[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, December 12, 1995
.0900 
[English]
The Chair: Colleagues, I'd like to bring this meeting to order.
On behalf of the committee I welcome the witnesses this morning. I'm quite sure we will have an interesting discussion for an hour or so.
.0905
I should remind you that there will be a vote in the House. I think the bells begin to ring at 10:15, so we should aim for finishing around 10:15, no later.
For almost 60 years, the CBC has reported the news. In recent weeks and months, CBC itself has been in the news. That's because our esteemed public broadcaster faces what you might call a budget crunch. It's a budget crunch that will have an impact on programming, no doubt about it. How much, though, is a subject of considerable debate and I'm sure a fair portion of our discussions this morning will focus on that possible impact.
No doubt, however, CBC is at a crossroads. Canadians who support public broadcasting, and they are legion, are naturally concerned about the future of CBC. We as a committee of the Parliament of Canada have a responsibility to hear those concerns. That's why we have invited our guests today.
Before us right now are Ian Morrison, who is the president of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, and Knowlton Nash, a very well known broadcaster and Canadian author. They will start off the round of presentations this morning. I gather from Mr. Morrison that they will speak for about 15 minutes. Then we will have another presentation and then we will go to questions.
Mr. Morrison, please.
Mr. Ian Morrison (Friends of Canadian Broadcasting): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
[Translation]
The Friends of canadian Broadcasting represent 40,000 Canadian families across the country. Our goal is to preserve and improve the quality and quantity of Canadian programming. We are not representing the position of French-speaking viewers and we'd rather join our voice to the groups who are speaking on their behalf.
When I heard about the meetings you are holding today, I recommended that your clerk get in touch with Mrs. Lina Trudel, an acknowledged expert regarding the situation of French-speaking broadcasting. I regret that Mrs. Trudel was not able to come here today.
The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting thank you for the opportunity to comment on the cuts to the CBC budget.
My name is Ian Morrison and I am the spokesperson of Friends. We have invited an eminent reporter and broadcaster who is also a renowned Canadian author, Mr. Knowlton Nash, to join me in making this presentation. I will talk first and then give him the floor.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, on November 22 the CBC's president announced a massive cut to CBC's operations of $227 million. We believe that cut is the largest reduction to program budgets in the history of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Coming on the heels of smaller incremental cuts over several preceding years, we believe these cuts will add so much water to the wine as to make the corporation's on-air programming visibly and audibly weaker than heretofore.
This is happening at a time when all would recognize that this country is fragile. It's also happening at a time when your colleagues, and in particular the Minister of Finance, are working on a budget for the next fiscal period, where it is well known that there is a target to further reduce the CBC's resources by $350 million as opposed to just $227 million.
We salute you for agreeing to take a look at the implication of these cuts for Canada, for Canadian viewers and listeners. We look forward to this opportunity to give you some input.
.0910
In our analysis of what will likely be the effect on listeners and viewers we have come up with some anecdotal material, which we'd like to share with you. This material, thus far, is confined to the English-language services of the CBC. I apologize that I do not have more information, but this is what is available.
First, in terms of television, we believe there will be fewer episodes of popular programs such as Rita and Friends, The Royal Canadian Air Farce, North of 60, and The Nature of Things. CBC television viewers already know that none of these shows now airs for a full season. What viewers will see in 1996 will be even fewer episodes.
On Marketplace next fall, viewers will notice that each 30-minute segment will contain two rather than three items. There will be fewer specials. CBC will have to cut some of its major specials - the aboriginal achievements awards, the Governor General's music awards, the east coast music awards, and the Canada Day true north concert - choosing between these and watering down their production values.
There will be fewer movies. The Canadian specials that make a real sense of building Canadian identity on television, such as the recent outstanding Million Dollar Babies or Butterbox Babies, will appear less often on our screens in the future.
Amateur sports will go on the block. Events like the Canada Games will no longer be affordable. The staff of Man Alive has already been let go. Sunday Arts will no longer have a set. It has been virtually shut down. Next season will begin with left-over inventory, followed by repackaged repeats.
Regional television production will in future be confined to news and information programming. This will mean the end of regional shows like All of a Saturday Night from St. John's; Up on the Roof, Halifax; Open Wide, Winnipeg; and Alive, Vancouver.
A commercial now appears in the middle of Sunday Report, and that is a harbinger of things to come on major news programs.
Despite its record audience this fall, The National is laying off experienced reporters. Important series are just not being covered because of a lack of experienced people. More stories are being skipped entirely or covered superficially. Because they need to cover so much of a broad swath of issues, individual reporters will be unable to develop the knowledge and expertise they need to do their job.
That, Mr. Chair, is a portrait of what we think the CBC English television will be like in the next season as a result of these cuts.
I would like to refer for a moment to radio. Fewer Canadians listen to CBC radio than watch CBC television, but, as you may all know, those who do listen to CBC radio are very devoted listeners. The focus of cuts to CBC radio and stereo will be on the networks rather than on local programming.
CBC radio's audience has already seen the impact of the front end of some of these cuts. The Sunday morning program and its one-hour documentary called Centrepoint ended this past September and was replaced by shorter and fewer documentaries, as well as a lot more talk by the host, Ian Brown. Live interviews have been phased out of Brave New Waves to save money.
On both CBC radio and stereo networks, many fewer hour-long dramas are being commissioned and aired. CBC is making up the difference by buying many more hour-long drama programs from Australia and from the.AAC. It's much cheaper to buy than to create the programs and it results in much less Canadian on-air drama.
The mystery project on Saturday evenings, which used to feature Canadian-produced shows, is now airing imported shows from the United States, in this case The Shadow, Boston Blackie, and The Saint, during the fall season.
Decisions on these matters, which used to be made on the basis of occasionally buying the best from abroad, are now being made for financial reasons. There will be a huge impact on Canadian writers. The Vickie Gabereau show won't sound the same next season. Its budget is being cut by 50%. In order to accommodate such a huge cut, the show will become more talk and music. Vickie Gabereau may be doing only one interview per day next year, as opposed to two or three interviews this year. Replacing this produced material will be still more recorded music.
.0915
There will be fewer episodes of the Ideas series in future. While a casual listener may not notice, regular listeners will be aware of more repeats and fewer original programs. This will become more apparent to the audience over time, as the number of original programs continues to decline and the number of repeats soars exponentially. The basic format of Ideas is also changing from the airing of a freelance person with something to say to a show produced and also narrated by the same person, the CBC producer.
In future, the whole program will increasingly be filtered through the producer, denying the audience the special interest and the expertise of that outside freelance person. This saves money by reducing the production values and changes the inherent nature of Ideas. Although it has cost relatively little to produce, Ideas makes a major contribution to in-depth understanding of issues in English-speaking Canada.
On CBC morning shows across the country, there will be fewer brighter broadcasters going out with a tape recorder and presenting their results to the host on air. Writer-broadcasters are being phased out to save money. The result is less variety and more talk from hosts for three hours in the morning.
We believe that Tapestry and Writers and Company may disappear entirely from CBC radio. The extent of repeats will initially be masked from the audience because most repeats will be repeats within original programs, rather than repeats of whole programs. For example, Morningside will dig back more frequently into its archives. Casual listeners may not notice that they are hearing recorded rather than live Gzowski. Regular listeners will become aware that they are hearing more canned material until gradually they may notice that they are often hearing wall-to-wall Best of Morningside.
CBC radio and stereo will be much less distinctive from private radio. Some of the measures CBC is adopting are based on formats than in fact have been pioneered in the private sector. The cumulative result of all these cuts will be to reduce the difference between CBC radio and what it offers, and what is now available to radio listeners in major cities on private stations, like Montreal's CJAD or Toronto's CFRB or Vancouver's CKNW.
CBC management strategy appears to be one of dribbling out the changes in the hope the audience will not notice. The cumulative effect will be to denude CBC radio and stereo of its distinctiveness as a national public broadcaster. An alternative strategy still under consideration by CBC radio is to entirely eliminate the CBC stereo network.
All of this is a projection that we have verified and stand behind as to what will happen next year based on the cuts announced two weeks ago. This has nothing to do with the cuts that lie in front of the CBC if a $350 million budget chop ends up happening.
We will be continuing to monitor the implications of these cuts on CBC programming and we will be issuing public updates regularly.
Over to you, Knowlton.
Mr. Knowlton Nash (Friends of Canadian Broadcasting): Thanks, Ian.
Mr. Chairman and committee members, I very much appreciate the chance of having the opportunity to express some concerns that I as an individual Canadian have about these budget cuts, which you're concerned about as well. I'll be brief in my comments because I know your time is quite limited.
I start from the premise that we as a country simply can't have political sovereignty unless we have cultural sovereignty. As we erode cultural sovereignty, inevitably we erode political sovereignty. It seems to me that erosion is one of the consequences of these budget cuts.
People talk about bureaucratic fat at the CBC. As a foreign correspondent, an executive, and a news anchor there for three or four decades, it's fair to say that I have seen some fat, but not any more. The budget cuts you're concerned about, and which Perrin Beatty was forced to implement, are now cutting into the bone of public broadcasting. And it's not just paper clips and bureaucrats that are being reduced; it's programs. As Ian has indicated, programming, one way or another, is being diminished. Public broadcasting itself is being diminished. The service to the public at the local, at the regional, and at the network level is being diminished. You just can't make these kinds of budget cuts without that happening.
.0920
Mr. Morrison has provided some of the details of the impacts of these cuts. In just about every city across the country where there is a CBC station, editors and producers, researchers and technicians are all being let go, whether they're staff or freelancers.
This means - and we do have to be clear about it - that there will be fewer original programs, there's no question of that. There will be more repeats and less original drama. There will be fewer resources available for children's programs, research, investigative reportage, and resources to cover Canadian and international news stories.
Consider programs that a public broadcasting system like the CBC should be producing, such as Man Alive, to which Ian referred, which is a very Canadian program about the spirit of man. That kind of program will not be done by any commercial network. Man Alive will still be in the schedule next year, as the franchise is going to be maintained, but it will be virtually emasculated by the enforced budget cuts. I believe there are something like eleven people on that program; there now will be two. There will be no original programs produced by the CBC for Man Alive. That's just one example of many that will be happening.
The result of the cuts forced upon the CBC will be simply to reduce the ability of the CBC to tell Canadian stories to Canadians in drama, music, children's programming, and news as well. The results will be particularly vivid on the screen starting next fall.
Canada's geography makes it a pretty expensive place to cover. Stories in the far north and in the regions cost a lot more to cover. They cost a lot of money. It's particularly those kinds of stories that are at risk in these budget cuts.
Of course, the CBC can do less and be less. It can concentrate its programming, for example, in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal or Ottawa. It can concentrate on the big cities, and thereby save an awful lot of money. But is that what the CBC should be doing? I think not.
I think we should and we must be able to see and hear our own stories and songs. Only a public system is going to be doing that, because the economic realities of private broadcasting dictate that the private stations operate largely on the margins of Canadian culture. In private broadcasting you make a profit primarily by showing American programs. Quite properly and understandably, the private shareholders are interested in profit.
Some years ago I was responsible for a television series based on Pierre Berton's book, The National Dream. There was a celebration about the building of the Canadian west. It was a very Canadian production, reflecting the struggles in Parliament and the struggles in building a railway across the prairies and through the mountains. The series got huge audiences in this country. But honestly, I think that kind of a Canadian blockbuster series probably couldn't be done today because of these budget cuts. That's a shame.
If there is a political will to have a public broadcasting system in Canada, then surely enough is enough. The cuts that have already been made now and in recent years - this is the budget crunch, as the chairman said when we opened this morning - will profoundly change the CBC. Anything more will mean that Parliament surely will have to fundamentally change the mandate of the CBC.
I really do believe that CBC is the most powerful cultural weapon we have for developing, nourishing and celebrating Canada. To undermine that weapon, as is happening now with the budget cuts, seems to counter the purpose of the will expressed by Parliament.
The budget cuts that already have been made are bleeding Canadian programming, and will bleed them even more in the fall. Any more would surely be devastating to the whole principle of public broadcasting. The CBC has already made very deep budget cuts. It's already done more than its fair share to meet the budget deficit. Surely, enough is enough.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Nash and Mr. Morrison.
I think we'll now invite our two other witnesses to come forward.
Colleagues, I'd like to welcome now denise truax and Pierre-Paul Lafrenière. I don't know which one is starting, but perhaps you can identify.... I think you're identifying actually two groups today, or at least one of you.... Maybe you can help us in that regard, and then we'll invite you to give your presentation.
.0925
Ms denise truax (President, Fédération culturelle canadienne francaise): Good morning. I'm the president of the Fédération culturelle canadienne française, which is an organization of francophones outside Quebec, but if you will allow me, this morning I will use the term ``French Canadian'' to define us, because we've heard ``outside Quebec'' and ``Quebec and English Canada'' much too often on CBC and elsewhere. We would like to remain French Canadians at least for a while and at least for this morning.
I am with Pierre-Paul Lafrenière, who is responsible for Regroupement des arts médiatiques, which is, among our communities, people who are involved with private and independent producers of film, video, and media arts generally.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak to you this morning. I will do my presentation en français. We do feel we are, as French Canadians, a lesser-heard voice both at Radio-Canada and around Radio-Canada, so we appreciate the opportunity.
[Translation]
In summary, I would like to indicate to you how important CBC television and radio are for us. They are being criticized but I think that is because it may be more difficult to forgive someone whom you love dearly. CBC Television is in many cases the only French-speaking media available in our communities and, when it is not the only one, it remains important in terms of the type of programs it produces, be it on television or on radio.
In the current situation, we think that enough of a diet has been imposed upon CBC. Although, like everybody else, CBC had to do its share towards reducing the deficit - it is everyone's favorite word these days -, its budget should not be decreased anymore. If there were any additional cuts, it might seriously jeopardize its capacity to live up to its mandate and, among other things, reflect the whole Canadian reality and report on the diversity of the nation.
On the whole, I think that French Canadians appreciate and support CBC. They are aware of its importance to our communities, particularly regarding its radio programs, possibly because more of them are produced in our communities. The relevance and the excellence of these programs are well established in our communities. We feel that they are not sufficiently aired on the network or across the nation, but we very much appreciate what is being done locally.
As far as television is concerned, the situation is somewhat more serious since the programs produced in our regions and subsequently broadcast across the network are very limited in their number and in their diversity. First of all, and this is very easily understandable, we want to remind CBC that we also wish to see ourselves on the screen or to hear ourselves on the radio and that this be done not only in our region since it is already happening in our region in some cases. I am unable, for instance, to speak to Acadia, a part of our land that I like very much and that I visit regularly, and to Western Canada. I would like to see a dialogue starting to get established across the land and to see a little less of Montreal, the metropolis, speaking to everybody.
That being said, we have five points that we would like to develop briefly and that are going in that direction.
Mr. Pierre-Paul Lafrenière (Co-ordinator and consultant, Regroupement des arts médiatiques du Canada): With the reorganizing that is upon us, the budgetary restrictions that are currently taking place may not be an ideal solution to meet our needs and our expectations.
In order to do that and to enable us to hear and see more of ourselves on the air, it is crucial that CBC acknowledge the excellence of the radio and television programming that is being done in the regions and ensure that these regional activities are maintained and enhanced during the review and reflection process that is currently taking place as a result of the budgetary restrictions; that it promote a diversification in the range of programming from the regions, thereby providing more opportunities to the independant craftsmen and producers working in the regions; that it grant more autonomy to the regions in the decision making and budgetary processes related to the selection of programs to be produced, including those programs that will be specifically produced to be broadcast across the network; that it modify its programming schedule so that more programs from the regions can be broadcast across the network; and that it more frequently call upon artists and creators from the regions to take part in the programs it produces in Montreal for distribution across the network so that they may also have access to a national audience.
We think that, during this reorganizing exercise, we could do more work with independant producers in the regions, thereby taking advantage of alternative sources of program financing the CBC may not always have access to. There would also be some savings to be made by taking advantage of CBC installations in the regions that shopuld be made available to independant producers.
.0930
Some accomodations can therefore be made if we take an innovative approach to the implementation of such budgetary cuts or to the structural reorganizing of CBC.
Ms truax: In concluding we would like to say that the CBC menu as it is provided to us from Montreal stays always more or less the same. I would not go as far as saying that we do not like it, but we feel perhaps that it is somewhat boring. We would also like to contribute to preparing some dishes that we might make palatable to the entire country. Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate your presentation.
I'll ask all four witnesses to remain in their places so we can go through a round or two of questions.
As usual, we'll start with the representative from the official opposition. Mrs. Tremblay.
[Translation]
Mrs. Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata): The last time the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting appeared before this committee, they told us that 80% of CBC prime time programming came from abroad. You heard as well as I did the announcement by the president, Mr. Beattie, that from now on, during prime time, CBC would have to produce Canadian programs. How do you reconcile these guidelines with the budgetary cuts? Would it be possible for CBC to substitute Canadian programming for the foreign programs that are aired during prime time?
[English]
Mr. Morrison: The current statistic that I recall is that 87% of the viewing of English-speaking CBC television in prime time is viewing Canadian programming. I have forgotten the exact statistic, but it is in the 80s for the amount of Canadian programming that is presented. It is the intention, originally announced before this committee by Mr. Manera when he was president a bit more than a year ago, I think on November 1, entirely to eliminate American programming from English television during prime time. I heard Mr. Beatty repeat that on November 22 of this year.
My understanding is that this would be except for occasional programs that are the best the world has to offer, or something like that.
It is possible to do it at a relatively modest expense, because, in my opinion, the two and a half hours a week of Canadian programming that will replace the American programming will be relatively inexpensive. It will be the kind of programming that involves music and talking, as opposed to highly produced material. It is a worthwhile but fairly modest step, because, as I mentioned, it is already very substantially Canadian in prime time.
[Translation]
Mrs. Tremblay: If we look at the differences in programming between the French network and the English network, we see that the average cost of a program is $18,000 on the French network and $36,000 on the English network. The French network is being watched by many French-speaking people whereas the English network is far less successful with the English-speaking people. Across the country, we find that 12% of the audience watch the English network in Toronto. 8% in Vancouver, etc. Some higher figures can be noticed in areas where CBC television is the only channel available. On average, the audience is said not to exceed 10% to 12%.
Don't you think that it might be possible to make budgetary cuts on the English side and to have lower production costs as is the case on the French side while producing programs that people would watch? What is, in your opinion, the problem with the English network?
Mr. Morrison: To me, the problem is the competition of all the major American television programs.
.0935
[English]
I would say by way of explanation that those of us in this country who are of French-speaking origin and speak French have a modest measure of protection from the huge invasion of high production value American television. This defence is not available to the same extent on the English-speaking side.
So you typically have everything that American entertainment television can offer as competition. I would just give you a statistic that 96% of the fiction programming available on English-speaking Canadians' television sets is not Canadian. In order to defend ourselves against that and to maintain audience share in this huge universe of American television, it is necessary to fight back with higher production values.
So the French-speaking and English-speaking situations are not comparable just on a dollar basis. The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has taken the position that the Broadcasting Act is correct in saying that the quality of French and English programming should be equivalent. The statistic you used today suggests that in television production, the average production cost is twice as high in English as it is in French. That does not seem to me to be equivalent.
[Translation]
Mrs. Tremblay: In our search for more efficient management, we have to take into consideration what is happening in the production centres. As an example, Newsworld uses its own makeup artist for one of its shows whereas RDI does without one. Furthermore, although more shows are being produced side by side, Newsworld's makeup artist cannot work with RDI staff. Why does it have to be so compartimentalized?
As for Patrick Roy, was it necessary for CBC, Radio-Canada, RDI and Newsworld to rush to a press conference and to make such an absolutely preposterous story out of a guy who makes $4 million and gets a skin rash just because his coach did not pat him on the back? What does this all mean?
[English]
Mr. Morrison: As you know, Madame Tremblay, the resources of RDI and of Newsworld are determined not by Parliament but by the CRTC through the charges to cable subscribers. They sort of sit there on their own with a charge per subscriber.
I would return to the response I gave you to the first question, which is that in the real world of competition for audience, Newsworld's competition comes from Atlanta. It's called CNN. You know it; we all know it. Newsworld has to fight for the quality of its production in an environment where if it does not produce at a certain level, Canadian audiences are seduced away to American alternatives. That is a continuing challenge that the English services of the CBC have to struggle with.
Mr. Nash: May I add, Madame Tremblay, that this is particularly true in relation to entertainment programming. Mr. Morrison mentioned that 96% of Canadian fiction in prime time is foreign, mostly American. That doesn't quite apply on the information side, on news, for instance. I don't know the specific percentages, but I would think that about 80% or 90% of the viewing of news programming in Canada is of the CBC French and English network, as well as CTV. In other words, it is Canadian programming.
So there is a difference between the entertainment programming offered to Canadians and the news programming offered to Canadians.
The Chairman: Thank you. Time is over for this particular round.
Madame Tremblay, I was on Newsworld the other day and they didn't make up my face. It left me a little chagrined; you know, the creases multiply as the years go on.
Mr. Abbott, you have eight minutes.
.0940
Mr. Abbott (Kootenay East): As I start my questions I would like to direct them to the Friends. Before I do, I want to state very clearly and very specifically that I have a great deal of respect for both of the gentlemen presenting on behalf of the Friends. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them, as I have for the people they represent. If my comments are misconstrued as being an attack on them or the Friends, that will be most unfortunate. It's not intended.
I'm deeply concerned about the fact that the Minister of Canadian Heritage has not come forward with the CBC mandate review. The cost to the end of September was $1 million, or approximately $250,000 a month. The promise was to have that review completed by the end of November. Now it's promised for January 15. And who knows if that promise is going to be realized?
When the chairman of this committee said it was important for this committee to have the opportunity to review the situation or to have some input from the CBC prior to the budget coming down, I agreed to that as a representative of the Reform Party because I agree with him. Unfortunately, the minister, the chairman and the parliamentary secretary have been unable to present us with witnesses who are able to present us with potential solutions to the problem. With the greatest respect, I suggest that the Friends present the problem and I think what we should be looking for specifically is a solution.
I'll close this part of my comments with this observation. I know that I was - and I would suspect all members of this committee and perhaps other MPs have been - already lobbied by the Friends. Therefore, this particular function at least serves the purpose of getting that lobbying on the record. I don't think it serves much more.
That said, the Liberals have chosen to cut in the areas of health, welfare and education. We all know the stories about health care. On welfare, the cuts are supposedly on the backs of the poor. Certainly I have had a tremendous amount of representation from people in post-secondary education.
The finance ministers are meeting today. There is discussion about the continuation of the support of OAS and revisions on CPP. I had a representation from Alliance Quebec yesterday. They were concerned - and rightfully concerned - about the fact that there was a 27% cut to their funding.
Recognizing that we do have a finite pie and that today and every day in this year we are going to be borrowing $90 million just to pay the interest on the money we've already borrowed, I would like to ask two specific questions. One is on the cutting side and the other is on the revenue side.
Where would you cut? Considering that we have a finite pie, considering that we have a debt-servicing crisis and considering that the Liberals have already taken $7 billion out of health, welfare and education, would you cut that further? Would you lower the threshold of clawback for OAS? Would you cut Alliance Quebec further? The money has to come from somewhere, so where would you cut?
The second question is a very specific one on the revenue side. I think Mr. Morrison said there is discussion about the entire elimination of CBC stereo. May I suggest that CBC stereo.... And let's not divert to talking about CBC radio either. For purposes of this question I would like to talk specifically about CBC stereo.
I suggest that CBC stereo represents an upscale audience many advertisers would love to get to. I further suggest that CBC stereo has a following because of their current programming. Therefore I cannot conceive of an advertiser being able to drive a change in the format or the content of CBC stereo. That is what they're buying because they want to be able to get to that specific upscale audience. So why should that upscale audience have their programming supported by general revenue? Why shouldn't that upscale audience not have their programming provided by advertising dollars?
There are the two questions. First, where would you cut? Second, if we're looking at the revenue side why would we not possibly take a look at CBC stereo with the idea of maintaining the program as it is presently scheduled and formatted, with the same content, and gather in advertising dollars?
.0945
The Chair: We have eight minutes for each round, and Mr. Abbott has taken more than five. You have about three minutes to give the answers to those questions.
Mr. Morrison: A point of agreement, Mr. Abbott. I also regret that the Juneau committee has not yet reported. I think it would be very useful public policy if it were available for discussion now, particularly in view of the finance department schedule. It would be a disaster if it were not available by January 15, as Minister Dupuy has promised.
The reason we focused on the impact of the cuts today in our presentation is that it was our information from the committee that this was the topic under consideration. There are many other things we could have discussed, but we thought we were answering the question that you posed in this hearing.
With respect to the amount of money available to the CBC, I would like you to know that a respected Canadian who resigned on his principles, Mr. Manera, said something that I personally have checked and can verify. That is, had the Government of Canada from the time of Mr. Mulroney's election through to last year controlled its expenditures on the same basis as it controlled its grant to the CBC, this country would have a $15 billion surplus today instead of a $33 billion deficit. Those figures add up.
In a poll done by COMPASS and sponsored by us in September, 82% of Canadians would like the grant to the CBC to be maintained or increased, and 80% of Canadians feel the CBC is an essential service. That, by the way, is true of 50% of the people who support your party.
I have no mandate to come here and talk about whether Alliance Québec should get more money or not. That's not my mission.
On the CBC stereo issue, it is true that its audience is small; it averages 3% to 4% of the audience. Its reach is quite substantial. In the course of a given week, a lot of people tune in to it. I'm not sure if it is entirely upscale. That's a question for the management.
Our organization believes that a commercial-free alternative is a very important thing in the essence of radio and stereo, and we oppose the notion of putting advertising on CBC stereo, as does the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, by the way. This is a point of common ground with that organization.
That's just a quick response.
Is there something else, Knowlton?
Mr. Nash: I was just going to add this on the question of the cuts. It seems to me that it's a matter of fairness. The CBC cuts, as Ian mentioned when he quoted Tony Manera, have already been very substantial. They have been proportionately far more than have been applied elsewhere. Therefore, I think the CBC has already made those kinds of cuts and has faced those kinds of reductions.
The Chair: Mr. Peric.
Mr. Peric (Cambridge): Madam truax, I'm really pleased to hear from you this morning that they are French Canadians, not only Quebeckers. I sympathize with your concerns.
Mr. Morrison, a short question for you. Did the president announce which episodes and specials will be cut in the $227 million?
Mr. Nash, as a private citizen, I would like to hear your comments. We hear lately more and more from the Reform side that the best thing for the CBC would be to privatize it. You mentioned that there is no more fat. Since when?
Mr. Morrison: I think you asked me if the president had announced these details of episode reductions. No. It took us 13 days from the date of Mr. Beatty's announcement to piece together this information. I wish the management of the corporation would be more forthcoming with its own position on the programming implications. I think it is very important for parliamentarians, the media and Canadians generally to understand these implications, which is why we have done our research and come up with what we believe are responsible projections.
.0950
There may be an error in some of the details we have given you. If there is an error, it is an error of detail, and there will be some other cut of equal severity and magnitude that will replace it.
So what you can count on is that this is an accurate description of the magnitude of the programming implications. To date, no one has managed to persuade me that there are any substantial errors therein.
Mr. Nash: You talked about privatization. I think when people refer to privatization they're talking about the CBC stations in Toronto or Vancouver. It's the major cities, not the smaller ones. So what you might have, if that were to proceed, would be a kind of rump CBC in the smaller communities across the country that would still be subsidized by the government. The private stations would be taking over the stations in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, where there is some profit to be made. I don't think that's to the advantage of the Canadian broadcasting system to have that kind of a split occur.
In terms of my seeing no fat, no, I don't see any fat today when I go into a CBC building. I see a lot of apprehension and concern. I see a lot of people who are primarily preoccupied with how to cut budgets rather than making programs. I worry about that kind of obsession a lot. There's a heavy cloud over so many of the creative people these days. They're worrying about their jobs and budget implications insofar as their programs are concerned. I think we really ought to get back to making programs.
Mr. Peric: How about the.AAC's World Service? Why do we have that?
Mr. Nash: There was a contractual arrangement with Newsworld and the.AAC's World Service. I'm not sure whether that still continues or whether it's going to continue, but right now everything is on the block to be examined very carefully. I know the program people who have been responsible for deciding the details of these cuts have looked at everything.
Mr. Peric: I hope the.AAC's World Service will be cut. I would like to see Canadians stick to Canadian-produced news.
Mr. Morrison: It does suggest something costly. It is cheaper for CBC to import.AAC programming and put it on the air than to produce its own programming.
So in a crisis.... I have a press release in front of me indicating the imminent shutdown of Radio-Canada International. At this moment, it's part of this issue. It's not something we have focused on, but in this crisis, your suggestion, which I could patriotically support, is one that costs more money. So that takes us back to the Department of Finance.
Mr. Peric: In this case, it's much cheaper to import American programs than Canadian ones. So what's the purpose of having the CBC?
I would share my time with my colleague now.
Mr. Ianno (Trinity - Spadina): Thank you for coming. As mentioned earlier by Mr. Abbott, we have been speaking with you, and we've been studying for the last year and a half how to improve the CBC and find alternative sources of revenue.
Have the Friends been looking at ways that were presented in the report that you might agree with or you might suggest so that in fact there might be ways for the CBC to be able to maintain its programming along the way?
Mr. Morrison: Yes. To link that to Mr. Abbott's comment about the Juneau committee, it's my hope and expectation that you will get substantive recommendations, Mr. Ianno, from the mandate review committee about alternative sources of funding.
The Friends came before your committee in October 1994 under the chairmanship of your predecessor. The recommendation we made was that people who deliver video into Canadians homes, be they telephone companies, cable companies, satellite broadcasters or others, should be somewhat akin to the taxi driver in Ottawa who pays a licence fee at city hall in some relation to the amount of business that she or he does. Those people should be collecting something off the top for Canadian content.
Mr. Peter Grant, a distinguished lawyer, recommended in a report to the Heritage Minister this past year that 10% for Canadian content would be an appropriate amount of money. In our public opinion poll, we tested that. We found that, speaking objectively, nobody likes to lose money out of their pocket. But a majority of Canadians thought that, conceptually, 10% for Canadian content was a reasonable charge they would be willing to pay if they knew the money was going for that purpose.
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I can tell you that 10% of the audio-visual system in this country as it is growing would be an important new source for the CBC, for Telefilm, for the NFB, and for the private broadcasters and private production people who are producing good Canadian content.
Mr. Ianno: Mr. Nash, you were mentioning before that just recently all the fat was finally gone. Mr. Peric alluded to that. Before the streamlining, why wasn't the fat gone on its own?
Mr. Nash: As long as I can remember, at CBC there has been an effort to trim the fat. The CBC at one point had something like 12,000 or 13,000 full-time employees; as you know, it's now down to about 8,000 or 9,000 employees. It will be fewer than that by the time these cuts are finished.
Inevitably, in any large organization of that kind there have to be in the corners here and the corners there many people, many functions, many processes that could be streamlined or eliminated. Those have gone. There is just nowhere to look now. When you make cuts now, you are cutting into the bone of programming. There isn't much left to touch in administration. There's some, but not much left that you can touch, so you go right into programs.
Mr. Ianno: Did you agree with Mr. Beatty and with this committee report? Suzanne and I were on the same wavelength re.... I don't know if the term is closing down the Ottawa office, but there are 400 people here administratively and we suggest that maybe it should be down to 40 and they should rent some space. Do you agree with what Mr. Beatty has done on that?
Mr. Nash: I think what Mr. Beatty has done on that is a good first step.
Mr. Ianno: So in some of the cuts some good things have been done?
Mr. Nash: The purpose of the CBC is not bureaucracy; it's programs.
Mr. Ianno: Right.
Mr. Nash: The emphasis and the focus have to be on the programs.
The Chair: Just so there will be no misunderstanding, Mr. Peric, I think the reason why our public broadcaster would want to make its own programs, as opposed to buying American and cheaper programs, is because Canadian programs would reflect this country. It's not the mandate of American programmers to reflect Canada. Hopefully, that's what our public broadcaster does and it would contribute not only to better understanding of this country and what makes it tick but also to national unity.
Mr. Peric: That's exactly what is my concern. We're importing too many foreign programs. I am fully supportive of domestically produced programs, including CBC news.
The Chair: Madame truax, or Monsieur Lafrenière, I think one of you indicated that you would like to see more Radio-Canada productions being seen outside of the province of Quebec, and perhaps more English-language radio and television programs being seen in, say, areas of Quebec that are predominately francophone where people would watch French programming. I certainly would subscribe to that. I think it would contribute to Canadian unity.
Ms truax: I'm going to speak about radio, and I'll let Pierre-Paul speak about television.
What we've found about radio is we've got wonderful regional programs. The morning shows are very good; they're well listened to. We've got evening shows also. But they're available only in our own regions.
I live in northern Ontario. We don't speak to any other part of Ontario; we speak just to ourselves. So whatever we do would have a wonderful image of ourselves, but we never get a chance to speak to Montreal or Acadie or western Canada, whereas Montreal gets an opportunity of speaking to everyone else.
We feel that's lopsided, and a number of measures should be taken to increase the number of regional programs available on the whole network and available across the country.
I know quite a number of Acadian artists, and I would like to see them more regularly, or hear them on the radio.
We're not happy with the cuts - we don't want to leave that impression - but we know that the cuts have happened. We don't want them to be any deeper, but we feel that, because the cuts have forced a sort of rethinking of Radio-Canada, this is an opportunity to look at it in that sense and to make sure that the regions will not lose out.
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Mr. Lafrenière: Also, we feel that to bring their attention more to regional production and to the exchange of that regional production between the various regions might also bring new opportunities for financing such production, where you might have collaboration between independent producers from the western provinces and independent producers from the Maritimes or from Ontario, doing programming that would then be seen across the network.
Also, in the rethinking that is going on right now, we understand the focus in the regions is on making Radio-Canada more distinct as a signal. One of the ways to be more distinct is to approach the audience you're serving, make yourself more relevant to them. We feel that exercise is very important in the regions.
If the listening audience numbers are not quite what they should be in Regina, for example, for the French network, it may be because they don't particularly want to see what's going on on a street corner in Montreal where a cab runs into a street light. They'd like to also find out about what's going on in their own community.
The Chair: Let me just work in one tiny question before we turn it back to Madam Tremblay. This goes to Mr. Morrison or Mr. Nash.
You gentlemen have indicated the CBC is pretty well cut to the bone now, but if there is no more federal subsidy available, are there alternative sources of revenue for the public broadcaster?
Would you be in favour of say a program fund to which perhaps cable companies - and they already have a fund, by the way - private broadcasters, the telephone companies and others would contribute, a fund that would be available to the CBC and others? What do you think of that?
Mr. Nash: If this is a fund aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of Canadian programming, that's indeed the area the Juneau committee is looking at and an area that would be very supported.
Mr. Morrison: In response to Mr. Ianno, I'd say something similar. The Friends is on record as supporting that approach.
We believe it is a licence fee in return for giving people the privilege, which Parliament does, to distribute video to people's homes. In a competitive era when we have satellites, telephone and cable, everybody should be doing a piece for Canada. The 10% off the top for Canadian content is a reasonable public policy proposition. As I mentioned, the public opinion poll indicates majoritarian support for the concept.
The Chair: Madam Tremblay for five minutes.
[Translation]
Mrs. Tremblay: You said earlier, Mr. Nash, regarding political and cultural sovereignty that both go hand in hand. However, since Mr. Beattie confirmed that there would really be cuts amounting to $350 million, some $123 million remain to be found by next year. Nevertheless everybody agrees that the mandate of the CBC will be seriously jeopardized if the cuts go beyond what is being announced. In your opinion, what part of the CBC mandate would have to be reviewed if those cuts went any further?
[English]
Mr. Nash: If the government goes further in its cuts to the CBC, you will have major program cuts. For example, I doubt that Man Alive would survive that kind of cut. You certainly wouldn't have an international radio service any more, I don't imagine, with that kind of cut.
You would have to do a lot of surgery on specific programs. You might lose a -
[Translation]
Mrs. Tremblay: Would the network be jeopardized?
[English]
Mr. Nash: The physical network wouldn't be jeopardized, but what's on the network would be jeopardized.
It jeopardizes a sense of the mandate to provide a reflection of Canada in our music, in the stories we tell each other and indeed even in our journalistic coverage. It costs a lot of money, for instance, to send a correspondent or reporter to do a major story in the north of Canada. That's a very expensive proposition. Again, it's our geography that's expensive.
That kind of thing, even today, is being thought of very carefully before someone is sent up on a story of that kind. If there were more cuts, it would be thought of even more seriously.
[Translation]
Mrs. Tremblay: In your book The Microphone Wars, you state on page 426:
[English]
- Jean Chrétien accuses the CBC of forgetting that its objective was to promote national unity.
It's in your book. He said the same thing a few weeks ago in New Zealand.
Do you really think that when the Prime Minister thinks that about Radio-Canada...? He said in the House that if he wants to sleep well, he doesn't listen to CBC.
Mr. Nash: I hope he listened last night.
Mrs. Tremblay: Do you think we really have hope this government will understand exactly what is going on and stop it?
Mr. Nash: Yes, I have hope this government will understand. What's at stake here is indeed the future of our culture, the reflection of our country. That's really critical, and really is the purpose, I suppose, for my being here today: to hope that kind of understanding can be accepted by the government.
The Chair: I find the content of this to be really quite outstanding. We're talking about the potential of putting a tax on the private broadcasters. In other words, in Vancouver you would have BCTV turning up with their recorders to cover a story, with 10% of whatever coming out of their pockets to support the CBC-TV Vancouver regional turning up to cover the same story. I find that really quite outstanding. It reminds me of when Jesse James was asked why he robbed banks. He said ``Because that's where the money is''.
What we have here is a situation where because private broadcasters, many of which, I should say, in radio in particular are just barely surviving...there is discussion here that they should be supporting the CBC. Yet at the same time you refuse to consider an advertising source for CBC-FM, as the example I've given. I find this absolutely amazing.
Mr. Nash: There may be a misconception there, and you can pursue that. It's not designed to support CBC. It's designed to support Canadian programming, to establish a fund, as I understand it, which would be drawn on by the private broadcasters. In other words, it would be the private broadcasters supporting their own private enterprise to have Canadian programming.
Mr. Morrison: I know it's the tradition of this institution that you pass bills three times before they go into law, so I'm saying this for the third time. But I want to be really clear. We are proposing that there should be a licence fee that distributors - and I'd like to underline that word - distributors of video programming would contribute to Canadian content.
I would like to define ``distributors''. Distributors are not the people who make the programs. They're not the people who package the programs. They're the people who deliver the programs. They are cable companies. They are satellite television companies. They will be, in the future, telephone companies. And there are other systems for distribution.
The ten cents off each dollar for the privilege to distribute and to do that business, to deliver video signals to the home, would be collected for Canadian content. It would be just as available to WIK, or to use its brand name BCTV, as it would be available to Baton Broadcasting or as it would be available to Alliance and the CBC, according to their willingness to invest in value-added Canadian programming, probably fiction programming, the expensive programming.
So it is not that BCTV would subsidize the CBC. It is that the distribution system would subsidize BCTV and the CBC. Distribution would subsidize production, because presumably in this room we would all agree there is a shortage of high-quality fiction programming available on television when only 10% of the fiction programming on the French-language side and 4% of the fiction programming on the English-language side is Canadian in origin.
Mr. Abbott: So you're proposing the cable rate increase the people of Ontario in particular turned down a year ago very, very forcibly against Rogers and the other cable companies.... You're saying that -
Mr. Morrison: Not just cable.
Mr. Abbott: No, not just cable. But you're suggesting the cable fees can go up and the people of Canada wouldn't mind at all.
Mr. Morrison: But cable has been operating in a monopoly situation, where it has been able to charge substantially what it likes for everything beyond basic cable. The CRTC doesn't regulate the rates beyond basic cable. That will no longer be the case, according to new public policies that are instituting competition among cable, telephone, satellite and others. In a competitive environment the ten cents off the dollar for the opportunity to compete may not cause increases. It could be that there would be decreases in rates.
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What I can say to you is that we have tested the concept through a public opinion poll, and it has won majority support. I'd be happy to table that with you.
The Chair: I think we have time for at least one more questioner. I think Mr. Ianno indicated a willingness to ask a couple of questions.
Mr. Ianno: I'm disappointed, Mr. Morrison, because when I thought of alternative sources of revenue, I was thinking more of the CBC as compared to sharing it with others.
Ms truax stated that there is a lot of regional programming done that unfortunately doesn't get to be seen or heard across the nation. I think that's something many of us wonder about. Since that money is being spent, and I'm sure it's great work that's being done in Sudbury, Chicoutimi, Rimouski, etc., why is it that the rest of us cannot hear it and it's only left on a regional basis, and then other moneys have to be spent to basically supply that airtime?
I think what I'd like to see from the Friends, if possible, is that you do your own Keynesian study, and if you had to make some tough choices, indicate how it would best be done so that programming is maintained. If other aspects are being missed in the corners, as Mr. Nash mentioned, and still happen to be around, maybe they can be found, and that money can go towards the programming.
Mr. Morrison: Mr. Ianno, when I appeared before you in October 1994 we presented the results of such a study, which we called ``Reinventing the CBC''. It was based on a Canada-wide series of meetings and research that we undertook. I'd be happy to dust it off.
However, at this point I would like to link your inquiry to the inquiry Mrs. Tremblay posed to Knowlton about the next ``hopefully not to happen'' cuts. It's very clear to us, and this comes back to your commentary, that they, the management, will not be able any longer to protect the roots. The metaphor is one of a tree, and the roots are the local and regional stations and the programming capacity of the corporation.
They will be moving in that next stage, which I dearly hope will not happen, to decapitate the smaller centres. For example, Sudbury will go from 52 to 10 employees and become a storefront. We have published data on that for every centre across the country. They will not be able to avoid that.
So it is not so much that they will be able to do better, it is rather that in this current context with the $227 million, let alone the $350 million, the CBC is going to become a much more feeble organization and be less capable of doing the things we want it to do on the air at a time when Canada needs it most. That's my message to you.
The Chair: I'd like to finish the questioning with just one more question. I think it was Mr. Morrison who said in his opening presentation that Canada is fragile at this particular time, and I believe it was Mr. Nash who said that if our cultural sovereignty is weakened - and I'm just paraphrasing you, Mr. Nash - our political sovereignty is weakened.
Given those two statements, I'd like to ask either of you gentlemen whether you think the CBC should be remandated to be an agent for national unity. If so, how would you see that done? I don't think anyone would want to see the news service of the CBC become an agent for national unity. We can envisage programs outside of the news service that perhaps would contribute in a greater way to national unity. Do you think the CBC should be remandated in that way?
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Mr. Nash: When that phrase was in the previous legislation, the way in which it was interpreted was to exclude news coverage, as you suggest. By necessity, news coverage must reflect various points of view in the country and not be biased to any particular one of them. In other kinds of programming wherein you reflect the country - you reflect stories and music from Newfoundland and you reflect stories from the Northwest Territories - you reflect the country to itself. In that way, it seems to me you can strengthen the vines of unity in the nation. That would be the way in which I would interpret any such insertion of that phrase.
The Chair: Well, I thank all of you for coming today, Mr. Nash, Mr. Morrison, Madame truax, and Mr. Lafrenière. I think I can say we certainly will bring your concerns especially to the attention of Mr. Martin, the Minister of Finance. I'm sure he would appreciate your insights, as we have this morning.
I want to remind my colleagues that we'll be back at 11 o'clock, or very close to that time, to discuss relating to national unity with further witnesses.
This meeting is adjourned.