:
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Pamela Brand, and I am the national executive director and CEO of the Directors Guild of Canada. With me today is Monique Lafontaine, general counsel and director of regulatory affairs at the DGC.
The DGC is a national labour organization that represents key creative and logistical personnel in the film and television production industries. We have over 3,800 members across the country working in 47 different craft and occupational categories, including direction, production, editing, and design of film and television programming in Canada. The DGC appreciates the opportunity to provide the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage with our views on the role and value of the Canadian Television Fund.
We'd like to begin by stating that the CTF is the single most important source of funding for Canadian programs in our country. It provides crucial support for both English- and French-language programs in the drama, documentary, children's, and music and variety genres.
The CTF has been a tremendous success. Since its inception in 1996 it has funded more than 20,000 hours of high-quality Canadian programs, including Da Vinci's Inquest, DeGrassi: The Next Generation, This Hour has 22 Minutes, Les Bougon, Newsroom, Instant Star, Un gars, une fille, Little Mosque on the Prairie, and Trailer Park Boys, to mention a few.
As the CTF representatives indicated to you last week, many CTF-funded programs have earned critical acclaim, impressive Canadian audiences, and licensing deals with broadcasters around the world. Without the CTF we'd surely see a significant drop in the amount of high-quality Canadian programming made in our country. Given the size of the Canadian market, it's very difficult to finance productions made primarily for Canadian audiences. Left solely to market forces, many genres of programs would not be made here.
The CTF also brings significant economic benefits to our country. In 2005 to 2006 it was responsible for 46,700 direct and indirect jobs in Canada. Additionally, the CTF plays a pivotal role in leveraging private sector investment. In 2005-06 the CTF budget of $249 million triggered additional financing worth $568 million. This resulted in $817 million in total annual production of Canadian content for Canadian television.
It is therefore crucial that the CTF remain in place now and well into the future. The Canadian government must maintain this cultural funding program.
We'd now like to turn to the crisis that the CTF and indeed the entire Canadian production sector are facing. Monique Lafontaine is going to speak to you about this.
As the standing committee is aware, two Canadian distributors, Shaw and Vidéotron, recently stopped making their payments to the CTF. We recognize that Vidéotron has undertaken to resume making its payments to the fund. Shaw, however, has not.
CRTC regulations require medium and large BDUs to contribute a portion of their revenues to Canadian programming. The regulations also require that 80% of those revenues be directed to the CTF, and CRTC circular 426 states that those CTF payments must be made on a monthly basis.
Typically, the CTF makes its funding decisions in the spring of each year. If Shaw is permitted to continue to withhold its share of funding, the CTF will likely adjust its budget to exclude Shaw's expected contributions when they make their funding decisions in the spring of 2007.
We estimate the withdrawal of Shaw's contribution to the fund to be about $56 million. However, the impact will be much greater, because $56 million would trigger over $130 million in additional production funding from other sources. Consequently, if the CTF budget is reduced due to Shaw's nonpayment, there will be a total loss to the Canadian production sector of about $185 million in 2007-08. This is an exorbitant amount of money that will cause production activity in Canada to be severely diminished, a loss of thousands of jobs, and a drastically reduced roster of original Canadian programs available for broadcast. Indeed, the livelihoods of thousands of Canadians who work in the creative sector are at stake here.
We note for the record that if Vidéotron had continued to withhold its CTF payments of about $50 million, there would have been an additional loss to the system of over $35 million.
So what can be done? It is crucial that the Canadian government, parliamentarians, and the CRTC take a leadership role in ensuring the continued existence of the CTF. They should also take the lead in ensuring that all Canadian BDUs that come within the application of sections 29 and 44 of the BDU regulations comply with those provisions and make their payments to the CTF.
The broadcasting policy for Canada set out in the Broadcasting Act requires that each component of the Canadian broadcasting system contribute in an appropriate manner to the creation and presentation of Canadian programming. Since BDUs do not create programming, contributing to the CTF ensures that this very important public policy objective is attained.
I'll now talk to you about the DGC's recommended action plan to address this current crisis with the CTF.
With regard to the CRTC, the DGC urges the commission to take whatever measures are necessary to enforce circular 426 as soon as possible and require Shaw to make its payments to the fund on a monthly basis. We also urge the CRTC to amend any of Shaw's licences that were renewed more than five years ago to require the licensees to make their payments to the CTF each month.
Additionally, the DGC urges the CRTC to immediately start the process to amend the BDU regulations in order to enshrine the requirement that distributors make their payments to the CTF monthly.
:
Mr. Chairman, committee members, good morning. My name is Caroline Fortier. I am the Executive Director of the Alliance for Children and Television, the ACT, a Canadian not-for-profit agency that I will describe briefly to you a little bit later on in my presentation.
First of all, I would like to inform you that your jacket contains additional information about the alliance as well as an overview of a study.
At the outset, I would like to thank you for giving us an opportunity to speak this morning. I would then like to introduce you to the two members of the ACT board of directors who will also be talking to you this morning. You will be given, in English this time, a brief summary of their respective career paths.
[English]
Monsieur Peter Moss is chair of the ACT and has been a member of our board since 2005. Mr. Moss has worked in the field of children's entertainment for over 25 years. In television, he has worked in both private and public broadcasting. He has been creative head of children's programming for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and VP of programming and production for YTV and Treehouse TV. He has been an executive producer for the Children's Television Workshop, now Sesame Workshop, and president of CINAR Animation.
Animation production credits include executive producer for Jacob Two-Two, Mischief City, and If the World Were a Village, and creative producer for Weird Years.
In the theatre, he has worked as a director at the Stratford Festival, among many other theatres, and was artistic director of YPT in Toronto for 11 seasons.
Monsieur Steven DeNure is vice-chair of the ACT and has been active on our board of directors for more than three years. He is also president of DECODE Entertainment, a leading producers and worldwide distributor of children's programming. Prior to co-founding DECODE, Mr. DeNure was president of Alliance Productions.
His list of credits is extensive, from animated series such as ReBoot, Angela Anaconda, and Franny's Feet, to kids' dramas such as Radio Free Roscoe, and Naturally, Sadie, as well as benchmark one-hour dramas like Due South and North of 60.
[Translation]
As you can certainly see, Mr. Moss and Mr. DeNure are committed, active and productive people working in the area of youth content creation. In a nutshell, these men are passionate about children's television.
I could say the same thing about all of the members of our organization, which is basically composed of Canadian creators, artisans, educators, producers and broadcasters of youth content on all platforms. They have all brought the same desire to produce high-quality Canadian youth television, an objective that the alliance has been striving to achieve with them since it was established, in 1974, through its professional training activities, its annual awards for excellence for the best anglophone and francophone production and its interventions with government bodies and other organizations, just as we are doing today.
That is, then, a brief description of ACT. I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Peter Moss.
Good morning, and thank you to the committee for hearing us.
I'd like to talk a bit about the state of the children's television industry and then pass it on to my colleague Steven DeNure to talk about how the CTF and the alliance work hand in hand and the influence of each on the other. Really, our concern is for consumers of the work of the CTF and ACT. That's why we speak on behalf of children.
Canada has built a strong children's television industry over the years. It's a healthy mixture of public policy and private initiative. Activity of this sort--this public-private partnership--is usually the result of a cultural need. That's “cultural” in the broadest sense of the word. It's how we behave, in the way that medicare was Canada's answer to a cultural desire for comprehensive cradle-to-grave health care for all citizens, necessity being the mother of invention.
You may ask what the cultural need was that the Canadian children's television industry answered. I think the answer can be summed up in a sentence. In Canada we have to compete for the attention of our own children. Virtually no other country is in this position. We're unprotected by geography, and in the case of English Canada, we're unprotected by language. We have a media giant as a neighbour that is able to broadcast into our airwaves. It considers our territory as a domestic market for them.
How do we compete for the attention? Our sense of being Canadian comes not only from the values and services that Canada affords, but from the optimism and opportunity to create our own social experiment collectively. Being Canadian means being part of it all--the plagues and the pleasures.
A distinguishing factor, I think, is that Canadian society provides its citizens with a form of basic trust. Basic trust is a concept I'm borrowing from the field of child development. It's an essential common ingredient that enables children to grow, to experiment freely, and to develop. It's a gift that parents give their children: a fundamental belief that the child is welcomed into the family and into the world simply for her own sake. Without this, the world is cold and inhospitable; with it, doors can open.
Canadian society strives to provide a fundamental belief that we welcome and value our citizens, and like the nurturing parent, Canadian children's television passes on that sense of basic trust. This is one of the distinguishing factors about Canadian television programs in the international marketplace. It's their tone. It's the reason channels such as PBS want anywhere from 25% to 50% of their kids' shows to be from Canada.
Canada is always being replenished with new citizens: children who experience Canada from immigrant homes with parents who pass on their personal heritage. Who will introduce them to Canadian culture, how we do things, our social expectations, how we treat each other?
Children's television is no less powerful a cultural tool than the stories read in school or passed on by parents and grandparents. Depending on your generation, who doesn't remember The Friendly Giant or Mr. Dress-Up or Bobino?
If we want future generations to feel as committed to carrying on the Canadian experiment and as connected to the process as we are, we must provide them with the opportunity to participate in the process from the beginning. By the time children have finished primary school, they have spent as many hours watching television as they have going to school. That may be unfortunate, but it's true. Shouldn't we insist that the TV they watch and the stories and characters they identify with and learn from reflect our best efforts and our best wishes for them?
I'm now going to pass on to Steven to talk about how the CTF influences the work we do.
First and foremost, we need to say that the Canadian Television Fund has been a hugely important engine in the creation of television for Canadian children. Children's television is one of Canada's media success stories. Canadian producers and broadcasters draw an incredibly diverse cross-section of talented Canadian artists and technicians to produce programming that is not only relevant to Canadian children, but also to children around the world. This content creation extends beyond television to include emerging and so-called new media platforms including web-based activities and interactive games. Kids are the early adopters of new technologies and content creators need to be at the forefront of this next wave of content creation in order to continue to win the attention of Canadian children.
Many Canadian broadcasters program Canadian children's shows in priority positions in their schedules, not because they have to but because the shows compete successfully with non-Canadian programs. Given the chance and the choice, Canadian children watch programs made here, programs that reflect our culture and our values. Statistics for 2002-03 show that in English Canada, Canadian kids' programs captured 38% of the audience. In French Canada, Canadian kids' shows captured an impressive 55% of the audience.
To put this in context, drama and comedy in English Canada captured only 10% of the audience. We agree that Canadian drama needs help, but it cannot be at the expense of children's television.
A recent study entitled The Case for Kids' Programming, commissioned by our organization in partnership with the CFTPA, the National Film Board, and the Shaw Rocket Fund, demonstrates that both the dollar value of children's programming produced in Canada and the share of the overall CTF budget devoted to children's television have been declining. The research shows that the production of children's television has fallen overall, from $389 million in 1999-2000 to $283 million in 2005-06. That's a drop of 25%. From 2002-03 to 2005-06 the contribution of the Canadian Television Fund to kids' programming has decreased from 22.8% of its budget to 18.6% of its budget. That's a drop of 17%.
While we believe a strong CTF is an important component of the Canadian broadcasting landscape, we also believe that more resources need to be devoted to programming targeted at our youngest viewers, our most receptive, open audience, and that those funds need to be broadened beyond television.
Canadian children's television reaches audiences in Canada and abroad. It's an area in which Canadian creators are second to none. It reflects our culture and our values to our most receptive audience and it offers unparalleled opportunities to harness the potential of new technologies.
So why, we ask, should the funding of children's television be a second priority? We remain supportive of the CTF as a vehicle for the funding of Canadian programming, but we also believe that we need to rethink the spending priorities. Canada's children should come first.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming here today.
I think we as a government are also disappointed at the actions of Vidéotron and Shaw. I'm hoping it was simply a shot across the bow, perhaps an attempt to renegotiate terms of licences, etc. But I think your comments reflect the fact that the minister's announcement of $200 million of funding over the next two years clearly is a vote of confidence in the fund itself and the purposes it serves.
Mr. Moss, you made some comments about feeling that the CTF is under attack and may have been under attack for some time. I'm not sure I would necessarily disagree with you. One of the concerns, I think, is that the regulatory framework within which the CTF operates may be flawed. As you know, the CTF, in one form or another, has existed since 1993 and certainly since 1996 has involved government contributions. But over those years we've had a regulatory framework that uses regulations, circulars, licensing to try to ensure that the BDUs make their required contributions.
There's some indication, when you look at the court precedents, that the current ability of the CRTC to enforce the contributions from the industry may not be as strong as people expected. That problem has existed for a number of years now, probably since the program commenced, and it may take parliamentary action to ensure that we can actually force compliance to get those contributions.
That's a struggle we have. I'm sure everyone on this committee is a little bit frustrated with that. There have been suggestions that the minister should intervene. There have been suggestions that the CRTC should simply enforce the regulations and that it may not even have the ability to do so if it's challenged in the courts.
May we have your comments?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. We are very grateful to speak with you today about the Canadian Television Fund.
I am here today with Richard Stursberg, who is the executive vice-president of CBC Television and a former chair of the board of the Canadian Television Fund; and
[Translation]
Sylvain Lafrance, Executive Vice-President, French Services.
[English]
Together we would like to talk with you about Canadian television production and the success of the Canadian Television Fund in building the independent production industry that makes those Canadian programs.
First I'd like to say a few words about what the CTF means to the public broadcaster.
I should note as well that in order to examine the CTF, you have delayed your review of CBC/Radio-Canada's mandate. We look forward to coming back in the near future to this committee when that review is under way. But as you will see from our presentation and our discussion today, the subjects are really all interconnected.
An essential part of our mandate is to offer Canadians Canadian programming. Last fall when we appeared before the committee, we talked about the importance of advertising revenues as one of our pillars. Government funding is another, and in particular the $60 million of additional funding that we have received each year for the past six years for programming. The third pillar is the Canadian Television Fund. Remove one of those pillars, and you fundamentally alter the ability of CBC/Radio-Canada to fulfill its mandate.
Think of programs such as the Rick Mercer Report,
[Translation]
Et Dieu créa... Laflaque, Rumeurs, and
[English]
Little Mosque on the Prairie. We are the only ones who offer Canadian programming, because we are the only ones with the space in our prime time schedules to offer these programs when most Canadians are watching television.
But I would add that we do not have nor do we want a monopoly on Canadian content. That is why an independent funding agency is critical to the health of Canadian broadcasting.
In front of you, you have two charts that show the evening television schedules for Canada's broadcasters in both the English and French markets. Canadian programs are in red. CTF-funded Canadian programs are indicated in green. Take away those programs, and you can see that you are left with a lot of holes. How are we going to fill those holes? With more American programs?
Recently some have said that the CTF is dead, that nobody watches those programs. In fact this is not true. Canadian audiences for CTF-financed productions are increasing across all genres. In English Canada, television audiences are up from 32% in 2003 to 34% in 2005. On French television, they are up from 32% to 56% in the same period.
Now, is every show that gets CTF funding a hit, as measured solely by audiences? Certainly not. Like any program on television, some succeed; some fail. For every success like Little Mosque on the Prairie or Les Bougon, there are others, such as René Lévesque or October 1970, that attract much smaller audiences. But does that make them less important? Our goal at CBC/Radio-Canada is not always to get the largest audience; it is to offer Canadians significant Canadian programs.
That brings me to the envelope. Thirty-seven per cent of the CTF is dedicated, not to the CBC or Radio-Canada, but to independent producers who make programs that our two networks commit to broadcast. To look at it another way, approximately two-thirds of the CTF goes to programs that run on private commercial networks. There's been a lot of confusion recently about CBC/Radio-Canada's envelope, so I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about it.
First, the envelope recognizes that CBC/Radio-Canada is the only broadcaster with the shelf space to offer mostly Canadian programs when Canadians are watching television—that is, during prime time. This has always been one of the key objectives of the CTF.
The stability of having an envelope also helps ensure that we have the ability to plan long-term for Canadian productions on our airwaves. The envelope also recognizes that the mandate of a public broadcaster is different; it should not simply offer programs that can chase the largest audience, in competition with private broadcasters. Instead, offering high-quality Canadian programs is our mandate.
Programs such as St. Urbain's Horseman, The Englishman's Boy, and Barney's Version, are all part of the literary adaptation series From Page & Stage,
[Translation]
and programs such as Minuit, le soir, Grande Ourse and Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin.
Dedicating a portion of the fund to programs on CBC and Radio-Canada is not new. In fact, the 37% envelope also reflects the average proportion of CTF-funded independent productions on CBC and Radio-Canada over the last 10 years. When the CTF was established in 1996, 50% of the CTF was dedicated to programs destined for the public broadcaster.
[English]
Last week a former Minister of Canadian Heritage wrote in Le Journal de Montréal and in the Ottawa Sun that when she created the CTF, she considered simply giving the government's portion of the fund, $100 million, to CBC/Radio-Canada. Instead, 50% of the fund was dedicated to ensuring that the public broadcaster teamed up with independent producers, and that is what we have done. As a result, CBC television has moved away from an emphasis on in-house production, and an independent Canadian production sector is flourishing in this country.
I have one final point. While the most recent CTF data predates the formal envelope, it is clear that CBC and Radio-Canada are delivering audiences to Canadian programs. If you look at the Canadian drama category, for example, CBC television received about one-half of the CTF-funded programs, yet it delivered two-thirds of the total audience to CTF-funded drama. In other words, investing a portion of the fund in projects on CBC and Radio-Canada is paying off with Canadian audiences.
You can see what I mean by saying that the CTF envelope is an important pillar for CBC/Radio-Canada. Take that pillar away, and those programs disappear. In fact, there is no good reason to get rid of the fund, because it is working.
The CTF's objective is to preserve and build Canadian culture and identity. Canada's small market cannot, in normal business terms, support the high cost of quality television. Without the support provided by the CTF, there would be very little Canadian television capturing Canadian experiences, sensibilities, and perspectives, and showcasing Canadian actors, writers, and directors. In English Canada, we would be a nation entertained almost completely by the stories, experiences, and stars of other nations, primarily American.
[Translation]
On the French side, the fund affords the maintenance of a public-private balance, and diversifies the television offer, whether it is in drama, documentaries, or children's television, in keeping with the spirit of the Broadcasting Act.
Because of the CTF, there now exists a vibrant television production sector across the country employing over 16,000 people and creating 2,300 hours of prime-time Canadian programming.
[English]
It is fair to say, Mr. Chairman, that the CTF is a central financial element of Canadian programming, but is the fund perfect? Even representatives of the CTF told you last week there is room for improvement in the way the fund operates. In response to the Auditor General and to departmental reviews, the board of the CTF continues to improve both the management and the objectives of the fund, and all the board members--I emphasize, all the board members--have been involved in this work.
We believe that the current crisis in the CTF was triggered by statements from two companies that they would withhold their contributions to the fund. These are rules that the industry agreed to in return for an increase in cable rates that was double their actual contribution to the fund.
[Translation]
We are very grateful to see that the Government of Canada has shown leadership and renewed its contribution to the Canadian Television Fund for the next two years. It not only guarantees the stability of the government's portion but it sends an important signal about the government's commitment to the fund. We also agree with Minister Oda's statement earlier this week that all stakeholders in the broadcasting system must play by the rules and respect their regulatory obligations. The opposite would have a devastating impact on the industry.
Faced with the threat of regulations by the CRTC, Quebecor has now signalled it will resume its monthly payments. And that is a good thing. However the stability of the fund must be assured for the future.
[English]
I would only say that given the significance of the CTF to the broadcasting system, it is vital that CBC/Radio-Canada, as well as the independent producers, be part of any discussion that may affect support for Canadian productions and the opportunity for Canadians to enjoy these productions in prime time.
We will now be pleased to answer your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad you clarified a lot of stuff we've been hearing, especially with regard to the dedicated funding that we hear goes to CBC only to find out that it isn't going to the CBC but is going to independent producers, but also that you have the slots that have been committed and dedicated to this. That's a very important clarification to make.
I suppose we could go on and ask the same questions about whether the minister will enforce the CRTC regulation, etc. I don't want to go there, because everyone's been asking the same questions.
What we're talking about is staving off on a temporary basis; holding the funds until another threat comes up. When is that threat going to come up? Is it next year? We're really buying time more than anything else. I would like you to suggest to us a way of....
First and foremost, I don't even think we should be debating whether the minister should intervene. It's my understanding that this is a legal obligation on the part of these two companies, who agreed, in exchange for being able to put money into infrastructure and increasing their subscriber rates. If you make a contract, you make an agreement; you don't break it.
But the bottom line here is that somewhere along the way this is going to keep happening. How do we find a permanent solution to this? What do you think are the best ways we can ensure that there is a vibrant fund here for both children's programming, as we heard from the children's broadcasters earlier on, and of course for adult Canadian broadcasting?
I must say--and I'm going to wear my heart on my sleeve for a minute--that I think the CBC is an extraordinarily important institution for Canadians. Among countries that have become very famous for extraordinary television programming and extraordinary filmmaking, we have to look at the U.K. and at the vibrancy of a strong BBC; at South Africa, which is beginning to grow in strength in television in Africa and in filmmaking, and at a strong South African Broadcasting Corporation; and at Australia as well, and at how strongly they value their public broadcasting arm.
I think this is key. We of all countries have a huge challenge because we are so close to a very big producer of film and television next door. We need to have extraordinary solutions put in place to ensure that we are able to hold our own and have the kind of excellence we see going on in Britain and in South Africa and in Australia.
I would like to ask you what you see as a long-term and permanent solution, so that we don't have to keep worrying every two years and fight the little fights. I call these little fights, because they really aren't solving any problem; they're just keeping our heads above water. What do we do to be strong and to be vibrant? What are your solutions for that?
:
Thanks. I think it's sometimes helpful to remember the history of how this fund was put in place in the first instance.
What happened is that in the old days when the cable companies wanted to make an improvement to their capital infrastructure, whether they wanted to build more transmission capacity or put in better equipment or what not, they would go down to the CRTC and they would say, “We would like to do this. If you approve it, please also approve an increase in the basic cable rate to finance it.” The commission would say fine. The deal always was that when those capital improvements had been paid for, then the basic cable rate could go back down again, because now they had been paid for.
So in about 1993, when all of the basic cable rates were supposed to go back down again, the cable industry came to the commission and said, “Listen, we have a good idea. Instead of sending the money back to the cable customers, how about you let us keep the money and we will split it fifty-fifty. We'll keep 50¢ of every dollar by which the rates should have gone down and the other 50¢ we will put into the fund”.
Now, the commission said, “That's a good idea.” The long and the short of it is, first of all, that the entire dollar was originally scheduled to go back to the consumers. The 50¢ that the cable companies got to keep has probably put into their pockets somewhere between $750 million and $1 billion that they otherwise would not have had. And the other 50¢ that went to the fund, of course, was never their money in the first place.
After the deal was made, the commission then decided that they would strike the whole thing in regulation. So they put it in the regulation, and it's been in the regulation for a considerable period of time. CRTC regulations have the force of law.
So I'll come back to your question: what is the right solution in the longer term? It is to insist that people respect their regulatory obligations and that they respect the law. And if they do that, then these kinds of up-and-down crises of people pretending that somehow or another they can withdraw their money when they are in fact obligated to put it in will go away.
Again, welcome to the committee. You certainly are very important witnesses.
I would like to make an editorial comment. It's always interesting in politics that when things go wrong the opposition blames the minister. When things go right, I suppose the honourable thing would be to praise the minister, and I'm hoping we will get some of that praise.
Considering the tools at the disposal of the minister and the legislative restraint on her powers, I would hope they would take note of the speed with which this emergency is coming into focus and into a process of resolution. She certainly recognizes the underlying challenges that remain and she is going to continue to be involved with that.
Mr. Rabinovitch, I think your note of the actions and the statements of Mr. von Finckenstein, along with the minister's request directly to Shaw and Vidéotron, are part of the solution.
While I think that Mr. Stursberg's rendition of history is undoubtedly accurate and certainly worthwhile for us to consider, the difficulty is that for anybody who has been involved in business, we know that the profit you made last year is the profit you made last year. It may be the basis for going forward, but it nonetheless is something that isn't recognized in business. There isn't the same gratitude toward the concept of the profit that you made last year as there is perhaps among ordinary citizens in their day-to-day life.
So I wonder, Mr. Rabinovitch, considering that we are looking at how to go forward and we have talked here at the committee and everybody is aware of the enforcement potential, there's honey and there's vinegar. I wonder, with you being the major players you are with respect to the use of the CTF, if you could give us an idea of your attitude in terms of the go forward, recognizing that there can be a really stern fist, steel, inside the glove. How would you express the attitude of the CBC to the go forward, trying to work the longer-term resolution to this?
:
Firstly, Mr. Abbott, I'd like to take this opportunity to reinforce what I said in my opening comments and praise the minister. I thought the minister acted very quickly and gave a very clear signal by putting forward the $200 million--$100 million per year for the next two years. It was a very clear sign that this part of the funding had been stabilized, and it was a very clear sign of the government's intention to maintain some form of independent production industry funding. So let it not be said that I did not praise the minister.
I believe, sir, that this has been set up as a partnership among the cable operators; the satellite operators--in other words, what we call the BDUs; the independent production industry--and this is one of the main reasons it has developed to the extent that it has--and the broadcasters.
I think the CBC's role is very unique because of the fact that we have this shelf space to show the programming when people want to watch it. We don't have to show it against a hockey game on Saturday night at 10 o'clock. We can show it at 9 o'clock on a Wednesday, when people are actually watching, and give a Canadian program a chance to do well. We can also do other types of programs, like documentaries, etc., in core time.
I think the solution is a continued debate. I think the solution is for all of the partners to come to the table and discuss what is really wrong, if anything, what can be made to work better, and how we allocate in order to make sure it works better.
But also, let's not forget in those discussions the objectives of having quality Canadian programming and different kinds of Canadian programming at hours when Canadians are watching. If we put that all together, we at the CBC would be very excited people to be involved in that discussion with the various partners. And it's for the same reason, sir, that we favour the mandate review. We are a public institution, and we believe that we should be reviewed on a regular basis as to the type of programming we're doing, the extent to which we're using the various technologies, etc.
One of the major issues that has been raised by Quebecor is whether the fund is up to date in terms of its recognition of the new forms of delivery systems. We at CBC like to say that we are platform agnostic. We don't care how people get our programs; we just want people to get them. If people listen to radio programs on their iPods, all of a sudden we have a brand new generation of 18- to 35-year-olds listening to radio, because they're listening to it when they want to.
It's the same thing with the CTF. We want to use it to create quality Canadian programs in the various genres, and we want to participate in that discussion.
:
I would just say that I was the chairman of the fund for four years. I believe I was the longest-serving chairman of the board in the history of the fund, and survived.
The way it stands now, there are four seats on the board for the cable companies and satellite companies. Indeed, when I was the chair of the fund, I was the president of the Canadian Cable Television Association. Throughout the history of the fund until very recently, in most cases the board was in fact chaired by somebody from the cable industry. The Shaws themselves have had a representative on the fund board since at least 2000, as far as I recall.
Over the course of the years, this has been related to the issue that both Sylvain and Bob have been talking about, concerning the capacity of the fund to be able to deal with problems and adjust as it goes along. The conversation we're having now is a conversation about some issues that are important issues, but the fund has been through terrible crises in the past. While I was the chair of the fund, in the previous year they had run into a terrible problem where there was a gigantic $30 million shortfall in financing. The fund had really fallen to pieces. There was enormous controversy about the way in which some parts of the money were allocated on the basis of what was really first come, first served. It was unclear what the cultural objectives of it were.
The fund board members, including the cable companies, the independent producers, the broadcasters, and the CBC, all came together at the level of the board and radically restructured the way it did its business. We put in place the rules that are now the distinctiveness rules, to make sure the financing would only go to programs that are distinctively Canadian. We restructured the arrangements between the different pieces of money to more or less make a market in the funds, to try to guarantee that the money would go to those programs that were most likely to be successful.
A couple of years ago there was a lot of controversy surrounding the fund and its structure. At that time there were two boards and two administrations, and people were very worried about governance issues, conflict issues, and this and that. Over the last little while, what the fund has done is resolve those matters. There is now one board, there is now one administration, and there are very tough conflict guidelines.
As far as I know, the Shaws were involved in all of those conversations. The cable industry was involved in all the conversations dating back to the ones that I described. As far as I know, they agreed unanimously to all of the changes that have been made.
What's been going on over the course of the life of the fund, which is now really ten years old, is that they have on at least two occasions been able to make radical improvements in the way of doing business. The cable industry was an important participant in that and participated enthusiastically as an important contributor to the solutions that were found.
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I was going to respond to Mr. Abbott's request for praise.
I will acknowledge that the government provided for two years at $100 million each, while the former government did it one year at a time. The deserves credit for that, so I acknowledge that. I will save my praise until there is an increase commensurate with the fiscal capacity that the government now knows. That would be praiseworthy: to see the kinds of investments in culture that have been made in other areas, given the fiscal capacity.
In terms of the second part, while I agree with Mr. Rabinovitch that the was gathering the facts, the truth of the matter is that in terms of whatever authority she drew upon, just before appearing before the committee on Tuesday, to insist that the companies make their money payments, she could have used the same authority before, because she knew there was a problem. She knew they should do that. She said so. She said she was waiting on the CRTC to say that, but at the end of the day, whatever authority allowed her to do it last Tuesday could have been exercised two months ago. That would have perhaps mitigated some of the crisis.
So my acknowledgments come, I think, with some mixed feeling.
Having said that, I appreciate very much the explanations that have been given. As for whether the money goes directly to the CBC or to the extent to which it is the consumers' money that we are talking about, Mr. Chair, they've done a good enough job explaining the position and informing the committee, so I really don't have a particular question to put.
I did want to respond to Mr. Abbott's invitation to acknowledge the 's interventions. Again, though, I would hope that given the capacity the Government of Canada has inherited fiscally, we could see a significant increase in support to culture as it relates to the CTF, as it relates to the public broadcaster. Hopefully, in the course of the public broadcasting review that we're about to commence, we'll hear that kind of language from the government as well.
Thank you very much for being here and for informing the committee on this very important subject.