Statement made on 02 April 2009 by Senator Maria Chaput
Hon. Maria Chaput:
Honourable senators, I have proposed this inquiry so that we could discuss our national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The most optimistic scenario has the corporation laying off 800 employees. No executive can cut 10 per cent or more of the company's workforce without thinking about the internal consequences, in terms of the impact on institutional morale, and the external consequences, in terms of programming and, in particular, the impact on official-language minority communities. I feel it is my responsibility to draw your attention to this issue and share the serious concerns I have.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is unique among the world's public broadcasters. No public broadcaster anywhere in the world provides as many services to people at home and abroad while covering a geographic area like ours in several languages.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is a Canadian Crown corporation and the oldest broadcasting service in the country. It began operations on November 2, 1936. To counter strong influence from our neighbour to the south, the government of the day introduced the concept of a national public broadcaster. A public broadcaster has different constraints from private broadcasters and unique, challenging obligations.
Since its inception, the CBC has broadcast on various platforms from coast to coast. Communities outside Quebec waited many years before getting their radio and television services, because not everything could be put in place right away.
It was not until 1958 that the corporation, as we know it today, became a daily presence in our lives. And since 1958, it has also been present in the most remote parts of the country, Yellowknife and Whitehorse.
Governed by the 1991 Broadcasting Act, the corporation operates at arm's length from government and, through the Department of Canadian Heritage, answers to the Parliament of Canada. All programming decisions must meet very specific criteria for reflecting Canadian values here and abroad.
It must operate in both official languages and in some aboriginal languages. Service must be provided to all markets, whether rural or urban, eastern, western or in the Maritimes. All are unique and they both represent and reflect their communities.
The CBC was the first broadcaster in the world to use a satellite to broadcast television programs from east to west and has continued to innovate. Until the 1970s, it dominated the audiovisual landscape. After years of growth, the lean years set in. Faced with audience fragmentation, it has had to adjust to the increase in specialty channels, video games and the rising popularity of the Internet. It has had to make the adjustment while its funding and flexibility as a public broadcaster continue to shrink.
Its mandate, established by the Broadcasting Act adopted in 1991, states that it must, among other things, "contribute to shared national consciousness and identity". It is also subject to Part VII of the Official Languages Act requiring it to provide programming of equal quality in French and English.
Over the past 15 to 20 years, cuts to the CBC's budget have forced it to reposition its activities and strategies while seeking to maintain its place in an increasingly competitive communications world.
All sectors of society have been hit hard by the economic crisis in recent months. The loss of 10 per cent of its staff and the $34 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, 2009-10, will have an impact on its operations throughout the country, with 13.7 per cent of the reduction measures affecting francophones outside Quebec in particular.
Flagship programs will disappear. For example, the daily show RDI Junior, the only program in French for young adults, will disappear, leaving this country's young francophone adolescents without news in their mother tongue.
For young francophones outside Quebec who have limited access to other media in their own language and who are courted by media broadcasting in the country's other official language, it is not hard to see where they will go for their news. Services for young people are often meeting places where young creators can get their feet wet and try out their talent. These programs get children used to French-language television. The more relevant French-language television is to these young people, the more likely it is that their interest in the French language and culture will remain relevant to them once they reach adulthood. The loss of RDI Junior foreshadows the loss of a significant part of the identity of young francophones outside Quebec.
By giving the CBC a mandate as a public broadcaster, the Act forces it to seek revenue from commercial advertising, which is really in private broadcasting's realm of activity, and increased dependency on advertising revenue is the result. The corporation has to spend time on that instead of on programs for Canadians in both official languages.
Mr. Harper's government likes to talk about the billion dollars it has given to CBC/Radio-Canada, but it has effectively hogtied the corporation because it cannot count on multi-year funding, which is what its senior executives have been asking for for years. By putting the CBC in the position of having to make these latest cuts, the government is basically forcing it to disappear, little by little, from the country's media landscape.
In real numbers, the CBC currently costs $34 per person, per year, or 9.3 cents per day. For much less than most other public broadcasters, ours provides 28 services in both official languages and programming in nine foreign languages on Radio-Canada International. Thirty-four dollars per person adds up to the government's billion dollars, the same billion that has been allocated to the corporation for the past 20 years.
Canada ranks 15th in funding for its public broadcaster. The Government of Canada would have to double its funding for the CBC to reach France's level, and quadruple it to reach Great Britain's.
On the televised information front, cuts have resulted in the cancellation of RDI Junior and Rendez-vous de Marie-Claude; the cancellation of live night-time broadcasts on RDI; closure of the Dakar office; cuts to budgets for public affairs programs; and the cancellation of noon news broadcasts in Sherbrooke, Montreal, Quebec City, Moncton and Ottawa. Also, 6:00 p.m. news broadcasts will be shortened to 30 minutes.
On the general television programming front, independent producers who have been working closely with CBC/Radio-Canada to create original productions will have to cut their costs by 10 per cent to 25 per cent. More reruns will be shown, and nobody will know until May which of the programs planned for the fall will actually go ahead.
Programming strategies are so intertwined that the regions are also feeling the pinch. In Western Canada, Zeste, a weekly cultural program, is being put on hold. In Ontario, the radio shows L'Ontario aujourd'hui and Les arts et les autres are being cancelled. The Windsor station will become a production centre. In eastern Quebec and Atlantic Canada, the radio program 360 is being cancelled. The Saturday morning radio shows in Matane, Rimouski and Sept-Îles will be grouped together into a single show, and the Sunday shows are being cancelled altogether. There will no longer be any programs completely produced in Quebec City on Sundays.
Well-known programs like Un dimanche à Québec, Vous êtes ici, Macadam tribus and Des airs de toi will no longer be on the air. In terms of Internet services, the Arts and Performances section will no longer publish an arts column. The program La nuit la vie, produced in Vancouver and broadcast across the country from Monday to Thursday, has been cancelled. The program Un certain dimanche, broadcast in the four western provinces on Sunday afternoons, will no longer air. The program Plaisirs de la nuit, produced in Edmonton and broadcast on Fridays, will no longer air.
Regional programs will be replaced by national programs on statutory holidays, while news programs in the West will be broadcast only on some of those holidays. Radio-Canada is reducing the number and frequency of special programs like Chant'Ouest. In addition, Téléjournal de l'Ouest will be broadcast only on some holidays, and the financial resources dedicated to branding, resources that are still available in Winnipeg and Vancouver, will be reduced.
That branding made it possible to promote specific events in the communities served by regional stations.
A few years ago, those regional stations had introduced the principle of partnerships, which enabled community organizations to give a particular shape and flavour to the programming in their area. Those partnerships are also affected, because from now on the organizations will have to help cover production costs, which will greatly reduce the number of partnerships, as those organizations' own financial resources are declining.
Given the lack of sensitivity that the government has shown to date, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is entitled to feel threatened to its very core.
The entire communications and arts industry is affected by these cuts. It is generally said that for every job that is eliminated at the CBC, three jobs will be lost in independent productions. The impact on these companies and artists living outside Quebec will be devastating, because one of their major sources of income and outlets for artistic expression has just been significantly downsized. How can artists continue practising their art if they have no way of becoming known? If the government were to set out to force artists to move to major urban centres, this is the way it would go about it. By forcing these creators and artists to leave their environment, the government is forcing them to pull up their roots and lose contact with their reality. This results in artists and creators who are destabilized and regions that are constantly in search of their identity.
Francophones outside Quebec feel that recent events represent a setback for their already fragile communities, which constantly have to fight to find their rightful place. We must not delude ourselves. In the regions, when a job disappears, the corporation loses someone with not only a voice, but technical skills as well, because journalists and radio announcers often operate their own cameras or act as their own technician. What is happening is taking us back to the late 1960s, and it is reducing information about Canada, its regions and the world. We are witnessing the erosion of information. And a poorly informed population is at the mercy of undemocratic forces and special interests.
What we must remember is that it will be increasingly difficult for francophone minorities outside Quebec to obtain news and cultural programs in their language and in their region. The lifelong struggle for basic rights will be compounded by the struggle for the right to see themselves reflected in the actions of the Canadian public broadcaster. One cannot blame these same minorities for becoming discouraged and outraged at the same time. What is left when basic services are eliminated? And what is left for francophiles who, day after day, register for courses in French as a second language to learn our beautiful mother tongue? They are left with a programming void caused by arbitrary decisions, which, only imperfectly and in a much diminished manner, reflects all those communities who still believe in the linguistic duality of this country. Do we have to constantly fight to assert our rights and have access to services in French in our country?
I hope that the government will examine the CRTC document released on Monday, March 30, entitled Report to the Governor in Council on English-and French-language broadcasting services in English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada.
The last paragraph of the report states:
The Commission considers it important that the CBC have the means to continue serving . . . official-language minority communities.
Honourable senators, since Canada must make investments to get through this period of economic uncertainty, it would be best to invest in a national vision, in a project that could inspire and motivate us and that would create a lasting tribute to the linguistic duality of our country.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been, from its inception, a chosen part of our society contributing to the shared national consciousness and identity. It is part of Canada's social fabric and history.
Any political body representing the people must show consideration for its founding peoples and their equality of status and rights. Linguistic duality is, after all, one of the fundamental values of Canada.