HERI Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, November 21, 2002

¿

0910

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

Professor John Meisel (Individual Presentation)

¿

0915

The Chair

¿

0920

Prof. John Meisel

Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, Lib.)

The Chair

The Chair

Professor Karim Karim (Individual Presentation)

¿

0945

¿

0950

The Chair

Professor Will Straw (Individual Presentation)

The Chair

Professor Rebecca Sullivan (Individual Presentation)

¿

0955

The Chair

Professor Bart Beaty (Individual Presentation)

À

1000

The Chair

Mr. Kirk Lapointe (Individual Presentation)

À

1005

À

1010

The Chair

Ms. Deanie Kolybabi (Director, Strategic Development and Marketing, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network)

À

1015

The Chair

À

1020

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP)

The Chair

Prof. John Meisel

À

1025

The Chair

Prof. Karim Karim

The Chair

À

1030

Prof. Will Straw

The Chair

Mr. Kirk Lapointe

The Chair

Prof. Rebecca Sullivan

À

1035

The Chair

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

À

1040

The Chair

Mr. Paul Bonwick (Simcoe—Grey, Lib.)

À

1045

Prof. Bart Beaty

Mr. Paul Bonwick

Mr. Kirk Lapointe

The Chair

Ms. Deanie Kolybabi

À

1050

The Chair

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Lib.)

Prof. Karim Karim

Mr. Rodger Cuzner

À

1055

Mr. Kirk Lapointe

The Chair

Ms. Deanie Kolybabi

The Chair

Mr. John Harvard

Á

1100

The Chair

Prof. Will Straw

Á

1105

Mr. John Harvard

Prof. Will Straw

The Chair

Prof. Rebecca Sullivan

The Chair

Mr. Kirk Lapointe

The Chair

Ms. Deanie Kolybabi

Á

1110

The Chair

Prof. Karim Karim

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

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NUMBER 004

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Thursday, November 21, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿  (0910)  

[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.

[Translation]

    The committee is meeting today pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) to resume its study of the Canadian broadcasting system.

[English]

    Today we have a cultural diversity panel that includes several witnesses appearing as individuals. We have Professor John Meisel, professor emeritus of the Department of Political Studies, Queen's University. Welcome. We have Mr. Karim H. Karim, associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University; Mr. Will Straw, associate professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University; Ms. Rebecca Sullivan, assistant professor, Faculty of Communication and Culture, from the University of Calgary; Mr. Bart Beaty, assistant professor, Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary; and Mr. Kirk Lapointe, journalist. We have, from the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network Ms. Deanie Kolybabi, director of strategic development and marketing. Welcome to all of you.

    I would like to say that the terms of reference were set in the context of the study of the Canadian broadcasting system. We would like to go back to our report on the state of cultural institutions in Canada, A Sense of Place--A Sense of Being, which we issued in 1999 and where we said we were trying to arrive at a definition of what culture and cultural diversity really are.

    The questions we put were what is your definition of culture, what is your definition of diversity, and therefore what is your definition of cultural diversity? What works within cultural diversity and what doesn't work? What lessons can we learn from the popularity of grey and black market satellite systems in Canada? What does it say to us? They are estimated to reach something like 700,000 households. Does this suggest insufficient diversity of choice for us? Is there such a thing as too little or too much cultural diversity? Is the federal government's approach to cultural diversity appropriate in trying to search for a consensus that goes beyond Canada and reaches out? Can you recommend any policy or programming changes, and in your view can current funding mechanisms appropriately support cultural diversity?

    I know that's a large number, but we'll start it out. Professor Meisel, as you were the first to be introduced, I'll let you start.

[Translation]

    Professor John Meisel (Individual Presentation): Mr. Chairman, I would first like to thank you for inviting me to attend your meeting.

[English]

     J'ai lu pas mal the minutes of your meetings. I've read quite a few of the proceedings and I'd like to congratulate you on having tackled a pretty tough job and for coping with it with a certain amount of panache.

    Your panellists were invited to make an opening statement of about five minutes and to address the nine questions Mr. Lincoln has just repeated. To deal with them equally would allocate only about thirty three and one-third seconds to each. This wouldn't help much, so I shall instead try to do something else. I want to raise three general points addressing the context of your hearings and then offer a few comments about cultural diversity.

    First, in the more than 60 years since the Aird commission, Canada has been blessed with at least 20 official studies of broadcasting by a plethora of royal commissions, task forces, parliamentary inquiries, and other probes. This makes about one every three years. A perusal of them all reveals a fascinating thing: their recommendations, while they do not exactly coincide, certainly closely resemble one another.

    The principal problem has not been formulating solutions, but implementing them. And the reasons for the difficulties in executing recommendations are largely beyond the reach of the diagnosticians. They rise partly from the tastes and attitudes of a great many Canadians and are in part the work of the private broadcasters. The latter, whatever they may profess, have for the most part expended much more energy on how to get around paragraph 3(1)(d) of the Broadcasting Act than on how to live up to it.

    Secondly, in dealing with the issues before us, we must distinguish between television, radio, and now Internet, although the latter is not strictly speaking broadcasting.

    Thirdly, the difference between the private and public broadcasters is so colossal that they must, in most cases, be treated separately.

    And now, revenons à nos moutons, as the French say: what of cultural diversity? I understand by the term the variety of attitudes, values, practices, etc., of the ethnic and linguistic groups making up the country, from the aboriginal population to the two historically important linguistic families and the ever growing number of Canadians coming from all the far and near corners of the globe.

¿  (0915)  

    The committee is wise in exploring how the broadcasting system responds to the immensely rich variety of our population. It must, however, also address how other types of culture are served on the airwaves and on cable services. The types are almost unlimited in number, but I will identify only two: Canada's arts culture and what we might call our lifestyle cultures. Although paragraph 3(1)(d) does not explicitly refer to them in these terms, it unmistakably insists that broadcasting pay heed to them.

    Arts culture, in which I include high and popular culture, is extremely varied in the land but most unevenly treated on radio and television. Some genres receive extensive coverage and attention. Others are virtually invisible and inaudible. Variety, or divergence if you prefer, is horrendously neglected and should not be. There is no MuchMusic for minuets.

    By lifestyle culture I mean the patterns of values and behaviour exhibited by all sorts of groups linked by occupational activities, local pursuits, leisure activities, and other bonds that bestow on the groups shared experiences and often a sense of belonging. We talk of a business culture, a sports culture, an academic culture, and the culture of firms, corporate culture. It is striking that the broadcasting world lavishes an enormous amount of time on some of them, sports for example, and almost none on others. Consider, for instance, how important questions of religion are to a great many Canadians, and compare this with the attention--or I should perhaps say inattention--paid it by the broadcasting world. Are the myriad questions related to spirituality addressed remotely as effectively as those concerning sex or the consumption of automobiles or junk food?

    My time is almost up, alas, but in conclusion, I cannot refrain from touching lightly on these final nine points put to us. Number five asks whether the grey or black market with the high number of satellite dishes points to insufficient choice in the mainstream system. My answer needs to be qualified--something I unfortunately cannot take time for--but it is a decisive no. There are no doubt many reasons, only some of which arise from the absence of certain kinds of programs from mainline services.

    Thank you for your attention. If time permits, I'll gladly expand on some of the observations I've made and address any of the nine points that may come up.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: I was very loath to interrupt you while you were speaking so eloquently, but we have a problem with the translation. According to our rules, our meetings have to be bilingual, which is only right. I would like to ask that the meeting pause for a short time while we sort it out. I'm terribly sorry.

¿  (0920)  

    Prof. John Meisel: Mr. Chairman, while we're waiting, I could attempt to give a sort of kitchen French version of what I said.

    Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, Lib.): Bilingualism works both ways.

    The Chair: It will be translated on the record. It's just for people who are listening as you speak.

¿  (0920)  

---

¿  (0942)  

    The Chair: We'll now resume our meeting. I apologize for the delay, which was extremely unfortunate, and I will turn now to Professor Karim Karim.

[Translation]

    Professor Karim Karim (Individual Presentation): Thank you and good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am very pleased to be attending this meeting.

[English]

    Unfortunately I've not prepared a brief, but I will be leaving copies of some of my recent articles and reports on my current research on cultural diversity and the media.

    Given the shortness of time, I will be addressing just a couple of points.

    In terms of cultural diversity and what it may mean, the way I approach this for this particular purpose is that within the context of broadcasting we have perhaps come to think of it as the physical presence on television or radio of various groups living in Canada. And this may not be the complete resolution of the problem as the act may have seen it. First of all, in different kinds of programming there tends to be a preponderance of one or another ethnic group. In advertising, for whatever reason, you rarely see, for example, people of Latin American, Arab, or South Asian origin. There is this urban legend--I don't know how true it is--that a director was casting for an ad and said “I just remembered that the ad has to include some diversity, so quick, get me a black person or an Asian”. That's where it stops. You don't think beyond that. Despite the large presence of people of these other origins, we rarely see them.

    The other point I'd like to make regarding cultural diversity is that it's not completely resolved by just physical presence. When a newscaster of a minority background appears on television and adopts completely the persona of people of majority backgrounds, even to the extent of mispronouncing the names of places in their homeland.... I would like to give an example here. I hope I won't be sued for this. For example, one of the newscasters on CBC Newsworld pronounces her name as Suhanna Marchand, perhaps trying to give the last name a French sound, when it really is Meharchand, which is an Indian name. This is what I mean when I say that the cultural diversity that we expect is being suppressed. So just the appearance of different kinds of people on television doesn't really solve the problem of cultural diversity as the act may have seen it.

    The other issue I'd like to address is that of citizenship and broadcasting. First, I'd like to make a general comment. In my years in government at Canadian Heritage I tended to see a drift away in language and discourse from “citizen” to “consumer”. There are some people at very high levels in the bureaucracy who did not see a contradiction. In fact, to them the two were the same. I would submit to you that this is at a great loss in policy-making, because when we conceive of Canadians only as consumers, it reduces our government's relationship to them to that of a monetary exchange and a commercial relationship and stops at that. The notion of citizenship, of course, opens up a whole new level of relationship, which requires an understanding of responsibilities, duties, and rights, the kinds of things that laws attempt to address.

    When it comes to addressing cultural diversity by the CRTC, I'm sure the members of the committee know that in the mid-nineties it seemed that the arms of commissioners almost had to be twisted by cabinet to get them to understand how seriously the government took the importance of cultural diversity in broadcasting. Two orders in council were issued to ensure that certain licences would be reserved for minority broadcasters. Again, this goes to the kind of limited understanding of the act, of what is implied here and the relationship of laws to citizens.

¿  (0945)  

    One of the reasons for the kinds of changes that are apparent now in the licences being given out is also a result of the diversity of appointments to the CRTC. If the system is to continue to work, I think it is very important that the commissioners come from various backgrounds and understand the diversity of Canadians, understand the cultural implications of their decisions, and try to adhere to the spirit and the letter of the law.

    I'd like to stop here, and I'd be happy to entertain any questions at any point. Thank you.

¿  (0950)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Karim.

    Associate Professor Will Straw, please.

     Professor Will Straw (Individual Presentation): Mr. President, members of the committee, I'm very pleased to be here.

    When I ask my students at McGill what they think of Canadian content regulations for radio, 95% will put up their hands and say they're for them. When I ask them what you do in a new digital radio age when channel 95 is a Dixieland jazz station--do you want there to be 40% Canadian Dixieland jazz on that station?--then they begin to think about it. This, to me, is the dilemma.

    It's partly a dilemma because we can define culture in a million different ways, but to me one of the interesting and important things about culture is that culture consists of all those media and all those cultural products in which we store our history and our past, and with which we bring it to life again and recycle it. I think this has become particularly the case in a 200-channel television universe, where most of the new specialty channels are basically offering up different versions of our cultural past--the documentaries we see over and over again on the History Channel, the rerun sitcoms on TV Land, or the programs on Mystery. Also, there are the kinds of stations that people are watching on satellite services--often grey-market satellite services from the United States and elsewhere--where they're watching old Indian films, old films from the heyday of the Mexican film industry. They're listening to music from the golden age of Argentinian tango and so on. What do we do about this?

    The important question for me about Canada is not just what kinds of people are coming to join us, but what we are going to do with their cultural past. Do we welcome those in? Do we provide and allow the media through which they can have access to their cultural past, or do we try to keep them out and try to make our own versions of what diversity means? This, to me, is a really tough dilemma.

    What I think is that diversity is not about us making programs in which every voice is represented, so much as it is about allowing a wider variety of sources of programming into Canada. When people, through grey-market satellites or through cable, watch the news on the BBC, watch old Indian films from Bollywood, to me that's strengthening Canadian culture just as importantly as it is if they're watching Heritage Minutes. I think every time someone watches a satellite channel devoted to Spanish-American films, they're not just rejecting Canadian culture; they're also rejecting American networks and so on. They're thinking of themselves globally, in a way that we need to start thinking about ourselves in Canada.

    So for me, diversity has become really interesting. It's not just about the range of choices; it's about the range of sources. I think we have to find a way of opening ourselves up to more kinds of programming from different parts of the world. Over time, that is going to diminish the strength and the dominance of American programming.

    I think American programming and its audiences are already getting very fragmented. It's lost its centre. You don't go to school every day any more and talk about the same program because no one watches the same program. People who come to Canada from different places bring with them their old movies, their old music, and so on. The more we allow that to come, in a variety of ways, over time we're going to create a new version of Canadian culture that's going to be more global, but is actually going to be less and less American.

    I think that's kind of a compromise. We can't recentre Canadian culture any more either and expect everyone to be watching Da Vinci's Inquest or something else, but we can make the rich variety of Canadian culture probably different from American culture, and that will be our strength. I think that will make it also a very interesting place to be.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Straw. You have brought a different angle to the discussion.

    Ms. Sullivan, please.

    Professor Rebecca Sullivan (Individual Presentation): Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me to speak to this panel, and I want to thank the people who have already spoken. You've given me a lot of ideas, and I've been changing my comments as I listened.

    The issue I wanted to address most specifically within the range of excellent questions I was given was this sense of how we define cultural diversity. Having listened to what my distinguished colleagues have said, I still think that in Canada we consider the question of cultural diversity as predominantly a race and ethnicity question, one with a bit of bilingualism thrown in for good measure. When we do that, though, we often then look into the Canadian model and, rather than pull out race and ethnicity for their differences, focus on homogenization, multiculturalism notwithstanding, as Karim Karim pointed out.

    What I would like to do is expand this notion of cultural diversity to consider such things as religion, as John Meisel pointed out, of sexuality and gender orientation, and of class and economics. When we deal with the question of diversity and attach this notion of culture to it, we tend to avoid some of the real problems of social, political, and economic inequities and problems not merely in the way these different cultures are represented but in whether these groups are given access to the airwaves in an equitable fashion.

    I'll bring up one example. I currently live in Calgary, Alberta, where Shaw Cable Systems is in charge. During the digital cable rollout PrideVision was not given the same access as all the other stations, and it was not given that access based on some claim of community standards, namely, we're only responding to the cultural needs of our audience. If you wanted PrideVision as part of the free package, you had to phone, you had to pay--it was a nominal amount, one cent plus taxes--but every time you wanted it for a program you had to call. It wasn't just a matter of calling once, you had to keep calling. You had to keep asking for it, whereas all the other stations were considered suitably Canadian in that they would not offend community standards. Well, this was prejudicial treatment whether we like it or not.

    This is the question I think needs to come into play: when we talk about cultural diversity, we need to also talk about social diversity, economic diversity, political diversity, and questions of access, questions of power, and questions of how these other voices can be a part of the system so there is real, significant cultural change in Canada.

    That's all I'd like to say for the moment. Thank you very much.

¿  (0955)  

    The Chair: Thanks, Ms. Sullivan.

    Mr. Beaty.

    Professor Bart Beaty (Individual Presentation): Thank you.

    I'm very happy to be appearing here today. Like Dr. Sullivan, I've found my own comments changing based on the comments of some of my colleagues who've already spoken.

    Like Dr. Straw, I want to start by referencing my students. Whenever I teach a course on television or visual culture, for example, I always feel some sort of obligation that I should be relating to students based on what it is they're watching, not only what I want them to see in class, but what they're watching. I should be responding to that.

    I always default to Canadian broadcasting options, and I always get this kind of look from a number of my students. If I have a hundred in class and I reference a Canadian show that was on CBC or CTV the night before, I get this quizzical look. I'll say, “What were you watching?” They'll say, The Bachelor on ABC, or something on Discovery, or something on TSN.

    I realize it's very difficult to talk about contemporary television or contemporary broadcasting to students because they're not all watching the same thing. We have this great diversity even in a very small selected group like students taking a particular course at the University of Calgary. If we were talking about radio it would probably be even worse.

    I think the regulations that we've had in this country in the past worked really well for a different era. I think it's time now, particularly in an era of convergence, that we start to rethink the models we use for broadcast regulation.

    One of the problems with cultural diversity is that we've had in the past a tendency to think that there's a way to make individual channels that CRTC has reserved for minority voices...that there's a way to make these perfectly. We believed that we could make this one channel that will speak to a particular subset of the Canadian population in a perfect fashion, that it will exactly represent what they want to see and how they want their voices to be heard. I don't think that's the case.

    I think we'd be much better off offering a variety of choices, something Dr. Straw has already referred to, for these populations, rather than trying to hit exactly one note that is going to sustain an entire population.

    The problem in the current situation seems to be one of redundancy and dependency in the Canadian broadcasting model. So instead of having a wide variety of choices we're seeing increasingly a narrowing of choices, so that you're getting the same types of programs being run on the CBC and on Newsworld, being run on American broadcast channels and Canadian broadcast channels at precisely the same time through simultaneous substitution. I think this is really limiting the choices that are available to Canadians unnecessarily.

    I think the rise of grey market satellites, which you refer to in your questions, points in part--and I think there are other factors involved--to the fact that Canadians are not receiving the types of programming options they would like to see. If, for example, you're a Latin-speaking Canadian, there are far more available channels if you have a grey market. The Americans have Univision, Galavision, and dozens of other Latin, Spanish-speaking channels. Canada has Telelatino. If you're looking for diversity there, it must be very tempting to say you'll turn to the grey market option despite its illegality.

    Despite the fact that it's illegal, I don't think people are experiencing it particularly as illegal. I saw the ad that was taken out--and I'm sure most of the members saw it--in the Globe and Mail just a day ago, or two days ago, pointing out this. But I think the fact that the cable industry is required to advertise the fact that it's illegal points to the fact that people aren't experiencing it that way, and it points to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who would like to see something shift, who believe there's something fundamentally wrong with the way we're conceptualizing Canadians' broadcasting needs at the current time.

    Professor Straw mentioned the idea of thinking about Canadian broadcasting more globally, and positioning people to think more globally. If we were to do something like that it would open up opportunities for Canadian broadcasters to also exercise their local expertise. One of the ways the Canadian broadcasters could effectively compete with American broadcasters, for example, is their knowledge of Canadian society, of Canadian interests, of Canadian stories. Now we see too much reliance on American programming in the private broadcasting system.

À  (1000)  

    I think we need to rethink that reliance, and, whether that's done through production subsidies or some other method, heighten the ability of the private broadcasters and public broadcasters in this country to draw upon the expertise they have here as Canadians and offer that up into a global broadcasting marketplace.

    I think I'll stop there.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Lapointe.

    Mr. Kirk Lapointe (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today.

    While I'm an invitee no doubt because of my work at CTV in leading the diversity initiative corporately while I was senior vice-president of news, and my work with the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in launching and chairing the cultural diversity task force, which is taking place today, and as a newsroom executive in print media at the Southam and Torstar organizations, I ask that my remarks today be construed as a personal representation, not as the position of a particular company. I'm between employers right now. A couple of weeks from now that will be a different thing.

    I have extensive experience as a journalist and manager in attempting to ensure that media serve and strengthen our country and our communities. One of the great challenges all media face is the growing disconnection with our audience--the growing disenchantment of many Canadians who simply don't consume what we produce--and the growing, disquieting likelihood that the next generation of our consumers may bypass us if we don't address their concerns very soon.

    There are many reasons for this malaise about media. We're perceived by some as unfair. We're known at times to be inaccurate and we are spending far too much time covering unimportant things and too little time uncovering important things. But one of the central challenges for all media is our audience sees and hears itself in our work. Are the stories we tell their stories? Are the experiences we relay their experiences? Are we an accurate reflection and depiction of the diversity of life in this country? Are we in possession of the truest mirror? If we aren't, then we will increasingly lack the credibility to lead the public affairs experience in years to come. We may coast on reputations and benefit from the fact that other media aren't occupying more credible ground right away, but we're harvesting our currency without planting any new seeds to develop the next audience so vital for our sustenance.

    In my experience, the challenge of diversity for me is neither simply explained nor addressed. First of all, “diversity” is an all-encompassing term that includes matters of gender, age, ethnicity, race, spiritual and philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, abilities and disabilities, among several other factors. So it can take on a different meaning in each setting. Second, meeting the challenge of diversity is a remarkable uphill undertaking. It's not a matter of snapping one's fingers and making it true. It's not a matter of setting numerical targets, recruiting and promoting in particular ways, and tracking progress. It's a day-by-day grinding and methodical process that involves everyone in an organization in an unthreatening way building a more sophisticated media operation.

    To that end, it means media must constantly develop wider bases of contacts in their communities, must go the extra step to bring new voices into positions of authority and perspective for their stories, and must cast a net widely to recruit so that advancement is always done on merit. This recipe gives media a far greater chance of success in embracing and championing diversity without any sense of artificiality about the exercise.

    Skeptics will say progress on this front has been alarmingly slow and there needs to be some pressure to make this happen. Again, in my experience, that isn't the case any more. Media long ago understood the benefits of diversity and they even defined it as “good business”. The pressure is self-imposed, widespread, and in place. As an explanation, what happened last decade, along the way to achieving diversity, were economic restraints and restructuring that hampered training and recruitment. The newest recruits with the least seniority were often laid off when organizations encountered economic difficulty, and training programs were often sacrificed first when money had to be found.

    Oddly enough, big media were often hampered most. They weren't focusing on retraining because they felt relatively strong. They weren't recruiting or promoting when they were consolidating, or when they weren't consolidating they experienced little staff turnover. In a way we lost a generation of diversity as a progress.

    What I sensed, as I involved myself in this field in recent years, was that large and small media alike now understand their challenges and are coming to grips with them. They are worried about eroding audiences and excited about attracting audiences. Not only are they recruiting more intelligently, but they are training their incumbent workforce to more sophisticatedly tell stories that will reflect their communities. They are on the right path, even if they're catching up. In short, they get it. They're getting on with it. They need time to get it right. Those who don't--and I don't know of any--will be penalized with continued erosion of their audiences as others are rewarded with a renewed connection to their communities.

À  (1005)  

    My expectation is that the CAB cultural diversitytask force, under the purview of the CRTC, will make credible steps in driving effective, sustainable change and identifying for all media the best techniques to achieve that true mirror. My strong encouragement for regulators and legislators is not to weigh in with anything that would breed cynicism in this or other exercises. No employee deserves to be a number fulfilling a social objective. No community needs to believe its media are being compelled to tell stories in an unwilling way.

    Of my accomplishments in broadcasting, I'm most proud of the progress made in recent years to create a culture of sustainable journalistic diversity. It was done with strong support from staff, management, and ownership as a necessary objective, as the right thing to do. But it is vital that this undertaking within media create a culture of commitment, not a culture of compliance. Somehow reward the birth of diversity, but don't induce it. Diversity represents the best media and the best service to the country, and every reputable organization I know wants to be the best.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

À  (1010)  

    The Chair: The floor is yours.

    Ms. Deanie Kolybabi (Director, Strategic Development and Marketing, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the issues at hand today.

    I will start off by saying I agree with many of the comments of the other presenters. My role, though, is going to be largely to represent the challenges and the interests of Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

    As someone who has worked within cultural diversity and gender communications in television and radio for 30 years, my experience with APTN has been one that has been rich with a learning curve in my very senior career, which I was not expecting. I would like to share some of that with you.

    In terms of the question we were given to consider, I would agree that cultural diversity is largely representative of a variety of attitudes of practices and beliefs stemming from human experience in heritage, in age, in gender, in spirituality--basically, from where we come.

    I would also suggest that while certainly the conveyance of multicultural or cultural diversity in the on-camera and on-air personalities is important, there's a more important issue in the decision makers and the infrastructure of organizations, to ensure the stories are being told from the perspective of those human experiences that lend themselves to cultural diversity. For APTN, that is often a challenge, because many of the aboriginal communities and aboriginal producers have only been exposed to television for a very short time, some of them as short as 25 years. We have some ground to catch up on in terms of the understanding and the acceptance of their telling of their own stories.

    For me, the hugest challenge to this network, which represents a huge step in representation of cultural diversity in the Canadian broadcast landscape.... We are a “world first”; we are still a “world only”, and the eyes of the world are watching us. We've been visited by Taiwanese, Japanese, Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, all anxious to see how we are moving forward with a network dedicated to aboriginal cultures and dedicated to sharing those cultures with all Canadians.

    What we have encountered, though, is that there's a deeper issue than the managerial issues that needs to be looked at in representation of cultural diversity, and that is the paradigm of the structure, particularly the structures for measurement: how we value the culturally diverse programs that are coming out, and how we, in fact, value that audience.

    What I mean by this is that in the broadcast industry we all know that we are traditionally measured for revenues and assorted things by Nielsen and BBM. That is the industry standard. Neither one of those measures North of 60. Neither one of those measures aboriginal as an ethnic group.

    We are a network that is continually in a position of being valued on the basis of what is certainly an important but a secondary audience, not being valued on our core audience delivery, and in fact not being able to get measurement on it.

    When you add to this that CTF and Telefilm are largely triggered by Nielsen and BBM numbers, this speaks to exactly the kind of paradigm restructure I think we need to look at in a very serious way. If we in fact are going to look at culturally diverse programming, we need to first, I think, look at the measurements we are using to value these programs, these initiatives, and in fact these networks.

    Is there too much or too little diversity? I think in many ways there's too little. When we hit a model that is working well or that represents something, we want it to be all things to all people. The fact of the matter, for a network like APTN, is that if we are successful in all of our promises and all of our considerations for our licence, the average aboriginal person will see themselves on our network 3.666 minutes per week.

    I think we need to be very careful that in embracing diversity we are not over-expecting, to the detriment of the business model these programs and these networks need to survive.

À  (1015)  

    In terms of the federal government's recognition of cultural diversity and whether or not it's being approached appropriately, what I would like to offer here is, again, that it's a case of being a pioneer. I think we wear that label very proudly in terms of the Canadian broadcast industry, but we also must realize that when you are a pioneer, oftentimes you're creating a new path, one different from the traditional ones we've looked at.

    What I would say here is that our concern has been in approaching various sectors of government, sectors I have been very successful with in other television network formulas. We've run into an area where we are the first pan-aboriginal initiative to take place in North America. It's the first time that Inuit, first nations, and Métis people have sat around the table. At this point there is not yet a pan-aboriginal sector within the government that feels it appropriate to address our needs and concerns and in fact give hearing to the challenges that are facing the network.

    While multiculturalism has largely been separated from aboriginal culture issues for very just cause, I would ask that in looking at cultural diversity, you remember that there are synergies. We need to be careful that we're not isolating groups in cases where common sense would suggest that those synergies can be taken advantage of both fiscally and with respect to sharing ideas.

    In short, the grey market issues are quite different for the aboriginal communities in Canada from what they are for a lot of the other communities. Grey market dishes in our market come largely from a lack of access to cable and often from a lack of financial resources to bring in traditional satellite. We are currently working with the Canadian satellite companies to come up with programs that do offer solutions to that, but that's largely the challenge with the grey market dishes, which often find themselves feeding large communities in Canada. As I say, the challenges for aboriginal broadcast certainly have many things in common with those for other multicultural programming, but they also offer a unique glimpse into what lies in the road ahead.

    A representative of the Caribbean-Canadian community came to me in Banff and indicated that the creation of APTN represented something heroic to her community and that they would be watching closely. These are the synergies I'm talking about. When we talk about challenges for visible minorities, many of them are the same when we look at the issue of representation in the broadcast industry across Canada. We need to begin the process of really sharing those ideas, those challenges, and those solutions inclusively.

    I would close in saying that we are certainly very proud of the creation of APTN. My experience there has been one that, as I say, has been rich with learning and challenges. I recently mentioned to the CAB in Vancouver that I believe that the experience of the creation of this network has much to offer fellow programmers, distributors, and satellite and cable companies; there are issues that need to hit the table for discussion. I oftentimes find that assumptions are made, and with networks the aboriginal perspective is not included in a lot of the discussions that go on regarding aboriginal issues or cultural diversity issues.

    I think that as an industry we are missing what is the jewel in the Canadian broadcasting crown: the creation of a world's-first model, one from which we can all learn.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    You will recall the committee visiting APTN, and we were so impressed by what you had managed to accomplish in a few short years. I think you're breaking ground and it's very impressive.

    Ms. Lill.

À  (1020)  

    Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you very much for all of your comments.

    We started with Professor Meisel, and he talked about the Broadcasting Act and the provision of paragraph 3(1)(d), which says:

    

(d) the Canadian broadcasting system should

(i) serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada.

    I've heard around the table many concerns about how that is not happening. I've heard that there are some efforts, although they're not particularly successful, to look at ethnic and racial aspects. We are not seeing lifestyle aspects of diversity being attended to, or faith, spirituality, sexuality and class-based economic considerations. Also, disabilities and abilities--I see that all the time.

    What we're doing here is trying to get a handle on what has been successful based on the regulations and the act we have in place. I don't think anyone has told us that we've been particularly successful. In fact, some of the changes that have taken place throughout the last decade in terms of reducing local and regional programming, in terms of allowing the cable companies to give money either to community programs or to the CTF.... All sorts of regulations have whittled down the ability of communities, whether they're regional communities, ethnic communities, or whatever, to get their voice out.

    I'm very interested in what Karim Karim says about the fact that when we do see cultural diversity apparently out there in the news, it's being sublimated. The reality is that we're seeing somebody from a certain ethnic group who in fact looks so much like Peter Mansbridge or whomever; they're looking as much like the dominant culture as they can. I'm not hearing that from Kirk Lapointe, who in fact is saying we're doing a great job, so hands off; we don't need any more regulations because the regulations that are there are working fine.

    I see a very big discrepancy between what you two are saying, and I think that's a really important issue that this committee has to address.

    I guess I have a question to all of you. I don't have much time here and you don't either. Do you believe that the Broadcasting Act, in paragraphs 3(1)(c) and (d), has been successful? Has it in fact been completely swept away by the events of cross-media ownership and media concentration? Are we actually seeing any progress in that area, or do we have to be doing some radical work here on this committee to make sure that cultural diversity is alive and well?

    The Chair: Who wants to start?

    Professor Meisel.

    Prof. John Meisel: Mr. Chairman, I will try a brief response to that.

    I think the Broadcasting Act has been extremely successful. I say that because I'm trying to imagine what Canada would have been like without it. Without it, we would have had just a complete replica of American services, and that would be it. So I think in that sense, the act has been very successful.

    There are certain shortfalls, but the interesting thing is that the shortfalls are largely caused by the fact that the broadcasting system represents all too well the Canadian community. The things that are missing in the broadcasting system are also underplayed out there in the country. In that sense, I think the broadcasting community has been very successful in being a mirror of the country. What needs to be done is perhaps to provide sort of boutique services that would compensate for the failings in the system, which reflect the failings in society.

À  (1025)  

    The Chair: Professor Karim.

    Prof. Karim Karim: Yes, I would agree with Professor Meisel that on the whole, the act seems to be producing the kinds of results we want. When I look at the kind of diversity there is in the offerings in the 200-channel universe we have, it's remarkable. I don't know how many other countries have that.

    A particular strength we do have in Canada is the kind of licensing structure that encourages--that demands--licensees to have Canadian content. I think this is extremely important for channels that would serve minorities groups as well, whoever they are, because it provides for that feeling of belonging to this country, in addition to other forms of belonging. I'd just like one minute to elaborate upon that.

    We cannot ignore the kinds of linkages that people have around the world. Will Straw also broached that idea. The notion of diaspora has been studied intensively. In fact, I've been looking at it for the last five years. The way the homelands are also responding to the diasporas outside, wherever they may exist--in Canada, the United States, Britain, other parts of Europe, Australia, etc.--is quite remarkable as well.

    I would like to give an example from the Indian government's perspective. They have developed a category called non-resident Indian. They sent out a high-level commission last year to study the cultural needs of non-resident Indians across the world, publishing a 700-page report. What has developed among certain groups around the world is this recognition that there are lateral links that cut across borders.

    When we develop policy here, we cannot ignore diasporic links. People will continue to have that. Our challenge, I think, is how we maintain a sense of belonging to Canada, in addition to other linkages that will exist regardless. I think the requirement of Canadian content is a very important one.

    I subscribe to some digital channels in the ethnic services and I see the results of that. I see the need in communities to see what's happening in their own communities in Canada--the kinds of linkages that are also being produced by hybrid programming, the kinds of stuff that Omni.2 or Omni.1 may do, allowing for call-in shows in English or French, which allow for other people not belonging to the community. CHIN Radio as well has similar kinds of things. I think this is what we should be encouraging.

    And I think Mark also referred to that--of the perfect thinking--that when we create a particular licence for a particular community, it's going to serve only that community in a perfect world. Well, it doesn't happen that way. There is seepage. There are people who are flipping channels and will drop in from time to time. That's why it is important to have in the basic service some representation of a great diversity of peoples. Because if you have to subscribe, as Rebecca pointed out, to a particular service, in which you have constantly to ask for it, other people are not going to be able to look in on those services. This works both on television as well as on AM and FM.

    SCMO has provided a lot of possibilities for other programmers to have a voice, but again you have to have the technology to receive the multiplex programming. There are needs here that I think are being met by the current legislation, but we need to understand better exactly how people on the ground are using them.

    The Chair: Professor Straw, if you can keep your answers concise, because otherwise.... We have to give a chance to other members to ask questions, as well. Professor Straw.

À  (1030)  

    Prof. Will Straw: I just think of how my thinking has evolved on the satellite issue. Ten years ago the typical image of someone who had a grey market satellite dish was a guy in the woods watching the Playboy Channel. Now I think it's an Indian restaurant on Jean Talon in Montreal that runs Bollywood films. While I agree with my colleague Karim Karim that we need programs that speak to the situation of people in Canada, I would like to have access to a network from India that shows me variety shows, films, and so on.

    The problem of American television is not going to be met any more going up against each other and struggling. I think American television is going to be diluted, perhaps even drowned, in a much larger, richer range of possibilities. We always talk about Canadian television being Americanized and the way American television is being Canadianized. They now can come out with shows that don't last very long and that no one sees or remembers, and around it on the edges all kinds of interesting things are happening. We could do a lot more in terms of bringing in programs from other countries and creating a really....

    The problem with a lot of ethnic community programming is that it's the useful, not very fun stuff alongside the entertainment. I'd like to bring in a lot more entertainment programming from all over the world. I think that just helps ethnic relationships and our sense of diversity much more usefully in Canada.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Lapointe.

    Mr. Kirk Lapointe: Far be it from me to defend someone who's been a rival broadcaster for a while, but I think we might be doing a disservice to Suhana by suggesting that somehow she's blandized herself by pronouncing her name in a particular way. I happen to know she spends a great deal of time doing extensive community work, which I think is typical of most journalists who are from visible minority communities. The weight of the world is on their shoulders, and I happen to think that they are the heroes of broadcasting today.

    I don't think they should be either discredited or dismissed in any way. I don't know of a single white journalist who feels a responsibility beyond his or her own household on a given day, yet I've hired people who have the weight of 200,000 people on their shoulders, feeling that they have to be community representatives after they've done their stories night after night. We have to be careful that we don't do that, that we don't somehow suggest that the system has assimilated the people from the many varied backgrounds who have come into it.

    I would say also that the issue of media cross-ownership keeps coming up as some sort of bogeyman here with the issue of diversity. I will say that in the case of CTV, the fact that it was purchased by BCE and in turn through the CRTC process yielded extensive BCE benefits, which then showered a great deal of commitment onto organizations such as APTN and other organizations in this country that champion diversity, should not go unnoticed. These are the types of mechanisms that regulators can use quite effectively to create a diversity that becomes far more organic in a system rather than one that encroaches on the business model.

    I would say that even though all of us sitting around this table are great champions of diversity, we also understand that diversity must work for everybody. It must work for the organizations that champion it, and it can't be imposed on them. My answer to anyone's suggestion that there be radical alteration of the business model is for them to study that business model today; take a look at where conventional broadcasting is going, at what the trend line is right now in terms of its own experience and its own potential profitability five years down the road, when perhaps American programmers find ways to bypass the Canadian system and deal directly with the homes of Canadians. I think you're going to find that conventional broadcasters will tell you that they fear for their existence and that anything that is done now to alter the model upon which they are trying to build a sustainable business will only corrupt that system.

    The Chair: Ms. Sullivan.

    Prof. Rebecca Sullivan: I wanted to thank everyone again; that had me thinking. As much as we have this collective history of constant hand-wringing over Canadian broadcasting, I think Canada is incredibly well poised. Our history and our current situation is one of strength. We probably have some of the most open and diverse airwaves in the world. And when you add in the satellite, whether Canadian-made or grey market, there's an incredible potential here.

    My own feelings are that we need to start thinking about opening up the airwaves and bringing in the grey market, and start thinking about what constitutes Canadian culture, Canadian television, or Canadian radio through the audience, as opposed to through specific content; about how different Canadian audiences are watching, are listening to the airwaves, are integrating that into their own sense of Canadian-ness.

    But at the same time I think we can also look to certain Canadian models as huge global successes--APTN, for example. Pride Vision is also the first gay and lesbian network in the world. We have some incredible ground-breaking opportunities here in Canada. What's gratifying is that they are not looking only to the Canadian market. There is an absolute service of the Canadian market, but there is a global reach; there is a response to the diaspora, as Karim has pointed out, and we should be continuing to support--through subsidies, through financing, through programs, and through legislation--these Canadian-based innovations.

    What I think is, right now we're in a position to become a leader in broadcasting through this combination of the local and the global, and with the public support of the government. But also, when we look at the innovation and the entrepreneurialism that we tend to assign to a notion of the private sector, I think it speaks more to what Canadian broadcasting has done, and what we can do if we open up.

À  (1035)  

    The Chair: I think I will cut this off right now, to give a chance to other members to ask questions. It's almost like a second round of a panel, so the members just don't have a chance to ask questions.

    I'll turn to Ms. Bulte at this time, and then Mr. Bonwick and Mr. Harvard.

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

    Thank you all for coming and for your very interesting and diverse opinions. I must say that I don't agree with all of them, and I certainly have a major problem with grey marketing and saying that cable companies have to take it.

    Unfortunately, the public thinks it's okay to download music from the Internet. With all due respect, to me, that's stealing. It's very easy for the public to be misinformed, to say it's okay to do it, because we can't touch it, we can't see it. But somehow, it's not okay to walk into a grocery store and to steal something. Why is it stealing then because we can physically take it? I would encourage you, as academics, to help us get the message out there that we have to respect our creators. We won't have Canadian content if they go somewhere else because it's going to be protected somewhere else. So I think we should be very careful about legitimizing a grey satellite market in any way.

    I was really fascinated by all of your topics. I just have a quick comment, Mr. Karim, about Suhanna. I would challenge anyone to pronounce my name properly. I think it's rather an unfair thing. I tend to anglicize my name just so that people call me something as opposed to not calling me anything at all. So I take exception to your comments, and I agree with Mr. Lapointe on that.

    Mr. Lapointe, you talked about the cultural diversity group you lead. This summer, ACTRA came to see me, as I'm sure they did a lot of people. They're concerned about Canadian programming and that Canadian programming is dying. Notwithstanding the fact that the CRTC has put this cultural diversity policy into place, somehow we're not able to do that because we're handicapped. What is a Canadian production? I know ACTRA is lobbying very hard to have a Canadian production be completely Canadian. I know on the producer side--I'm talking about the small producers, the independent producers--they're finding that hard. How do we resolve that issue? That's one thing. Here the CRTC has given, great, but nobody's doing it; their hands are tied.

    Professor Straw, you spoke about opening up. I have a few statistics here. Canada's cultural policy has always been there to ensure that Canadians have choices and that they have access to different voices, while at the same time, internationally, ensuring that we have a strong voice abroad. But how much more do we want to open things up? This is just a general statistic, but 60% of the English-language TV programming comes from outside Canada; 70% of the music on the radio is non-Canadian; 60% of the books sold in Canada are foreign; 90% of the movies at the theatre are American. We all know what the problem is with the film distributorship. It's not that we're anti-American, but at the same time, how much more open can we be? It's about saving spaces for us.

    Professor Sullivan, I was very interested in your point on Pride TV and Shaw and what we can do there as a government. I'm saddened to hear that. I'm sorry to hear that. What can be done about that?

    Last but not least, one of the things that I'm surprised none of you touched on is the question of whether the federal government's approach to cultural diversity is appropriate. You haven't talked about our approach, and that approach we have taken. We're trying to build global consensus for a new international instrument on cultural diversity, since cultural diversity is essential to social and economic development, especially in a globalized world. It's part of human security; it's about posterity; it's about cultural expression; it's about assisting the developing regions to ensure that a cultural infrastructure is in place. That's what we're promoting, and yet nobody talked about that instrument. Nobody talked about the cultural framework that we, as a government, are doing. I'm surprised that you didn't. None of you touched on that.

    Anyway, those are my comments. I don't think they necessarily need a reply.

À  (1040)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Bonwick.

    Mr. Paul Bonwick (Simcoe—Grey, Lib.): Mr. Chair, before I get to my questioning, I'd like to reinforce Sarmite Bulte's point on these so-called grey markets, which is a term I don't like. It's illegal, so let's call it for what it is. I got the sense from a couple of speakers--maybe wrongly--that it was being treated rather lightly, and that it was a case of, well, if they don't have other options, then that's what they're going to do. I hope that's not the case. I just want to reinforce that when we're dealing with our students we instill in them in the strongest possible terms that it is unacceptable, illegal, and compromises the entire industry. Certainly that's something we're going to have to wrestle with as well.

    Thank you for your presentations. I have a couple of pages of notes here. I found them very interesting. You talked about where we were and where we are. You talked about a lot of content issues and diversity internationally as well as within our own community here in Canada.

    Where I want to go is five years from now and ten years from now. I view our job, as a committee and as parliamentarians, to make sure that Canadians have access to a healthy and vibrant Canadian broadcasting industry, while ensuring at the heart of it that Canadian content is alive and well--hence the balancing act, or the juggling act, of Canadian culture and financial viability.

    Most of you are educating the broadcast leaders of tomorrow. I've heard a lot about content. I've heard a lot about diversity, whether it's from the international or global community or whether it's right here within Canada. I've heard nothing about the financial viability of the industry itself. Most of your students are going to work in the private sector. The private sector plays an overwhelming, or a majority, role within the broadcasting system we know today, and certainly will continue to in the next five and ten years. Yet I'm sitting here and wondering about the students who are leaving your classes in the next few months and few years. I hear nothing from you about how we ensure there is financial viability or competitiveness in this global economy we're into.

    What I would ask is whether some of you could take a few minutes and respond to this. How do you see the government ensuring that the industry is not simply a mechanism for Canadian stories, which is important, but that it's actually financially viable as well?

À  (1045)  

    Prof. Bart Beaty: As regards taking the grey market satellite issue lightly, I hope I haven't given that impression. I don't think people take it lightly, but I do think it's a symptom of the fact that a large number of Canadians don't find the current broadcasting system responsive to their needs. The way to eliminate grey market satellite use would be to make the system more responsive to their needs. I don't think people want to buy grey market satellites. I don't think they want to defy the cable industry, and if they were given these options they would gladly continue to support the cable industry.

    The thing that's happening, and is going to be happening, since you ask what the situation will be like five and ten years from now, is we're going to see fairly rapid technological change. We're beginning to see, for instance, the introduction of digital video recorders, and with these are now being bundled set-top cable boxes and satellite decoders. They are going to become incredibly popular in the next five or ten years. These focus the viewer's ability to select individual programs rather than channels. I think ten years from now programming will be much more important than channels.

    That's really where I would like to see this committee start to put its emphasis, because we have a lot of programs made in Canada that have a lot of international appeal. You can go into pubs in London in the U.K., for example, and watch Hockey Night in Canada on their grey market satellites. We have a lot to export. Canada has a lot to represent to the world, but increasingly people aren't going to be in a four-channel universe and a three-channel universe like they traditionally were, knowing what was coming up next on CBC. They're going to be looking for specific types of programs. They're going to have computer-aided systems that will allow them to search those out and find them, and they will be developing their own channels.

    If we're going to have a sustainable industry in the future for Canadian content, we really have to look at placing subsidies that we already have and developing them more fully and aiming those toward supporting programming, rather than channels.

    Mr. Paul Bonwick: I just want to make sure that the panel is responding to my question. I don't want to spend a lot of time on the grey market, simply because it's illegal. I just wanted to demonstrate my point.

    What I want is some response on the financial viability of the industry in the next five to ten years. We all appreciate that it has to have Canadian content. Please come to the point of where you see the financial viability being within the industry.

    Mr. Kirk Lapointe: I think it has been the dilemma for regulators for more than a generation. I sit somewhat with a complicated situation right now, as a consumer on the one hand but also as someone with broadcasting experience who knows the inner workings and finances of the largest private broadcaster in the country. I happen to know that it is a delicate balance, that it's not simply a matter of saying let's let every service into the country that doesn't have the same kinds of conditions attached to its broadcasting that we impose on those that are in this country.

    It would be absolutely catastrophic to do it. It may serve the consumer interests nominally, but increasingly it will lead to a diminution of the quality that already is there, and is already challenged and struggling, in Canadian programming. It's simply going to mean that those resources that are now being assigned will not be as available in the years ahead. It's a very simple equation.

    I don't know why the argument continues to be circular about this. It appears that we are missing the real point about the viability of conventional broadcasting in our country right now and what its challenges are going to be over the next five to ten years. If we permit further erosion of that, then we put at risk what little we have left around Canadian indigenous programming.

    The Chair: Is there anybody else who would like to comment? Ms. Kolybabi.

    Ms. Deanie Kolybabi: When we're talking about financial viability, I'm going to speak from two different perspectives. One is certainly from the perspective of employees.

    What I will say is, as far as our network is concerned, we have found it absolutely necessary, to retain the quality of employees we need to do the job we need to do, to undertake a national pay equity scale, understanding that many of our people are at the beginning end of their career. However, that is a challenge for us. We have done it, but when we're speaking about the financial viability of the organization as a whole it's a whole different matter, because there is a need to retain the quality and the level.

    Needless to say, we train aboriginal broadcasters in all areas, in technical areas as well as others, and the second we have them trained, those networks that are looking for their representation in cultural diversity are quickly snapping them up from us.

    So it's incumbent on us, for the sake of employees as well as for the health of our organization, to make sure we have equity measurements in place for pay. However, when we're looking at the organization as a whole, financial viability has been a huge issue. I spoke briefly and touched on the huge mandate the network has, and the expectations of non-aboriginal Canadians as well as aboriginal Canadians placed on this network to be all things to all people. That imposes a huge business challenge--a business model challenge, in reference to the 3.66 minutes per week. It is very difficult to create a viable financial business model with that; however, that is exactly the situation we are in, because our funding, as it stands now, certainly does rely on us to create revenues by traditional television means: advertising, sponsorships, and sales. That is a challenge.

    We are working with a segment of population that was not part of the.... I was involved with the advertising community when we had “The Colour of Your Money” campaign that was based on valuing of visible minority segments within the advertising community. That kind of work has not yet been done on aboriginal Canadians, so there is a huge void in information there that allows us to put forward the revenue structure we need. We believe that once that information is there we can absolutely do this the same as anyone else. But the financial viability is continually hampered by that pioneering path of other agendas that we must funnel our moneys into in order to have the same tools available as the rest of the broadcast industry as a whole.

    I will also speak to the issue I touched on, which is the triggering of CTF and Telefilm funds. If we are unable to trigger those funds, then it's also incumbent upon us to fund--to huge amounts of money--development of Canadian programming that is aboriginal. Because this is such an underdeveloped segment of world industry, we currently are maintaining and achieving 86% Canadian content--original Canadian content.

    We have challenges with quality and with experience, and those are ones that are going to take a little longer time to turn over. But when we look at the financial viability of the model of a culturally diverse television network, it has some way to go. That's when I talk about looking at the paradigm so that we might have some bridge structures that allow the model to catch up to the rest of the industry.

À  (1050)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Cuzner, I understand you have to leave for another committee.

    Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Lib.): Yes, sir, I'm into another committee, but I'd like to get this in.

    Just to comment, first, on the name change, I had a good friend, “Guy Boodeleer”. He left Cape Breton, and eight years later he's the Minister of Municipal Affairs for Alberta and he's become “Guy Boutilier”.

    Prof. Karim Karim: This is the first and last time I will ever use this example.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Rodger Cuzner: The other thing I'm amazed at is that we're looking at a 200-channel television universe. I have two on my TV: CBC and TSN.

    TSN is what I'd like to speak to. When TSN first came onto the screen it was pretty much male and pale. I think they've made a very concerted effort to diversify their broadcasters. There are East Indians, Afro-Canadians, a great number of female broadcasters. So I think they've really made that effort.

    What we don't see through TSN, though, is a lot of soccer, sports indigenous to other...less Canadian, not enough cricket. We don't see a lot of cricket highlights on the honour role, much to the chagrin of our chairman. Share with me: is TSN's effort to diversify their front-line people seen as gratuitous, or is it seen as significant? Anybody?

À  (1055)  

    Mr. Kirk Lapointe: I was responsible for CTV's overall diversity initiative, and that includes the former NetStar properties of TSN and Discovery and so on. Again, crass as it seems--and I hate to put it in crass terms, because I think it dishonours the whole thing--it is perceived by all private broadcasters, as it has been, I think, for some time by the public broadcaster in this country, as good business. It is simply good business.

    It is embracing the market you serve, simply put. And if you view broadcasting and journalism as a form of public service, then it behooves you to make sure that you do honour to the entire market you serve. You're not serving yourself and you're certainly not serving your communities by narrowing down the people who portray authority, who are role models on your services, who are emblematic of the content that you provide.

    I just think that for reasons I stated earlier, there were several bumps in the road. I believe there were, in the very distant past, broadcasters who did not subscribe to the belief that there needed to be an inclusive Canadian content on their service, but that's gone away now. To a person, as I talk to broadcasters, they all get it. Some are slow in getting to it, but they're all on that path. And they know that if they get to the end point of that path, their businesses stand the greatest chance of surviving and sustaining in this hugely fragmented broadcast environment, one that is threatened a great deal by technological advances that I think are going to beguile regulators as we get further into this decade. And they know that if they don't express their communities, if they don't reflect them, they're going to be roadkill.

    The Chair: Ms. Kolybabi, briefly, because we've got two other members who want to ask questions.

    Ms. Deanie Kolybabi: In the area of sports, we've had firsthand experience with this with the North American Indigenous Games, which is 7,000 large, as compared to the Pan-Am Games, which is 5,000 large in terms of participating athletes.

    As to the comment on whether it's gratuitous or not, I think it's only gratuitous if, as Mr. Lapointe said, they're not reflecting and connecting with the communities they're directed to. For this I offer the coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Indigenous Games, which got for us an onslaught of viewer comments, because it was not just delivered, it was delivered professionally and with commentary with the two indigenous anchors, and it was also delivered with context. For every team that came across they explained what area they were from, what tribes traditionally were populating that particular area, whether it was Washington, B.C., Manitoba, or wherever. I think it's only gratuitous if you are not allowing that connection and interpretation of the same event.

    My comparative was there is no other network in Canada that could have covered it in that way. I think gratuitousness only comes from how you allow the stories to be told.

    The Chair: Mr. Harvard.

    Mr. John Harvard: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I'm not in a position to offer the kind of humour my good friend Rodger has provided, so I'll just go to my observation and perhaps my question. My major question for any of you would be framed like this: How do we live our diversity in Canada to its fullest through broadcasting?

    I might suggest that the current model of broadcasting in this country is a series of parallel but diverse services. If you live in a small community somewhere in Canada and never visit the great cities of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, or Quebec City, you haven't experienced, in my opinion, the full diversity of this great country. If you haven't travelled, for whatever reason, you have, in a sense, segregated yourself from that diversity.

    That brings me to our broadcasting system, our broadcasting model. Do we, perhaps just by accident or by design, force Canadians to segregate themselves from our diversity through broadcasting?

    We have APTN; we have the French radio and television services; we have French-language broadcasting in western Canada, where I live, and I can tell you, almost nobody watches French television.

    Am I opposed to French television in western Canada? Of course not. I'd like to see even more of it. But the fact of the matter is, it is a separate, parallel service within the Canadian model, and for whatever reason, people who are not of French-language or French ancestry don't watch it.

    I would suggest, Ms. Kolybabi, that it's just about the same with respect to your organization and your network. I support the establishment of your network, and I wish you nothing but the greatest success, but as a Canadian, can I be satisfied if almost the full population of Canada, at any given time, is not watching your network?

    I guess one of the questions is, when it comes to this question of diversity, is it good enough to expose yourself only to your own culture, to your own subset of Canadian culture, or is it more important for all Canadians that you expose yourself to all the various subsets of Canadian culture? That's the question. And if that is the question, how do we do it? How do we integrate our diversity, as opposed to maintaining its segregated nature?

    I would say just two more things. One is, I recall, because I'm old enough, when the Archie Bunker series was started in the United States. I don't think the designers of that program knew what they were getting into. It was a wonderful experience, and I think it was good for American culture. Why was it? It was because the predominant culture, which had this streak or strain of bigotry running through it, was confronted with its own bigotry. You could have had, I suppose, a bigotry channel, and nobody would have watched it. But it went on the main channel, and everybody was exposed to it.

    So does the current model work, or do we ask the CBC--which I love and worked for, for 18 years, and there is no stronger advocate of public broadcasting than I am--to do a better job of providing this integrated, diverse service that I want? That's what I want to ask you.

Á  (1100)  

    The Chair: Mr. Straw.

    Prof. Will Straw: Partly in response to that, and partly in response to the question of not addressing the federal cultural diversity international initiative, my view of a perfect broadcasting environment would be one in which we have arrangements with 35 other countries to make available more of their channels on our satellite and cable systems, and more of their programming.

    That might mean reducing some of the Canadian content regulations. I think we would maintain them in terms of.... Well, we probably have enough American programming, but I think as long as ethnic communities are represented by the local, low-budget programming that they're going to make within Canada, it's always going to talk primarily to the community, and it's not going to attract the rest of the people.

    If we bring in the best of the world and find ways to market it commercially, find ways to make it a public service, and so on, I think we're going to have an interesting, viable system. We'll be selling more of our programming to the rest of the world, and I think the United States will be a much diminished player in the whole field.

Á  (1105)  

    Mr. John Harvard: Except, Mr. Straw, as you know, there is a flourishing artistic broadcasting system in the province of Quebec. Most western Canadians have absolutely no acquaintance with it whatsoever.

    Prof. Will Straw: That's a problem of language principally.

    The Chair: Mrs. Sullivan, then Mr. Lapointe.

    Prof. Rebecca Sullivan: I just want to make one small, practical suggestion, so you may actually like my comments for a change.

    You talk about what do we do. I started to think--I live in Calgary--about the fact that people channel-surf, and I believe APTN is up in the eighties in Alberta, so usually I have found something before I get there. TV5 is not that far away from APTN. I checked into my hotel yesterday and I started channel-surfing. At channel 12, I got a French, Quebec-dubbed version of the The Simpsons, which I started watching. It was actually quite funny. They made a Preston Manning joke, actually. It was quite incredible.

    That got me thinking. Why is it that our NBC, our ABC, and our CBS feeds get down into the lower margins, and APTN and these diversity channels get way up onto the upper reaches of the market? Now, in a 200-channel universe, somebody has to be channel 156, I realize that. I also realize market considerations, that the cable company knows that I am going to watch ABC more often than I am going to watch APTN. But to get these channels a little closer to the mix is one very simple.... Well, maybe it's not very simple, maybe I'm being naive. But it strikes me as at least a way for me to know what's going on at APTN and maybe start to realize, oh, North of 60 plays at--and I don't know what time it plays, which is my point, but I'll make up a time--eight o'clock. Maybe if I'm sitting around, I might watch it. But I don't know what's on because the way people experience broadcasting is flipping. Maybe we need to get them into the mix.

    The Chair: Mr. Lapointe.

    Mr. Kirk Lapointe: Mr. Harvard, to speak metaphorically for just a second, I think you can build a house and add as many rooms and wings as is necessary on your land to put everybody who wants a room in, but unless they all get around the dinner table, you don't have a home. I would counsel real consideration on the issue of fixating and attaching the responsibility for diversity to a public broadcaster in any emphasis, particularly in any exclusive way.

    The biggest audiences for television programming are with the private sector right now. CBC enjoys several hits, but really it's CTV, CanWest, and many of the other private broadcasters that have the mass audiences. I believe that's where the great leverage exists in the years to come. If the diversity initiatives now underway at these organizations take hold and are successful, they are going to do more to create that experience and to really change the way in which Canadians see themselves than if it's largely hived off as yet another mandate responsibility of the CBC, where the private broadcasters don't feel that there is any impetus for them. The impetus that's there really is a market impetus. It's not a bad one, and it seems to be driving an awful lot of change right now. I think as time goes on, the market will drive it even more. But I'd be really careful about suggesting that really we should leave it to the CBC. I think the private broadcasters can do, are doing, and should be encouraged to do.

    The Chair: Ms. Kolybabi.

    Ms. Deanie Kolybabi: On your comments about the audience likely predominantly speaking to their own culture, I think that's probably the reality of the watching. In the case of APTN it's quite a challenge, because we have some 58 different cultures we are speaking to even when we're speaking to our own culture, our aboriginal culture.

    Also, in accordance with what Ms. Sullivan said, we have research that when non-aboriginal viewers happen upon us and are able to find us, they stay. They do watch us; they appreciate us. Many of them talk about the values to their young children, who they have watch our programming. I think there's value there. I think the challenge lies in public awareness.

    I would like to speak a little more to the CBC model. I too am an ex-CBCer and tremendously loyal to the value they provide to the Canadian broadcast landscape. However, in the creation of APTN, it has been quite an interesting challenge for them to accept our role within the Canadian broadcast industry. We have found we have been systematically turned down or closed out of deals that are predominantly aboriginal. There is no spirit of cooperativeness.

    I agree with Mr. Lapointe that we have to be very careful in placing yet another mandate on the CBC organization. I spoke briefly to the view that we have to be very careful about any network trying to be all things to all people. But what I would like to encourage is the synergies that can happen between networks, such as have happened between CTV and APTN and between CHUM and APTN. I would like to see the CBC model more open to the culturally diverse programming that is already out there, and in fact to the other national broadcaster out there that is a public service.

Á  (1110)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Yes, Mr. Karim, if you want to, make a brief remark. The problem, and I apologize that we had the delay with technical troubles, is that committees sit between nine and eleven and eleven to one o'clock, and many members belong to two committees and have to attend both. This is our problem right now. This is why we have lost most of our troops.

    So Mr. Karim, we'll let you close.

    Prof. Karim Karim: Briefly, the problem you raise is a very important one and has been the subject of some theoretical discussion by various scholars. One of the ways it is framed is whether democracy in a national society has to have a singular public sphere within which, in this case, broadcasting has to address everyone. There may have been a time when there were one or two channels in which this was possible. Now we are in a time of what has been called not the “public sphere” but “public spherules”, which are intersecting perhaps in the way we describe when speaking about the APTN, in which there may be certain possibilities for overlaps and people looking over occasionally to the other channels.

    I don't think we can go back to the model of the public sphere. We have to come up with better ways of sharing and of encouraging people to channel-skip and look beyond just a single set of channels. I quite agree with Rebecca Sullivan about the problem with the American channels being available on the basic service and much more easily accessible, when we need to be encouraging our own Canadian diversity at the easier level.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    If any of the panellists feel they haven't had enough opportunity to express their thoughts--and I realize the constraints of this type of meeting--feel very free to write to us and send your thoughts to the clerk. That would be really welcome and appreciated, I can assure you, because we have some careful reflection to do. The members are preparing to have a retreat to look at the findings. So please feel very free to contact us.

    Thank you very much for your appearance here today; we really appreciate it. Thank you.

    The meeting is adjourned.