one of those programs to fail so you can get that time slot, or, for a program like The Associates, to even go on the air, because there were no time slots.

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Mr. Jim Abbott: I'm sorry, I missed that.

Ms. Julia Keatley: To even go on the air. One of the reasons why the program The Associates didn't actually start airing until January was all the new programming CTV had purchased was too successful and didn't get cancelled by the American networks.

That question of substitution is a huge issue for us as independent producers--and where our programs get scheduled. I was at the Calgary hearing for the Craig licensing, and it was very heartening to hear the new chairman, Mr. Dalfen, speak of the fact that programming everything on Saturday nights or Saturday afternoons was actually not when you were going to get the best Canadian audiences, because that's not when they were watching television.

So there are things concerning prime time and where we put our programs that definitely have an effect. One of the main ones is keeping things in a constant place. We all know how, as television watchers, we have times of the day or times of the week when we've got time to watch television. If that program moves from there, we often just don't follow it, for whatever reason.

The last question involves the international sales. Yes, I have to say Cold Squad is distributed and is more successful internationally than Da Vinci's Inquest. I don't know that it's because it's darker. I just think it's that we don't tend to have the continuing story lines, which makes it sell better internationally because the audiences adapt to it. And it's--

Mr. Jim Abbott: You don't have any of what kind of storyline?

Ms. Julia Keatley: We don't tend to do long, continuing storylines. Basically it's more packaged, with a storyline within each episode. International audiences respond better to that, and ironically, North American audiences are turning toward that. You'll see that in the success of a show like Law and Order, which started in the United States as not being a big ratings success ten years ago and now is one of the largest successes.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Thank you.

The Chair: Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Earlier we heard from the group ProMedia International that did not get the chance to present beyond what was in their memo. I would like to ask a few questions to these representatives. ProMedia International says it is concerned with the diversity of current programs, specifically with cultural minorities in the shows. I have two questions.

For a given production project, are you less likely or not to get financing if you present stories that showcase cultural diversity comparatively to other types of stories?

Secondly, do you make sure you include cultural minorities in every phase and facets of the project, including picking the comedians, the technicians and the producers? This issue is often raised and we hear similar complaints from the Disabled community and from women who feel they do not get their due. What proactive steps are you ready to take with respect to this important issue at stake?

[English]

Ms. Elizabeth McDonald: First of all, I actually left the broadcasting and cable industry because I found there was a better home for women in the production industry.

The broadcaster drives that a lot. Our view of our members is that people are very happy just to have talented people.

One of the things we did as an association was to establish a very active mentorship program that now has six separate programs. This year we had 95 graduates, and I heard them say they get short-term jobs. Well, 95% of our interns get permanent jobs. We have a high level of culturally diverse candidates who come through.

In addition to that, we are running three aboriginal programs. We're partnered with APTN, and that means aboriginal producers are working with established producers. Many of them are going to establish their own companies, and we know that. Some of them develop a relationship with another established producer.

So I don't see it as a barrier. In fact, I would have to say, if I look at these producers here, that they're desperate for talented people, so desperate that they ask their association to help train those people. They hire them after they train them. Our contribution is three times the size of the public money or private sector money we get for this, and it's incredibly diverse. So we're doing what we can with the incoming talent.

Ira.

Â (1255)

Mr. Ira Levy: There are a couple of points. First, when a producer gets a broadcast licence from many of the Canadian broadcasters, having cultural diversity and making that effort are usually enshrined in the licence language. There's certainly a partnership, an ongoing partnership, to promote that.

Some stories lend themselves more to cultural diversity than others, and I'll give you an example. We do a series at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. It is one of the pre-eminent pediatric hospitals in the world, and it's in the centre of the most multicultural city in the world. Actually, Barri Cohen does a lot of the directing on that series.

What's interesting about it is that the stories by their very nature are culturally diverse, not just from the point of view of the patients and the families who come to that hospital to use that facility or because it's an internationally renowned hospital. So people come there from all around the world, but of course because of the hospital staff. They come there from all around the world because they get the best people from around the world in pediatric care.

The interesting thing is that when you start to look at a show like that, it does very well on Life Network. It has a very strong following. We've done 65 episodes, and you would think, well, this is a pretty good Canadian story. This is a really interesting Canadian story about a Canadian achievement in great pediatric care, and it's a human story too. It's about families and doctors and about caring and love, so it's pretty international, one would think. It certainly works well in Canada.

It's probably been our most successful program selling internationally. When you get countries from all around the world, from South Africa, Belgium, and Asia, picking up a show that is quintessentially a Canadian show, one of the reasons is that there is that cultural diversity that's inherent in it. I think this could be a good example of how the system is evolving.

I just have one other quick note. The last presenters were talking about Innoversity, and I'm familiar with that program, which is going to be on next week. It's a very interesting program because as part of the process there are going to be pitches from all sorts of new, emerging producers, and one of the requirements was cultural diversity on the part of the producers themselves. They are going to be pitching in all the different genres: documentaries, children's programming, drama, arts and entertainment, and the performing arts. They're going to be pitching their program ideas, whether they be one-offs or a series, to people who are experts in the industry, whether they be producers or broadcasters.

There will actually be winners. Those winners will get money, and that money will be in the form of development funds that will allow those new, emerging producers, many of whom come from diverse backgrounds, to actually get into the system and be mentored by people who are in the system right now.

· (1300)

The Chair: Ms. Nemtin, we'll let you close.

Ms. Andrea Nemtin: I just wanted to add that I too do series work, and we have a very strong focus on making sure there is diversity in our subjects. It's the only way we can have it be interesting and reflect where we live.

However, I think there is a danger when the private broadcasters are dependent on ad sales and their advertisers want them to reach the 25- to 40-year-old white female or white male. That's something we have to keep an eye on. I find that currently the broadcasters I work with are very supportive of cultural diversity, but it's something that has to be carefully monitored. It could be very easily homogenized, and our entire landscape could be very homogenized.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. McDonald, Ms. Cohen, and your colleagues for appearing today. As you can see, it's been an extremely lively and interesting session for us. I'm sure Mr. Bishopric will check the transcripts after.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Thank you very much for your presence and your input. We really appreciate it.

We are now going to give a few minutes to ProMedia to answer our questions. Members have agreed to stay for a few minutes.

Ms. Reyes and Mr. Grange, I think we all felt bad that you didn't have a chance to answer our questions. A lot of the members have programmed their day until one o'clock. We all have things to do, but we agreed to stay for one round of questions to give you a chance, especially in view of the remarks that have been made before about cultural diversity. Maybe we could tie in with what you have to say.

The members have agreed to stay for ten minutes or so to ask questions.

Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: As I mentioned to Mr. Grange, our party understands the difficulty there is in the gray market with respect to the real diversity that your community and others are having difficulty with in terms of accessing what they want. We're not really sure how to respond to that within the gray market.

The second point is that I can appreciate the frustration from your perspective and the perspective of those you represent about seeing themselves on television. The difficulty I'm having, and maybe you could help me understand, is how would you work out a point system if the setting did not call for visible minority people to be on camera--in other words, if it simply didn't fit? I can visualize a situation where the point system would work to either the deficiency of the operation on the basis of points, or the actual casting of people who simply would not normally be there, in which case it would be like trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

How would you visualize getting around that problem, with the possibility of going to...one of the points in the point system being for the depiction of the visible minority community?

The Chair: Just before you answer, Mr. Grange or Ms. Reyes, why don't we finish with the questions, and you can write them down. I can see you are reporting faithfully. We'll give you time.

· (1305)

Mr. Hamlin Grange: I should clarify, Mr. Abbott, that we don't see ourselves representing any particular group. I don't want the committee to have the impression that we represent minorities in this country as filmmakers or documentary makers, or anything like that. We're just two independent filmmakers and documentary producers who have a particular viewpoint, and we've talked to a lot of people. We don't really represent anyone. I want to be clear on that.

The Chair: Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: In your assessment of the presence of cultural minorities, you mention the media. Do you nuance your views with respect to shows that are in essence cultural? Are you referring to everything that is aired by the television networks or more specifically to the shows focusing on cultural diversity?

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: I'm going to follow up with a quick comment on what Madame Gagnon said.

Years ago, I remember being in the United States and listening to someone speak about USA Today. Their policy is to ensure that on every day there is actually a picture of someone from a visible minority on the front page of every USA Today cover. How do you instil that?

I noticed you talked about this U.S. model, a consortium. Can you perhaps expand on that? You said that the role of the CRTC in granting licences is not enough, yet we do have the aboriginal network. I'm not saying that should be enough, but I think it's a great decision by the CRTC, which I would commend.

When you talk about visibility--and I'm coming from an arts background as opposed to the cultural industries--is it the problem that we would get actors.... We had R.H. Thomson here earlier, who is well known now. Most of those people get their start in the theatre, in the grassroots, and the problem is that until recently, there hasn't been this colour-blind casting. This is something the theatre communities themselves are taking on as their audiences are changing. Isn't it part of the reason we don't have--and it should be instilled in the grassroots--these people to fulfil our multicultural society?

Ms. Cynthia Reyes: So your question is...?

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Ms. McDonald was talking about having a mentorship. It's too late. So my question is this. Should we not be looking at the grassroots, the arts sector, as opposed to looking right to the cultural industries? The arts sector is truly where the breeding ground is for our actors, and for later on. That's where the basics are. We go to film and television, but your training is in your local theatre.

The Chair: Although Mr. Abbott isn't here, this goes on record, so by all means answer his questions. So if you can take the questions in the order in which they've been asked, they all get recorded, as you know.

Ms. Cynthia Reyes: Okay. Mr. Abbott's question was about the point system. I think he's asking a common-sense question. Really there are no visible minorities in Newfoundland, should you be requiring programs that are created in parts of Newfoundland that have visible minorities in them.

Of course, the other part to that is, who makes the program? As we all know, in the case of women, until women got in there and started making the programs, until they were getting the funding, getting the breaks, we weren't seeing a lot of programs about women. If we did, they were quite often stereotypical. I think common sense has to rule the day.

We know that most of our big cities now and even our intermediate cities are culturally diverse. I think it ranges from something like 10% in Toronto to somewhere around 50%, perhaps even 53%, we're told. So I will not sit here and try to draft a precise revision of the point system, but I do think you have to use common sense. Where there are minority communities, where the regions are culturally diverse, there should be no excuse for having the majority of programs funded and made from that area being only about white, able-bodied people. And if there is, then a red flag should go up right away.

So my answer to that is common sense.

The second one is on media. Are we talking about all media?

· (1310)

Mr. Hamlin Grange: That's right.

Ms. Cynthia Reyes: For two years in a row, in the month of October, we did nothing but consume media.

The first time I was ill. I was confined to bed. That was two years ago. As a result, I watched every single television channel that I could get on cable. Then I read every magazine that came to the house.

He gets gadgets when he subscribes to magazines, so we have a lot of magazines coming to the house. I read all of those magazines.

As well, I listened to the radio as much as I could, and of course I read the newspapers. That was the point at which I became truly alarmed. I was working across the country in major cities, and the people I was seeing in the streets, in the different cities, were not at all being reflected in what I was seeing on Canadian television.

By the way, we live in the country, so it's not just cities that I'm talking about. It is true that the greater concentrations are in the big regions. I'm talking about all programming, all radio, all television.

Cultural diversity isn't something that you put in a little pocket over here. It actually runs throughout our society. It does not run throughout our media. You don't see it on the boards of the broadcasting companies to any great extent. You don't see it on the boards of the CTF, you don't see it here just now, you don't see it at the senior levels, the intermediate levels, or the front-line levels, except in the news and to some extent in the independent sector, where people of colour and people with disabilities are having by far the toughest time. So I'm talking about all programs.

I'm sorry, I spoke over you.

Mr. Hamlin Grange: To add to that, it was interesting to watch the presentation by the advertising sector here. They presented a very slick video and I counted two non-whites in the whole presentation. One was an Asian child, the other one was Michael Smith, a very good friend of mine, a decathlete. That was it.

If that is their reflection of how well the advertising industry is doing in this country, we have a problem. That is not a reflection of the demographics, the latest statistics from Statistics Canada, and we should be concerned about that. So when I say “media”, I say all media.

Twenty years ago Cynthia and myself and a group of individuals in Toronto formed an ad hoc media committee that worked with the Canadian Advertising Foundation. We met with some of the major advertising buyers and companies in this country to talk about that. There was a blip where some changes took place. You actually saw Asians and other non-whites selling milk, drinking beer. It fell off. We're beginning to see that it's coming back now, but we still have a long way to go. So when we talk about media, it's inclusive; it's everything.

A question was asked in terms of the colour-blind casting.

Ms. Cynthia Reyes: Before that it was the U.S. consortium model.

I forget exactly how many years ago now; it might have been about ten to twelve years ago. The fact that so many different things were being tried to get the mainstream to reflect the various minority groups, primarily Asia Pacific people, as well as aboriginal, African, and Hispanic people, resulted in an act of Congress that actually created four consortia. They are given a certain amount of money each year.

All the independent producers still have to go through a point system process that applies. The best applications are chosen. But the end result is that every year in America you see a much greater number of high-quality programs being made by and about people of colour. That's what I was referring to--the actual consortia that have been set up with a board, panels, juries to decide who gets the money.

Mr. Hamlin Grange: In terms of the colour-blind casting question, I didn't realize that USA Today had that particular policy, and it's interesting. Clearly, it recognizes its market.

When you think of America and the United States, where the African American population is about the size of the Canadian population, and there's an equal number for the Hispanic population, if USA Today didn't do that, I think it would be economic suicide. So clearly, it knows who's reading its newspapers and this is an economic decision.

But I think something else is going on there as well that I don't know. I didn't realize this was its policy.

As for colour-blind casting, we've talked to a number of Canadian actors and actresses who go for calls. The part will call for a particular person and that character is often white. We know of a number of non-white actors who go for those calls and read for them. They have to convince the directors or the producers there that this character doesn't have to be white; they can do the job.

After listening and seeing the talent that's there, the directors and producers begin to understand and they change that role, and that particular production becomes much more vibrant, has much more texture to it; there's creativity taking place. How we deal with that is a challenge.

You talked about the grassroots, and the Obsidian Theatre company in Toronto is an example. Way back in 1969--I was a young pup then--Black Theatre Canada was an example. It went to the grassroots. Then a lot of people came out of the Black Theatre Canada experience and become more involved in the media, in the production areas, in acting, and they went on to make commercials. And some of them today are involved with the Obsidian Theatre.

So I think you are right, but how do we move from the grassroots to the mainstream? That's the real challenge, because the barriers we're finding when we talk to the people in these various industries--whether in the media sector, at the executive levels, or in the creative sector. Sometimes, in the middle somewhere, they get jammed up. They hit a wall somewhere because someone decides that, you know what, that's not going to sell.

Someone mentioned the advertisers earlier, and we've been told that some advertisers, and some people, actually say that a black woman won't work in a particular role because blacks are not all that good anyway. We've been told this. It's fascinating and quite disturbing when you hear those kinds of things.

· (1315)

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Obsidian Theatre is doing quite well.

Mr. Hamlin Grange: It's doing very well.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: I know it quite well. Its head office is in my riding. Djanet Sears' recent production was just--

Mr. Hamlin Grange: Yes, it was a beautiful production.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: But again, when we look at the whole broadcasting study, what I was getting at is that we don't forget to invest in the artists versus investing in the industry. That's what I mean when I say grassroots, because I truly believe that by investing in the arts, in the communities and in the individual artists, we will actually cultivate our next stars.

Mr. Hamlin Grange: I agree.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: I don't want that to be missed in this. It's not just about being up here. Once you get to film or television, you're already a star, but how do we get our stars?

And while Ms. McDonald was talking about this mentor program, I strongly feel the investment has to be made in the local artists, the local community, in the not-for-profit centre first.

Ms. Cynthia Reyes: That is part of the answer, and what we're all identifying here is that there are different parts to the answer. Just as there are different parts to the industry and to the arts, there are different parts to the answer. And this one is certainly a part of that answer.

The Chair: I appreciate you both staying longer to be with us here today. Now we have to give the translators and the people on the consoles and all the other people a chance to go and have lunch and take a break.

Thank you very, very much.

The meeting is adjourned.