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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, May 1, 2002

0905

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

Mr. George Park (Individual Presentation)

0910

0915

The Chair

0920

Mr. David Helwig (Individual Presentation)

0925

The Chair

Mr. Abbott

0930

Mr. David Helwig

Mr. Abbott

0935

Mr. David Helwig

0940

The Chair

Mr. George Park

The Chair

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ)

0945

Mr. David Helwig

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. David Helwig

Mr. George Park

Mr. David Helwig

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. David Helwig

0950

Mr. George Park

The Chair

Mr. George Park

0955

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

The Chair

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

1000

Mr. George Park

The Chair

Mr. David Helwig

1005

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. David Helwig

The Chair

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

1010

Mr. George Park

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP)

Mr. George Park

1015

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. George Park

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. George Park

Mr. David Helwig

1020

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard (Individual Presentation)

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard

1025

1030

1035

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard

1040

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Brian Pollard

1045

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. Jim Abbott

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Brian Pollard

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Brian Pollard

1050

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

Mr. Brian Pollard

The Chair

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. John Harvard

1055

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Brian Pollard

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Brian Pollard

Ms. Wendy Lill

1100

Mr. Brian Pollard

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. Brian Pollard

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard

The Chair

Mr. Brian Pollard

1105

The Chair

Mr. Jim Abbott

Mr. Brian Pollard

Mr. Jim Abbott

The Chair

Ms. Wendy Lill

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

NUMBER 058

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, May 1, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0905)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)): I declare open this meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, le Comité permanent du patrimoine canadien, which meets today to continue its study on the state of the Canadian broadcasting system, pour continuer son étude de l'état du système de radiodiffusion canadien.

I would like to mention to members that there will be a change in our program for this morning. Mr. John Bragg from EastLink Cable, who was coming from Halifax, can't be here with us. We'll start with Mr. Park and Mr. Helwig and then go on to Media Concepts for this morning. I'll let you know the people who are going to be attending this afternoon. We'll have a full meeting this afternoon, but this morning there are only two groups who can be here with us.

We are very pleased to welcome Mr. George Park, an anthropologist, and Mr. David Helwig, a well-known author. We'll start with you, Mr. Park. The floor is yours.

Mr. George Park (Individual Presentation): Thank you very much.

I've timed this to about 10 minutes, and I hope there'll be some questions.

The quality and significance of CBC arts news is one of my subjects, and the other is the singularity of the CBC in world perspective.

The quality and social significance of CBC arts news is important. CBC Radio's program in arts news is one that doesn't need fixing. It comes in various forms that reinforce each other. What you know nothing about seldom interests you in an interesting way. Now we know who directs what orchestra, how little musicians are paid, what new works of fiction and poetry have been published, who are the authors to watch, what local and regional works touch what communities and special interests, what exhibitions are in store for residents of or visitors to one of our major cities, and even more.

Even a person sitting in Atlantic Canada gets the sense that over the decade we've come to a position of some importance in Canadian culture and that Canada has come into its own in the world of the arts more generally. Perhaps poets are little heard, but poetry is a hard sell. It would require something as radical as Two New Hours in music. Meanwhile, CBC coverage of the arts sets a world standard.

What the radio programming for the arts needs in future is more of the same, more of the same mindset. Discussion sessions meet a very high standard. Comparing the news value of arts to sports, I dare say it is not the latter that has the more lasting value.

¿ (0910)

As for television, the shutdown of regional TV production has erased the recognition that used to be given to Canadian artists-in-waiting. The cost of classical music and dance and other theatre arts has apparently killed off what might have followed the fine fare we enjoyed in the seventies and eighties. I wonder why old tapes can't be born again in an apt time spot during each week or weekend. Radio is hard put to rivet an audience even to a string quartet, and can't compete as a spectacle. Maintaining a prime time spot on TV, in the way radio has done for choral music, opera, and classical discography, would hold a time open for new productions when and where they can be afforded.

I'll turn to the singularity of the CBC in a world perspective. It lies in a national voice tuned to a social and cultural mosaic. Our nearest cousin may be in Norway, but Norwegian kringkasting, having no enemies and no mosaic, has had an easier history. I'll consider nearer and tougher cases. I have three points.

First, in an age determined to drown special programming in a flood of under-dependable offerings for the channel surfers and babysitters of the nation, all national broadcasting systems are under threat from market forces. This threat is added to that from governments, which have found it convenient to discover they are cash-strapped.

These are times when school teachers have to claim the attention of a sea of TV and net surfers, bent for life to the ways of the attention deficit disorder. Even today, bringing the CBC back to a proper standard of funding would not, in itself, meet the deficit in public trust, which the last several governments have overseen.

My lifetime experience of serving a series of academic departments taught me you can't rely on lucky recruitment to build an intellectual community. It takes, above all, time and patience and bursts of magnetic creativity, which no one can rig in advance, to produce the collective voice that wants to be heard.

Secondly, the CBC has one strategic survival advantage in the overloaded market, which the new technologies have spawned. The CBC's edge will appear if you compare CBC with PBS in the U.S. and BBC in the U.K. Let us assume that each public broadcaster aspires to speak above the babble with the voice of reason.

The U.S. public broadcaster had its historic time of importance as a distinctive voice during the period of the Vietnam War. This was a trenchant voice of protest raised against that peculiar war-like involvement. In that perilous time, a voice that was not raised in trenchant support had a magnetic virtue. Politics was then, as now, a difficult study for U.S. broadcasters. To avoid arguing with its public, broadcast news can mercilessly push a story but never press an issue. The PBS never developed a distinctive voice on the one great issue, the unprovoked war.

On the cultural side, it had no competition and was able to find its own public. It's TV news hour introduced social analysis as part of the nightly scene, but its singular voice has been lost. Broad mindedness is not enough. Spin is “in” on the networks. It pays better. You can tell from the voice.

The BBC had to rethink when it lost its monopoly, but its positive response to the 1990s challenge is well known. The public broadcaster in the U.K. had always been highbrow. After World War II it had gradually siphoned off its less popular stuff to a special third program, but still maintained an educational aim yoked to a quite honest, and pointed, preface of entertainment.

Market forces came on, first as independent radio and TV. They were struggling against the imposition of monitored profit--profit standards built into the U.K. licensing. We know that BBC has managed to meet its part of the challenge and is still floating high. For TV, they have become expert filmmakers and exporters. With respect to social and cultural policy, they do continue to teach, where the CBC has wisely preferred to discover.

Thirdly, the CBC's advantage is that it never was comfortably elite and, equally, never depended on the collection plate. Radio matured in an open, competitive arena and now has a dual voice--one about here, one about what also matters. The decision to go for an arts news frame, not a teaching ethos, was brave and sound. In radio, the public that needs a Canadian voice can find one able to engage the mind.

As for TV, a few nice spots and a commendable news programming have survived the crunch. No search for a new identity is wanted when the funding does come back, just arm's-length public support and a time to recreate a new band of artists and artisans to give it back its Canadian voice.

If either audio or video were terminated or privatized, the potential to the CBC would be shrunk to trivial status. In the minds of the naysayers who do so despise the CBC, this has already happened. How else would you explain the Bank of Montreal spokesperson who would rather we lost our own currency? Or have we already lost our good name?

¿ (0915)

The Chair Mr. Park, thank you for your thought-provoking presentation, especially in regard to the CBC. We also appreciate the comparison you have made with PBS and BBC. The CBC, as you know, comes up in our hearings almost without fail. So we're glad you're adding your own thoughts to it, and we'll be happy to question you a little later.

But first we'll hear from Mr. David Helwig.

¿ (0920)

Mr. David Helwig (Individual Presentation): Thank you very much. My presentation is perhaps cognate to Mr. Park's, and in some ways no doubt we overlap, or at least come up against some of the same concerns.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the course of your deliberations you will have many people address you who offer detailed and specialized knowledge of various aspects of broadcasting policy. What I hope to do is offer a very brief discussion of the political values that lie behind some of the traditional Canadian policies in this area and urge you not to be too rapid in your embrace of change, or apparent change. What I say will probably not be new to you, but I think it is worth calling it to your attention.

A few years back when I was writing essays for The Globe and Mail, I made the observation that there are fashions in thought, and one that seemed to me to be current and dangerous was the tendency to regard politics as something to be got out of the road in order that the economy could take pride of place as the source of our most authentic values. Life is to be measured by the gross domestic product. Freedom becomes freedom to shop.

I thought then and think now that this is an error. It ought to be the other way around. A certain level of prosperity is necessary in order that we may put our concentration where it belongs: on being human and humane.

What is now called globalization, with its emphasis on large economic units in which trade is given the maximum amount of freedom with no regard to national borders, may be one version of the distortion of values that I wrote about in The Globe and Mail. National borders are political creations, embodiments of history, ways of defining a set of shared experiences. The economic activities of large institutions find these things alien, and it may be that the newer technologies buttress their position.

However, anyone who observes the stock market is aware that what was fashionable to believe about new technologies two years ago is now somewhat in question. There is no doubt we will be changed by technological developments, but those who predict what these changes will be are as likely to be wrong as to be right. And in the face of the unpredictable, one of the most important things we can do is define what we wish to maintain, and struggle to maintain it.

Most of us know and use the Internet, but that does not mean that we should abandon what we have believed in.

You will see by now the trend of my thinking and probably be aware that I am here to speak briefly to you in defence of the idea of public broadcasting, and particularly, in this part of Canada, the historic role of the CBC.

Private broadcasters are in business. We have made some rules for them about Canadian content, and some of these rules have had an effect, but inevitably to make a profit, private broadcasters must attempt to achieve the largest possible audience at any given moment. They're involved in mass communication and they must seek things that are easy, current, and fast moving. This can be very exciting, but there are values crucial to the health of a nation that are easily left behind: detachment, a studied objectivity, wide-ranging curiosity, the particularity of life in small regions, the community of interest of minorities.

In many parts of our lives we are all much of the time part of a minority: those who bowl, those who sing, those who pursue the tradition of native spirituality, those who do fine needlework, those who tie trout flies and practise catch-and-release fishing. To sell to the majority, these odd and specific bits of their lives need to be largely disregarded. It is the duty of public broadcasting to understand us as such varied, complicated, peculiar individuals.

Part of the genius of the late Peter Gzowski was that he seemed to be interested in everything and he could make anything sound interesting to his listeners. But these values--detachment, objectivity, curiosity, a wide range of interests--are more than a way of following the intriguing quirks of private lives. Plurality, variety, and the tolerance of unresolved contradiction are the soul of a healthy democracy. People in large groups are a mass, a crowd, even a mob.

Ask yourself, what is a mob? A mob is a group of people who are, under whatever influences, beyond complexity and contradiction. They have one mind. They know what they want and what they want is usually simple and vile.

Variety, plurality, contradictions that must be accepted, these are the source of a humane politics. In Canada we have not always achieved this humanity but we have made the attempt. In various of our institutions, including public broadcasting, we have created a public space in which this attempt can go on.

As a writer I've done a good deal of work for the CBC, and I've been grateful that they offer a place where one can try to be lively, thoughtful, and serious. This kind of seriousness, of course, includes many kinds of comedy. Having worked inside the corporation many years ago, I am all too aware of the problem of balance in the face of technological complexities and ideological assumptions. I watch and listen to the CBC, and as a member of their audience I have enjoyed the attempts of others to be lively, thoughtful, and serious.

Of course, none of us will always like what we see or hear. I've had a bone to pick with CBC management now and then. I've disagreed with what seemed to be their current assumptions. I have sometimes thought that in the struggle to be accessible they have opted to follow private broadcasters in the frantic pursuit of the upbeat. But those who value public broadcasting are sensitive to everything the CBC does, as we are sensitive to the actions of our friends. We expect a lot of them.

Your terms of reference asked me to say what, from my standpoint, the cultural fabric of Canada amounts to. It involves several things. To begin with, we love a country for the same reason we love a child: it is ours. Then, in the last 50 years, there has been a widespread development of interesting work in all the arts and letters in Canada, so the cultural fabric is no longer somewhat hypothetical as it might once have been but is a rich history of achievement that we don't want to lose.

Finally, and this is the one thing I hope you will chose to recall from this short, informal presentation, the cultural fabric of Canada has valued the public space, it has valued the importance of places where detachment, disinterest, objectivity, curiosity, the value of the individual and the minority are written in as part of the terms of reference. You are the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and there is perhaps no more important part of our heritage. I enjoin you to continue to bear in mind these values as you look at the state of broadcasting, and to defend them.

¿ (0925)

The Chair: Mr. Helwig, I think it was well worth our while coming to Prince Edward Island to hear you. Your rich prose is very uplifting. I think you have perhaps touched the nub of what we're about, which is to really go to the core of the values that broadcasting should express. So I think you have put us on a challenging path with your thoughts, and we really appreciate your presence here very much.

We'll open the meeting to questions.

Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay--Columbia, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, and thank you to Mr. Park and Mr. Helwig. I agree with the chair that you have given us a challenge.

I'm trying to sort out in my mind the very valued things that you have said against where you would expect, or perhaps we in Canada should expect, our politicians and political process to go.

Mr. Helwig, I would like to draw your attention to something you said that really caught my ear, because it struck me as being an extension, and perhaps it wasn't an extension... You said:

But these values, detachment, objectivity, curiosity, a wide range of interests, are more than a way of following the intriguing quirks of private lives. Plurality, variety, the tolerance of unresolved contradiction, are the soul of a healthy democracy.

Now, we're in sync at that point, but then you go on to expand. You say “People in large groups are a mass”. Then you extend that to “a crowd”, and then you extend that further to “even a mob”. You say, “Ask yourself 'What is a mob?'” So we've made a fairly good leap in about three steps there. Then you say:

A mob is a group of people who are, under whatever influences, beyond complexity and contradiction. They are one mind; they know what they want, and what they want is usually simple and vile.

I wouldn't imagine that you were implying that the people of Canada were vile or whatever when they expressed themselves in an election and expected their politicians to do the things they promised to do after being electing. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to help me work through your words.

¿ (0930)

Mr. David Helwig: Well, I think I perhaps elided one step in the argument, one I will go back and perhaps try to make more clear.

Yes, clearly, I have been moving from the point where the population is a group of individuals who, one at a time, go in and vote to the point at which a group becomes a unit. I think the point I perhaps missed, a point I've made in writing somewhere else, is that any group, any polity, or any population will to some extent tend to become the kind of group they're expected to be or they will respond to the way they are treated. That is, the population of Canada, or of any country, for example, the population of Bosnia, is in principle the same kind of complex group of complex individuals. But in fact the population of any country can potentially be under the stress of circumstance, and if they're treated in a certain way, they can be something less than complex in their responses.

I don't think that because we live across the Atlantic from, let us say, Bosnia, we are in principle absolutely free from the kinds of attitudes that led to such a disaster there. The significance of the mechanics and the tacit understandings of democracy are that they allow a population to be complex, to be plural, and to be the source of democratic, law-abiding actions. It seems to me that in a polity or in an economic or a cultural unit, any tendency that runs against the recognition of complexity leads gradually toward the point at which individuals vanish into the group. This is perhaps the step I had elided.

I've said that private broadcasting tends to be mass communication. It tends to look at the statistics for how many people are watching a given thing. Well, that's inevitably true in an economic situation. The eventual tendency of that is to treat human beings as units who are not complicated, free, odd, and unlike each other. Therefore, the assumption that human beings are statistically significant rather than individually significant leads toward the treatment of them as potentially a crowd or a mob.

Mr. Jim Abbott: I would like to get a sense from both yourself and Mr. Park... I appreciate your answer, but what I'm trying to drive at is this. Let's just intellectually accept an argument here, without getting into the argument. The premise is that there is not broad support on the part of the average Canadian for the CBC in its present form. If we can just accept that as a premise, for intellectual purposes, I would liken that to a situation in the constituency I come from, which is in the Rocky Mountains. It's a rural constituency with some of the finest big game hunting in the world.

Bill C-68, the so-called gun control bill, is just absolutely the worst thing the government could ever possibly have done. The argument I have to my constituents is that until there is a broad acceptance on the part of Canadians that spending $800 million on nothing.... Until there is that acceptance, we would be crazy to go to a referendum or try to take the will of the people of Canada to possibly overturn that law.

Just for purposes of our discussion, I suggest that we accept that there are a number of people in Canada who do not want to see the continuation of the CBC in its present form. You come to politicians, you come to the political process, which is your right. We invite you here; we want to hear from you. So you come and I basically hear you say that the political process should have the power to override where the majority of Canadians are, relative to the current format of the CBC.

What is your expectation? Should people who are elected by the people of Canada in good faith, who represent the people of Canada at the centre, say to the people of Canada in an elitist manner, “No, no, you're wrong, this is the way it should be”? Should politicians simply override the will and the wishes of the people of Canada in this or any other issue, as a matter of the politicians saying they know what's right?

¿ (0935)

Mr. David Helwig: You have raised so many questions of political philosophy that it is hard to give you a rapid and germane response.

First of all, as someone who lives in public life, you have probably learned never to answer hypothetical questions. I am not running for election, so I don't mind looking bad.

On the other hand, you offer me the hypothesis that the people of Canada don't support the CBC and then proceed to an argument on that basis. I don't know that it's true and I don't believe it's true, so I don't want to be drawn on the basis that I need to defend the CBC against a hypothetical majority opposition.

There is a relevant point in this, which is whether anything is important beyond the supposed wishes of a numerical majority. The answer is yes. We have history. We have the mechanics of our parliamentary system, not in order that we can check the arithmetical position of people to a question that can be stated at any given moment. We depend on the mechanisms of representative government, not on our assumptions about what this hypothetical numerical majority believes. That's why I made the point that we are all members of a minority. The majority, at any given moment, is just a bunch of minorities.

Certainly there is some question about which minorities should have the most power. We all have different assumptions about which minorities currently do have the most power, but arithmetical measurements, while in an election, count. If you're elected by one vote, you win. That is part of a whole bunch of mechanisms, which include what the Americans in their system call checks and balances.

So we are not looking at anything that can be stated in terms of this political group and this clear majority.

We have a history of public broadcasting. This has been with us for, what is it now, 70 years? If we want to change something that has been central to our polity for 70 years, then I think we want to look very carefully at why we are doing that. I don't think that a certain amount of probably comprehensible crabbiness by a certain number of people who are annoyed by specific things the CBC has done is a reason to do this.

If we were in Ontario, we might also be discussing TVO. I made the point that here what we have as public broadcasting is the CBC. Perhaps it would be nice if we had the P.E.I. Television Network, but we're not going to.

It doesn't seem to me that the way you have set up the question--here are some elite in politics and here are some real people who hate the CBC--is one on which I should be drawn. I do not think it is an accurate version of the history and present state of the country as I see it.

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Mr. Park, we have lots of time this morning, so if you want to intervene, feel very free. Don't be shy.

Mr. George Park: Fine. As I follow the discussion going on here, there are a number of points I brought up that I would like to elaborate on.

The first one would be that the bottom line in private broadcasting, and that's the alternative, is measured in numbers. We don't have an alternative between either the CBC or nothing; we have an alternative between the CBC and nothing but private broadcasting. It's quantitative and it's audience numbers. If the show doesn't catch on, you get to drop it. If the show needs shock value, you add shock value, and God knows, we have plenty of that.

Public broadcasting rises above this in a very simple and almost mechanical fashion, namely, that it seems to be unaware of the numbers. It seems to be able to defend to its management a program that they think is intrinsically good in a sense that I think David Helwig wouldn't accept. It's intrinsically good, so keep it on and let it find its audience.

Heavens, if you don't have time to find an audience, if you have to keep on shifting about from one formula to another formula, depending on what the competition is offering, you can't have policy. You can't be an agent of Canadian policy if you are always overthrown by issues.

I think the O.J. Simpson phenomenon is almost worldwide. Making an issue of something that sells is a disservice to the world. At least with public broadcasting you can find someplace on the dial where this disservice to the world is not to be found. That would be my major point.

The Chair: We'll come back to you, Mr. Abbott.

Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Helwig and Mr. Park.

This morning, it is a debate about ideas that bring us here and, as you can see, each has his or her own perceptions. First of all, I want to indicate that what you are telling us this morning has been said differently by various minority groups who want the CBC and Radio-Canada to go on, providing they comply with some criteria regarding the quality of their programs and news broadcast.

We were told that the budget cuts made at the CBC had a great impact on the quality of programs. Do you think that the cuts are to blame, or is it rather a tendancy in our society to make programs geared to a larger audience and to reduce the focus on cultural programs or on the reality of some minority groups?

¿ (0945)

Mr. David Helwig: I will speak in English, if you allow me.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: No problem.

[English]

Mr. David Helwig: The last time I worked regularly for the CBC was when I was living in Montreal in 1993-1996, so I've been at some distance from the CBC. The honest answer is, I don't know. I suspect perhaps the cuts in funding overlapped with a certain kind of nervousness.

Mr. Park has said that the CBC does not look at the numbers, but certainly when I worked there 25 years ago they did. They do see the broadcast numbers. When they are told--as they are by Mr. Abbott and others--there is understood to be a widespread opposition to the CBC among hypothetical members of the public, they inevitably become nervous, and therefore may tend to lean toward what I've called the relentlessly upbeat, in the hope of getting a larger audience.

Their problem is real. From the demographics, I gather the CBC audience is aging. People like me and Mr. Park listen to the CBC, and they have argued they need to find younger people. My stepdaughter, who is 22, pointed out to me the other day that most young people do not listen to This Morning because they're at work. People over 65 listen to it because they're at home.

So there are a great many problems for the CBC, in judging how popular they should try to be, what sort of popularity they might achieve, how populist to be in their approach, and how specialized to be in their approach. I would not arrogate to myself the wisdom to say precisely what they should do. I think they face very real problems.

I have not always been perfectly satisfied with their solution. It's interesting. The last program for which I worked regularly I believe is known today as The Arts Tonight. It's had different names. Not long after I moved to Prince Edward Island, when I was essentially too far off probably to work for it anyway, I noticed it moved from the supper hour to a time so late in the evening I would clearly have been in bed. I actually wrote to Alex Frame at the CBC suggesting--

Mr. George Park: The best time to listen to the radio is when you're in bed.

Mr. David Helwig: I can offer no response to that.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Jim Abbott: I guess he's enjoying the results of his age.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. David Helwig: Or not.

I think it was a mistake to shove an important arts program out of the central part of the day to a time when it became more and more peripheral. I wrote to the CBC, so it's no secret I thought that.

I honestly can't say I know the distinction between the budget pressure and the assumptions of the management. I'd think probably the two overlap.

And you will recognize that one of the many terrible problems the CBC has to face is that it is, of course, two networks, a French network and an English network, and each carries with it a set of assumptions, a set of political facts to be faced and a reputation.

I offer this, in the spirit of Mr. Abbott, as a hypothetical statement of something that I have heard, that the apparent dislike of our current Prime Minister for the CBC is dependent on what he has seen in the past as indépendantiste attitudes in Radio-Canada. I don't know if that's true, but to state it suggests just how difficult the CBC's situation is in dealing not only with all the problems of public broadcasting but with public broadcasting in two languages and two cultures.

So I acknowledge the problems, even when they annoy me, and certainly the budget cuts have had a lot of very real effects.

I'm not sure I can define in the area you spoke of.

¿ (0950)

Mr. George Park: Could I jump in?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. George Park: It appears to me that we are facing the possibility that a party can come into power in this country, a federal power, that represents a voice that is very Canadian, but also very far right, and I trust that that government would be fairer in tolerating the independence and the so-called liberal voice of the CBC than the current government has been. I trust that if the so-called far right came into power, they would be conservatives in the sense that they want to keep Canada a living, separate being from the rest of the political world, a true home to Canadians, and not move in the direction of pinching more. It seems to be fairly obvious that the cuts have had a disastrous effect on the television programming, as much in the arts as in the news.

But look at what happened to radio. Sunday Morning obviously was persona non grata in political circles, and Sunday Morning disappeared. Nothing has replaced it even remotely like the radio program Sunday Morning, which was an extremely important piece of the CBC's apparatus for talking across the mosaic spectrum of the different populations, regional, ethnic, and linguistic, which is its job. That's what it is there for. It's there for bringing us the voice in arts, as well as in politics, in sociology, unloaded sociology, non-didactic sociology, which we expect.

I have the apparently lonely experience of having being an academic all my life. Supposedly, I was sheltered by my ivory tower. What I can say is that it wasn't an ivory tower, but a very solid granite tower.

I really deeply appreciated the possibility to speak freely in the classroom. I did speak freely. I think I always spoke as fairly as I know how to speak. I think CBC reflects that kind of attitude toward broadcasting and toward the kind of information service that it can offer to the public, sometimes in magnetic form.

The public that we are looking at...I was very interested in Mr. Helwig's notion of public space. I think it's a very neat semantic package. I want to compare it to an analogous concept in anthropology called the “political arena”. “Arena” speaks very nicely of the situation you get whenever you get into political discussion in Canada.

How does the CBC skirt it? Obviously, it allows different kinds of people to write, stand behind, and give voice to different programs. We hope this would continue. But how can you possibly do it when you can't have a variety of programs? You're stripped down to basically one oft-repeated program.

While I think CBC news on television is as good as anybody's news, it's still terrible. Compared to the news we used to get on our extended programs, which were more cheaply and easily financed in radio, it's absolutely nothing.

Why should we always be fed the three—or is it sometimes five—stories of the day? Why can't we have a news program that tells us about how things are going in this world, instead of what happened yesterday?

¿ (0955)

[Translation]

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Gagnon, do you have any other question?

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I will yield to someone else and I will come back with some more questions in the second round.

Thank you very much, Mr. Park.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Harvard.

Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood St. James--Assiniboia, Lib.): Thank you.

I appreciate the comments of both of you. I come from a different part of the political spectrum from Mr. Abbott.

Before I get into my first question, I wanted to say, Mr. Park, that I think one will always be disappointed in television news, because television is held hostage by pictures and video. We simply have to take television for what it is. It's flawed in that way. It's good when it comes to some spectacular pictures. But to give analysis and deep background and context, it's very poor. Radio does a much better job; newspapers, magazines, and books do even better. I think we all make a mistake if we rely on just television for our information. Television can do some things well, but a lot of things not so well.

I wanted to respond to both of you--perhaps to Mr. Helwig mainly--because as a staunch defender of public broadcasting, I see public broadcasting really as a democratic meeting place. If it's done well, I think it's where our national lives are played out. It's always a swirl of ideas, emotions, feelings, and expressions. I think it really should reflect all of us, from the hermit in the Kootenays to perhaps a hobo found on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. I think that's what public broadcasting is all about. In a way, we're just watchers and listeners. I think something like Bill C-68 is irrelevant to public broadcasting.

One of the reasons why public broadcasting is rebuked from time to time is because there's something in us that chastises those things that we just simply don't like to hear. It's part of our national life, and if we don't like to hear it, we lash back. But in a well-functioning democracy, we accept that there are always going to be things happening, and ideas out there, that we are uncomfortable with. But you know what? That's just life. We have to accept that. I guess it's called tolerance. I think it's a very healthy tolerance in this regard.

My question really has more to do with practicality. If you and I agree...perhaps the only role we politicians have is to assure that these creative voices and creative juices always flow, that the best minds are allowed to do their work. I happen to believe that's what we as politicians should be doing.

I don't want to go into newsrooms. I don't want to go into the rooms of artists and artisans. That's their job. I just want to make sure as a politician that I have an institution, an agency, a radio network, and a television network where they can come and do their thing on behalf of Canada.

The question I have is, how do we as politicians perform that role? Do we just provide the money, build the infrastructure, and then just let them go?

À (1000)

Mr. George Park: I could speak a little to that.

Television is a slave to pictures: it has to present a spectacle. That could be one of its real strengths, and really, it doesn't have to be a drag. This could be one of television's real strengths because it's only by going into long-term, long-run interests, preparing things well in advance, that you can get these pictures and have them mean anything.

CNN provides all the spectacle you could want but no meaning whatever. CBC would be trying to produce meaningful work, more on the level of documentaries than on the level of news, and it can't do that without funding.

The answer is, if the CRTC is going to go so far as to intervene in the packaging of the money for the CBC, give them some money for that kind of documentary treatment of Canadian life.

The Chair: Mr. Helwig.

Mr. David Helwig: It's a difficult question and a very good one.

I think saying the kinds of things you have said in hearings like this probably help. Anything that creates a sense many of us at least hold in common, that is, a sense of the goals and aims the CBC should be reaching toward, is of some help. I do think there is one concrete thing. Inevitably, no matter what comes up, I'm sure as politicians you know people say that if you spent more money, it would be better.

One thing I do think about budgets, something that is more a statement of principle, is that long-term budgeting for the CBC is very important. I know they've asked for this, but I'm not sure of the state of things. I know there have been promises; I'm not sure the promises have been precisely kept, but I think that is in a sense a statement of principle.

How much money you give may be a practical question of, there's only so much and we have to divide it up. But to say, here is how much money will be there in five years and here's how much in ten years, and then to make sure that continues, this amounts to a kind of statement of principle. It's a statement that the politicians of the country believe in the principle of the CBC and have some sense of where it should be going and why it must continue to go there. That's the only concrete thing I have, apart from simply reiterating what you believe and what I believe.

I came here today thinking I did not have anything original to say, but thinking that, yes, it is worth saying over and over again.

In particular there's the business about economics and politics, which is something where the accepted wisdom has somehow altered in the last 10 or 20 years. Somehow we've found ourselves accepting this because some people repeated over and over and over again, we need freer trade, we must globalize, we must do this, the GDP must rise. All these attitudes were repeated, and it took on an appearance of truth simply because they were said so often. I think those of us on the other side have to now say over and over and over again, freedom is not freedom to shop.

À (1005)

Mr. John Harvard: I think political life is always herky-jerky. In the last few years we've become a nation of bean counters and philistines, and now I think we're discovering, at least some of us, that we have to react to this, that we have to get back to something far more important.

I think also that we politicians are always afraid that if we allow these institutions to do their best, it's always going to cost a lot of money, and I think it scares a lot of politicians, because when it comes to public broadcasting there is no doubt that to do it well does cost a lot of money. But then anything that is worthwhile is costly, and it's always a question of how much are we prepared to invest in our own national life and building what I think is the best country in the world. It's not an easy task, but I do think that in some ways we, the politicians, believe it's even more difficult than it really is.

I'm simply glad that we do have a lot of creative people out there who can do the job, as long as we understand that we are there as politicians just to provide some of the tools and then just let them do it. I think it'll happen.

Mr. David Helwig: I think the other point about all cultural matters in Canada is we have to keep realizing and keep repeating the facts of the country's geography and political makeup; that is, the fact that we have two languages and two cultures and the fact that we are geographically immense and very widespread causes these things, as you say, to be even more expensive.

Mr. John Harvard: Of course.

Mr. David Helwig: Supporting the principle of public broadcasting, in a way, is a lot easier in England where everything's close together. In Canada, the public space costs more because there's so much space to fill with it.

The Chair: Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or--Cape Breton, Lib.): I'd like to thank both gentlemen for their presentations today.

Since the hearings began, we've seen a broad range of presentations. Some are very specific and some are very measured and statistically driven. We've gotten some very strong anecdotal testimony. In Newfoundland, the day before yesterday, Greg Malone made the comment about Vicki Gabereau. And sometimes we think the change in the personalities has had the greatest impact on the quality of the programming, but the truth is that when Vicki Gabereau left, she had a staff of 12 researchers, and when Bill Richardson came in and took over that same time slot, he was left with two researchers. So certainly that's had a tremendous impact on where it is he can go with the program and the quality of his work.

Mr. Helwig, you've said that your views have probably been stated before, but I don't know if we've seen your views or your philosophy on the CBC stated as eloquently. I found that when you were reading I was saying, yes, that's it, that's what the CBC is. I was cheering you on over here.

So anyway, I thank you for the presentation.

I want to make a comment to Mr. Park. In your presentation you spoke about the threats to the CBC from market forces, and this threat added to that from governments, who found it convenient to discover they're cash-strapped.

Let's be realistic with this. It wasn't that they found it convenient to be cash-strapped. The fact is that through the mid nineties the country was operating with a $48 billion deficit and adding to an over $500 billion debt. So we were cash-strapped, and there were cuts made in all aspects, in all areas of spending of the federal government, and 45,000 federal employees were sent home, and all Canadians felt the impact of that. So it wasn't of convenience; it was reality.

I must say that I think this is the first time we've heard testimony that encouraged that the sustainability or the security of the CBC would be enhanced by hooking it to a horse that sort of turns right more than left, and that a right-wing government would have more care and more understanding about where the national broadcaster is going. So I'm going to ask that maybe you sort of further develop that.

À (1010)

Mr. George Park: What I was quietly suggesting was that Conservatives could be small-C conservatives--that is to say, they should be interested in keeping the culture alive. Since they would have so much more money to spend on good things because they would stop spending money on bad things in their idea--you know, like welfare--they would perhaps be willing to spend more money on the arts.

I honestly think that in this age, sitting at home as I do, I find that politics is pretty damned boring. I hate to say this to all of you people, because I know you find it fascinating, but I find it quite boring. I find the arts much more interesting. And I wouldn't mind if the CBC had less to do with capital news. Heaven knows, we've lost all respect for Parliament from the regular broadcasts of the hooting day, but we had already lost respect for parliaments everywhere. They're the same everywhere.

That's not the problem. The problem is policy. Insofar as policy runs deep, the CBC is a far better influence on policy than this CNN or the equivalent thereof in Canada. It's far, far better, because it does run deep; it runs into the social fabric of the country. If the CBC can make us more aware of our social fabric, then we won't have people with a little hobby horse to grind wanting to take charge of the general will in the name of shotgun freedom.

The Chair: Ms. Lill.

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you very much for coming here today and taking the time to talk to us about your concerns.

I'd like to ask you a couple of very concrete questions. I am interested in your experience with the broadcasting environment in Canada. What does it mean to you? You're sitting here on an island. How well are you served by public broadcasting, by private broadcasting? What is your experience of media concentration? You hear a lot about that. I don't really know who owns your papers, to be honest; I don't know how many you have. Would you say you're well served by your broadcasting environment? You can think about that and maybe you can answer that.

I'd like to know what kind of local programming you get here, whether the CBC has any local programming of substance left. You mentioned arts programming. David, you mentioned how it's now been bumped to the end of the day, late. We heard in Newfoundland that the local arts programming is on from six until nine in the morning, and they all think that's atrocious, because all the artists are just rolling into bed at six. They just can't understand why they would be so insensitive. So the idea is that there is no sensitivity when there happens to be local programming--that it's not sensitive to the locality.

This raises the other issue, which is that the word “local” is not written in the Broadcasting Act with regard to the CBC. They have no local responsibility, only regional, and many people feel that they're failing at that. So I guess the question I would like to ask you also would be whether you believe the word “local” and the concept of local should be written into the Broadcasting Act, and whether there should be resources and funding earmarked towards a concept of local programming, both at the public broadcasting and at the private broadcasting level.

Mr. George Park: I tried to speak to that very briefly, but as far as your questions go, I personally am not bothered much by scheduling, because I'm a writer too. I spend my day writing, and I don't mind spending some of my time listening as well.

Frankly, as far as the media go, the printed media on this island, I rely on the New York Review of Books and the TLS and the International Guardian. The local Guardian I don't read. I don't find it useful to have the kind of news about my local area. I've lived too long other places in this world, and I'm still interested in the world at large. So I am not fascinated, in other words, by local news. However, the local news in the morning, which I wake up with, does keep me in touch with the local society, and I really appreciate what CBC is doing on that local level.

This is terribly local, to have good radio, to have good little documentary stuff coming in, and while I frequently have to turn it off because I've had enough.... You can't be perfect, and sometimes their choice of music is incredibly bad, but that's my feeling, and obviously it isn't bad from the point of view of the rest of their audience.

So, heavens, local radio is fine. Local television here would be a mess. You couldn't afford enough money to...

But regional television made a lot of sense and has that local feeling, because we really feel here that we are part of Atlantic Canada, particularly part of the Maritimes, and whatever is going on here is of interest.

I spent 25 years in Newfoundland, so what happens there is local to me. It has a local face; that's what I mean. It belongs in the world that I'm actually living in face to face. So I appreciate radio very much. I don't see how local television could be good here, and in fact regional would obviously be better.

À (1015)

Ms. Wendy Lill: By “regional”, do you mean the Maritimes?

I should tell you that in Newfoundland in the 1970s and the 1980s, they had ten local programs coming out of St. John's--local to the area. Maybe you were there at the time. But they seem to be able to really cook with local programming, and I think Sydney, Nova Scotia, would feel the same.

I know Nova Scotia would—

Mr. George Park: [Editor's Note: Inaudible] —think Newfoundland is a small place, but I don't.

Ms. Wendy Lill: I'm just saying there are many places that would like local programming, and you're saying you don't think Charlottetown and P.E.I. as a province need any local programming.

Mr. George Park: I just don't make the distinction where you make it. I don't draw that line. To me, what we are dealing with is a voice that is here, not a voice that is out there. As far as I'm concerned, what is out there is very often happening in Toronto, Ottawa, or Vancouver. I like to know about this; I want to know about that. But it's not something I live with close by.

What I live with is what's happening here, and what's happening in Prince Edward Island is pretty much what's happening in the Maritimes. So it's just here versus not here.

Mr. David Helwig: Just to clarify one small point, the arts program I was talking about that was shifted to late in the evening was a national arts program, not a local one.

I'm not an Islander, and I hesitate to speak for the Island since I've only been here for six years. As you know, one has to be here for a lifetime to be a true Islander.

My impression is that in fact the CBC does a pretty reasonable job of covering what is local. On Radio One there is a local morning show and a late afternoon local show. I usually happen to be listening to Radio Two, so I hear them rather occasionally.

I have a small point in terms of budget. If you have somebody coming from the CBC, they can confirm this, but I know it because I know the individual in question. On more than one occasion, the executive producer of radio has had to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to be the early morning announcer because there is no budget for another announcer. When people tell you that the CBC is wasting money on this or that management position, you might point out that this particular manager is also getting up earlier to do the radio announcing. They have felt the budget cuts.

The problem with discussing the Island as an example is that the population is so small. It is a province, it is a unit, it is a unity, but the point that is being made here is that the question of what is local, what is provincial, and what is regional is blurred a little bit here. In P.E.I. clearly you need to have what may appear to be local broadcasting, but it is also provincial broadcasting. So the analogy between the locality here and the locality of Brandon, for example, is perhaps not a legitimate one. For that reason, I'm not sure that writing “local” into the act would make any significant difference.

At any rate, I think I've made my point, which is that so far as I'm concerned, given the limits of their budget, there is a serious attempt to cover local news. I get a lot of my local news from CBC's half-hour coverage at night. It gives me some idea of what's been going on. I do kind of like politics, but I am not a junkie.

I think the coverage of what is local is regional. There was a threat last year, as you may know, to do away with the local television news. There was a lot of objection to that. They brought together this sort of linked forum, which personally I like fine. Other people may not.

À (1020)

The Chair: Are there any more questions?

Mr. Brian Pollard (Individual Presentation): I know I haven't spoken yet, but I'd like to answer your question about local. May I?

The Chair: Why don't you address it when you do your presentation?

Mr. Brian Pollard: Will you remind me? I may forget.

The Chair: We'll remind you.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Thank you.

The Chair: If there are no more questions, I would like to thank both of you, Mr. Park and Mr. Helwig, for what has been an extremely challenging and lively session this morning. I think you have provoked us into a lot of deep thinking about values versus numbers and economic growth. It's been extremely useful for all of us.

What is nice is that Mr. Park has been extremely refreshing and forthright. We understand your views about politics, and I think they're shared by a lot of people. It's another challenge for all of us who belong to the world of politics.

Mr. Helwig, you said your value here today was to repeat a message you've carried forward time and time again. I'll echo Mr. Cuzner's words that you say it better than most, and certainly in beautiful and lifting prose, which really carries a special message to us. So we appreciate your presence very much.

Thank you for appearing here. We certainly will take your words very seriously.

We will now turn to Mr. Pollard. Mr. Pollard, I understand that you are an independent film producer here.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Yes, I am. And I apologize for the fact that I don't have a written presentation.

The Chair: It doesn't matter.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Okay. Shall I just launch into it?

The Chair: Yes, do launch into it.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Okay.

I have been making documentaries for a long, long time. I know the notion of passion is overused, but I guess you could say I've also been passionate about making documentaries for a long, long time, sometimes at the expense of the rent money and the grocery money, to some extent.

The Chair: You operate on the Island?

Mr. Brian Pollard: Always—local.

I'd like to backtrack a bit. I started at this back in 1973. I was very, very fortunate, because at that time I was at the right place at the right time, when the National Film Board had started regional production in Halifax. I was bringing my local stories to a regional production facility in Halifax, and then going to the National Film Board in Montreal in the early 1970s and working with all these extraordinary people. And when I say “extraordinary”, it was not so much the producers and directors, but all these wonderful technical people who were there to make your work as good as it possibly could be: the mixers, the sound recorders, the camera operators.

It was a tremendous atmosphere, where the craft of documentaries and filmmaking was critically important. I was so surprised, being a local person, going to a place like that, where all these people wanted to do was make your product as good as it could be.

Since that time, I have been not only passionate about telling ideas, but also passionate about the quality of the craftsmanship of what I do, if I may use a sexist term. And this is something that I've discovered somewhat accidentally in the course of making a lot of documentaries over a long period of time. I've discovered that my motivation, I guess subconsciously, in a sense, has been...there's a thread. Maybe every society is the same, but certainly in this country there's a thread of unrecognized genius that exists in this country. And you find it in the most unexpected places. As soon as you see it, you recognize it and you want nothing more than to tell this person's story. That's been sort of the story of my life, in a sense.

In terms of broadcasting, I find that it's not recognizing this kind of quality of Canadian life and culture that I see. I see a tremendous superficiality that exists. I also see almost a complete disregard for the craftsmanship and the quality of the productions that are being produced.

It almost sounds like I'm whining, but I'm not. I'm somewhat irrepressible. It doesn't matter what roadblocks people throw in my way, I bounce back and I make another documentary. Right now, for example—and I think this has some bearing on the kind of broadcasting that's done—I make documentaries full-time during the day and I drive a taxi at night, and I'm 55 years old. I have more energy for that kind of thing now than I had when I was in my twenties, because the work is getting better, if you understand what I mean.

The Chair: Not the taxi work, the other one.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Oh, the taxi work, yes, it's getting better too. Actually, I drove Mr. Helwig not too long ago in my taxi.

I'm doing a documentary, a three-part mini-series on the history of the Mi'kmaq. I've been tremendously immersed in a wonderful culture. I'm telling some stories of some very wonderful people, but what a struggle to get any broadcaster to even pay attention to the project—a tremendous struggle. But the thing is that I look back and I'm really glad that I made the choices I did. As a result of going down a lot of crooked roads, I think I'm a much richer person for it.

À (1025)

I think my experience, and the people I've told the stories about, and the existence of this kind of genius throughout this country, has to be told. The CBC should be telling the story, but it's not.

I think Mr. Abbott would agree with a lot of things I say, even though I think we're at opposite ends of the political spectrum. I would be inclined, for example, to say public funds should be cut off completely from broadcasting--even though the only way I get any money is from government; this is hypothetical in a sense--and let the talent emerge.

Right now I think a tremendous amount of money is being wasted on a lot of superficialities, even in public broadcasting--particularly in television, not so much radio. CBC Radio, I think everybody concurs, is wonderful. The Ideas program is extraordinary. In my taxi, of course, I get a tremendous musical education from CBC Radio One and Radio Two both.

Those tremendous, wonderful souls that exist.... I was thinking, as Mr. Abbott was questioning the people here, about why it's important to tell these stories. There's more of a gap between Mr. Abbott and me than there is between English Canada and French Canada, I think, culturally. I think if we sat down together and in some fashion were able to give expression to our ideas in a more forthright way, perhaps that gap--and I've experienced it dealing with people from western Canada, not just British Columbia--might not exist to the extent it does today.

I was very impressed with what Mr. Helwig said about living in a society of minorities. I'll use a non-Canadian analogy. I can remember going to New York City as a teenager and being in complete awe of the lights and the colour and the urbanity of the place, and then going to New York City later on as a middle-aged person and doing work there as a filmmaker, making movies in a place that was very much a centre of production. It occurred to me that New York City is very much a parochial city. Being in New York City is essentially like being in my neighbourhood in P.E.I. Even New York City is a city of neighbourhoods and little communities.

As a matter of fact, as one travels around the world, I think anybody who has travelled a lot starts to realize more and more that no matter where you happen to be on the globe, people are essentially the same.

Coming back to local programs, yes, CBC did have local programming. What they call local programming now.... I don't get time to watch much television, but their previous format had local programming that was unique to this country, I think.

It was local programming that had.... I'm sure they wanted more money, but certainly they had enough of a budget so that they could very much become involved in the culture, politics, economics--the whole gamut of the cultural life--of a community of 100,000 people. Those 100,000 people lived for that program. They had ratings that were unbelievable. Politicians couldn't get away with anything. Now, of course, they're down to a half hour and they don't have a budget. It's not the same thing.

I think “local” is such a very interesting phenomenon. The older I get, the more I think the local and the individual is the most important thing we're dealing with.

There are several essential problems, I think, with broadcasting and production. I would say the number one thing is not politics: number one is bureaucrats. There are too many people who don't understand the fine points of good work who are running the show.

What's happened as a result of budget cuts, of course, is that the most creative people are the first to go. The people who are left behind are more the administrators who don't really understand the importance of content and quality.

In terms of television--and once again I don't watch a lot of television--I think Newsworld shines in comparison with CNN.

À (1030)

In terms of the kind of everyday television that people watch, I think CBC is a tremendous waste of resources. I don't think it's a matter of funding. It's a matter of priorities, poor understanding of quality and content, and a lack of respect for local communities. I even said to the vice-president of the CBC, when he was here--at a get-acquainted session--that the CBC wasn't telling the kinds of stories that I see. I see great stories.

Perhaps I'll use an analogy about painting--and tell me if I'm talking too long or getting off track. I have a friend who's a very good artist, who I did a biography of. I think this is pertinent to Canadian thinking, and quite pertinent to broadcasting, even though it's about painting. We were talking about how there was a recent Group of Seven painting that was auctioned for $2 million. I forget the artist's name. The painting was of some mountains. We were sitting down having coffee and discussing this. I said that painting was just graphic art. He agreed, but said that nobody pays any attention to the Group of Seven outside of Canada.

We're stuck in kind of a mediocre groove in terms of our artists. We're not able to recognize the really super stuff that's happening here. While I talk about ordinary artists, there are also extraordinary artists too. I know some extraordinary artists--in the arts world, Wendy Lill would probably agree with me--who don't receive the recognition they deserve. Yet we're spending $2 million on a Group of Seven painting, which maybe had some relevance a long time ago but really doesn't stand the test of time or critical appreciation of what good art is.

À (1035)

The Chair: Could you perhaps give us some recommendations as to what our committee...? For instance, you alluded to bureaucrats running the show. I imagine that reflects your experience applying for funds from Telefilm and so forth. Have you got any specific paths you would like to direct us to, in connection with your work, from your perspective as a professional independent film producer?

Mr. Brian Pollard: Yes. These may sound like nebulous recommendations...You're never going to get 100%. Bureaucrats will always be there, and they'll always make decisions that you don't like very much. But I think in Canada now there's such a tremendous preponderance of that, it's just so overwhelming.

Strangely enough, it has been bureaucrats in places of influence—because they like my work—who have been able to pull strings that have enabled me to get projects off the ground that I might not otherwise have done. Peter Katadotis from Telefilm, for example, has been tremendously helpful to me.

Probably I can't answer your question immediately right now, but there has to be some mechanism to ensure that the people like me, who are on the street doing the work...

I'll use another example. When I first started working, the executive producers started out as filmmakers. Now executive producers begin as bureaucrats; they don't begin as filmmakers or creative persons. I think there has to be more room in the industry for decision-making being made by creative persons, in a nutshell. The creative person has to have more and more say in terms of production, or what gets made and what doesn't get made. Not to say that you can't have administrative persons, but I think the creative person is vital to the whole decision-making process, right from the very bottom to the top.

The Chair: Why don't we just open it up to questions. Then you'll perhaps be able to define more specifically your recommendations.

We've heard it's very hard for the smaller groups, independents and individuals, to apply for all these government programs because the application forms are so unwieldy and ponderous. It takes lawyers to help.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Before I started this project on the history of the Mi'kmaq, I said to myself, no more hoops.

When I first did projects for the National Film Board, you could put together a five-page proposal. Now the amount of paperwork you do is like this. I don't even have time to be here right now. Everyday when I'm in the middle of editing or trying to get this project off the ground, I get phone calls saying, send me a fax of this so you can get another $2,000. I do it because I believe so strongly in the project I'm doing. But as soon as I get this done, I'm going back to my taxi.

À (1040)

The Chair: That's a good way to start the question period. Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Mr. Pollard, I think perhaps you and I have more in common than both of us realize. I agree with you completely that there is not only a thread of unrecognized genius but also a lot of super stuff happening in Canada. We as Canadians have such a self-deprecating attitude toward ourselves, our place in the world, and our relationships with each other that frequently our sense of inferiority gets in the way. I think you and I are in full agreement on that.

In posing this to you I'm looking for suggestions from a creative point of view. One of the difficulties I have with the CBC, particularly coming from western Canada, is that they don't do anything to attack preconceived notions about the far right, as I heard this morning. For example, our current immigration minister chose to say that the Canadian Alliance was obviously the Canadian franchise for Le Pen. I'm not aware of there having been any attack on that specious and vicious slander on the CBC. Yet if it had gone in the opposite direction, I would be prepared to speculate that indeed there would have been an attack.

Mr. Brian Pollard: The answer is to come back with a response that is equally ridiculous and not take it so seriously.

Mr. Jim Abbott: We take it seriously because during the life of the current party and the previous party, the specious, vicious, and unfounded attacks have done us damage in areas such as Prince Edward Island. I see Chantal Hébert today in The Vancouver Sun and others coming to the attack and saying basically that a right-wing racist is a conservative who's winning an argument with a socialist.

What I'm looking for from a person such as yourself and through this committee is to perhaps give the CBC some idea of how they can provide a bit more balance, that these kinds of specious and vicious attacks would be set in their place in the same way they would set the record straight if the shoe was on the other foot.

Mr. Brian Pollard: I'm always dealing with the anecdotal. I think a cultural divide exists between, say, British Columbia thinking and this kind of eastern enclave we're a part of here, and it's much more profound than people realize. I think a lot of the problem is a matter of misunderstanding. We think we're so much the same but we're not.

One thing we do here a lot is laugh at our own expense, and we also trade insults with each other all the time. It's a game we play, and we get a lot of pleasure out of it. That's part of the culture here. What I've found is that not just politicians but people in the west don't understand that. Maybe they do it in their own fashion, but when I've tried to do the same thing with people from western Canada, I have found myself getting into extreme difficulty, even offending people in the process.

I think probably the people of the prairies are not as right-wing as people make them out to be. Because there is this kind of tremendous cultural divide and nobody has made any attempt to explain the differences between you and me to the rest of the country, this misunderstanding persists. That's why public broadcasting is so essential. We're a community of minorities. We need to have good public broadcasting. It's essential. If we don't, I don't know.... I would move to Europe. If we didn't have public broadcasting in some form, I couldn't stand to live in a country where it was all commercial radio and television and media. I would find it completely intolerable.

What I'm saying is that the CBC has to spend its money more effectively, and not only have respect for quality programming but also look to the so-called minorities and what they call “the regions” for their ideas.

À (1045)

Mr. Jim Abbott: But haven't your comments really underscored the fact that the CBC is failing in exactly the area you're talking about?

Mr. Brian Pollard: It is, absolutely, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of it. It should change.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Yes, well, icebergs melt too.

Thank you.

The Chair: Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Thank you very much for your remarks.

Having worked in the area of film production and distribution, I know that it is always difficult to find funding and support for our works. Would you say the situation has got worse in the past ten years, or is it getting better thanks to more sophisticated technologies? I would like to hear your reflections about the evolution of new technologies and their impact on creation. In your view, is it positive or is it more of the same? Has the situation improved somewhat?

[English]

Mr. Brian Pollard: I grew up making films, working physically with film and the kind of quality one derives from working with film. So for me, the transition from film to video was sort of like going from owning a Maserati to driving a Volkswagen. Being a person who is in love with quality, I found that video didn't stand up in terms of quality, but I'm finding the newer digital technology really fascinating.

Once again, it is more difficult to raise money. One really has to love what one is doing to go through the process. I have no credit rating, I have no money, I have nothing. When I get to make a documentary, you wouldn't believe the strings I have to pull. I should say I'm also the victim of bureaucratic difficulties that most persons in the broadcast industry might not be victims of. Some of my problems are also concerned with certain political decisions and things I have done over the past ten years. In some respects, my situation is unique. Yes, for sure, it's much more difficult.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: If we decided to have a regional fund in order for the regional expression to be heard, should this fund be distinct from a general fund that would be allocated by the CBC? Would that help you to find some funding for your more local productions, giving a greater voice to the regional expression?

[English]

Mr. Brian Pollard: I agree with the local notion, but it should not be strictly to local audiences. We should have respect for regional productions, and it should be very much considered making productions for national viewing. I don't know if that answers your question.

For example, the early days of National Film Board regional production were so important because we were making our programs as local persons but for a national audience. The more that happens in this country, the more interesting it'll become. We're in a really interesting country. Right from east to west, it's a tremendously interesting country, but with the exception of CBC Radio, none of the broadcasters are reflecting the quality of this place.

À (1050)

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Here is my last question. You are saying that you cannot find funding for your productions. Perhaps that for you, to be able to sell your product and to have it broadcast is not a question of market. I know that some 15 or 20 years ago, it was a reality for independent producers. Is the situation still the same today?

[English]

Mr. Brian Pollard: When you say a market, do you mean a broadcaster?

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Yes.

Mr. Brian Pollard: To some extent, having channels like Vision and Bravo has been a big advantage to people like me, for sure. For example, no matter what people say, CBC has a distinct prejudice against regional programming, in terms of putting it on the national network. I've received tremendous reception from Bravo, and the only reason I'm now working on this project, which is so interesting, is because Vision is a broadcaster. But in terms of getting mainstream broadcasters, it's probably even more difficult than it was.

The Chair: Mr. Harvard.

Mr. John Harvard: Mr. Pollard, who's sponsoring the project you're currently involved in?

Mr. Brian Pollard: It's a licence with VisionTV, Telefilm, and two or three other sources.

Mr. John Harvard: Have you ever done any work for the CBC?

Mr. Brian Pollard: I've done a little bit. There was one program called Canadian Reflections, and that was a good kind of avenue into CBC broadcasting. As you probably know, the key to getting film funding is that once you have a broadcaster, everything else pretty much falls into place.

Mr. John Harvard: So the key is to find a broadcaster.

Mr. Brian Pollard: That's the number one thing, for sure. So having some of the cable stations has made it easier to get projects off the ground.

I make things for the long term too. In some ways, I'm more interested in what happens after a documentary is broadcast. I also like the kind of lasting educational use these products have. The fact I may have an audience of a million people on one night and then the product is forgotten about doesn't interest me nearly as much as having a product that is used over and over again in classrooms--educational uses and that kind of thing.

Mr. John Harvard: I think all of our public institutions, including public broadcasting, should always be under close scrutiny and accountable. I think that's part of the democratic process. But from time to time, or perhaps all the time when it comes to the CBC, we're too harsh on the corporation. When we see things we find fault with, we even question the need for the institution at all. You even said that in your remarks, and you're a supporter of the CBC. You said at one time perhaps we should just cut off all the funds altogether. I think you were alluding more to television than radio.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Yes.

Mr. John Harvard: I've always thought it's interesting, because when it comes to the private side of things, the faith is never lost. In the last couple of years Nortel has just fallen to pieces, people have lost hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but the faith in free enterprise, in the free markets, or in capitalism is not lost. We've had Enron in the last few months in the United States--same thing--but nobody loses the faith, and I'm not suggesting they should. It's just the way the reactions are so different. The CBC makes one little false step, and oh, my God, let's just bring the institution down.

The question I wanted to ask you is, even if the CBC could get to a point where it never wasted one red cent--one red cent--how would that change your life? The CBC, like any institution, is going to have its bureaucracy, and bureaucracies are not unlike politicians: they have to make decisions. Those decisions that go against you, you're not going to like; those that go in favour of you, you are going to like. That is a fact of life, just about as much as the fact that the sun gets up in the morning and goes down in the evening. If the CBC were to become this rare creature that never wastes any money, how would that change your life as an independent film producer?

À (1055)

Mr. Brian Pollard: That depends, of course, and it's not necessarily the fact that they're being wasteful. I suppose that if the CBC were a corporation that had respect for its audience, then maybe I would--

Mr. John Harvard: What do you mean by that? You may not know it, but I spent 18 years in the CBC, so maybe I have a bit of a bias. I actually have more bias in favour of public broadcasting than I do for the CBC--if you can draw the distinction. I don't remember in all my 18 years at the CBC that we ever had disrespect for the audience or contempt or whatever.

Mr. Brian Pollard: I don't know if contempt is the right word, but I don't think the CBC cares about its audience a lot. Or maybe the CBC doesn't know who its audience is.

Now, for example, Mr. Helwig mentioned that the executive producer had to get up in the morning and become an announcer. Big deal. As a craftsperson I know what you can do with a bit of resources as to the kind of quality you can get. I look at the kinds of resources and budget the CBC has, and they aren't reflected in the kind of program they produce. Their budget cuts have been massive, but I really don't think, from what I've seen at the CBC, that there has been that much of a change in terms of what they produce.

Mr. John Harvard: Do you think private broadcasters have more--

Mr. Brian Pollard: I have no respect for private broadcasters, no. I find it pretty much intolerable. I really think the CBC needs an overhaul. I want public broadcasting to work. I desperately want it to work, but it's not working now.

For example, the very first documentary I made, and that was in 1974, is still being used; it's in distribution. I would say that since that time the work I have done has certainly been of equal quality, but with the CBC's attitude, to get my stuff on CBC is next to impossible.

Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Lill.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Thank you very much for coming here today.

What I'm hearing from you is that you're not that different from hundreds of other independent filmmakers in the country, small, independent filmmakers who aren't hitched up to a larger film company and who are trying to make a living doing the kinds of films they want. Documentary films are very difficult, and they have limited audiences, unfortunately, and there are only certain places you can sell them.

You've given us some ideas about what could help you, but you've said a couple of times that the CBC has a lack of respect for local communities and that they're not showing the kinds of stories you want to see. In a way you're going after the public broadcaster as a possible market. This is a possible place where you could and should have your material shown, but you don't.

Mr. Brian Pollard: That's right.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Very specifically, what kinds of recommendations do you want us to make on behalf of small, independent filmmakers in this country so they can get their material out there and seen by audiences, and make a living? That's number one—you want to be able to make a living from your art.

Á (1100)

Mr. Brian Pollard: When I talk about broadcasting, when I say I'm critical of the CBC, I'm not even thinking of it in terms of a personal market for me. I'm thinking more in terms of what a public broadcaster can do to this country to make it more interesting.

How one does this is a very good question, because it's not the sort of thing that has an easy solution or a bureaucratic solution. What it has to do with is trying to come to terms with what is good quality. Who are the people who are making the good programming?

For example...let's assume for a second that I'm one of those persons. How do you get me into the mainstream? One of the problems with that is that with any doors you open up for that kind of thing, you're also probably going to attract an awful lot of stuff that isn't very good.

So how do you set up a mechanism by which not only the established people who are doing good programming but the people who have potential...? How do you determine that? I'm not sure I know, but I think it probably is a principal solution to the kind of public broadcasting that exists.

Ms. Wendy Lill: When you talked about your early days at the film board.... I remember Donald Brittain was considered the guru of documentary filmmaking, and he trained many, many people. I actually took some training from him myself.

I guess one of the things you're saying is that there used to be a National Film Board that was a training ground and a place where people could cut their teeth into film and move on in whatever direction they wanted. What role does the film board now play?

Mr. Brian Pollard: That's important, and I happen to think that I'm a result of a long continuum of expertise. I'm a benefactor of a very long tradition of Canadian documentary filmmaking, and it's been passed on from generation to generation. It's not just the artsy-fartsy types like me, you know, but the technical people and the people with a lot of wonderful skills. And what happened was the whole thing was abruptly disconnected, and there is no connection now with those earlier traditions.

So, yes, I would almost think, if it's not too late, bring back some of those people.

I still consider myself to be an aspiring person, even at my age. But bring back some of those people, even if they're in retirement, and reconnect with that tradition. That's one possible solution.

The Chair: Mr. Pollard, just to close, could I ask a couple of questions?

Yesterday we heard from a Mi'kmaq filmmaker and producer, Catherine Martin. Do you collaborate with her on your project, considering that she has made several films on the Mi'kmaq?

Mr. Brian Pollard: The arrangement I have now... I'm working in partnership with another aboriginal person whose name is John Joe Sark. It's an aboriginal company. Essentially, I'm lending my expertise and telling a Mi'kmaq story.

The Chair: Okay.

In answer to a question from Mr. Harvard, I think your words were that you desperately wanted the public broadcasting system to work.

What would you do in regard to the CBC that doesn't happen now? Do you have any specific suggestions or recommendations to us? You've referred to the CBC quite a few times in terms of where it's failing. What would you do differently if you had the choice today and you were at the CBC?

Mr. Brian Pollard: Assuming that it's possible to determine who the best creative persons are, I think I would do my darndest to make sure there was much more creative input in the decision-making of programming in the CBC.

To give you an example--and I think once again this reflects... and not many people would even think this shows a lack of respect for an audience. But look at the CBC program On The Road Again, where the guy travels around and meets all these people. I find that program really offensive, because there are all kinds of people doing very interesting things in this country, but what they try to do is let him belittle these people. He makes them look a little bit wacky, and that's why it's interesting. It's almost as if in this country you're either part of the mainstream...

Find the creative people, look for the real stories, and have much less bureaucratic influence--those are the three things, I think.

Á (1105)

The Chair: Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: At the outset you mentioned three problems, and I wrote down bureaucracy and then I wrote down CBC, but I don't believe I heard or understood the third.

Mr. Brian Pollard: It's the craftspeople like me, the people who are good at our work and who like quality programming, who like to make programs of quality.

Mr. Jim Abbott: I'm sorry, how is that a problem?

Mr. Brian Pollard: We're not being heard. We don't have any influence on what gets on the air.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Okay. So the problem, if I might rephrase it--and see if you agree--from your perspective is that the people who are crafting the communication have difficulty in access, period?

Mr. Brian Pollard: Completely, yes.

Mr. Jim Abbott: All right. Good. Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Pollard, we would like to thank you for appearing this morning. I think you said that if your current project fails, then you will be a taxi driver full-time--

Mr. Brian Pollard: Oh, no, I didn't say that.

The Chair: I thought you did.

Mr. Brian Pollard: No, no, I said I'll be glad when it's over; I'll be able to go back to my more relaxing work.

The Chair: Oh, I see. Well, I hope you succeed with your project so that you can relax full-time for a little while and do some more creative work.

Mr. Brian Pollard: Let's hope.

The Chair: We hope. We wish you all the very best, and thank you very much for keeping the flame of culture alive despite the difficulties. Thank you.

Mr. Brian Pollard: It's my pleasure.

The Chair: I just want to mention to members, if you'll give me half a second, that some of the people who were coming this morning have asked to come in the afternoon instead. The clerk has just distributed an agenda sheet for this afternoon where you will see we have quite a full schedule for this afternoon of four different groups of witnesses. We should start at one o'clock sharp, because we'll need all the time this afternoon to deal with our changed agenda.

The people who were going to appear this morning from this point on are going to appear this afternoon. We're going to break so you'll have time to call your offices, relax and have lunch, and come back at one o'clock.

Ms. Wendy Lill: I'm wondering about Eastlink. I see that Eastlink was supposed to be here, and they didn't--

The Chair: No, we heard this morning that Mr. Bragg.... We've tried many times. Ms. Fisher told me he decided he couldn't come, which is very unfortunate.

Ms. Wendy Lill: It is.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.