:
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Thank you for your interest in CBC/Radio-Canada.
As the chair mentioned, with me this morning is Patricia Pleszczynska, who is responsible for our regional services at Radio-Canada, and in particular, our services to francophone minority language communities, and Shelagh Kinch, who is responsible for CBC English services in Quebec.
I would like to begin today by talking about three things. First, the measures we announced on April 10 to balance our budget for this year, and what effect that will have on our services. Second, our new conditions of license, which reflect our commitment to minority language communities. Third, the choices we must face in developing our new strategic plan.
By now you have heard about the cuts we have had to make this year, of a total of $130 million, mostly due to market-related pressures and fixed cost increases. This will mean the elimination of 657 full-time equivalent positions. We will also have to incur an additional one-time payment of $33.5 million to cover severance for these job losses.
All of that is on top of the $390 million in financial pressures we have had to manage since 2009, first because of the 2008-2009 recession, then the deficit reduction action plan, the elimination of the local program improvement fund (LPIF) by the CRTC, salary funding freezes by the federal government in five of the last six years, including this year, and reductions in Canada media fund funding.
You will find a detailed breakdown of the current job cuts by service and by region in your folders.
[English]
As you've heard, we will no longer compete for the broadcast rights to professional sports. Our amateur sports coverage will be reduced, and future coverage will only be done on a break-even basis. These are two examples of the kinds of choices we've needed to make in order to balance our budget for 2014-15 while trying to protect our three strategy 2015 priorities: Canadian programming in prime time, service to the regions, and investment in digital. However, this time around we couldn't protect them completely. The numbers were simply too big and our margin for manoeuvring too thin from the cuts we've had to make since 2009.
Let me give you an idea of what that means for our regional services. We've had to cancel the rest of our regional expansion plans, including a radio station that we had planned for London, Ontario. CBC's ten-minute late-night newscast in the north has been eliminated. CBC weekend TV news in Calgary and Edmonton will be consolidated into one regional newscast. CBC Radio's local afternoon show from Thunder Bay and Sudbury will now be a single regional program. On Espace musique, our daily regional morning program that currently broadcasts from 11 communities will be replaced by one single network program. Quelle histoire!, Radio-Canada's daily network TV program from Ottawa-Gatineau, has been reduced from 90 to 36 episodes.
In your folders is a more detailed list of all the programs that were affected.
[Translation]
These are all difficult cuts to make. Not only are we losing incredibly valuable talent, we are reducing the programming we provide to Canadians. However, despite what you have just heard, our focus on the regions remains. We made the decision to protect our existing footprint. This means that we are not closing any stations or bureaus as we strongly believe that we should be delivering programming that originates and reflects the whole of our country.
Let me explain the background for that choice. Funding from the local program improvement fund was essential to helping us enhance our television services, particularly for francophone minority language communities. When the CRTC eliminated the LPIF, the logical decision would have been to cancel all regional programs supported by the fund. Instead, we took resources from elsewhere within our corporation in order to protect regional news, seven days a week, from all of our stations.
However, to keep our commitment to news, we canceled all non-news programming in the regions, programs like Caméra boréale, (out of Regina), which was produced by five young video journalists who told their travel stories throughout northern Canada to francophones across the country. We also had to reduce the number of regional productions for the network show Tout le monde en parlait. LPIF funding from 2010 to 2013 supported the production of 20 shows from francophone communities outside of Quebec, such as La cloche de Batoche, (Winnipeg), La Sagouine, (Moncton), and L'école de la résistance de Penetanguishene, (Toronto). Unfortunately, with the new season, which starts on May 6, only one regional documentary, Le monstre de Pont-Rouge, (Quebec), will be aired onTout le monde en parlait this year.
Our commitment to the regions is also reflected in our new CRTC conditions of license, conditions that we continue to meet. Radio-Canada's seven regional stations serving francophone minority communities will offer at least five hours of local programming a week, on average over a year. In Montreal, CBC will offer anglophones 14 hours of local television per week, including one hour of non-news programming.
Our conditions of license require us to hold consultations with francophone minority communities in each of these regions: Atlantic Canada, Ontario, western Canada and northern Canada. In fact, Patricia has just returned from our western consultation, held Tuesday in Edmonton. I invite you to ask her questions.
But let us be clear.
[English]
The challenges we are facing are severe. All conventional television broadcasters are struggling with declining revenue, as advertisers are shifting their money to live programs like professional sports, and, increasingly, to online. For CBC/Radio-Canada, our commitment to Canadian programming is much more expensive to produce and broadcast, particularly in prime time, than what the private broadcasters are doing, which is mainly simulcasting American programs.
This then brings up our funding model. Among the 18 most important international public broadcasters in the world, CBC/Radio-Canada now ranks 16th in terms of our level of per capita funding for public broadcasting. That's third from the bottom. Again, you have that chart in your folders.
This puts in plain sight the fact that we've received no permanent increase to our base budget since 1973. As I keep reminding everyone, we still don't have access to a credit line to manage our cash flow, or situations like the one that we lived through in April. The steps we just announced will balance our budget for this year, but that's not enough. That doesn't work. We simply can't be in a position where we have to keep cutting the public broadcaster every second year in order to balance the yearly budgets.
We've begun the work for our next strategic plan, the one that will take us to 2020. We'll have more to say about that at the beginning of the summer. But I can tell you right now that we have to make some very difficult choices about what kinds of services Canadians will expect from us and what we can deliver to them. In this context, we will need to do less.
[Translation]
In 2020, we need to be a smaller and more focused public media company, one that is more agile and can adjust as the media consumption habits of Canadians change. But we still need to live up to the spirit of the mandate that we were entrusted with more than 75 years ago: to inform, enlighten, and entertain.
In many ways, I think you can see our future when you look to our recent coverage of the Olympic Winter Games. In Sochi, we reached over 33 million Canadians in 17 days. More than 10 million Canadians—one in three—followed the Olympics on computers, tablets and phones, consuming about 14 million hours of video content offered live and on demand. Our French and English services worked together to maximize our resources. We partnered with other broadcasters. We used the latest technology to deliver a unique personal experience to every Canadian, while simultaneously bringing Canadians together to celebrate our country and the performances of our athletes. I believe that moments like this demonstrate the best of CBC/Radio-Canada. This is what we strive to give Canadians in the future.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, we would be pleased to take the committee's questions.
:
Mr. Godin, there are various aspects to your comments; let me start with the mandate set out in the Broadcasting Act.
Today, I wanted to highlight the fact that, each time a decision is made at CBC/Radio-Canada, the goal is to provide Canadians with services that will live up to the three verbs I mentioned. Those verbs are contained in the act and they influence us in the way in which we deliver our services: to inform, enlighten and entertain.
I did not tell you that we are going to continue to do that as if nothing had happened; quite the contrary. In my remarks, I said that, for the moment, given the cuts we have just made, we are greatly reducing the programming we provide to Canadians. The goal of the public broadcaster, of the two senior managers with me today and of all the other members of our team, remains to meet the expectations of Canadians.
With that background, I am telling you today that the environment in which we are working is very complicated and the cuts will force us to deliver less programming to the Canadians who listen to us, watch us, and use our services. However, I can assure you that the objective of each of the decisions we make remains to fulfill our mandate.
:
Your question contains a number of smaller ones. Let me start by telling you about our Canadian listening and viewing audience. In that area, we are doing quite well.
First, BBM has just announced the market shares from its winter surveys. Radio-Canada's are up everywhere. With the Sochi Olympics, we got almost 10 extra points.
I could give you a long list of our quality programs from Unité 9 and Les enfants de la télé to Les Parent and Mémoires vives. I could give you the numbers of people who watch them. That is the result that Radio-Canada has on television.
I could also tell you about the importance of our radio services in the regions. There is little or no advertising, except for Espace musique, and no revenue comes from our radio. I mention that because a part of your question dealt with revenues.
Let me talk about CBC now. CBC also has had significant and very successful flagship programs that have attracted Canadian viewers. The Olympic Games were a great way for us to combine our resources with those of other private broadcasters and to meet the objectives we told Canadians we had: a reasonable offer to win the rights, an intelligent financial model and a return on investment for Canadians.
In that kind of environment, according to the CRTC statistics that have just been published, there is no doubt that advertising revenue is down for all broadcasters. That is the case for us as it is for private broadcasters like CTV, Global and TVA.
We are moving towards digital and specialty channels. That is why, three or four years ago, all broadcasters, both public and private, came before various committees and the CRTC to make the case that a price had to be paid for the signal. I think that everyone is aware of the famous battle over the value of the signal. However, our arguments did not win the day.
All that long story is to get you to understand that, in this environment, advertising revenue is down and that, despite the quality of our offerings, our financial model is under pressure, as it is for all broadcasters.
:
Mr. Lacroix, you have talked about your mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, and also about the drop in your revenues. It is all true, we understand, we have all the documents. The fact remains that choices have to be made.
Here is my first question for you. Do you not feel that, given your commercial choices, which often mimic those of private enterprise and its flood of deathly boring entertainment at prime time—I am one of those looking for information—CBC is somewhat moving away from its original mandate?
Should you not be using other productions instead? For example, on French Radio-Canada, we never get to see programs produced in other provinces. This week, I heard a report on Radio-Canada about transportation problems in Toronto. I think that was the first time. I was happy because I told myself that it was not just Montreal that has problems; Toronto has even more. But that was the first I had heard of them.
Sometimes, programs in French are shown in other provinces around noon or 2:00 p.m. when no one is watching television. But never in prime time.
So perhaps our disagreement lies with the choices, especially for OLMCs, for minority groups. They are poorly served, by radio or otherwise. Are there other choices you could make?
Let me continue with my questions and then you can answer them together.
Choices are also made as the result of a vision. When Ron MacLean talked about French-speaking referees, Radio-Canada did not react. Does that not reveal a kind of vision that goes with some of the choices that Radio-Canada makes?
Indeed, it's about choices, as you mentioned. For some time now we have been hearing minority francophone communities tell us that they need to be represented in a more regular, more sustained way on our airwaves.
Over the past year we have put in place a three-point strategy.
The first point was a structural strategy that consisted in separating the Greater Montreal branch from the national branch. That may seem trivial, but in fact it is not. It really allows us to ensure that we align the priorities of programs for Montreal audiences, Montreal being up to a certain point a region like any other, even though it constitutes the biggest francophone region of the country, and the priorities of national programs whose mandate is indeed to reflect the whole of the country. That separation of the two branches had direct repercussions on the programs. For instance, this made it possible to create a radio program like L'heure du monde and give a new mandate to Culture club, a cultural program on the radio. Those are all things all of our regional stations can do to strengthen the links with their community.
The second point of our strategy was a new approach, a new positioning for our news and information. We have to reflect our country. I will give you an example. You say you heard some news from Toronto. In fact, we provide frequent news bulletins from all of the regions of the country. The number of regions we cover has increased over the past year, precisely because of the addition of two national reporters, one in Alberta and the other in Acadia. Their role is to contribute directly to the Téléjournal that is on at 10 o'clock. We have had on-the-ground RDI teams for several years now. The contribution from the regions to RDI is constant I would say, regular, and represents about 33% of our programming. Moreover, some citizens had told us that they had issues with the 10 o'clock Téléjournal. Thanks to the addition of those reporters we have been able to increase our representation of the regions.
At the last CRTC hearings some communities asked the CRTC if we could impose a certain quota on Radio-Canada for the Téléjournal. The CRTC deemed that this was not a good idea, editorially speaking, and we support that. In fact, we can't regulate the number of news items. Be that as it may, I would tell you that with the addition of those two journalists, our representation of the regions on the Téléjournal has now gone up to 14%.
The third point of our strategy is really our capacity to create, in compliance with that philosophy of reporting on the whole country, contact points among all of the citizens, to tell stories about the country, but from the perspective of a specific region. Let's take, for instance, the withdrawal of Canadian soldiers from Afghanistan. If that had happened two years ago, we would probably have been reporting from Valcartier since it is close, we go there regularly and there is a good team of journalists in Quebec who cover Valcartier on a regular basis. However, we chose to do a news report with Sylvain Bascaron, our new reporter in Alberta, from Edmonton. Our new philosophy allows us to tell viewers about the country and tell stories that concern all Canadians, but from different locations in the country.
:
I have a couple of things to say first.
The mandate comes from the Broadcasting Act. The CRTC also enforces the mandate on CBC/Radio-Canada. When I sat in front of the chairman and the CRTC in November 2012, the first thing that the CRTC chairman said when he looked at us was, “We expect you to deliver a wide range of programming to Canadians that basically informs, enlightens, and entertains them. Please go ahead and show me how you're going to do this”.
This was an environment which had a number of actors in it. Over time that has changed. Yes, increasing revenues is key. To be able to increase revenues, you need levers. The levers that we have—and that was my hint of a few minutes ago—are limited to the conventional advertising environment.
Conventional advertising, as you know, has been eroding. When this mandate was drawn, you didn't have 742 different channels on your satellite beamed into your home in 1991. You had a very specific number of broadcasters. There were a very specific number of platforms on which you actually showed television or listened to radio, and the number of players were not integrated like they are now.
That was the model. That was the model that funded us over the years. Revenues started moving on the digital piece, we adapted to that. As you know, we have a very, very strong presence in digital, but we don't have 52 speciality channels like Rogers or Bell to take revenues and actually support the conventional network. Hence, the conversation we had a few years ago with value for signal, and how important it is. Because, as you know.... Do you have a cable or a satellite bill, sir?
Mr. Lacroix, I'd like to thank you for providing us with this chart. When I look at it, the majority of these countries listed here—notably Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and the U.K.—are some of the most competitive economies in the world. I think these countries' governments are conscious that a well-informed population and increased transparency help an economy in general, and help it become more competitive.
When I look to CBC programs like the fifth estate and Enquête, these are programs that uncover corruption in our country, and in doing so help our economy. More locally to me, we have journalists like Mike Finnerty of CBC Montreal, who asks difficult questions of Quebec politicians and tries to get people engaged in the public process.
In this context, it's with sadness that I look at these cuts and at the miscomprehension of successive Liberal and Conservative governments about the value of a public broadcaster, noting, on the flip side of this, that at the very time of the explosion of channels you mention, and the explosion of media in the nineties, you have a $400-million cut from the Chrétien government.
I just have to commend you on the amazing adaptations you've made over the years. That you're still standing, that you're still providing services to Canadians around the country, I just shake my head; I commend you for the incredible adaptations you've made.
I must pass to my questions here, the majority of which will go to Ms. Kinch.
Can you give us the details, Ms. Kinch, of the cuts that will affect CBC Montreal?
:
In Montreal, naturally, we have a more urban focus on the English-language minority community. We have many special projects that you've probably heard about if you listen to Mike Finnerty, in which we specifically target the issues and concerns for that community.
In Quebec City, we have two programs. We have Quebec AM, our morning show, and Breakaway, our afternoon program, which address the issues of the English-language-speaking community across the province.
We also have a reporter in Sherbrooke, so that we have somebody available in the Eastern Townships, where we have a larger English-speaking community. We have a travelling journalist. We have a journalist who travels throughout the province and tells stories that are clearly of interest to our audience.
As well, we go on remote as often as we can. It's very important for us to get out into the community and to talk with the community itself. Recently, our Quebec City bureau went to Baie-des-Chaleurs and did a remote there. Three weeks ago, I think it was, we were in Lennoxville for Quebec AM, and we did a remote show. Actually, it was more than three weeks ago, because it was around the election. We went down to Lennoxville to do a remote show there to talk about the issues and the concerns during the election.
We're constantly finding ways to reach out to our audience and really speak to them on a more one-to-one level as well.
:
The funding models to which CBC could have access involve changing the model for everybody who is in there, because if you decide that we have access or a different access to the Canadian media fund, you're immediately impacting everybody else who has access to that fund.
If you decide that we are going ad-free, and let's say that the public broadcaster should be going ad-free, that's $250 million to $300 million a year. We give that back to the privates and the privates then have access to those advertisers and we don't. How are you going to then allow the public broadcaster to get those dollars back in a stable way? Is it going to be a government incentive, is it going to be a tax on your television set as in the U.K., or is it going to be something on the new Internet providers so they'll have to pay some portion, as they did in Europe--in France and in Spain--a portion of some line in your P&L? All of these are available, but they involve having an open conversation and rethinking the whole of the model. This is not only a CBC/Radio-Canada situation, but is one in which we're directly involved.
When we went with the private broadcasters and sat for the first time—frankly, for the first time in our history, Mr. Williamson—with CTV and with TVA and with Rogers, we told the CRTC that this makes no sense, that value for signal is going to be important for the conventional broadcasters to live. That was a very strong signal.
Keith Pelley,who heads Rogers, was in front of the CRTC on the license renewals of Omni and of Citytv two or three weeks ago. The numbers he threw at the CRTC as to how much money they were bleeding on their conventional networks, he said, showed that this is not going to work and that the next people who were going to show up in front of the CRTC—CTV and Global—were also going to tell the CRTC that their conventional model doesn't work.
This is why this is something that needs to be addressed. As an industry, we're there, we're involved, and we're stuck in the middle. We don't have the platforms that the other broadcasters have, nor the integration that they have to support the conventional broadcaster.
:
I want you to understand the point I am trying to make. We are two peoples that have to get along, and these comments are inappropriate and don't help keep us united. It's unfortunate we had to wait for someone to retire to no longer have to hear their comments against francophones. We saw what just happened in the United States sports world. The league did not wait for that 80-year-old man to retire before doing something about his behaviour. That's all I will say about this, since we have other fish to fry.
As this is the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I want to discuss programming cuts again. I am looking at the table you submitted to us. Cuts in regions with official language minority communities are hurting us. Nothing further needs to be said about this, as you know what is happening and understand it. A Radio-Canada group, which includes Céline Galipeau, even sent a letter that states something along these lines:
Over the years, we have perfected and reinvented our methods in order to become more efficient. However, we are reaching a breaking point. These cuts will definitely affect our programming and our news bulletins.
It's clear. People can see it, and they know how much the cuts are hurting.
Let's look at the table you distributed and see what groups are affected. In Saint John, New Brunswick, one francophone is affected, but no anglophones. In Moncton, seven francophones are affected, but no anglophones. In Victoria, one francophone is affected, but no anglophones.
Let's now consider the overall cuts. On the anglophone side, at CBC, 334 positions are being eliminated. On the francophone side, at Radio-Canada, 323 positions are being cut. Among the 33 million to 35 million Canadians, there are probably 8 million francophones, but the number of francophone and anglophone positions cut are the same.
I want to make sure that you understand my point. I didn't want there to be any cuts at Radio-Canada. My anger, my defence of Radio-Canada and my opposition to the cuts are due to the fact that this is my favourite television station. That's what I watch. That's what we in Acadia care so much about. Without Radio-Canada, we would have had precious little. This means that I really care about it very much.
However, I see an imbalance in these cuts. Doing away with seven francophone positions in Moncton will hurt the programming. I could spend all my floor time stressing how much that imbalance in the cuts made by the crown corporation is hurting us.
Céline Galipeau, a very respectable individual, and 17 others who signed the letter said that they are reaching a breaking point. Are they wrong? Are they not telling the truth? Is that not what the future holds? Your duty is to defend the crown corporation. You are trying to do two things at the same time. On the one hand, you are in charge of a crown corporation. On the other hand, you are complaining about the government cutting part of your funding, which comes out to $29 per person, while that amount is higher in other countries. That really hurts. The situation is bad, not only for Radio-Canada, but also for Canada's public broadcaster as a whole. Where is all this headed?
:
I will start with that.
Mr. Godin, the table does indicate that seven positions will be cut in New Brunswick. However, I don't want to start saying that five positions are being cut in Toronto or elsewhere. In fact, they are many more than that. An important point about the environment we are currently facing is that the cuts will hurt CBC/Radio-Canada. Cuts of $82 million are being made at CBC, and the Radio-Canada budget is losing $42 million or $43 million.
The number of positions affected is indicated. You say that practically the same number of positions are being cut on the French side and on the English side, and that seems like an imbalance to you. However, that is explained by the production models and the choices we are making. For instance, at Radio-Canada, we do more production in house.
Don't forget that 60¢ on every dollar invested in CBC/Radio-Canada is used to pay wages. If we have to make these kinds of cuts, full-time positions will clearly be affected. We don't have machines that make glasses or chairs. Our employees are highly talented individuals involved in programming. On each dollar invested, 60¢ is used to pay wages.
I want to come back to what you said. I remind you that the cuts at CBC amount to $82 million and those at Radio-Canada amount to $42 million. We are talking about significant cuts. I repeat that we have a very broad mandate and are increasingly underfunded. The mandate will be negatively affected by that lack of funding. However, we think that our mandate is behind the cuts we are making.
When Patricia sits down with Louis Lalande, who tells her that she needs to come up with x millions of dollars and asks her how she will do that, she takes into consideration the minority communities and the regions. The same goes for Shelagh. Maybe she can talk about the process that leads to these decisions.
:
Ms. Kinch, in a moment I'm going to ask you to confirm if these 10 job cuts in Quebec are the only ones that will be made, but before I do that, it being May 1, I want to note one worker in particular who is today out of a job, who is Pierre Landry.
Pierre Landry in CBC Montreal is a man who announces important cultural happenings in Montreal. He just recently won the ADISQ cultural columnist of the year award. Mr. Landry was a man who promoted francophone music to the anglophone population of Quebec, bridging the gap between the solitudes, and Mr. Landry's contributions go directly toward the mandate of promoting official languages. Anglophones in Montreal are largely employed in the cultural sector, and this cut, this loss of Mr. Landry on the airwaves, will harm our community.
I can just tell you the voice of the people, Kelly Greig, says:
Huge hugs today for @PierreLandry. An amazing reporter, mentor, deskmate and friend who I had the honour of working with on @cbcHomerun.
Nicolas Boullé states:
Sad to hear that @PierreLandry will be no longer the culture reporter of Homerun on CBC.
Emily Skahan comments:
Crushed to hear CBC terminated the BEST person they ever hired. No one cares more about the artistic integrity of Mtl than @PierreLandry.
And then there's Steve Faguy, who asks:
So who, other than Pierre Landry, is getting laid off from CBC in Quebec? I'm making a list.
[Translation]
I will go on:
All my thoughts go out to @PierreLandry a former colleague from @MusiquePlus whose position was cut at CBC. You did a good job, good luck!
[English]
Steve Rukavina notes:
I couldn't believe this when I heard it...anyone who listens to CBC knows you are one of the best we have...these cuts hurt.
Tanya McGinnity says:
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? NO. Not pierrelandry. He's a cultural icon here in Montreal.
And Steve Rukavina continues:
Just unbelievably sad to be losing dedicated, friendly, fun colleague Pierre Landry to cbccuts.
This is just to put a face.... We're talking about numbers here in committee but there are people there who have contributed to the mandate of CBC who are losing their positions today and will continue to lose across the country, and that's going to harm our community in Montreal.
I could keep going on and on with the tweets, but Ms. Kinch, can you confirm to us that these 10 cuts will be the final ones to be made to English services in Quebec?
:
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, again, for the opportunity.
I feel the need to raise a couple of issues in light of the support you have from the official opposition in particular about the importance of the CBC. Particularly after Mr. Godin's comments with respect to asking you to effectively censor one of your on-air personalities, I'd be curious to get your comments.
My view is that if there is indifference to the CBC across the country, it's because at best you're a network that appeals to only half of the nation.
Mr. Nicholls just read off some tweets from May Day. If we wanted to have this meeting yesterday, on tax filing day, I could have read off some tweets from outraged taxpayers when it comes to their tax bills and a desire not to pay.
I'd like you to comment a bit. One of the issues I have with the CBC is my concern that while you're committed to a diverse workforce, you don't seem to be committed to a diversity of opinion within your news gathering and your on-air commentary. I think until you resolve that, there's, at best, going to be broad support for the CBC in half of the country, and, frankly, indifference in the other half of the country.
I'd invite your comments.
Thank you.