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Providing Content in Canada's Official Languages

Please note that the Official Languages Act requires that government publications be available in both official languages.

In order to meet some of the requirements under this Act, the Commission's transcripts will therefore be bilingual as to their covers, the listing of CRTC members and staff attending the hearings, and the table of contents.

However, the aforementioned publication is the recorded verbatim transcript and, as such, is transcribed in either of the official languages, depending on the language spoken by the participant at the hearing.

                   TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
             FOR THE CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND
                 TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

                TRANSCRIPTION DES AUDIENCES DU
                 CONSEIL DE LA RADIODIFFUSION
             ET DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS CANADIENNES

                       SUBJECT / SUJET:

              REGIONAL PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON THE
           CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (CBC) /
                CONSULTATIONS PUBLIQUES SUR LA
                  SOCIÉTÉ RADIO-CANADA (SRC)

HELD AT:                                TENUE À:

Hilton Windsor Hotel                    Hôtel Hilton Windsor
Ontario Room                            Salle Ontario
277 Riverside Drive W.                  277 Prom. Riverside O.
Windsor, Ontario                        Windsor (Ontario)

March 18, 1999                          Le 18 mars 1999

tel: 613-521-0703         StenoTran         fax: 613-521-7668

Transcripts

In order to meet the requirements of the Official Languages
Act, transcripts of proceedings before the Commission will be
bilingual as to their covers, the listing of the CRTC members
and staff attending the public hearings, and the Table of
Contents.

However, the aforementioned publication is the recorded
verbatim transcript and, as such, is taped and transcribed in
either of the official languages, depending on the language
spoken by the participant at the public hearing.

Transcription

Afin de rencontrer les exigences de la Loi sur les langues
officielles, les procès-verbaux pour le Conseil seront
bilingues en ce qui a trait à la page couverture, la liste des
membres et du personnel du CRTC participant à l'audience
publique ainsi que la table des matières.

Toutefois, la publication susmentionnée est un compte rendu
textuel des délibérations et, en tant que tel, est enregistrée
et transcrite dans l'une ou l'autre des deux langues
officielles, compte tenu de la langue utilisée par le
participant à l'audience publique.

                          StenoTran

                 Canadian Radio-television and
                 Telecommunications Commission

              Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des
                télécommunications canadiennes

                  Transcript / Transcription

              Public Hearing / Audience publique

              REGIONAL PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON THE
           CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (CBC) /
                CONSULTATIONS PUBLIQUES SUR LA
                  SOCIÉTÉ RADIO-CANADA (SRC)

BEFORE / DEVANT:

Barbara Cram                            Chairperson / Présidente
                                        Commissioner / Conseillère

ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:

Rod Lahay                               Broadcasting Planning
                                        Services / Service de la
                                        planification de la
                                        radiodiffusion

HELD AT:                                TENUE À:

Hilton Windsor Hotel                    Hôtel Hilton Windsor
Ontario Room                            Salle Ontario
277 Riverside Drive W.                  277 Prom. Riverside O.
Windsor, Ontario                        Windsor (Ontario)

March 18, 1999                          Le 18 mars 1999
                          StenoTran

                              ii

            TABLE OF CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIÈRES

                                                          PAGE

Presentation by / Présentation par:

Mr. Wayne Lessard                                            5

Mr. Joe Comartin                                            12

Mr. Carl Idzinski                                           19

Mr. Richard Roberts                                         24

Ms Marjorie Willms                                          29

Ms Marilyn Gray                                             32

Mr. Mel Gilbert and Ms Mary Gilbert                         36

Ms Marnie McIntosh                                          43

Mr. Lynn Girty                                              52

Mr. Floyd A. Brown                                          59

Mr. James McMillan                                          64

Mr. Tom Henderson                                           68

Mr. David Harrison                                          77

Mr. Harvey Bondy                                            81

M. Jacques Kenny                                            84

Pastor Tom Collins                                          89

Reply by / Réponse par:

Ms Miriam Fry                                               96

                          StenoTran

                              iii

            TABLE OF CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIÈRES

                                                          PAGE

Presentation by / Présentation par:

Mr. Earl Amyotte                                           103

Ms Patricia Blonde                                         105

Mr. Ronaldo Agostino                                       109

Mr. Mark Lefebvre                                          116

Mr. Kendall McKinney                                       123

Mr. Mathew Clark                                           129

Mr. Colin Farquharson,                                     133
Mrs. Dina Jones and
Ms Melanie Jones

Mr. Mike Rogers                                            137

Mr. Conrad Reitz                                           139

Mr. Ted Wheeler                                            150

Mr. Vito Signorile                                         157

Ms Veronika Mogyorody                                      161

Mr. Chad Grant,
Mr. Damian Porter and
Mr. Tahric Finn                                            165

Ms Barbara Cunningham                                      170

Mr. David Nitschke                                         175

Mr. Trevor Price                                           178

Reply by / Réponse par:

Ms Miriam Fry                                              187

                          StenoTran

                             1

 1                        Windsor, Ontario / Windsor (Ontario)
 2     --- Upon commencing on Thursday, March 18, 1999,
 3         at 1300 / L'audience reprend le jeudi
 4         18 mars 1999, à 1300
 5  1                    THE CHAIRPERSON:  Good day, ladies
 6     and gentlemen, and welcome to this public consultation
 7     on the CBC.  My name is Barbara Cram and I am a
 8     Commissioner on the CRTC.
 9  2                    We are here to gather your views and
10     comments on CBC radio and television.  In your opinion
11     how should the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation fulfil
12     its role in the coming years.
13  3                    Nous sommes ici pour recueillir vos
14     points de vue et vos commentaires sur la radio et la
15     télévision de Radio-Canada.
16  4                    Comment croyez-vous que Radio-Canada
17     devrait remplir son rôle dans les années à venir? 
18     Voilà le genre de questions auxquelles nous voulons
19     entendre vos réponses.
20  5                    The CBC is a national public service,
21     broadcasting in English as well as in French.  It plays
22     an important role in the Canadian broadcasting system.
23  6                    Today many elements are constantly
24     being added to the broadcasting system as new
25     technologies multiply, converge, open up new horizons
                          StenoTran

                             2

 1     and increasingly offer new services.  In this context,
 2     we want to know what are your needs and expectations as
 3     viewers and listeners of the CBC.
 4  7                    Given that it is very important that
 5     the Commission hears what you have to say, we must not
 6     lose sight of the fact that the CRTC is a public
 7     organization that serves Canadian citizens.
 8  8                    In this capacity we are responsible
 9     to you.  This is why my fellow Commissioners and myself
10     find it vital to come and meet with you to discuss
11     these issues and why we are holding this series of
12     regional consultations from one end of the country to
13     the other in 11 Canadian citizens from March 9 to 18.
14  9                    These consultations are designed to
15     give you a chance on the eve of the new millennium to
16     express your opinion on the CBC's role, the programming
17     it offers and the direction it should take at the
18     national, regional and local levels.
19  10                   Through these consultations we hope
20     to enter into a new dialogue with you and to hear your
21     comments.  Your comments will form part of the public
22     record which will be added to the record of the public
23     hearing on the CBC that will begin in Hull on the 25th
24     of May.
25  11                   At this upcoming hearing the
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                             3

 1     Commission will examine the CBC's application for the
 2     renewal of its licences, including radio, television
 3     and its specialty services, Newsworld and Reseau de
 4     l'information.  You can also take part in that public
 5     hearing by sending your written comments to the CRTC. 
 6     If you wish to do so, please remember to refer to the
 7     specific licence renewals being examined when you file
 8     your comments.
 9  12                   Now, I would like to come back to
10     today and the consultation.  Allow me to introduce the
11     CRTC staff with me today, Mr. Rod Lahay from our
12     Broadcasting Planning Service.  Please feel free to
13     call on him for any questions you may have about the
14     process today or any other matter.
15  13                   So that you will all have the
16     opportunity to speak, we ask that you please limit your
17     presentation to 10 minutes.  As these consultations are
18     a forum designed especially for you and we want to
19     listen to as many participants as possible, we will not
20     ask any questions unless we need clarification.
21  14                   At the end of the session,
22     representations of the local CBC stations will have a
23     chance to offer their views, as they are naturally very
24     interested in what we are discussing here today.
25  15                   Before we start, I will ask Mr. Lahay
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                             4

 1     to go over some of the housekeeping matters regarding
 2     the conduct of this consultation.
 3  16                   MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 4  17                   I have said this before, but I will
 5     say it again and I think everybody has already checked
 6     in at the front on the outside.  If you have not,
 7     please do so to make sure you are in the correct room
 8     because we have a corresponding consultation going on
 9     next door.
10  18                   To reiterate Commissioner Cram's
11     comment about the 10-minute presentation, we do ask
12     that you please try to keep them to that time, if
13     possible.  The Chair will call breaks at certain times
14     this afternoon.
15  19                   We will be calling a group of 10 to
16     start with, so the first 10 people that I call please
17     come forward.  Feel free to sit anywhere at this front
18     table.  We will be taking you in the order that I call. 
19     And if you wouldn't mind, please remember to announce
20     your name prior to speaking so the reporter can get on
21     the record who is actually saying what.
22  20                   And if you are here today as an
23     observer, but you do not wish to participate, we have
24     comment sheets on the outside at the front desk.  You
25     are more than welcome to fill out any comment you wish
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                             5

 1     on those sheets.  We will take it back to the
 2     Commission and it will again form part of the public
 3     record.
 4  21                   The first 10 people, Emilio
 5     Bisceglia, Wayne Lessard, Helen Campbell, Joe Comartin,
 6     Carl Idzinski, Richard Roberts, Marjorie Willms,
 7     Marilyn Gray, Mr. Mel and Mrs. Mary Gilbert, and Marnie
 8     McIntosh.  Please come forward and we will start, 10
 9     minutes per person, with Emilio Bisceglia.  The first
10     person, Emilio, please.
11     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
12  22                   MR. LESSARD:  Good afternoon.
13  23                   I want to thank you for coming to
14     Windsor.  My name is Wayne Lessard.  I am the Member of
15     Provincial Parliament for Windsor Riverside.
16  24                   I came from just down the street with
17     Joe Comartin from the picket lines for the CBC
18     technicians.  I want to, first of all, commend them for
19     taking the stand that they have for a fair and just
20     contract settlement, but I also recognize that the
21     struggle they are involved in is for more than just
22     that.  I believe that it really is in defence of
23     regional programming as well.
24  25                   And we are no strangers to this
25     struggle either.  I recall in 1991 when the CBC decided
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                             6

 1     that they were going to close our Windsor station, the
 2     people in this community were incensed with that
 3     decision and I was part of a massive demonstration of
 4     public support at that time.  We led a protest of 8,000
 5     people down to the CBC station and the result of that
 6     was that the CBC changed their mind and re-established
 7     local programming, but I believe that that is under
 8     threat once again.
 9  26                   I urge you to make it part of your
10     decision today, that CBC not be permitted to abandon
11     its responsibility to our community and its
12     responsibility for regional programming, especially in
13     southwestern Ontario.
14  27                   As you can see, if you look right out
15     the window from here, our neighbours in the United
16     States are less than a mile away.  We are smack dab in
17     the centre of the midwestern United States and because
18     of that we are really subject to the domination by U.S.
19     media interest.  Really, I believe that it's the
20     presence of a healthy a vibrant CBC that is essential
21     to promote and protect our Canadian cultural identity
22     in a market where it is more common for us to hear the
23     temperature in Fahrenheit, the distance in miles and
24     traffic reports respecting interstate highways that
25     lead into downtown Detroit.
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                             7

 1  28                   Because of our proximity we share
 2     much with our United States neighbours, but we are not
 3     Americans.  I believe that the media has an obligation
 4     to promote our apartness from American reality.  Our
 5     national purpose, our vision statement, so to speak, is
 6     really set out in the British North America Act and
 7     that is for peace, order and good government.  I
 8     believe that this is something that needs to be
 9     entrenched in the licensing requirements, not only of
10     the CBC, but also in the licences of other broadcasters
11     as well.
12  29                   I believe that we are really in
13     danger in this area of being dominated by large United
14     States broadcasting interests.  Having said that, I
15     think that the strikers at the CBC are also leading a
16     struggle in defence of public broadcasting generally.
17  30                   Since the Liberal commitment of full,
18     stable funding in the 1993 election campaign, we have
19     seen the CBC operation slashed by about $400 million
20     and that has led to a loss of over 3,000 employees.  It
21     has also led to a loss of service for Canadians.  I
22     want to say in the most strong way possible that I
23     disagree entirely with those who are calling for the
24     privatization of the CBC or the end of public
25     subsidies.  I do not support the idea that the private
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                             8

 1     sector can do for Canadian public interest something
 2     that the public CBC can do.  There is no evidence to
 3     support that the private sector would promote public
 4     interest, Canadian public interest.  This is really the
 5     mandate of the CBC.
 6  31                   I believe as well that the airwaves
 7     in Canada are public property.  It is like the air that
 8     we breathe.  It's like the water that is flowing down
 9     the Detroit River outside the windows here and we need
10     to recognize that.
11  32                   There was once a time when our
12     federal government recognized this and that they took
13     steps in order to preserve the airwaves as public
14     property.  In fact, the CBC station in Windsor was once
15     owned by RKO General and they were required to release
16     that ownership to meet the foreign ownership
17     limitations.
18  33                   We also had a government that was so
19     concerned about the concentration of ownership in the
20     media that they commissioned a Senate report.  I
21     brought it with me as well.  They appointed Senator
22     Davey in 1969 to do this report.  As a student at the
23     University of Windsor in communication studies, part of
24     our studies was to review this report.  I think that a
25     couple of the things that were in this report from
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                             9

 1     almost 30 years ago are worth reiterating.
 2  34                   It starts out by quoting an American
 3     jurist, Hugo Black, where he said:
 4                            "The widest possible
 5                            dissemination of information
 6                            from diverse and antagonistic
 7                            sources is essential to the
 8                            welfare of the public.  A free
 9                            press is a condition of a free
10                            society."
11  35                   That's a quote from Justice Hugo
12     Black.
13  36                   In the introduction it goes on to say
14     that the more suggestions there are from below, the
15     better will be the decisions made at the top.  This
16     assumption is not limited to parliamentary democracies. 
17     The big trouble with this assumption, the notion that
18     media diversity equals higher quality is that it
19     happens to be in flat defiance of economics.  More
20     voices may be healthier, but fewer voices are cheaper.
21  37                   Really, as an elected representative,
22     my concern is that the CBC must exist as one of our
23     public resources so that we can promote and protect not
24     only our national identity, but the political process,
25     the democracy that we enjoy here in this country as
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                             10

 1     well.  I don't want to see the situation that we are
 2     seeing happening in the United States right now as we
 3     speak.
 4  38                   I was reading earlier today in
 5     Rolling Stone magazine from this month about the
 6     passage in 1996 of the federal Telecommunications Act
 7     in the United States.  What that has led to is the sale
 8     of 6,200 commercial radio stations in the last few
 9     years and to the point where it is expected with an
10     impending amalgamation between Chancellor Media and
11     Clear Channel Communications of a radio network of 915
12     stations.  That's not a route that I want to see us
13     going down in Canada.  I would urge that to be
14     reflected in your decision as well.
15  39                   I want to say to you, or say to the
16     current government through you that they need to either
17     support the CBC or have the courage to admit what is
18     actually happening.  What I see is that it is being put
19     to death by a thousand cuts.
20  40                   The current labour dispute is the
21     direct result of government funding cuts.  The timing
22     of that dispute and really the timing of these hearings
23     are curious indeed.  I think that it has given big
24     business writers and the right wing an opportunity to
25     call for the demise of the CBC as we know it.  The loss
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                             11

 1     of viewers and listeners resulting from this labour
 2     dispute will no doubt be used as further evidence to
 3     advance these suggestions.
 4  41                   But I want to say in conclusion that
 5     we abandon those things that provide us with our
 6     national identity at our peril.  We live in a large and
 7     diverse nation and one of the things that I think binds
 8     us together better than many is the CBC.  We need to do
 9     what we can to protect that and we need to ensure that
10     it is given an opportunity to take advantage of
11     opportunities that arise in the future where we see
12     satellite dishes, the world wide web and digital TV and
13     high definition TV, see the fragmentation of our
14     markets.
15  42                   I think that CBC needs to be able to
16     take advantage of those opportunities, provide itself
17     as a feasible alternative to those large private sector
18     media interests and the strength of our culture really
19     depends on the ability of our public institutions to be
20     a creative alternative that is interesting, challenging
21     and thought provoking.
22  43                   I thank you once again for giving me
23     this opportunity to participate.
24  44                   THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
25     Mr. Lessard.
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                             12

 1  45                   Mr. Secretary.
 2  46                   MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 3  47                   I would like to go back to the very
 4     first person on the list.  Emilio Bisceglia.  Are you
 5     present?
 6  48                   Helen Campbell, please.  Helen
 7     Campbell.
 8  49                   Joe Comartin.
 9     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
10  50                   MR. COMARTIN:  Thank you, Madam
11     Chair, for the opportunity, as with Wayne, to address
12     you on this occasion and to participate as we go into
13     the next millennium trying to save the CBC.
14  51                   The thrust, it seems inevitably as we
15     finish this millennium and start into the 2000 one, is
16     first to maintain what we have in the CBC and then, as
17     I see it, obviously to augment the programming that we
18     receive from them.
19  52                   Mr. Lessard has made extensive
20     comments about the history of what happened in Windsor
21     when we lost the TV station for a period of time.  Of
22     course, we have never regained the entire programming
23     that we had prior to that loss.
24  53                   I don't want to spent a lot of time
25     on this at this point because I know Howard Pawley, the
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                             13

 1     former Premier of the Province of Manitoba is going to
 2     be addressing you later in the day and he is going to
 3     be spending some more time on that.
 4  54                   From my personal perspective, when we
 5     lost the CBC-TV station at that time, it was like a
 6     withdrawal from an addiction.  I really say that both
 7     with a bit of humour, but also with a great deal of
 8     sincerity because I have been reminded of it, and with
 9     the current strike on I think a number of us have felt
10     compelled to boycott the TV station and the radio
11     station here, both in English and in French.  I am
12     feeling those same pangs of withdrawal because we don't
13     get in this community anywhere near the same
14     perspective, both in terms of quality or in terms of
15     accuracy, on local news, national and international
16     news when the CBC is not operating at its full
17     capacity.
18  55                   Let me just give you one example of
19     how the mirror that CBC gives us is so significantly
20     different than the mirror that we get presented to us
21     from American TV.  Let me talk about the crime rate.
22  56                   We, across this country, have this
23     phenomenon where Canadians feel that our crime rate is
24     significantly higher, five and ten times higher than it
25     really is, and that is a particular problem in this
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                             14

 1     community because, of course, on a daily basis we are
 2     inundated from the Detroit TV stations with murders,
 3     rapes, violent crime at a ratio that is just far and
 4     away anything that we have here.
 5  57                   I want to make two comments about
 6     that.  One, the CBC I don't think has done an adequate
 7     enough job in dealing with that particular problem and,
 8     two, they don't have enough money to do it.  It is one
 9     of the areas of programming that I think we need to
10     have expanded.
11  58                   So, for instance, they could do a
12     current affairs program in this area, which we did have
13     through the eighties.  We had a variety of current
14     affairs programs and we have lost all of them.  Whether
15     that is part of a regular news broadcast or preferably,
16     in my opinion, part of a specific programming that
17     would deal with those types of news events, so that we
18     would see reflected to us the reality of our community,
19     not the one that is half to three-quarters of a mile
20     away.
21  59                   I don't know if you are going to read
22     the Windsor Star, but if you do, the one today, I want
23     to assure you that the lead editorial today does not --
24     does not reflect the attitude of this community.  And
25     that editorial is symptomatic of the problem we have in
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                             15

 1     this community.  We have an ideologically biased right
 2     wing newspaper chain that puts out that type of an
 3     editorial.  It's a gross misrepresentation of the
 4     reality of this community and its support for the CBC.
 5  60                   Those two outlets, the TV and radio
 6     station from the CBC and the Windsor Star, are our two
 7     major sources of news in this community.  The CBC, I
 8     think, not that I always agree with them, let me assure
 9     you, but I think on a regular basis accurately acts as
10     a portrayal for this community.
11  61                   Our local newspaper, and it is the
12     only daily we have, does not, whether that's in their
13     editorials or in their news stories or in the stories
14     they choose to cover, it does not reflect this
15     community.
16  62                   As with Wayne, I want to touch just
17     briefly on the situation of labour relations for the
18     technicians and what may be happening as of tomorrow
19     with the guild.
20  63                   Madam Chair, so you are aware, I at
21     one period of time was I guess technically an employee
22     of the CBC and then I did one of the political panels
23     here, so I know a number of these individuals who work
24     there.  I know them well.  I know how they work.  I
25     respect the quality of the work they have been able to
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 1     do in the past and I feel sorry for them because they
 2     are not able to continue to make that quality product.
 3  64                   They have been living, even after we
 4     got the station back, with a great deal of uncertainty,
 5     and it is back to the initial point I made.  There
 6     needs to be out of these hearings a demand, a pressure,
 7     a requirement that CBC in fact stabilize, so that
 8     people do know, whether they are technicians or in the
 9     guild, that they do have employment, that they have a
10     reasonable assurance of employment as long as they are
11     performing, as they have in the past, a quality job.
12  65                   Because what I have seen here, as the
13     station came back on line and the work that they did, a
14     great deal more stress, a great deal more demand on the
15     products they had to put out, the programs they had to
16     produce and just basically an unfairness of treatment
17     of both the technicians and the people who are in the
18     guild.
19  66                   Let me just give you one example.  We
20     were the first station, or amongst the first stations
21     and this was a concession by the unions, to allow the
22     reporters and the camera person to be the same person. 
23     In a number of times in my career over the last five
24     years I have had those people come to my office, to my
25     home and, quite frankly, they are slugging heavy
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 1     material, cameras, supports, trying to do a news story
 2     at the same time and then rushing back to the station. 
 3     An individual cannot maintain that pace.
 4  67                   So, as part of maintaining and
 5     augmenting the CBC, I am asking you to make
 6     determinations in that regard, that they treat their
 7     staff and their members more fairly.
 8  68                   Let me just finish my comments with a
 9     couple of suggestions in terms of the new programs.  I
10     have already mentioned the current affairs.  That is
11     badly needed for Windsor, Essex County, for this
12     region.  I think it is necessary that local TV
13     stations, including ours, be allowed to actually begin
14     to extend those current affairs into documentary.  I
15     want to give you an example of one that they could do
16     here.
17  69                   We have in Windsor amongst the
18     highest rates of cancers and heart conditions in
19     Ontario and in the country generally.  A good
20     investigative team could shed some extensive and long
21     needed light on that issue.  So, if they were given the
22     financial resources to do that kind of documentary it
23     would be very rewarding for this community and
24     something I think the whole country would benefit from.
25  70                   I just briefly want to mention,
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                             18

 1     because I know I am running out of time, the French
 2     community here.  I grew up in what at that time was
 3     essentially, primarily a French community, out at
 4     Pointe-des-Roches in Saint-Joachim-Belle-Rivière, here
 5     in the Essex County area.
 6  71                   It really took a dip as we went into
 7     the late fifties because we had no programming and the
 8     cultural milieu that we had at that time was basically
 9     just about lost.
10  72                   Because we got French radio I think
11     it was a major plus, but it needs, as with the English
12     side, it needs augmentation.  We need to have, and I
13     think this is particularly -- the French radio station
14     I think does a very good job, again with limited
15     resources because of the cuts that they suffered in the
16     last two, three years.  But we need more television
17     that is local in the French language.  We need them to
18     be doing current affairs and more news in the French
19     language on television.
20  73                   Whether we could justify a French
21     television station here I would have to say I have my
22     doubts, but a requirement that the television station
23     and the services that we get out of the central regions
24     provide more local coverage I think is mandatory as
25     well.
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 1  74                   I see, Madam Chair, I have got about
 2     30 seconds, so let me conclude by going back to my
 3     initial theme.  We are in the new millennium very
 4     shortly.  We need to maintain what we have had from the
 5     CBC.  We need to augment that programming.
 6  75                   Again, thank you for the opportunity
 7     to make those comments.
 8  76                   THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 9     Mr. Comartin.
10  77                   MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
11  78                   Carl Idzinski, please.
12     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
13  79                   MR. IDZINSKI:  I am Carl Idzinski.  I
14     am an individual, just a citizen, not a politician or
15     anything.  I am going to speak basically to CBC radio,
16     AM, which I listen to quite extensively and most of the
17     shows and everything -- everything has been taken from
18     memory because I have been listening to it so long.
19  80                   Thank you for the opportunity to
20     speak.
21  81                   The Canadian broadcasting system -- I
22     am proud of the name.  It is nationalistic, has a
23     distinct flavour of importance to it and I listen to it
24     every day, starting with "Morning Watch" and ending
25     with "Ideas" at nine o'clock or that time of night, a
                          StenoTran

                             20

 1     little later.
 2  82                   I have been listening to these shows
 3     longer than I can remember.  I find the content of the
 4     programming interesting and very informative.  The news
 5     programs let me know what is going on around the world
 6     and in our community.  Like we have got the world news
 7     at the hour and the community news at the half hour.
 8  83                   I like the interviews with Paul
 9     Vaisey who is on "Morning Watch" and government
10     officials.  I have heard him hold their feet to the
11     fire and want answers, and I can tell when they are
12     squirming and evasive or when they are forthright, so
13     that really helps.
14  84                   I have enjoyed, been enlightened and
15     entertained by Peter Gwozski, now Michael Enright since
16     Peter has retired; Vicky Gabereau, now Bill Richardson;
17     Ken Lang, now Barbara Peacock; "Radio Noon Phone In",
18     the "Six O'clock News" which I consider the best in the
19     world on radio.  "As It Happens", directly after, is
20     the best daily news information show that sort of
21     fleshes out the regular news stories, second to none.
22     "Ideas" with Lister Sinclair at nine o'clock.  I could
23     talk for hours about this show alone.  I feel I have
24     received the equivalent of a few college degrees from
25     all the information I have received from this show.  It
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                             21

 1     is one of my favourites.
 2  85                   On Saturday I learn about what is
 3     going on in politics from the show "The House".  There
 4     is lots of meat in that show.  I listen to "Basic
 5     Black".  I find it very interesting and informative. 
 6     "Quirks and Quarks" is an excellent show.  I feel
 7     especially indebted to it for solving a personal
 8     problem of mine which I had for a number of years. 
 9     People are going to find this a little bit humorous,
10     but this show solved it.
11  86                   I used to have a form of sometimes a
12     sleep disorder.  It was kind of like a nightmare where
13     I couldn't move and I talked to doctors about it and
14     they said they couldn't explain it.  There was a doctor
15     on the show that explained when the body is going to
16     bed and is not quite relaxed, you can't get into your
17     REM sleep and it is sort of dysfunctional, it may give
18     you a nightmare or lock you into that.
19  87                   After I heard that and it was
20     explained to me that disorder has never happened again,
21     and that was with me for years.  So, I feel especially
22     indebted to that particular show and I want to thank
23     the CBC for this because I had talked to doctors about
24     that and they couldn't figure out what the heck was
25     wrong with me.
                          StenoTran

                             22

 1  88                   The Sunday show "Sunday Morning" is
 2     very informative about a lot of topics around the
 3     world.  Stuart MacLean on Sunday, the comedy show at
 4     one o'clock, "Inside Track", and I am not a sports
 5     aficionado because I grew up on a small farm from which
 6     I listened to the CBC and we are talking about 30 years
 7     ago, and though I am not a sports aficionado I find
 8     their stories very interesting and I will listen to
 9     them, "Tapestry" and on and on.
10  89                   The Canadian broadcasting company has
11     been like a family to me morning and night.  I don't
12     just sit there and listen to it all day.  I am in the
13     car, when I get up in the morning, or sometimes I will
14     listen to it if there is an interesting show or
15     whatever.  I can turn it on at any time, any time, and
16     know for certain I am going to hear something
17     interesting.
18  90                   I would not necessarily change it
19     from its present format, but I wouldn't like to see it
20     decreased.  I hope the old adage here works, "If it
21     ain't broke, don't fix it."
22  91                   There's a new adage in a new book
23     out, it says, "If it ain't broke, break it."  Well, I
24     have had to deal with some of these companies that
25     broke it.  They are still broke and no better for it.
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                             23

 1  92                   The CBC, in my opinion, is fulfilling
 2     the role of being an interesting, entertaining and
 3     informative broadcasting service.  The service on the
 4     regional level is excellent, and without taking into
 5     account the strikes right now, so I wouldn't like to
 6     see those cut, and I hear local stories that I do not
 7     read in the newspaper.
 8  93                   They are presented -- should they be
 9     different?  Well, they are different because they are
10     presented in a professional and distinct manner.  You
11     can always tell a Canadian broadcaster from an American
12     broadcaster by the clarity and the way he speaks and
13     his bearing.
14  94                   The special role -- although I don't
15     want too much television, when I do watch it I watch
16     shows such as "Venture" or shows written by Canadian
17     authors and they are very entertaining.  Like I said, I
18     wouldn't like to see anything happen to the CBC in its
19     present form.
20  95                   Thank you very much for hearing me
21     out.
22  96                   THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
23     Mr. Idzinski.
24  97                   Mr. Secretary.
25  98                   MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
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 1  99                   Richard Roberts, please.
 2  100                  Come forward, Mr. Roberts.  Any
 3     place.
 4     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 5  101                  MR. ROBERTS:  I will watch my own
 6     watch, shall I?
 7  102                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you.
 8  103                  MR. ROBERTS:  First of all, I come as
 9     a supporter of the CBC.  I have been listening to it
10     for a long time.  Percy Saltzman stands out in my
11     memory as the first person that I saw.
12  104                  At any rate, there are a couple of
13     points that I would like to make.  First of all, Radio
14     Canada International, their budget was cut dramatically
15     several budgets ago.  As I travel overseas frequently
16     in the summertime and I have really noticed a
17     deterioration in what we can hear certainly in Britain
18     and in western Europe.
19  105                  I think it is a real shame that the
20     government hasn't seen fit to put some of that
21     funding -- well, they did put a little bit back in.  I
22     shouldn't say they didn't put anything back.  They did
23     put a little bit back in, but nowhere near what they
24     had maybe 15 years ago.  So, I really think that is
25     something that the rest of the world is missing.
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                             25

 1  106                  If you listen to the overnight
 2     programs on the CBC that we get from other countries, I
 3     mean they are great and they give us a view of their
 4     countries and I think that we should be doing the same
 5     thing with ours.
 6  107                  So, I do think that RCI needs a bump
 7     and if you have any influence there that would be
 8     great.
 9  108                  With regard to CBC television, I am
10     not a politician.  I don't know where the money would
11     come from, but I think we have to get rid of the
12     flaming commercials.  I mean it's appalling to be
13     hearing some tragic story on the news and then you are
14     selling the beer or a car or whatever it is.  I don't
15     have an answer for that because I know everything has
16     to be paid for.  I don't want to seem foolish, but if
17     it is a public broadcaster then I think we do have to
18     try and do something about the commercial issue.
19  109                  We are stealing from the private
20     companies, the private networks.  We are sort of
21     under-cutting them in a way, as I see it at any rate,
22     and not helping our own programming.  I think that
23     commercials on the television ought to be done away
24     with.
25  110                  Now, Radio One, which is what I
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                             26

 1     listen to most of the time, just a couple of quick
 2     points on that.
 3  111                  I think it would be a great idea if
 4     we could somehow, and it would take years I know, but
 5     to move away from the big broadcast centres like
 6     Toronto and Vancouver and move out to some of the
 7     smaller areas, so that we had more -- I remember when
 8     Arthur Black's show, for example, was done from Thunder
 9     Bay and you had a bit of a window on Thunder Bay as a
10     result of that.
11  112                  Now he is out west.  I mean Vancouver
12     is a great town, but we sort of miss something along
13     the way.  I think there could be a lot done with
14     programs that are done both nationally and say
15     provincially.  For example, with the current labour
16     dispute now, we are getting a lot of radio shows -- the
17     morning show in Ontario now comes from Windsor, but I
18     have heard a bit from other areas.  Sometimes you get
19     an afternoon show from Ottawa.  More of that sort of
20     sharing of what goes on in different centres, either
21     provincially or regionally, if you will, and then put
22     across nationally I think would be great for Canadians.
23     It is nice to know what is going on, sort of across the
24     country, on a more intimate basis perhaps than we would
25     see if it was just sort of a stock national show like
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 1     "Sunday Morning" or a show similar to that.
 2  113                  So, I think that would be something
 3     that I would hope that you could bring back.  I don't
 4     know what is possible and what isn't.
 5  114                  The last thing I would like to say is
 6     that maybe you can do something.  I don't know in these
 7     hearings if you are allowed to speak or not, but why on
 8     earth aren't the corporate plans out for us all to have
 9     a look at?  I mean they have seven years worth of CBC
10     corporate plans and the quote I read in the newspaper
11     from somebody on the CRTC Commission, I couldn't
12     believe this, it said:
13                            "We couldn't release it now
14                            because we haven't finished the
15                            process of finalizing the
16                            documents."
17  115                  Now, why don't we have that
18     information?  Why wasn't I able to read that in
19     layman's terms also?  So that when I came here I would
20     see what was down the line.
21  116                  I mean, I know people have to plan in
22     advance and you can't have everybody busting your plans
23     down and doing it again or you will never get on with
24     anything at all, but I do think that sort of
25     information should have been out in the media prior to
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                             28

 1     now.  Do you folks know anything about that?
 2  117                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  If you are talking
 3     about the public record on the applications that have
 4     been filed, I know there were deficiencies and I
 5     know -- in other words, there were some further
 6     questions that needed to be answered and then
 7     everything would be placed on the public file and
 8     available to be seen at each and every CRTC office.
 9  118                  There is one in Toronto.  There is a
10     documentation centre in Toronto that would have the
11     full application.  But I don't know about corporate
12     plans.  I don't know if they are in the application or
13     not.  I would assume they are, but I don't know.
14  119                  MR. ROBERTS:  Well, according to
15     another -- to the Globe at any rate, they are out
16     there.  Or, they are not out there at all.  They are
17     away.  They are being finished, being finalized.
18  120                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Everything we have
19     got will be on the public file.
20  121                  MR. ROBERTS:  Yes.  I just wondered
21     why I couldn't see that kind of thing before this
22     event.
23  122                  At any rate, that's all you have to
24     hear from me.  We have a wonderful radio system in
25     particular.  I would hate to see anything happen to it. 
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                             29

 1     So, work for us there.
 2  123                  Thank you very much.
 3  124                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 4     Mr. Roberts.
 5  125                  Mr. Secretary.
 6  126                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 7  127                  Marjorie Willms, please.
 8     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 9  128                  MS WILLMS:  Good afternoon.
10  129                  My name is Marjorie Willms.  My
11     comments will be brief and personal.  My car radio is
12     preset for only two stations, CBC Radio One at 1550 AM
13     and Radio Two at 89.9 FM.
14  130                  CBC radio is essential to this area. 
15     I listen to CBC Radio One for keeping in touch with
16     local and provincial issues and CBC Radio Two for my
17     favourite classical music.
18  131                  With Tom Allan's commentaries on his
19     morning programs and Sheila Rogers' interesting letters
20     and comments, this is a uniquely Canadian slant on all
21     the beautiful music that they bring to us.
22  132                  CBC Radio One is very much a part of
23     this community and contributes in many ways to our
24     local and national sense of who we are.  Where would we
25     be without Paul Vaisey in the morning, Barbara Peacock
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                             30

 1     in the afternoon, Bill Baker with the weather and
 2     business news and Tom Obin with the local news?  We
 3     would be much poorer as a community.  Please do not
 4     underestimate the value of these people and programs in
 5     our lives.
 6  133                  As for television, the only local
 7     news originating in Windsor is the CBC.  That is, of
 8     course, when they are working.
 9  134                  We lost that broadcast from December
10     of 1990 to October of 1994.  This has been referred to
11     by previous speakers.  Four years.  We felt abandoned. 
12     I remember being very frustrated when the news, such as
13     it was, featured a major item about streetcars in
14     Toronto.  I stopped watching.
15  135                  This area was not being served at all
16     by CBC television during those four years.  Needless to
17     say, Windsor is overwhelmed in every way by our
18     American neighbours.  Please remember that this
19     tri-county area, Essex, Kent and Lambton, is part of
20     Canada.  We need the CBC.
21  136                  Regarding national news, I feel that
22     regional news suffers because of "The National" at 10
23     p.m., plus "The Magazine" and a repeat of the news at
24     11 p.m.  The regional news does not come until 11:30
25     p.m., which is late for many viewers.  I like Peter
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                             31

 1     Mansbridge, but personally I don't think we need one
 2     and a half hours of national.  If anyone wants to see
 3     Peter Mansbridge repeat himself, let them wait until
 4     11:30 and give us the local news perhaps at 11:00.
 5  137                  One final point regarding
 6     objectivity.  I noticed most recently a piece by Colin
 7     Grey in Vancouver -- this is on television -- about the
 8     RCMP search of the home of Premier Glen Clark.  The
 9     media were there before the RCMP, but Colin Grey did
10     not question their role.  His bias was very evident.  I
11     can almost imagine his news director urging, "Go get
12     him, tiger."
13  138                  Somehow, I have always expected a
14     higher ethical standard from the CBC.  Shouldn't the
15     media be reporting the news, not creating or
16     contributing to it?  And if they have violated our laws
17     of privacy, should that be tolerated simply because the
18     person involved is a politician?
19  139                  Just as a P.S., I would like to see
20     more local talent showcased on CBC in both regional and
21     national programs.  Why not a program featuring, for
22     example, the final concert of many of the music
23     festivals across the country.  Figure skating is very
24     beautiful, but it is not the only art form our children
25     are pursuing.
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 1  140                  Thank you very much.
 2  141                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 3     Mrs. Willms.
 4  142                  Mr. Secretary.
 5  143                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 6  144                  Marilyn Gray, please.
 7     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 8  145                  MS GRAY:  Good afternoon, Madam
 9     Chairperson.
10  146                  I drove in from Toronto today to be
11     here representing the Black Film and Video Network and
12     as a filmmaker myself.  First of all, thank you for the
13     opportunity to express our views, concerns and possibly
14     to come to a solution regarding the Canadian
15     Broadcasting Corporation and its mandate of
16     multicultural representation.
17  147                  Public television is an important and
18     necessary form that should reflect the character
19     uniqueness, the diversification of the people in
20     Canada.  When used to its fullest, it can give us in
21     comparable programs that can touch and reflect our
22     culture as Canadians.
23  148                  The Canadian Broadcasting
24     Corporation, the CBC, is a very important and viable
25     institution for Canadians here and internationally and
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 1     it should be protected at all cost.  It has quality
 2     programs, "The Fifth Estate".  One that I really
 3     appreciate is "Canadian Reflections" because it
 4     showcases films from Canadian filmmakers.
 5  149                  The CBC has facilities for production
 6     and post production and with all these things it is not
 7     being utilized to its full potential.
 8  150                  We are requesting you to take action
 9     on a few issues which I present to you today, one being
10     the CBC not following through on its mandate on
11     reflecting the multicultural and multiracial nature of
12     Canadian society, which in turn has become inaccessible
13     to people of colour.
14  151                  Also, to ensure broadcasters seek and
15     develop professional peoples of various cultures in
16     various capacities within the industry, be it
17     executives, producers, writers, directors, talents and
18     technical crew.  This provides a new diverse range of
19     programs and a skilled workforce.
20  152                  Also, the CBC needs to lobby for more
21     monies to help with its present situation and also to
22     change the kind of programs to make it more accessible
23     to a new market.
24  153                  At present the CBC is an institution
25     for some Canadians.  It has made little gain for
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                             34

 1     representation for visible minorities, especially
 2     Blacks.  However, in its news programming it is not
 3     unusual to see reporters and anchor persons from
 4     various cultural backgrounds.  This would be in front
 5     of the camera, but this is only one positive aspect of
 6     broadcast.
 7  154                  There are many experiences and
 8     stories that are lost because of the roadblocks placed
 9     on people of colour, from learning and experiencing the
10     entire range of Canadian broadcasting.  It needs to
11     find ways to actively seek out and develop diverse
12     professional groups in order to create programming that
13     can be truly non-stereotypical and reflect all
14     Canadians.  This will result in Canadians fighting for
15     and putting the CBC back where it should be, a healthy
16     and unique viable institution for us all.
17  155                  The CBC needs to lobby for more
18     funding in order to change programs and make it more
19     accessible to the new market, which would be a younger
20     market because at present most of its programs are
21     geared to an adult audience.  Therefore, by changing or
22     including a mandate to include programs for younger or
23     a younger audience, whether it is ages 13 to 35.
24  156                  Also, in this instance it is
25     important for the CBC to look to these younger ones as
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                             35

 1     part of their pool for their executives, their
 2     producers and directors.  That way we are constantly
 3     getting fresh views, new perspectives, more energy into
 4     the CBC which it really lacks at this point.
 5  157                  No one can contest the fact that
 6     Canadians are a grossly underrated talented group of
 7     people.  We have made Hollywood rich.  By tapping into
 8     the resources of all its people, the CBC can evaluate
 9     itself for being a unique people for Canadian
10     programming.
11  158                  It could be comparable to the BBC in
12     how it has grown to include all people and a real
13     viable institution for the U.K.
14  159                  It is important for the CBC to make
15     these changes, that is building a strong foundation for
16     the survival into the next century, where millions of
17     adults and children can feel their hopes and lives
18     properly reflected.
19  160                  To conclude, we urge the CBC to be
20     more aggressive and risk taking in developing and
21     showcasing works of those by visible minorities in
22     mainstream stories.  And to you, the CRTC, to oversee
23     that they are acting on their mandate regarding
24     multicultural people.  Neglecting to do so will reflect
25     badly on the CBC as a Canadian institution and may,
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 1     consequently, result in a loss of a significant number
 2     of viewers who will seek and find representation
 3     elsewhere that properly illustrate their needs and that
 4     would be a very sad thing for all of us because we are
 5     all Canadians.
 6  161                  Thank you very much.
 7  162                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms Gray.
 8  163                  Mr. Secretary.
 9  164                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
10  165                  Mel and Mary Gilbert, please.
11     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
12  166                  MS GILBERT:  Thank you very much,
13     Madam Chairman, for the opportunity to express some of
14     my thoughts about the CBC.
15  167                  During the time at least when I was
16     at home as a mother and a homemaker I welcomed into my
17     home Bruno Gerussi and then Don Harron and Peter
18     Gwozski and --
19  168                  MR. LAHAY:  I am sorry, could you
20     please turn on your microphone.
21  169                  MS GILBERT:  I am sorry.
22  170                  I was saying that during the time I
23     was a homemaker and I welcome Bruno Gerussi and Don
24     Harron and Peter Gwozski into my kitchen every morning
25     and over the years their humour, the wonderful
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                             37

 1     interviews with such a variety of people across Canada
 2     just highlighted my days.  I became much more aware of
 3     the regional diversity of my country.  I became aware
 4     of the various opinions that I would hear from coast to
 5     coast, and I am sure that it was an excellent education
 6     and I am sure it made me a much better mother than I
 7     would have been had I not had that opportunity.
 8  171                  I am a recently retired nurse, so as
 9     part of the Ontario Nurses Association I was on
10     committee meetings in reconstructing all this
11     downloading and so on that was going on and I know that
12     probably the CBC, like every other institution, has
13     gone through and maybe more must happen to be organized
14     and make people more accountable.
15  172                  However, having read often, and Mr.
16     Comartin and Mr. Lessard referred to this too, that the
17     rightist view from the Windsor Star, Andrew Coyne and
18     ultimately maybe from Conrad Black, where it is
19     suggested that the CBC must become more competitive and
20     that we must rule out any government assistance.  I
21     just wonder about programs like Radio Two.  I too
22     listen to now, my whole life has changed, I am not home
23     so much in the morning, so I do listen to the classical
24     music and I wonder just how much we would -- how many
25     advertisers would be interested in supporting something
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 1     like that.
 2  173                  I know it probably doesn't reach out
 3     to a large audience and so this would be another thing
 4     that would go against it.  Yet, at the same time, I
 5     would find that very hard to see that go.  I would miss
 6     it very, very much.
 7  174                  Because it has been referred to many
 8     times I am not going to go into it, but again I just
 9     wanted to re-emphasize that we are a border city and
10     for border communities the CBC is so, so important for
11     us to have here.
12  175                  We go to dental offices, doctors'
13     offices, I go to the Windsor Squash for aerobics and
14     formerly the YMCA and all we hear is American music. 
15     When I get back into my car and I can turn on 89.9 and
16     hear Sheila Rogers and Jorgen Goth later on in the
17     afternoon it is wonderful.
18  176                  Thank you.
19  177                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Excuse me, just one
20     minute.  Is there still radio interference?
21     --- Off microphone / Sans microphone
22  178                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  I am sorry, I just
23     didn't want you to compete with the radio.
24  179                  MR. GILBERT:  Thank you.
25  180                  If I may just start by saying the
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 1     only thing that keeps this from being like the CBC with
 2     Peter Gwozski or Michael Enright is to have somebody
 3     here, one person who wants to abolish the CBC
 4     completely or another person who at least wants to clip
 5     its wings even further.
 6  181                  Other than that, it is this exchange
 7     of opinion in mutual respect, where there is a
 8     diversity opinion and many heated discussions have
 9     happened on the CBC.  There is one permanent value in
10     all that, it is that insisting that everyone be heard,
11     everyone be listened to and respected and out of that
12     there is a tremendous faith in the CBC, as it is in our
13     country, that wisdom will prevail if everyone is heard.
14  182                  It is quite different from a talk
15     show where you have to be combative and there has to be
16     a lot of heat, even at times violence at the worst
17     cases, so you will be able to get even a bigger market
18     so you can charge more to the advertisers.  If there is
19     no advertising, you can be -- well, some people may say
20     it is dull.  We don't have a million people watching or
21     listening to this, but we have people who are
22     interested.
23  183                  You noticed that one of the driving
24     dogmas of our time is the attack on elitism.  What it
25     really means is what Matthew Arnold called the triumph
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 1     or barbarism, where there is no truth to inherit, there
 2     is no truth from parents or anybody else, including the
 3     CBC, to give to anybody else.  There is no truth at
 4     all.  Everything is relative and we are simply
 5     consumers.  I wanted to say I am a citizen and, first
 6     of all, a taxpayer.  I am quite prepared to pay more
 7     money to have a better CBC.
 8  184                  Right now our problem is we keep
 9     on -- we hope that they will do a better job.  They
10     want to reach out to the youth.  It is going to take
11     money.  They have no money.  They have been trying to
12     do it on the backs of their workers and the workers are
13     saying, "Sorry, you can't.  If we are going to make it
14     that way, no thanks."
15  185                  It seems to me that if we are serious
16     about having public broadcasting, we will not have
17     advertising.
18  186                  I am not a very good spokesperson for
19     CBC television and I will watch promiscuously any
20     sports event.  So, the TV -- and it strikes me though,
21     just the very fact that our CBC by having advertising
22     is already a truncated version of CBC.  It is already a
23     hybridized, a mongrelized version of what CBC should be
24     I think.
25  187                  Anyway, again if I can just
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 1     reiterate, it seems to me right now we are expecting
 2     the CBC -- and its leaders apparently still have a
 3     tremendous desire to accomplish great things, to
 4     actually carry out the mandate.  The trouble is they
 5     are trying to fly across Lake Erie with one wing cut
 6     off and we are blaming them they are not doing so well. 
 7     People are complaining, no sense having the triumph of
 8     mediocrity.  If we are not going to give them the tools
 9     to do the job, we might as well be honest and say, yes,
10     we want everything private.  We will take whatever pays
11     and that will be the triumph of the American culture.
12  188                  I wish we had people speaking from
13     CTV and from Wayne Stevens and so on.  I am sure
14     people -- I know many of my friends watch -- listen to
15     these programs.  I am a CBC radio buff.  I feel very
16     strongly though that the presence of the CBC in Canada
17     keeps the private stations honest and maybe vice versa.
18  189                  I think it is a matter of prudence as
19     to whether the CRTC allows the CBC to -- excuse me, I
20     am a little dry -- to move into these new fields.  It
21     seems to me that they would be better to cut their
22     losses and do well at what they can do, rather than
23     survive in a reduced, diminished version.
24  190                  I can't see classical music ever
25     getting a huge market.  You know, as part of this
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 1     triumph of barbarism is the attack on what is called
 2     elitism.  Elitism, the idea that anybody knows anything
 3     that you don't know, that anybody can teach you
 4     anything about anything.
 5  191                  It finally is -- we have rejected
 6     that in our Canadian tradition.  It seems to me if we
 7     give up the belief that the CBC, a politician, a
 8     preacher, I'm a retired teacher, if we give up the idea
 9     that there are people who can teach, as long as they
10     are listening, if we give up that notion, if we end up
11     simply assuming that nobody knows anything we will be
12     completely helpless before whatever the big wigs want
13     to do.
14  192                  The worst chaos in all this matter
15     right now, it seems to me, Madam Chairman, is the
16     growing -- not the belief, it's almost an assumption
17     that people here today don't believe it or at least
18     they are fighting, like myself, to go against it.  The
19     assumption that this global economy is absolutely
20     inevitable and human free, there is nothing to be done
21     about it, there are no changes that can be made, that
22     the human element is absolutely irrelevant and all you
23     can do is hang on, enjoy the ride and be one of the
24     winners.
25  193                  I reject that, the CBC does too, but
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 1     they will have good discussions on it, but they would
 2     make sure there would be different opinions, different
 3     parts of the country and different cultures being
 4     represented.  So it will be a good, rousing discussing
 5     and out of it everyone who tuned it would be a little
 6     wiser, and that's what we are all trying to do I think.
 7  194                  Thank you.
 8  195                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. and
 9     Mrs. Gilbert.
10  196                  Mr. Secretary.
11  197                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
12  198                  We have the final of the first 10
13     presenters.  Marnie McIntosh, please.
14  199                  Marnie McIntosh, please come forward.
15  200                  Thank you.
16     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
17  201                  MS McINTOSH:  Thank you very much for
18     the opportunity to be here this afternoon and also for
19     the opportunity to visit Windsor for the first time.
20  202                  I am going to be speaking to you from
21     a different perspective.  I am from a town called Port
22     Elgin, about a five hour drive from here.  It's in a
23     rural area and my perspective is considerably different
24     than those of you who live here, so close to the United
25     States.  While we are close to Michigan, we don't have
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 1     quite the same influence.
 2  203                  Just to preface my remarks, I am a
 3     CBC fan of many years.  I grew up with the CBC.  I
 4     started listening to CHUM, like so many young people
 5     did, but my husband very quickly after we got married
 6     convinced me that the CBC was where it was at.  So, I
 7     was there the night Barbara Frum and Harry Brown were
 8     arrested on air on the "As It Happens" show and I have
 9     been with Gwozski, and then he left and then he came
10     back, and now he's gone again.  I can speak more to the
11     radio than to the TV side, so that's probably what I
12     will do.
13  204                  In the information that was sent out
14     to me by the CRTC you suggested some points.  I guess
15     it's the Girl Guide leader in me, I followed the
16     points.
17  205                  The first question that you suggested
18     was:  Was the CBC in my view fulfilling its role as a
19     national public broadcaster?  I believe that they are. 
20     It is very easy to say, as other people have mentioned,
21     the few areas where they are falling down.  If they are
22     falling down, it certainly isn't because the CBC isn't
23     trying.  I have the greatest admiration for the people
24     who are working there, both in administration and on
25     the front line as broadcasters and technicians.  With
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 1     the cutbacks that they have endured, I am surprised
 2     that they have continued to do so well.  So, I would
 3     not like to take a negative tone at all about that.
 4  206                  I suggest that everybody remember
 5     what happened to their funding the next time an
 6     election comes because I think that was a desperately
 7     poor thing to have happen.  I am ashamed as a Canadian
 8     that that happened to my CBC and our CBC.
 9  207                  I can't speak, as I say, too much to
10     the TV because I listen to radio mostly.  That's where
11     I get my information.  We do have two small weekly
12     community newspapers and, of course, we have access to
13     the large city newspapers, but I like CBC because it
14     does give me a national perspective.  It places me as a
15     Canadian in the situation of not just being in a rural
16     town, but being part of a greater whole.  They give me
17     a perspective on the news that I wouldn't get from any
18     of the other sources that I have available to me.
19  208                  I would like to see more focus in the
20     future on where Canada does sit in relationship to the
21     world.  I think that with the closing down of so many
22     of the foreign bureaus we have really had a decrease in
23     our ability to hear what is going on in the world from
24     our uniquely Canadian perspective.
25  209                  While we still do receive coverage,
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 1     and I think some of the other people have mentioned
 2     this, from overnight services, British and Australian
 3     reports and so forth, they reflect their needs and
 4     their spin on events.  They don't reflect ours.  I want
 5     to hear about it from my point of view, from our point
 6     of view.
 7  210                  I greatly fear that there is going to
 8     be an Americanization of the international news
 9     coverage that we receive, as more and more of the
10     content comes from wire services.  Certainly I have
11     heard that expressed here too because of the proximity
12     to the United States, but even where I live in a small
13     town I feel it too.
14  211                  Where would I like to see them going
15     in the new millennium?  I think part of the national
16     mandate of the CBC is a cliché.  You have heard it many
17     times, I am sure, in your travels across Canada.  I am
18     sure you are going to hear it again from me to start.
19  212                  Their mandate is to keep us together
20     as Canadians.  Their mandate is to help us learn to be
21     Canadians with all that that entails.  This they must
22     continue to do because I think it is absolutely
23     critical and they have to begin to develop a younger
24     audience.  Again, the lovely lady from Toronto
25     mentioned this as well.
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 1  213                  They started using the Net and I
 2     think that's a good place to start, but I really think
 3     that they have to expand upon that.  I would like to
 4     see them begin to build an awareness of the CBC in
 5     younger people by producing a youth service, something,
 6     but specifically designed to be relevant to the needs
 7     of the young people, to reflect their concerns, to
 8     speak in a voice that they can listen to and that they
 9     can identify with.
10  214                  Let's use the people that they know. 
11     Some people here have mentioned that as well.  We have
12     brilliant young people, not only in the CBC who should
13     be brought along, both for the public face and behind
14     the scenes in administration, but we have wonderful
15     young musicians and athletes and personalities who
16     would love the opportunity that Barbara and Peter and
17     so many others got years ago in the heyday, the golden
18     era of CBC.
19  215                  Personally, I love listening to Peter
20     Gwozski.  One of my favourite possessions is a picture
21     of him that my daughter got in Ottawa.  She stopped him
22     in a mall and asked if she could take his picture for
23     her mother but, as I say, I love Peter Gwozski.  I grew
24     up listening to him.  I like to listen to Michael
25     Enright now, but I am not sure that my grandsons
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 1     wouldn't rather hear from Ross Rebagliatti.  I really
 2     don't think that they need to hear Gwozski's voice any
 3     more.  He was of an age with me.  He spoke to me.  He
 4     still speaks to me, but they need a younger voice.
 5  216                  This should also, and this is the
 6     younger CBC, be a vehicle where they might be able to
 7     take some tips from YTV and Citytv, those broadcasting
 8     groups now that are appealing so well to young people. 
 9     They are reaching the young people and they need to be
10     aggressive.  They need to advertise this youth service,
11     or whatever they are going to call it, take some risks,
12     just like the woman from Toronto said, be aggressive
13     and take some risks.  That is as far as my good notes
14     got.
15  217                  I think we also, if I could put one
16     slightly negative point in, I think that we have to, as
17     the new millennium approaches, rectify any of the
18     reception problems that seem to exist across the
19     country to eliminate the pockets where service can't be
20     picked up.  We have the technology.  There is no reason
21     why with a little money we couldn't eliminate that if
22     this is actually going to be a national broadcasting
23     corporation.  Let it speak to all of our people, not
24     just those of us who are lucky enough to live within
25     transmitter range.
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 1  218                  One of the other questions you had
 2     was should the programming provided by CBC radio and
 3     television be different from that provided by other
 4     broadcasters?  You're damned right it should.  It
 5     should take a national perspective for us.  It should
 6     fight -- continue to fight, I should say, the dumb down
 7     of media content that seems to be appeasing or
 8     appealing to a common denominator that is continually
 9     sinking lower and lower.  Yes, it should because CBC
10     makes me think.  Rex Murphy can also drive you to
11     distraction, but he makes me think.
12  219                  CBC challenges me to re-examine my
13     ideas and my preconceptions.  It exposes me to new
14     music and new people and new ideas that in my community
15     I would never have the ability to hear or meet any
16     other way.  It has been my university.  I left school
17     figuring I was really stupid at 16.  I'm not really
18     stupid, but CBC was one of the reasons that I finally
19     came to that realization, that and my husband.
20  220                  It has given me a confidence that I
21     didn't have before in my ability to communicate with
22     others because I could listen to people across this
23     wonderful country and realize that I could do that.
24  221                  It has provided me with a voice where
25     I can speak to other Canadians through "Cross Country
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 1     Checkup" and so many of the other programs.  I can even
 2     call a "sad goat" if I want to.
 3  222                  Recently, I was given something by a
 4     very dear friend which I, unfortunately, didn't bring
 5     with me today.  It was an excerpt from the inaugural
 6     speech that Nelson Mandela gave many years ago.  In it,
 7     and I will have to paraphrase because I don't have it
 8     here, he asked the people who were listening to him,
 9     "Who are you to say that you should be brilliant,
10     gorgeous and talented?"  And his reply to them was,
11     "Who are you not to be."
12  223                  He went on to say that it is not our
13     inabilities that we are afraid of and our inadequacies
14     we are afraid of; it's our strengths that make us
15     afraid.  He said that it doesn't serve the larger world
16     for us to be less than we have the potential to be. 
17     Instead, we should be being all we can be, doing all we
18     can do and being the best that we can be at whatever we
19     choose to do.
20  224                  He said that that empowers those
21     around you to reach their true potential as well.  I
22     think that is what CBC does for me and for Canada and
23     what it has to continue to do.  It empowers me as a
24     person and it empowers me as a Canadian.
25  225                  I don't know how much you can do. 
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 1     Coming from just a person like me though, I would like
 2     to make a request, one Canadian to another.  Can you
 3     use whatever you have at your ability or your
 4     discretion to strengthen and support the CBC?  My
 5     grandsons are coming along.  My children are already
 6     committed to the CBC, as I am, but I want someone in
 7     the future to be able to pose a question that I didn't
 8     even know needed asking.  "Who are you to be gorgeous,
 9     brilliant and talented?"  I want them to still be there
10     to tell my grandsons, "Who are you not to be."
11  226                  Thank you.
12     --- Applause / Applaudissements
13  227                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
14     Ms McIntosh.
15  228                  I am going to ask Mr. Lahay to call
16     the people who were amongst the first 10 who were not
17     at the table, just to see if they are here now.
18  229                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
19  230                  Emilio Bisceglia.  Helen Campbell.
20  231                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  If they are not
21     here, we will then take a 10-minute break and be back
22     here, by my watch, at 25 minutes after.
23  232                  MR. LAHAY:  I would like to also
24     suggest that if you have a copy of your presentation
25     that you wish to leave here with the Commission, we
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 1     would be more than pleased to make a copy.
 2  233                  Thank you.
 3     --- Recess at 1415 / Suspension à 1415
 4     --- Upon resuming at / Reprise à 1430
 5  234                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Could we start
 6     again, please.
 7  235                  MR. LAHAY:  We are going to call the
 8     next presenters, please, the next list.
 9  236                  Lynn Girty, Mr. F.A. Brown, James
10     McMillan, Richard Langs, Tom Henderson, Wendy Fraser,
11     David Harrison and Pastor Tom Collins, Harvey Bondy,
12     Jacques Kenny.  Would you please come forward and take
13     a position at the table.
14  237                  We will start, please, with Lynn
15     Girty.
16     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
17  238                  MR. GIRTY:  Thank you.
18  239                  My name is Lynn Girty, and I am a
19     farmer in the neighbouring County of Kent.  I am a long
20     time CBC listener.  We have a bunch of radios within
21     the shop, tractors, trucks, cars, house, and they are
22     all tuned to either 88.1, which is how I get the
23     Windsor station, so you know where my biases are.
24  240                  I have also had the pleasure of
25     working with the Windsor people, both TV and radio, and
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 1     from that standpoint I will probably keep my remarks
 2     fairly general.
 3  241                  CBC radio and TV has historically
 4     been, and should continue to be the media forum that
 5     all Canadians can depend on for believable news,
 6     Canadian entertainment and the venues that Canadians
 7     stay in touch with each other.
 8  242                  As I stated before, I am extremely
 9     supportive of all the CBC venues.  I have an
10     opportunity to see some of the TV when I get a chance
11     to get in there.
12  243                  In this new era of --
13     --- Technical difficulties / Problèmes techniques
14  244                  MR. LAHAY:  Sorry about that.
15  245                  Okay, please carry on.
16  246                  MR. GIRTY:  Thank you very much.
17  247                  I started to talk about this 400-plus
18     media system that we are having around, or developing
19     because of globalization or whatever other term you
20     want to use for it.
21  248                  In that kind of an environment it is
22     even more important than ever that the CBC continue to
23     be what it always has been in the past, and that is the
24     only network that does connect Canadians to Canadians,
25     and does in fact give us information, entertainment,
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 1     talent that is relevant to our country.
 2  249                  Now, I can't speak too much about the
 3     American networks.  I had a chance to listen to a
 4     little bit.  I have removed myself from that venue. 
 5     They are totally irrelevant to my needs.
 6  250                  I have a classic example.  I got
 7     forced to listen to a couple of news programs relative
 8     to the Clinton issue.  If you listen to the Canadian
 9     venue and you listen to the American venue, you
10     wouldn't know it was the same story, except that they
11     did use Clinton's name so you assumed it had to be.
12  251                  So there is no correspondence to -- I
13     mean, the American networks, they must be great for
14     Americans.  They are absolutely useless to Canadians.
15  252                  We believe the regional and the
16     national networks work together, and thus the regional
17     programming, must be increased.  The national CBC
18     system, because of the cuts, has lost a lot of its
19     effectiveness and relevance to Canadians because it
20     doesn't have sufficient regional networks.
21  253                  If you have to apportion money out,
22     CBC absolutely has to develop its regional network
23     system, because without it, then it becomes no
24     different than the rest and it has no relevance to
25     Canadians.
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 1  254                  The relevant part of the Canadian
 2     system on the national level is all the information it
 3     gets from the regional networks and, if you want to
 4     extrapolate into the international scene, it gets the
 5     same kind of information from the international scene. 
 6     When it starts spewing out American material, you can
 7     tell instantly.
 8  255                  This, of course, means that there has
 9     to be a difference in the way it is funded.  I am not a
10     fan of corporate advertising, never have been.  It is
11     what every other network is stuck with, I understand
12     that.  Canadians must have one that is different from
13     the rest.
14  256                  Every other station -- every other, I
15     want that repeated -- is affected by the advertising
16     that they have to have.  There are just countless times
17     that you can see reports, see entertainment, see
18     programs that either didn't or did get on or were
19     altered because of the advertising that didn't have any
20     relevance to what was right or wrong or truth or false.
21     It was because of the corporate advertising.
22  257                  We had the classic example here today
23     of the local paper.  I used to take that local paper. 
24     When that paper changed ownership, that paper changed
25     totally.  That paper is irrelevant now to people, my
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 1     people in Kent County.  It has very little
 2     listenership,.  It's kind of like the funnies now.  If
 3     you want a funny break and read something that has no
 4     relevance, you get "The Windsor Star".
 5  258                  That is kind of unfortunate because
 6     there are people there I'm sure that would like to
 7     print what they know to be fact but are prevented from
 8     doing that.
 9  259                  We have that in the electronic media
10     as well.  I have the pleasure of listening to some of
11     the regional stations that do their best, but they are
12     very much influenced by that advertising.  That
13     corporate advertising must be eliminated from CBC.
14  260                  If we have to have any at all, it has
15     to be rendered insignificant.  Insignificant to me is 5
16     per cent or less, and then it doesn't matter whether
17     they kick in or not, and I would suggest that is where
18     it has to go.
19  261                  The current strike that we have right
20     now is directly the responsibility of the federal cuts. 
21     There is no other reason for that to happen.  If you go
22     farther with it, the issue of the federal cuts to CBC
23     had nothing to do with money.
24  262                  The amount of money that the CBC got
25     before was, again, insignificant in the total scheme of
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 1     things in Canada, yet it had everything to do with the
 2     issue of lobbying by, of course, corporate interests,
 3     and the political mandarins of the day wanting to
 4     control the news.  That, unfortunately, is something
 5     that has to be stopped.
 6  263                  I also have a belief that we can't
 7     allow this kind of influence on the media that we saw
 8     with Terry Milewsky and the APEC crisis.  That is not
 9     acceptable in Canada.  There are ways to ameliorate
10     that.  I recognize we have to have public
11     accountability and therefore you are going to have to
12     have boards, but that immediate infusion of their
13     power, political power, has to be stopped.  That can't
14     be allowed over the longer term.
15  264                  I think, in conclusion, the one thing
16     that I get out of CBC more than anything else is the
17     fact that it is relevant.  I get to talk to Canadians,
18     I want to talk to Canadians, I use the phone lines
19     through the stations, I get to hear what's going on
20     from the regional networks.  That is one of the things
21     that has been stopped and I don't like to see it
22     stopped.
23  265                  I think one of the quotes that I
24     would like to end with that says it about as well as I
25     could, and it is out of this week's issue of Maclean's,
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 1     and it's Anthony Wilson Smith who I would have to
 2     suggest has not historically been a fan of CBC, but he
 3     makes a couple of lines and I would like to quickly
 4     read them.
 5                            "Management seems unable to
 6                            accept that it can no longer
 7                            afford to do all it now does." 
 8                            (As read)
 9  266                  That is completely true.  That has
10     everything to do with funding and nothing to do with
11     reality.
12                            "The CBC is the only network
13                            that tries to speak to all
14                            Canadians."  (As read)
15  267                  Correctly.  I agree with that
16     totally.  And this is Maclean's who was trying to do
17     the same thing, and admits it is still the only network
18     that can do it.
19  268                  Finally, it says:
20                            "In a 400-channel universe it is
21                            an inevitable part of
22                            globalization.  A healthy,
23                            clearly Canadian CBC becomes
24                            more, not less important than
25                            ever before."  (As read)
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 1  269                  I would submit that we do everything
 2     we can to get their licence back.  I'm not sure how far
 3     you can go on the political scene, but at least you can
 4     make comments to them that the only way this can be
 5     effective is it has to be with public dollars, which is
 6     not a tax dream.  It just matters squat in the scheme
 7     of things in the Canadian funding.
 8  270                  I thank you very much for this
 9     opportunity and I wish you well in trying to keep CBC
10     for all of us.
11  271                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
12     Mr. Girty.
13  272                  Mr. Secretary.
14  273                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
15  274                  Mr. F.A. Brown, please.  Mr. Brown.
16     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
17  275                  MR. BROWN:  My name is Floyd Brown, I
18     am a retired pharmacist living in Forrest, Ontario. 
19     That is between Sarnia and London.
20  276                  I want to first of all, Madam Chair
21     and Mr. Lahay, commend you most heartily on having a
22     democratic process which is not that frequent coming
23     out of Ottawa.
24  277                  Our Brown family lived in Windsor,
25     this Windsor community for over 70 years.  Growing up
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 1     here in the 1930s and 1940s, I and my mates felt we
 2     were second class American citizens.  Our cousins to
 3     the north in Detroit and Dearborn were the real North
 4     Americans.
 5  278                  Canada was a name, a Union Jack,
 6     perhaps a Canadian ensign in the school, perhaps "God
 7     Save The King" every once in a while, but the real
 8     country was the United States, the real flag the Stars
 9     and Stripes:  Except for one thing, CBC radio, 740 AM
10     it was then.
11  279                  This radio spoke about Canada
12     continually.  We had to know, as children, if hazily,
13     that there was a country Canada out there, even though
14     places like Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Vancouver were
15     only names on a geography.  It was only when I attended
16     the University of Toronto that I began to realize that
17     Canada was an important, separate, vital, progressive
18     country.
19  280                  Then all the journalism I and my
20     family had listened to on CBC during these formative
21     years began to have real meaning.  CBC had given us an
22     ingrained core mental image that became real away from
23     the razzle-dazzle of American and big city Detroit.
24  281                  Throughout the last 60 years of my
25     life CBC has remained my source of good -- and I mean
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 1     good -- world and national information.
 2  282                  The modern CBC, and CBC TV in
 3     particular, has been floundering.  This is primarily
 4     due to a true massacre of funding cuts and,
 5     secondarily, to that management problem.  I think the
 6     massacre is being perpetrated by a business-free
 7     enterprise or private enterprise, political philosophy
 8     of the present government, and profit hungry private
 9     and powerful media corporations.
10  283                  They see some further profit in CBC's
11     great legacy of fine journalists, the bright directors
12     and programmers.  They want the red meat of CBC and may
13     leave the entrails to we Canadians, those of us who
14     want less or even no American advertising, cop shows
15     and computer-generated cartoons.
16  284                  CBC has been perhaps the best
17     training ground for actors, journalists, directors and
18     technicians.  Look at the rise in the viewership
19     Mr. Herendorth(ph) gave to TVO when he went there.  We
20     have only to look at Laurier Lapierre, Patrick Watson,
21     "This Hour has Seven Days"; David Suzuki's "The Nature
22     of Things"; "Witness"; "The Fifth Estate" to see
23     journalism that far exceeds even anything PBS can do.
24  285                  More recently, as mentioned, this
25     Terry Milewsky affair and the APEC.
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 1  286                  In truth, my friends, my associates
 2     want no jingle-jangle advertising on our CBC radio.  If
 3     Mr. Chrétien's government is too poor to afford a
 4     decent national broadcaster, the worst case scenario,
 5     revert to the poll or the ratio tax of the '20s and
 6     '30s.  But I don't think that is true, as has been
 7     pointed out.
 8  287                  This year the Chrétien government
 9     will give even more taxpayers' money, corporate
10     welfare, to private broadcasters from the Canadian
11     Television Fund.  It is wrong to give public money to
12     private for-profit corporations.
13  288                  Chrétien has extended the stay of
14     CBC's lame duck president, further confusing all of
15     CBC.  He is meddling his political agenda into our
16     broadcast system.  The Liberal Party has, unbefitting
17     such a national party, allowed the publicly unseen
18     Board of Directors of CBC to be stacked with party
19     hacks, not professionally motivated telecommunications
20     specialists.
21  289                  Steady budget cuts have reduced the
22     quality and quantity of regional and local programming,
23     whereas the need of our Canadian nation for the
24     Year 2000 and beyond is increased regional and local
25     programming to increase the strong ties of community.
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 1  290                  My CBC radio out of London gives very
 2     little Windsor news, a city with which I have many
 3     strong ties, and CBC TV is a disaster for London,
 4     Sarnia and Windsor news.
 5  291                  The stated pressured attempts by this
 6     current government to centralize the control and
 7     programming by an Ottawa-based management is totally
 8     against good community programming and smacks of this
 9     government's big brother approach to governing.
10  292                  The CRTC must somehow, some way,
11     ensure the independence of CBC radio and television
12     news services and totally divorce government
13     interference in news delivery.  Manipulation of the
14     news by central government can be democratically
15     extremely, extremely dangerous.  The name Goebels can
16     be remembered.
17  293                  It seems to me CBC's primary function
18     is to tell Canadians about Canadians and, secondarily,
19     to tell Canadians about the world.  To that point, the
20     correspondence should be restarted, restored in London,
21     Paris, Moscow, Southeast Asia, et cetera.
22  294                  In summary, I believe CBC needs the
23     financial cuts restored, and I include the National
24     Film Board in this area.  It needs more local
25     programming and a new form of management totally
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 1     divorced from government political control and it
 2     should leave all commercial advertising to the private
 3     for-profit corporations.
 4  295                  Finally, CBC may need another network
 5     to appeal to the youth of our nation to foster the
 6     Canadian nation, especially among the teenage youth who
 7     are presently overwhelmed by the U.S. media from
 8     Disney, New York and Hollywood.
 9  296                  Thank you, Madam Chair.
10  297                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
11     Mr. Brown.
12  298                  Mr. Lahay.
13  299                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
14  300                  James McMillan, please.
15     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
16  301                  MR. McMILLAN:  I have just come from
17     the City of Toronto.  I can't understand why you
18     couldn't have one of these in the City of Toronto as
19     your venue, but I found out the closest we could get
20     was Windsor.  I have come by bus down there and I
21     finally got out to your Cabol venue and found out that
22     you were no longer there.  I wasn't told last week when
23     I phoned CBC in Ottawa that it had been changed and I
24     finally got here.
25  302                  Up until now, the CBC "Newsworld" has
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 1     been my main channel for news, until this past
 2     November/December.  But I went down to Quebec and I
 3     couldn't believe it.  The only time that other than two
 4     parties are stated on the CBC or any other English
 5     media in Canada here was when the Leader of the Action
 6     Démocratique, Mario Dumont, won the debate.
 7  303                  That was the only time they told us
 8     in Ontario and throughout the rest of Canada that there
 9     was more than two parties in the Province of Quebec. 
10     It shook me because Action Democratique in the Province
11     of Quebec had candidates in every riding.  Mario Dumont
12     took 500,000 votes, with no help from the English media
13     at all.
14  304                  I couldn't believe that the CBC, paid
15     for by the people of Canada, and many of the supporters
16     of Mario Dumont, their money pays for the CBC and yet
17     they never mentioned the Action Démocratique as a party
18     in Canada.  They almost left it as if it was a
19     referendum and it was either choose between the
20     Liberals and the P.Q.  It is unbelievable that this
21     could happen in my country, where I listen 90 per cent
22     of the time to CBC "Newsworld" back in Toronto.
23  305                  We have 300,000 francophones in the
24     City of Toronto and a lot of them had the right to vote
25     in Quebec.  Throughout the Province of Ontario there is
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 1     about 1 million francophones and anglophones from
 2     Quebec who want to know what is going on in Quebec. 
 3     Instead of that we get from our news media, and the CBC
 4     really let me down and let down the people who are
 5     paying for CBC broadcasts during that two-month period
 6     of that election.  It was unbelievable.  They kept
 7     saying "the Liberals, the P.Q." with no mention of the
 8     other two parties that fielded more than 24 candidates
 9     in the ridings in Quebec.
10  306                  The Equality Party had 24 candidates. 
11     There was no mention whatsoever by the English media at
12     all for the Equality Party.  There was no mention of
13     the Action Démocratique candidates.  It is time to do
14     justice.  It is unbelievable, during that election no
15     mention.
16  307                  As soon as there was a by-election,
17     14 days later after the election in the area of Mason,
18     where nobody came in to interfere at all, the Action
19     Démocratique came from nothing up into second place and
20     they would have been second place in the Province of
21     Quebec had the English media given them a fair chance.
22  308                  You are not quite as bad as the CTV
23     network which left their opinion booth in Montreal in
24     the Eaton's Centre with the cord cut for the last 10
25     days of the election, so nobody could get even an
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 1     opinion out on the CTV.
 2  309                  But it shocks me when I find that the
 3     CBC and all the other English media saying the one
 4     thing that really shocked me.  They kept pushing, it is
 5     either the P.Q. or the Liberals.  The Action
 6     Démocratique are the only party in Quebec, other than
 7     the Equality Party, that doesn't stand for separation. 
 8     They took 5 per cent without any help from the English
 9     media at all.  They took 5 per cent away from the P.Q.
10     and they took 4 per cent away from the Liberals and
11     they kept Mr. Bouchard from ever getting that amount
12     over 51 per cent.
13  310                  I ask why did the English media do
14     this, and especially the station that I like to listen
15     to, CBC "Newsworld".  It's 26 in Toronto.  I don't know
16     what it is in Windsor.  But this has really shocked me
17     and I have got no answers back.
18  311                  When I sent to the CRTC, they sent me
19     the folder showing me that these meetings were going to
20     be taken place.
21  312                  I have heard great portions from
22     these gentlemen here, as I sat back there, patting the
23     CBC on the back and, yes, I like the CBC.  But they
24     should be fair.  At least this was not a referendum in
25     Quebec.  This was who was going to govern the Province
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 1     of Quebec for the next four years.  Instead of getting
 2     just one seat with 500,000 votes, Mr. Dumont would have
 3     been the Opposition leader had he had a fair chance
 4     with the English media.
 5  313                  I thank you very much.
 6  314                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 7     Mr. McMillan.
 8  315                  Mr. Lahay.
 9  316                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
10  317                  Richard Langs.  Richard Langs.
11  318                  Tom Henderson.  Please turn on your
12     microphone, Mr. Henderson.  Thank you.
13     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
14  319                  MR. HENDERSON:  Commissioner Cram,
15     staff, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you.
16  320                  As a lifelong resident of Windsor and
17     on behalf of the people of Windsor and Essex County let
18     me welcome you to this unique corner of Ontario, the
19     automotive capital of Canada and the most southerly
20     city in the country.
21  321                  I am a retired secondary school
22     mathematics teacher and, for lack of a better term, a
23     CBC radio and television super fan.  With me to be
24     seen, and not heard over there, is Carl Morgan, a
25     career journalist and retired editor of the "Windsor
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 1     Star".  Today's submission is a blending of both of our
 2     views.
 3  322                  For the record, we represent no lobby
 4     group.  We have no axe to grind.  We have no hidden
 5     agenda.  Our sole purpose is to add our voice to
 6     thousands of others who simply believe in the need for
 7     a publicly funded national radio and television
 8     network.
 9  323                  We also believe that the CBC provides
10     a world-class service, but that it can and should be
11     better.  It is a service that should not be allowed to
12     survive merely on life support.  It should be
13     encouraged to grow stronger and bolder and in so doing
14     enrich the lives of Canadians everywhere.
15  324                  That, in our view, is of paramount
16     importance and we truly appreciate the opportunity to
17     express our views as plainly and as honestly as we can.
18  325                  When such an opportunity presents
19     itself, the natural temptation is to craft an eloquent,
20     impassioned plea,d arguing for the need for a publicly
21     supported national network as an integral part of the
22     Canadian mosaic and one that is necessary if we are all
23     to continue to bind together as a nation and that's
24     what we started out doing.
25  326                  However, on sober second thought, we
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 1     decided to take a different tack and speak more
 2     specifically about the unique needs of living in this
 3     sunny corner of Canada, a mere stone's throw from one
 4     of the most economically and culturally powerful
 5     metropolitan regions of the U.S. midwest.
 6  327                  From the windows of this hotel you
 7     can see the Detroit River, a slender boundary between
 8     Ontario and Michigan.  So narrow that it would have
 9     been an easy challenge for the late jolting Joe
10     Dimaggio to crack a sharp line drive from the top of
11     this hotel smack into the middle of downtown Detroit. 
12     We're close and at times painfully close to the United
13     States.
14  328                  Depending on how you view things,
15     Windsor is the American gateway to Canada or the
16     Canadian gateway to the U.S. midwest.  Windsor is often
17     labelled as perhaps the most Americanized city in
18     Canada.  This is neither good nor bad to those of us
19     who have grown up in this challenging environment. 
20     Neither should it come as any great surprise when you
21     glance at the numbers.
22  329                  Windsor and Essex County boasts a
23     total population of less than 400,000, while the
24     Greater Detroit region is home to around 5 million.
25  330                  In such circumstances, the analogy of
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 1     the mouse and the elephant, trite as it may be, takes
 2     on real meaning.  For that reason alone it is
 3     imperative that Canadians living in this border region
 4     have access to a strong, aggressive, vibrant television
 5     and radio presence that can provide a nationalistic
 6     voice as a reminder that we are Canadians through and
 7     through and that we are not just another suburb of
 8     metro Detroit.
 9  331                  If you haven't already seen for
10     yourself, let me tell you that two Detroit newspapers,
11     the "News" and the "Free Press" and "USA Today" jostle
12     with the "Windsor Star", "The Toronto Star", "The Globe
13     and Mail" and "The National Post" for strategic street
14     corner spots for their newspaper sales boxes right
15     outside the building.
16  332                  Fortunately, our Canadian print
17     media, local and otherwise, have built a strong base of
18     loyal readers and remain dominant in the marketplace. 
19     Although the American papers are marketed aggressively
20     and are highly visible, they are usually, though not
21     always, purchased as a second paper.  It's a
22     longstanding habit that is unlikely to end in the near
23     future.
24  333                  Regrettably, the status of the
25     Canadian electronic media is a much different story. 
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 1     Six powerful, rich and seductive private American
 2     television networks, not even counting cable, as well
 3     as about 50 radio stations, are perched figuratively on
 4     our doorstep.  Together the U.S. radio and TV stations
 5     have corralled a disproportionate market share relative
 6     to those on this side of the river.
 7  334                  We say that not as a negative
 8     reflection on the effects of our home base media, but
 9     only as a statement of fact.  It's a daily, nasty
10     battle.
11  335                  Although our Canadian privately owned
12     commercial stations have acquitted themselves well on
13     the local scene, there is no way they can counteract
14     the stifling American presence.  They cannot be
15     expected to hold back the American tide and the larger
16     job of representing all of Canada to all Canadians. 
17     That is a task that can be undertaken only by a
18     national publicly operated and fully funded network
19     such as the CBC.
20                                                        1500
21  336                  In stressing fully funded, we are
22     painfully aware that despite budget surpluses, our
23     government in Ottawa continues to insist there is
24     barely enough in the bank to pay for basics such as
25     universal health care and upgraded military and so on.
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 1  337                  On the other hand, we are also aware
 2     that in politics, as in private enterprise, it is the
 3     squeaky wheel that gets the grease, and for that reason
 4     we hope that our united squeaks will help convince the
 5     Liberal government that the CBC deserves a much larger
 6     slice of the public pie than they are presently
 7     getting.
 8  338                  So, how important is the CBC to
 9     Windsor and Essex County?  To answer we only have to
10     reflect back to 1990, when someone in the CBC hierarchy
11     faced with another round of spending cuts decided that
12     when all else fails you amputate.  Without warning or
13     apparent good reason Windsor's CBC-TV station became
14     one of the severed appendages.
15  339                  Incredibly, that single, thoughtless
16     action triggered an amazing, spontaneous grassroots
17     protest.  Thousands of angry men, women and children
18     poured into the streets on a cold December day and
19     marched to the TV station about a kilometre west of
20     where we sit today.  With a single voice they let it be
21     known that they were outraged and embittered.  Not that
22     it did much good.  The decision makers, curiously
23     insulated from the real world, dug in defending their
24     decision without much logic.
25  340                  It took another four years and a
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 1     change in government before the decision was reversed
 2     and Channel 9 was back on air.  That may have been a
 3     victory, but it was a pyrrhic one at best.
 4  341                  Trust, as we all know, can be
 5     eggshell thin and someone at CBC cracked that shell. 
 6     The damage was irreparable and the CBC lost a ton of
 7     goodwill, much of which has never been fully recovered. 
 8     Sadly, it will happen again if bureaucratic bean
 9     counters refuse to loosen the public purse.  Should
10     that happen, local CBC radio and television outlets
11     will be ill equipped to perform the job they are
12     supposed to do.  In such circumstances, there will be a
13     further erosion of loyal listeners and viewers.
14  342                  If that happens, CBC's detractors
15     will crow, "See, we told you, no one wants a publicly
16     funded radio or TV network," and many might argue that
17     this is the case.  But is it really?  We don't think
18     so.
19  343                  While we can't support the position
20     statistically, there is ample anecdotal evidence and
21     that evidence comes not from en elitist minority, but
22     from grassroots Canadians everywhere.
23  344                  From time to time Radio One sends out
24     a message of particular interest to long-distance
25     truckers and farmers working in their fields, the last
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 1     people in the world you would expect to be tuned to CBC
 2     and the response is, invariably, overwhelming.
 3  345                  Calls flood in from prairie grain
 4     farmers, oil rig operators and 18 wheelers chugging
 5     from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island.  They thirst for
 6     the kind of broadcasting that can only be delivered by
 7     a publicly supported national network.
 8  346                  And there are others, like my own son
 9     who now lives and works in Michigan.  He longs for
10     those moments when time is his own and he can dial into
11     Canadian happenings through the CBC.
12  347                  Aside from letters and phone calls,
13     it is his only real link to home.
14  348                  In his one year living across the
15     border, he has met many Americans who have a greater
16     understanding of the Canadian psyche because they
17     regularly tune into Radio Two, "As It Happens", "The
18     Fifth Estate", our local news programs and the list
19     goes on.
20  349                  To a person, these Americans
21     acknowledge they are richer for it.  Make no mistake,
22     there is an enormous difference between Canadian and
23     American cultures and CBC is one of the few unique and
24     distinct elements that sets us apart.
25  350                  That might not seem so apparent to
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 1     those who live further than we do from major border
 2     regions, border points, or those living in larger
 3     cities and enjoy a greater mix of Canadian
 4     broadcasting, but for those of us living in the deep
 5     shadow of the American metropolis it is a daily fact of
 6     life.
 7  351                  We came here today not to defend or
 8     to attack the practices and polices of the CBC or its
 9     employees.  Certainly, there are many things that could
10     be done differently, but that's a whole different
11     matter.  In fact, we came here as staunch, loyal
12     Canadians to tell you that in our humble opinion a
13     national radio and TV network needs to be nurtured and
14     nourished.
15  352                  To do anything less is unforgivable. 
16     To silence the CBC would be unconscionable.
17  353                  Thank you.
18  354                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
19     Mr. Henderson.
20  355                  Mr. Lahay.
21  356                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
22  357                  Wendy Fraser, please.  Wendy.  Wendy
23     Fraser.
24  358                  David Harrison and Pastor Tom
25     Collins.
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 1     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 2  359                  MR. HARRISON:  Thank you for the
 3     opportunity to speak with you today.  My name is David
 4     Harrison and I am representing Faithville Productions. 
 5     We have a television production facility that produces
 6     Christian children's programs.
 7  360                  I understand that you are interested
 8     in hearing how well CBC is serving the public on a
 9     regional, as well as a national level.  As well, you
10     wish to know if there is a special role the CBC should
11     play in the presentation of Canadian programming.
12  361                  My concern is the level of service
13     that we are seeing regionally.  Here, locally, CBC
14     Windsor provides five hours of local programming per
15     week.  These five hours consist of two half hour news
16     programs per day, Monday to Friday, a half hour at 5:30
17     p.m. and another at 11:30 p.m.  The 11:30 is primarily
18     a recut of the original material presented at 5:30. 
19     There is approximately two minutes and 30 seconds of
20     new material, plus sports highlights, that are produced
21     for the late news package.
22  362                  What I am pointing out here is that
23     there is a gross lack of relevant programming for our
24     local community.  News of the day has its place in our
25     lives, but is this the only reflection of what is
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 1     important to Windsor, Essex and Kent Counties?  The
 2     typical minute and a half news story keeps us well
 3     informed as to the latest developments of Windsor's
 4     gambling establishments, city hall's successful
 5     legalization of prostitution and downtown
 6     revitalization.
 7  363                  But what of matters of Canadian
 8     culture specific to this area, family concerns,
 9     relevant content other than the news of the day that
10     speak to and for the people of Windsor, Essex and Kent
11     Counties?
12  364                  CBC Windsor should be that platform. 
13     How?  By opening up the time slots in the schedule for
14     open line programs, public affair specials produced
15     here locally, by creating a way for program producers
16     of this region to reach the public.
17  365                  CBC Windsor TV produces just five
18     hours per week, Monday to Friday.  Does anything happen
19     here on the weekend?  That five hours equals the amount
20     of air time devoted here in Windsor to Toronto's local
21     newscast.  Each night from 6:00 until 7:00 we are
22     treated to such culturally relevant information as
23     traffic congestion on the Don Valley Parkway to fires
24     in Etobicoke.
25  366                  All of this is relevant to Toronto,
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 1     but a waste of valuable resources here in Windsor.
 2  367                  Faithville Productions and broadcast
 3     entities like us would at least like the opportunity to
 4     reflect our community, its values, its accomplishments,
 5     its talents and its viewpoints.
 6  368                  As CBC enters its licence application
 7     phase, its condition should be set so that the CBC is
 8     distinctive from private broadcasting.  We don't need
 9     more of the same.  We do not need local Toronto news,
10     especially if we as taxpayers are footing the bill.
11  369                  The essence of CBC should consist of
12     program producers working in a process that is
13     organized around the ever-changing needs of the local
14     community.  It should serve the interests of the
15     public.  The structure and philosophy of the CBC should
16     respond to the consumer.  CBC should operate from the
17     viewer back, not the top down.
18  370                  Five hours of local news doesn't
19     accomplish this.  Are you aware that five hours here in
20     Windsor is given over to foreign content, a British
21     soap opera and an American cooking show?  Please don't
22     let people tell you that there isn't room on the
23     schedule.  The only thing there isn't is the will to
24     open up the airwaves to truly serve the public.
25  371                  As members of the CRTC, it is your
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 1     task to set the terms and condition for CBC's licence
 2     renewal, a licence that will see us into the new
 3     century.  Hence, plans for such things as Radio Three
 4     are proposed.  Shouldn't the resources that already
 5     exist be used in a culturally relevant and responsible
 6     manner?
 7  372                  The question put before us today is: 
 8     Is there a special role that the CBC should play in the
 9     presentation of Canadian programming?  The answer is
10     yes.  CBC, and more importantly regions such as CBC,
11     should play a greater role.  There is content
12     available.  There is air time available.
13  373                  There are Canadians, the people of
14     Windsor, Essex and Kent Counties who contribute to our
15     national fabric that need to be seen and heard.  What
16     needs to be changed is the accessibility, but realize
17     that change is not change until it is changed.
18  374                  The CBC requires a clear and precise
19     mandate that represents the accessibility to the people
20     that are paying for it.
21  375                  Thank you very much.
22  376                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
23     Mr. Harrison.
24  377                  Mr. Lahay.
25  378                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
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 1  379                  Harvey Bondy, please.
 2     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 3  380                  MR. BONDY:  Hi.  My name is Harvey
 4     Bondy.  I do two types of television shows on our local
 5     cable community access channel.  Both shows are very
 6     successful.  I do one-on-one interviews with high
 7     profile people such as the Honourable Herb Gray, who is
 8     the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, Michelle Ramsay,
 9     Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights
10     Commissioner, and Dr. Joy Brown, and the list is
11     endless.
12  381                  I do another show that is the
13     benchmark called "Get Busy With Living".  This show is
14     a live call-in show for people with disabilities.  It
15     has roll-in segments throughout the show such as
16     disabled scuba diving, disabled gardening, and profiles
17     on local people that have overcome their obstacles.
18  382                  The show has a lot of informative
19     items that anybody who has or knows a person with a
20     disability could use.  That is why I call the show "Get
21     Busy With Living".  It acts as a sounding board for
22     people who just want to express their views.  This is
23     may fourth season, and I love doing the show.  I am the
24     host and producer.
25  383                  But as successful as these shows are,
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 1     they are limited to people who have cable.
 2  384                  When I became disabled I decided
 3     right away that I was going to do something else, which
 4     brings me to the CBC.  I have come forward to the CRTC
 5     panel to tell you that we need the CBC to give us an
 6     objective look at what is happening in our community.
 7  385                  I get a lot of story lines from the
 8     CBC, but one issue that seems to stand out in my mind
 9     is a story that got action.  I will site the railroad
10     crossing issue.  I have been talking about this
11     incident for long before a fellow was tragically caught
12     in a railroad crossing in Chatham.  He was killed,
13     because he could not get his wheelchair out of the
14     crossing before the train came.  This was tragic.  It
15     could have been avoided if the tracks were in repair.
16  386                  I know that there are many tracks in
17     disrepair, but the tracks that the public are using as
18     a right-of-way to get to where they are going should be
19     fixed.
20  387                  Now, the CBC decided to get me
21     involved with this project, and I went down with a
22     reporter, Cory McKrindle(ph) and did a story about
23     this.  Could this happen anywhere?  Here in Windsor for
24     example.
25  388                  The CBC ran the story before the
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 1     weekend, and because of the massive exposure of this
 2     issue, that very weekend they decided to fix the
 3     tracks.
 4  389                  Now, that is the power the CBC wields
 5     in certain areas.  There have been a lot of other
 6     examples of success stories that the CBC has done for
 7     people with disabilities.  I think the CBC is an asset
 8     to the area because we are bombarded with American
 9     television.  People come from the other parts of Canada
10     and they think we think differently than the rest of
11     Canada.  That is true because of the American
12     influence, because of their broadcasts.
13  390                  I would like to see more Canadian and
14     local content on the CBC so that we understand what the
15     rest of Canada understands.  Windsor is expanding
16     quickly, and one reason is the casino.  I imagine some
17     of the panellists are going to go to the casino, or
18     have at least heard of it.
19  391                  Detroit is embarking on a casino
20     venture that will put American influence to this area. 
21     I believe that more dollars should be coming to this
22     area so that we can keep our Canadian profile.
23  392                  Also, just to let you know, I know
24     television and also I am available after the strike.
25  393                  Thank you.
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 1  394                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 2     Mr. Bondy.
 3  395                  Mr. Lahay.
 4  396                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 5  397                  Monsieur Jacques Kenny, s'il vous
 6     plaît.  Mr. Kenny.
 7  398                  M. KENNY:  Merci.
 8  399                  LA PRÉSIDENTE:  Une seconde,
 9     monsieur.
10  400                  Who are you?
11  401                  PASTOR COLLINS:  I am Pastor Tom
12     Collins.  I was with David Harrison, but I also have
13     some things I want to present.
14  402                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  We will hear
15     Mr. Kenny and then you.  I'm very sorry.
16  403                  PASTOR COLLINS:  No, that's fine.
17     PRÉSENTATION / PRESENTATION
18  404                  M. JACQUES KENNY:  Messieurs,
19     Mesdames.  Je tiens à vous souhaiter la bienvenue dans
20     notre belle région du sud-ouest.  Il fait bien de
21     savoir que le Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des
22     télécommunications canadiennes est toujours à la
23     recherche des commentaires des citoyennes et des
24     citoyens sur les services de la Société Radio-Canada.
25  405                  Je m'appelle Jacques Kenny et
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 1     j'habite la ville de Lasalle en banlieue de Windsor. 
 2     Je me présente aujourd'hui pour parler sur deux sujets.
 3     Premièrement, le réseau RDI et, deuxièmement, la
 4     station de radio de langue française locale, CBEF.
 5  406                  Je dois vous dire que j'ai beaucoup
 6     hésité avant de venir vous parler.  Cette hésitation
 7     était due au fait que cela fait plusieurs années que la
 8     francophonie locale réclame le service RDI pour la
 9     région par le biais de lettres, de pétitions et de
10     présentations.
11  407                  (Sans microphone...) déconcerté en
12     faisant une courte recherche auprès d'amis et de
13     collègues et que dans la ville reine le réseau RDI
14     n'est pas disponible aux francophones de cette région.
15  408                  Hors, ma consternation fut grande
16     lorsqu'on m'a annoncé que malgré plusieurs
17     présentations, rien n'avait bougé de leur côté non plus
18     et, je me dois de vous le dire, on m'a conseillé que ça
19     ne valait pas la peine et le temps de vous faire une
20     présentation.  Rien ne bouge!  Et quand même, me voilà
21     devant vous.
22  409                  Chers membres du Conseil, je ne passe
23     pas beaucoup de temps devant la télé, mais je suis un
24     adepte des nouvelles.  Je visionne surtout "News
25     World", "The Journal" et les grandes chaînes
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 1     américaines, en plus des émissions de nouvelles de la
 2     SRC et TVO.  Malheureusement, RDI ne fait pas partie de
 3     l'équation.
 4  410                  Lors du recensement fédéral de 1991,
 5     la population francophone du centre et du sud-ouest de
 6     l'Ontario s'élevait à 165 920 personnes, soit 30,33
 7     pour cent de la population de l'Ontario.  Si la ville
 8     reine et notre région n'ont pas encore accès au réseau
 9     RDI, et ces deux communautés à elles seules doivent
10     sûrement représenter un minimum de 40 000 francophones. 
11     Quel pourcentage de la population francophone du centre
12     et sud-ouest y a accès?
13  411                  Je ne répéterai pas tous les
14     arguments possibles sur l'importance du RDI puisque,
15     j'en suis certain, vous les avez tous entendus, à
16     plusieurs reprises, et depuis plusieurs années.
17  412                  Force est que le service RDI est pour
18     moi, non seulement un outil d'informations, mais un
19     outil de survie, un outil de culture, un outil de
20     sensibilisation.  Je suis votre client.  J'attends le
21     service que vous me promettez depuis longtemps.
22  413                  Messieurs, mesdames, vous avez le
23     devoir, sinon le pouvoir, d'assurer ce service dans nos
24     communautés, et ce sans nuire aux autres réseaux de
25     langue française.
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 1  414                  Quand passerez-vous à l'action? 
 2     L'assimilation est galopante.  Si vous ne pouvez pas,
 3     ou ne voulez pas, nous aider dans notre coin du pays,
 4     il existe une probabilité que les remparts
 5     linguistiques seront bientôt chez vous.
 6  415                  Je vais maintenant dire quelques
 7     paroles au sujet de la station de langue française
 8     locale CBEF.  Il y a eu énormément de progrès depuis
 9     ses débuts en 1970.  Nous avons subi un roulement
10     extrêmement élevé au sein de son personnel.  Une
11     meilleure stabilité semble se dégager de nos jours.
12  416                  Je constate que des membres du
13     personnel ont choisi d'élire domicile parmi nous.  Je
14     ressens que ces gens veulent faire partie à part
15     entière de notre communauté et nous les accueillons à
16     bras ouverts.
17  417                  Je privilégie écouter les émissions
18     locales de CBEF, ainsi que l'émission Ontario 30. 
19     J'apprécierais si on ajoutait un autre 30 minutes à
20     l'émission Ontario 30, afin de pouvoir en connaître
21     davantage sur ce qui se passe en Ontario français.
22  418                  Mes quelques autres suggestions
23     d'améliorations sont les suivantes.  Il y avait une
24     émission pour les ados il n'y a pas longtemps à CBEF,
25     conçue et préparée par eux, sous la direction habile
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 1     d'un chargé de projet.  Le programme a été coupé,
 2     question de sous.
 3  419                  Trouvons les moyens pour rétablir une
 4     programmation pour eux.  Élargissons aussi le montant
 5     d'antenne alloué aux émissions locales.  Permettons un
 6     caractère communautaire plus étendu.  Je dois féliciter
 7     l'équipe de la station CBEF.  Ces gens ont réussi à
 8     percer dans les communautés francophones de la région.
 9  420                  Cette présence officielle et
10     personnelle aux diverses célébrations et activités
11     communautaires est appréciée de toutes et de tous. 
12     Bravo et félicitations à ces gens.
13  421                  Je ressens vraiment que CBEF est ma
14     station locale.  Il est important d'agrandir et de
15     renforcer ces liens.  De grâce, arrêtons de couper dans
16     les budgets et commençons à les augmenter.
17  422                  Messieurs et mesdames, je vous ai
18     mentionné plus tôt qu'on m'avait conseillé que c'était
19     une perte de temps de faire une présentation.  Sachez
20     que j'ai suivi mes propres conseils.  Sachez aussi que
21     vous ne me verrez plus devant vous.  Arrêtons de nous
22     consulter et passons à l'action.
23  423                  Je tiens à vous remercier de m'avoir
24     accordé ces quelques minutes de votre temps précieux et
25     ose croire que mes quelques paroles et suggestions, 
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 1     aussi humbles qu'elles soient, ont atteint leur but.
 2  424                  Merci.
 3  425                  LA PRÉSIDENTE:  Merci, Monsieur
 4     Kenny.
 5  426                  Mr. Lahay.
 6  427                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 7  428                  Now to Pastor Tom Collins.
 8     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 9  429                  MR. COLLINS:  First of all, I would
10     like to thank you for this opportunity to share today. 
11     I think that what is going on in this room is one of
12     the blessings of being a Canadian, to be able to share
13     our views and feel free to do so with all the ladies
14     and gentlemen here today.
15  430                  To give you some background, my name
16     is Tom Collins, I am a Pastor here in Windsor.  I was
17     born and raised here in Essex County, and my job is to
18     minister to young children.
19  431                  Five years ago I was looking for a
20     new way of teaching children God's word.  I find that
21     we just can't get up and talk to kids any more, with
22     computers and televisions we need to get their
23     attention.  So what we did in our gymnasium at our
24     church, we built a town, called it Faithville, and we
25     put on a live performance every Sunday morning for some
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 1     325 children that come through there.
 2  432                  From the success we saw of that, and
 3     how that ministered to children, we decided to put it
 4     on video and eventually to television, because we
 5     realize that not every church can do that type of
 6     thing.
 7  433                  So that's where I begin today.  I
 8     will open by referring to a letter that I received from
 9     the CBC on October 23, 1996 in reference to our inquiry
10     about our locally produced family Christian program. 
11     In summary, we were told -- and I quote and it's on
12     this letter here:
13                            "After careful consideration I
14                            feel this program is not really
15                            suitable for a
16                            non-denominational, broad appeal
17                            broadcaster."  (As read)
18  434                  The letter continued to suggest that
19     we might try sending our material to the Vision Network
20     and wishing us the best of luck.
21  435                  Well, we have done that with Vision. 
22     We have been on Vision, and we receive mail from
23     children all across Canada.
24  436                  But with CBC being a public
25     broadcaster, that is my next point that I want to
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 1     share.  Our country's heritage began with people who
 2     believed in God.  Allow me to share with you a quote
 3     taken from the first church service held in Montreal
 4     that clearly and boldly stated that the purpose of the
 5     colony was to bring about the glory of God, from John
 6     Cabot to the writing of "O Canada".  God keep our land
 7     glorious and free has been sung with moving and
 8     heartfelt devotion ever since.
 9  437                  This rich heritage of profound belief
10     in God did not stop there, but continued through the
11     ages.  This is clearly seen by all who have ever
12     visited Parliament Hill.  The inscriptions at the top
13     of the Peace Tower are taken from Proverbs 29:18 and
14     Psalms 72:8:
15                            "He shall have dominion also
16                            from sea to sea."  (As read)
17  438                  And on the left facing west are the
18     words:
19                            "Without a vision the people
20                            perish."  (As read)
21  439                  Bearing all this in mind, Madam
22     Chair, to be told that a Christian family program does
23     not represent the broad sector of people is
24     reprehensible, in fact in many ways is an insult to
25     those men and women who gave their all for what they
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 1     believed.
 2  440                  On August 12, 1996 we were sent
 3     notification confirming that our program was recognized
 4     by the CRTC to be 100 per cent Canadian.  For your
 5     future information, our certification number is C12811.
 6  441                  It is my understanding that CBC is
 7     basically government funded.  It is also my
 8     understanding that the government offers equality to
 9     all.
10  442                  Subsequent to our letter from the
11     CBC, our program has been accepted on two Christian
12     networks in the United States.  We are seen across the
13     United States, Africa, Central and South America and as
14     far north as Greenland.  As well, people from other
15     countries are looking for this program in their
16     language.
17  443                  We are told that Canada is hungry for
18     Canadian programs using Canadian talent.  We have such
19     a program, but have been forced to look toward foreign
20     broadcasters due to the apparent lack of interest.  I
21     find this to be contradictory.  How do we justify that
22     our program is desired in other countries and yet
23     rejected by our own public broadcaster?
24  444                  I am fully aware, as I am sure you
25     are, that the CBC does air programs that introduce
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 1     varying opinion.  I do not negate their right to do so. 
 2     That's one of the great things about being around this
 3     table today for all of us to share our beliefs and
 4     feelings.  However, I only ask for a level playing
 5     field.
 6  445                  I would expect that a government
 7     funded broadcaster would be held responsible to fulfil
 8     their role nationally and locally, introducing not just
 9     a few ideas or lifestyles but meeting the needs and
10     entertainment requirements of the country as a whole.
11  446                  Some might say that our program
12     exemplifies only one sector of the people.  However, I
13     would say that our program does not simply exemplify a
14     minority, but rather a lifestyle dedicated to the
15     fundamental truths laid out by our forefathers and
16     continued today.
17  447                  The new Constitution Act point 2
18     clearly gives us fundamental freedoms.  Point 5 grants
19     us equality rights.  The Constitution Act 1982 states
20     in part that the national government and Parliament and
21     the provincial governments and legislatures are
22     committed to promotion of equal opportunities for the
23     well-being of all Canadians.
24  448                  I believe that according to our
25     Constitution the CBC has gravely misrepresented a large
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 1     sector of our country and impeded our right to equal
 2     opportunity.  Canada has been called a Christian
 3     country whereby we are to assume that the majority of
 4     the people believe in God.
 5  449                  I believe for the CBC to remain
 6     relevant and accountable as a government funded
 7     broadcaster they must first begin to utilize the full
 8     scope of talent, ideas and beliefs represented in
 9     Canada as a nation.
10  450                  Presently the CBC focuses mainly on
11     informational programs, sports and only a few
12     entertainment programs.  Whether this is due to a lack
13     of purely Canadian material or a selection process of a
14     few who are trying to speak for all, I feel that the
15     CBC must take responsibility to allow the
16     representation of all individuals in Canada.
17  451                  In closing here, as I have listened
18     this afternoon, I keep hearing -- one thing that keeps
19     coming up, and that is to have programming for our
20     youth.  I have brought a program to the CBC for young
21     people, for families, and I'm not saying that other
22     things they are doing are not important, I am just
23     asking that the CBC be fair to all individuals.
24  452                  I was raised on a farm and one thing
25     that I know, the things that we plant today will be
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 1     tomorrow's harvest.  The things that we put into our
 2     children today will be the leaders for tomorrow.  This
 3     country is too precious of a country not to build in
 4     our children the character and the love of God that
 5     they need to know about.
 6  453                  I share with children that God says
 7     that they are his workmanship.  He is very proud of
 8     them.  Every person has a gift.  God has designed every
 9     person with a gift.  And you know what, God is proud of
10     our children.  God is proud of each one of us because
11     we are his workmanship, his handiwork.  You know, if we
12     make something, we are proud of that thing.  God has
13     created us, he is proud of our children.  Our children
14     need to know that.
15  454                  If we look at today's "Windsor Star"
16     there are two very devastating stories about families
17     within our community here.  We need to give our
18     children and our families hope, and part of the
19     CBC's -- what I feel part of their mandate, is to open
20     the door up so that it can be a level playing field to
21     give our families and our children of tomorrow an
22     opportunity to choose what is best for them.
23  455                  Thank you.
24  456                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Pastor
25     Collins.
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 1  457                  I'm now going to ask Mr. Lahay to
 2     call all of the people who were on our list and who
 3     have not yet spoken in case they have arrived a little
 4     late.
 5  458                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 6  459                  Going through the list once again,
 7     Emilio Bisceglia, Helen Campbell, Richard Langs, Wendy
 8     Fraser.
 9  460                  No response, Madam Chair.
10  461                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  We now come to the
11     portion where CBC is allowed its say.
12  462                  Do you need a few minutes?  We will
13     take a 10-minute break.
14     --- Recess at / Suspension à 1530
15     --- Upon resuming at / Reprise à 1543
16  463                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  We will reconvene
17     with Miriam Fry.
18     REPLY / RÉPLIQUE
19  464                  MS FRY:  That's correct.
20  465                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Go ahead.
21     --- Technical difficulties / Problèmes techniques
22  466                  MS FRY:  My name is Miriam Fry.  I am
23     the Regional Director of Radio for Ontario.  I am
24     speaking on behalf of my colleagues Bruce Taylor, who
25     is the Regional Director of Television for Ontario, and
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 1     Maryse Leureau(ph).  They are both in the other room at
 2     the other consultation.  She is representing
 3     French/English and Television here.
 4  467                  I first want to thank the CRTC for
 5     arranging for these consultations and giving us the
 6     opportunity to hear directly from people.
 7  468                  I was at hearings and consultations
 8     in Sudbury two days ago and there are a lot of themes
 9     that are the same.  I suspect they are probably the
10     same elsewhere in the country, although I haven't had
11     the privilege of attending those.
12  469                  But people feel very, very strongly
13     about the CBC and they feel that they have a right and
14     a responsibility to praise and to blame it.  We have
15     been taking notes all afternoon and we certainly will
16     be getting back to everybody individually who have made
17     comments.
18  470                  I have heard that Windsor is
19     certainly a unique place in Canada.  You only have to
20     look out the window to know that.  As a result, the
21     importance of local and regional coverage of the
22     community is perhaps even more crucial here than in
23     other places.
24  471                  I have heard that it is really
25     important for people in this area to hear the stories
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 1     of other Canadians, to feel a part of Canada, and to
 2     tell their stories as well so that other Canadians will
 3     know about the unique situation of Windsor.
 4  472                  I just want to let those people know,
 5     particularly the person who had the question about our
 6     application.  Our application is definitely going to be
 7     made public.  All our applications will be posted for
 8     viewing on the CBC web site by the end of the month, as
 9     well as at all CBC locations across the country.  If
10     people have any further comments, they can put those
11     comments on the public record by either writing us or
12     the Commission or, of course, by appearing in person at
13     the public hearings in Hull.
14  473                  So thank you again for giving me the
15     opportunity to hear from the people of Windsor.
16  474                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  I simply wish to
17     thank each and every person for being here and for
18     giving us their opinions.  We value them highly.
19  475                  I want to thank the court reporter,
20     and we will now reconvene at six o'clock this evening
21     for the remainder of the people.
22  476                  Thank you.
23     --- Recess at / Suspension à 1545
24     --- Upon resuming at 1800 / Reprise à 1800
25  477                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Good evening,
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 1     ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this public
 2     consultation on the CBC.
 3  478                  Bonsoir, mesdames et messieurs et
 4     bienvenue à la série de consultations concernant la
 5     Société Radio-Canada.
 6  479                  My name is Barbara Cram.  I am a CRTC
 7     Commissioner.
 8  480                  We are here to gather your views and
 9     comments on CBC radio and television and your opinion
10     on how should the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
11     fulfil its role in the coming years.
12  481                  Mes collègues du Conseil et moi-même
13     nous sommes répartis la tâche d'entendre les points de
14     vue qui nous seront soumis par les participants au
15     sujet du rôle de la Société Radio-Canada au cours des
16     prochaines années.
17  482                  The CBC is a national public service,
18     broadcasting in English as well as in French.  It plays
19     an important role in the Canadian broadcasting system. 
20     Today many elements are constantly being added to the
21     broadcasting system as new technologies multiply,
22     converge, open up new horizons and increasingly offer
23     new services.
24  483                  In this context, we want to know what
25     are your needs and expectations as viewers and
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 1     listeners of the CBC.  Given that, it is very important
 2     that the Commission hears what you have to say.  We
 3     must not lose sight of the fact that the CRTC itself is
 4     a public organization that serves Canadian citizens.
 5  484                  In this capacity, we are responsible
 6     to you.  This is why my fellow Commissioners and myself
 7     find it vital to come and meet with you and discuss
 8     these issues and why we are holding this series of
 9     regional consultations from one end of the country to
10     the other in 11 Canadian cities from March 9 to 18.
11     I must say, however, this is the first time I have had
12     a consultation overlooking the U.S.A.
13  485                  These consultations are designed to
14     give you a chance on the eve of a new morning to
15     express your opinion on the CBC's role, the programming
16     it offers and the direction it should take at the
17     national, regional and local levels.
18  486                  Through these consultations we hope
19     to enter into an open dialogue with you and hear your
20     concerns.  Your comments will form part of the public
21     record which will be added to the record of the public
22     hearing on the CBC that will begin in Hull on the 25th
23     of May.
24  487                  At this upcoming hearing, the
25     Commission will examine the CBC's application for the
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 1     renewal of its licences, including radio, television
 2     and its specialty services, "Newsworld" and "Reseau de
 3     l'information".
 4  488                  You can also take part in that public
 5     hearing by sending your written comments to the CRTC. 
 6     If you wish to do so, please remember to refer to the
 7     specific licence renewals being examined when you file
 8     comments.
 9  489                  I would like to come back to today. 
10     Please allow me to introduce the CRTC staff with me
11     today, Mr. Rod Lahay, who is with our Broadcasting
12     Planning Service.  Please feel free to call upon him
13     with any questions you may have about the process today
14     or any other matter.
15  490                  So that you will all have an
16     opportunity to speak, we ask that you please limit your
17     presentation to ten minutes.  As these consultations
18     are a forum designed especially for you and we want to
19     listen to as many participants as possible, we will not
20     ask any questions unless we need clarification.
21  491                  At the end of the session,
22     representatives from the local CBC stations will have a
23     chance to offer their views as they are naturally very
24     interested in what we are discussing here today.
25  492                  Before I start, I would ask Mr. Lahay
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 1     to go over some of the housekeeping matters regarding
 2     the conduct of this consultation.
 3  493                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 4  494                  Another reminder, if you haven't
 5     already done so.  If you have not checked in at the
 6     front desk but you are planning to be a presenter
 7     tonight, please make sure you do.  You may be in the
 8     room next door rather than this one.
 9  495                  Again I would ask, to reiterate
10     Commissioner Cram's comments, for your ten minute
11     limit, if possible.
12  496                  We will be calling groups of ten this
13     evening.  When I call your name, if you wouldn't mind
14     coming to the front table here, have a seat and we will
15     be taking you in that order as well for your
16     presentation.
17  497                  Also, please remember to announce
18     your name when you start.  If you are a group and more
19     than one is speaking for the group, again please
20     announce your name so it will be on the exact court
21     reporting.
22  498                  To start with, I will go through the
23     list.  The first list of ten people tonight:  Trevor
24     Price, Earl Amyotte, Barb Duke, Patricia Blonde, Olive
25     Weaver, Joyce Whitaker, Ronaldo Agostino and Mike
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 1     Vonella, Mark Lefebvre, Barri Cohen, Wes Chalmers.
 2  499                  Would those people please come
 3     forward to sit at the front desk here.
 4  500                  Thank you.
 5  501                  Also a reminder for anybody in the
 6     audience who is not a presenter tonight, however, you
 7     would like to give your comments, there are comment
 8     sheets at the desk on the outside.  Please feel free to
 9     make any suggestions or any comments on the CBC and
10     leave them with the lady at the front.
11  502                  They will also form part of the
12     official record for this proceeding.
13  503                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Just to be clear,
14     if any of the individuals who Mr. Lahay has called, if
15     you could all come and sit before a microphone and then
16     we will take you in the order in which he has called
17     you.
18  504                  MR. LAHAY:  Once again in the order I
19     called, Trevor Price.  Earl Amyotte.
20  505                  Okay, sir.  Please proceed.
21     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
22  506                  MR. AMYOTTE:  Thank you.
23  507                  Earl Amyotte.  I am representing here
24     the pro-life movement in this country.  The pro-life
25     movement, Campaign Life, is headquartered in Toronto. 
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 1     We also have a lobby office in Ottawa.
 2  508                  I am requesting from the CRTC here
 3     today that the CBC be defunded and privatized, thus
 4     saving the Canadian taxpayer millions of dollars.
 5  509                  We feel that the CBC is biased and
 6     prejudiced to the pro-life movement here in this
 7     country.  A case in point was the airing of the
 8     documentary "Thou Shalt Not Kill" on January 19.  There
 9     were many, many errors and also very many inaccuracies
10     in that documentation.
11  510                  The CBC on December 19 sent a film
12     crew down here to Windsor to film any activities that
13     take place with a group of pro-life people across on
14     the American side.  That was never aired in the
15     documentary and we feel that the CBC did not want to
16     air that documentary because it showed the pro-life
17     people in a peaceful and non-violent manner.
18  511                  We also feel that the reason why this
19     was not shown is that the CBC wanted to put a spin on
20     this, showing that any of the violence that we abhor
21     that takes place in the pro-life movement is part and
22     parcel of all of the pro-life movement not only in
23     Canada, but also in the States.
24  512                  In the documentary we were shown
25     pictures of aborted babies.  The commentator at that
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 1     time indicated that these were false and that there was
 2     no documentation to back up that these were indeed
 3     aborted babies.
 4  513                  As such, again I reiterate that in
 5     all of this, putting it succinctly, we would ask that
 6     the CBC's licence not be renewed.  We would ask that
 7     the CBC be privatized, given the fact that there are
 8     many radio stations across this country who are not
 9     funded -- radio stations and TV stations that are not
10     funded by the public in general.
11  514                  We feel why should the CBC be funded
12     and as such we ask that it be privatized and we also
13     ask that it be defunded.
14  515                  Thank you very much for listening to
15     my comments.
16  516                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
17     Amyotte.
18  517                  Mr. Lahay.
19  518                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
20  519                  Barb Duke.  Barb Duke.  Patricia
21     Blonde.
22     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
23  520                  MS BLONDE:  My name is Patricia
24     Weaver Blonde.  I am speaking for myself and Olive
25     Weaver.  We are from Chatham Kent.
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 1  521                  For 30 years for myself and for my
 2     mother even longer, we have enjoyed CBC broadcasts. 
 3     For me it's the first thing I hear in the morning and
 4     often the last at night.
 5  522                  It has been my way while working at
 6     home of maintaining contact with the larger world.  It
 7     has also been a way of continued education for me in
 8     subjects I had not even thought of.  It has also been a
 9     chance to have my say with the talk-back programs and
10     also to listen to other ordinary people's viewpoints
11     across the country.
12  523                  CBC has been my source of information
13     on who is up and coming in the Canadian music and
14     literary field, frequently putting me ahead of my local
15     stores' supplies of books and CDs.  Frequently it takes
16     me months to get what they play on CBC.
17  524                  Through international news reporting
18     and newscasts, we have had a balance to our information
19     that otherwise is mainly from the United States.  To
20     understand the crisis that other countries are
21     experiencing, it is invaluable to hear it from their
22     personal expression.
23  525                  There has been great reporting by
24     Peter Mansfield, Alison Smith, Wendy Mesley and Don
25     Newman.  However, it is too bad that we have lost some
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 1     reporters from some of the countries, no doubt due to
 2     budget restrictions, I imagine.
 3  526                  I do enjoy waking in the middle of
 4     the night to hear the news from Europe or Australia or
 5     some other place.  It's very interesting to hear the
 6     way they are broadcasting the same news I might have
 7     heard coming from the States and a very different point
 8     of view.
 9  527                  I have also learned a great deal
10     about the art of interviewing.  Both those that are
11     skilful at drawing the subject out from the guests and
12     those who do not pay attention or have an agenda of
13     their own have shown me in graphic detail what works
14     and what doesn't.
15  528                  On the whole, I appreciate the effort
16     made to have a mature and not vulgar broadcast,
17     although lately some hosts seem to be slipping a little
18     in that department.  I look to the CBC to enlighten, to
19     educate, to entertain and to inform me and I am not
20     often disappointed.
21  529                  Radio Two has a good, broad selection
22     of music.  "CBC Newsworld" is especially talented in
23     the regional, national and international coverage.  The
24     BBC section certainly gives us a different slant on the
25     world information.
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 1  530                  CBC-TV has had good family movies
 2     such as "Emily of New Moon" and "Anne of Green Gables". 
 3     Suzuki's "Nature of Things" is also very interesting
 4     and educational.  The experimental plays with Daryl
 5     Duke was an experience to feed the brain with new
 6     concepts and ideas.  This kind of program helps to
 7     counter the general pop that is fed through the local
 8     commercial radio.
 9  531                  Canadian content is important to me
10     since there are few other avenues for me to hear
11     homegrown and produced talent.  International programs,
12     especially from overseas, help counter the States'
13     influence as well.
14  532                  Local interviews are also vital since
15     we do live in the community.  However, the regional and
16     national information needs to be there as well. 
17     Emphasis outside of Toronto is very important since
18     there are a lot of Canadians not of that area, culture
19     and mindset.
20  533                  In the future I hope that programs
21     will exist for every age group, even if I do not like
22     to listen to all of them.  I hope that being a Canadian
23     media will be obvious and something to be proud of. 
24     With the large area that our country covers and the
25     multi-ethnic interest and age diversity that it
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 1     represents, it will be a challenge to reach everyone,
 2     but the attempt is needed if we are to hang together as
 3     a country and a society.
 4  534                  If the only way for the CBC to
 5     continue is to be a public broadcast type station with
 6     fundraising necessary, I would be willing to pledge
 7     towards it.
 8  535                  Thank you.
 9  536                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
10     Weaver Blonde.
11  537                  Do I take then that Olive Weaver who
12     is on our list will not be here?
13  538                  MS BLONDE:  That's correct.  She is
14     here, but I am speaking for her.
15  539                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.
16  540                  Mr. Lahay.
17  541                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
18  542                  Joyce Whitaker.  Joyce Whitaker. 
19     Ronaldo Agostino and Mike Vonella.
20     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
21  543                  MR. AGOSTINO:  Good evening, ladies
22     and gentlemen.
23  544                  My name is Ronaldo Agostino.  Please
24     allow me to introduce Mike Vonella.  We are both
25     communications study students at the University of
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 1     Windsor.
 2  545                  We would like to take this
 3     opportunity to discuss the CBC's role in the future of
 4     Canadian television and radio.
 5  546                  The belief is that the CBC's and the
 6     CRTC's role as organizations is to serve Canadians all
 7     across the nation.  Canada is a mosaic of cultures,
 8     beliefs and values which should all be represented by
 9     the CBC.  For this reason, we feel that in the next
10     millennium the CBC should focus more on regional and
11     local coverage to satisfy the needs of many Canadians
12     as they possibly can.
13  547                  Toronto is big, but not bigger than
14     Canada.  In a city like Windsor, we are overwhelmed by
15     the American mass media.  The constant debate is also
16     focused on the lowering of Canadian content
17     regulations, but how much lower can we possibly go?
18  548                  Why?  Is Canadian radio and
19     television not strong enough to compete with the rest
20     of the world?  On the foreign market between the years
21     of 1992 and 1996, the sale of Canadian programs
22     increased 287 per cent according to the Canadian
23     Association of Broadcasters.
24  549                  According to a poll released on
25     September 23, 1998, that was commissioned by the CRTC,
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 1     79 per cent of English speaking Canadians had named an
 2     American show to be their favourite, so why aren't
 3     Canadians watching?  The no-brainer would be that the
 4     CBC cannot compete with American broadcasters because
 5     of limited financial resources.  This may be the case,
 6     but it has been shown over time that people will watch
 7     quality Canadian programming.
 8  550                  In our opinion, American media is all
 9     about the hype.  Their television and radio is no
10     better than ours.  It's just promoted to the mainstream
11     and, as in many cases, Canadians fall into their trap
12     as well.  We are led to believe that the American
13     programming is better than ours, so most people won't
14     even give the CBC a chance.
15  551                  In the fall of 1998, I had the
16     pleasure of being an assistant host at CBC Windsor's
17     open house.  This gave me some very important insight
18     behind CBC and a chance to personally meet CBC viewers
19     and listeners.  My duty was to sit with Jonothan
20     Torrence, host and star of "Jonovision".
21  552                  My first observation was directed
22     towards the people in attendance.  The majority of them
23     had to be at least over the age of 40.  Sitting with
24     Jonothan Torrence, a CBC personality directed towards a
25     younger audience, it was evident that not many people
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 1     were there to see him.
 2  553                  The lineup was right across from me. 
 3     CBC's fans waited to meet with Shelagh Rogers, host of
 4     CBC Radio's "Take Five".  She was the star of the day,
 5     but even the people who went to see her complained that
 6     she didn't talk enough.
 7  554                  Speaking to one of the producers of
 8     the show, he told me that the CBC itself demanded that
 9     Shelagh not talk so much.  I didn't understand it.  Why
10     doesn't the CBC give Canadians what they want?  It was
11     obvious that they wanted to hear Sheila.
12  555                  My major concern of the day had to be
13     the lack of younger people visiting the open house. 
14     Sure, there was young kids, but only because they
15     tagged along with their parents.  The majority of the
16     people were adults.  Where were all of my friends and
17     people my age?  Could it be that the CBC has let a full
18     generation of viewers slip through their fingers?  It
19     appears so.
20  556                  Now the CBC's biggest challenge
21     heading into the next millennium is how can they get
22     young adults back and not lose the younger generation
23     before us?
24  557                  Our suggestion is simple.  Instead of
25     the CRTC focusing so much on Canadian content when
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 1     renewing the CBC's licence, they should focus more on
 2     quality instead of quantity.  Produce entertaining
 3     Canadian programming, concentrating more resources to a
 4     smaller number of shows while improving the quality. 
 5     Once this happens, then we believe that more
 6     advertisers will want to be on the CBC, creating more
 7     revenue and an opportunity to tap more Canadian
 8     television.
 9  558                  We questioned a university student on
10     his thoughts of the CBC and he replied:
11                            "During the afternoon hours of
12                            Sunday, March 24, 1999, I found
13                            myself in front of the
14                            television watching a show on
15                            CBC called 'Wind at my Back'. 
16                            The show had some basic concepts
17                            that would look good on paper. 
18                            However, the lack of creativity
19                            and the poor execution on the
20                            part of the actors, combined to
21                            create an episode that was
22                            sub-par and lacked quality
23                            entertainment value.  One of the
24                            reasons why people in Canada
25                            don't watch Canadian programming
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 1                            is because of the entertainment
 2                            factor.  The acting was seedy
 3                            and the program had a shortage
 4                            of enthusiasm.  I found myself
 5                            dazing off half way through the
 6                            show.  With the current CBC
 7                            lineup, I do not think I will
 8                            find myself watching anything
 9                            except 'Hockey Night in Canada',
10                            unless the schedule changes some
11                            time in the near future."
12  559                  It is evident that the CBC has done a
13     mediocre job in targeting younger audiences.  What
14     appeals young Canadian adults to the American pop
15     culture is their ability to relate.  What we mean is
16     their ability to promote and market the mainstream
17     commodities.
18  560                  It's simple.  Television programming
19     is a fad and Americans are the finest at attracting
20     trendy audiences.  Once a craze dwindles, American
21     broadcasters change their format to tailor the new
22     demands of their audiences.
23  561                  We feel that for the CBC to take
24     steps in order to compete, they must improve the visual
25     quality of their programs because at times it is
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 1     extremely dull.
 2  562                  Certain shows look inferior and
 3     unprofessional in comparison to American television. 
 4     Although potentially good in content, audiences will
 5     not keep the channel tuned in to poor visual
 6     television.  Secondly, the energy and excitement pales
 7     in comparison to American TV.  With this in mind, many
 8     shows on the CBC have made early exits.
 9  563                  Nevertheless, CBC's comedy and
10     variety shows are very funny.  The CBC should attempt
11     to model its success of programs, such as "This Hour
12     has 22 Minutes", with others.  The comedic talent
13     fabricated from Canada speaks for itself.  However, we
14     must give them assurance that staying in Canada is as
15     beneficial as the United States.  It comes down to
16     establishing our own identity and culture.
17  564                  Culture is frequently referred to as
18     art, literature, classical music, values and beliefs
19     and how society conforms to these characteristics. 
20     Culture is a whole way of life, the media shapes it and
21     the government attempts to mould it.  Culture is a
22     cohesive in which society is held together.
23  565                  It is the personality, the symbols
24     and the values in which an individual is patterned. 
25     Abraham Rotstein defines it best:
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 1                            "Culture as 'language', used in
 2                            the larger sense of the term, is
 3                            thus one of a broad, if not the
 4                            broadest feature of the unity
 5                            and coherence of a society.  It
 6                            is the essential binding feature
 7                            without which any semblance of
 8                            orderly discourse and
 9                            interaction would disappear."
10  566                  Finally, it is the CBC's duty to
11     provide Canadians with not only cultural programming,
12     but with programming that is culturally entertaining in
13     its news, information, educational and dramatic
14     programs.
15  567                  Thank you very much.
16  568                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
17     Agostino and Mr. Vonella.
18  569                  Mr. Lahay.
19  570                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
20  571                  Just a quick reminder that if any of
21     the presenters wish to leave a copy, the Commission
22     would be pleased to accept them at this time.
23  572                  Mark Lefebvre.
24     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
25  573                  MR. LEFEBVRE:  Good evening.
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 1  574                  My name is Mark Lefebvre.  I am a
 2     native of Windsor, university graduate, father and
 3     husband and a performing artist.  I am also President
 4     of the Board of Directors of Artsite Incorporated,
 5     which is an artist run centre for the contemporary
 6     arts, funded by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts
 7     Council, the City of Windsor and individual and
 8     corporate members.
 9  575                  Growing up in Windsor, mind you, this
10     was I believe the last city in Canada to receive cable,
11     I was enamoured of American TV and radio, not just
12     entertainment but also news programming.  A number of
13     people in Windsor still get their daily news from one
14     of the three American stations rather than tuning in to
15     the Canadian stations here in Windsor.
16  576                  CBC was for "Hockey Night in Canada"
17     and CBC Radio simply did not hold any interest for me. 
18     I received my Canadian news via the Canadian newspaper.
19  577                  At some point in my growth I realized
20     how important it was to have and develop a Canadian
21     identity, especially right up against a large U.S. city
22     like Detroit.  We here in Windsor interact with
23     Americans as commuting workers, tourists and business
24     people and also as friends and family.
25  578                  There is an imaginary dotted line
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 1     that runs right down the middle of that river.  That is
 2     the front line where the global battle to resist the
 3     American cultural juggernaut is waged daily.
 4  579                  I believe the CBC has given me a
 5     sharper sense of who we are as people.  The myth of an
 6     ambiguous Canadian culture I think is erroneous.  I can
 7     easily define myself in terms beyond a major reaction
 8     to our large neighbour to the south or, in this case,
 9     to the north, or to former colonial powers overseas.
10  580                  Whereas the railroads connected this
11     huge country in the last century, radio and television
12     connects us now.
13  581                  There is no private broadcaster with
14     the capability or the resources to adequately report on
15     the doings everywhere in Canada.  As a small example,
16     CHWI, the private broadcaster in Windsor, their local
17     newscast originates from London, not Windsor.
18  582                  I also feel that newspapers are
19     increasingly becoming propaganda tools of elite
20     corporate interests.  Conrad Black is not getting my
21     money.
22  583                  I do not subscribe to cable, nor do I
23     have a satellite dish, but it if I did, I would not
24     tune in to CBC because it was the same as everyone else
25     but because it was unique.  I think CBC should present
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 1     programming and increase funding to the production of
 2     Canadian programming, everything from costume dramas to
 3     comedy satire to the performing arts and, yes, to
 4     hockey.
 5  584                  I think the CBC should hire from and
 6     emulate the best of private broadcasting to correct the
 7     threat of inertia, the so-called public surface.  There
 8     is a fine line there because there is also the threat
 9     of becoming a parrot to the U.S. style of broadcasting.
10  585                  The CBC I think in reporting on
11     Canadian politics should focus on immediacy.  Canadian
12     politics is much more dynamic and variable than its
13     American counterpart.  I think we can do a better job
14     of presenting more up-to-the-minute reporting and
15     possibly becoming more interactive in the next
16     millennium.
17  586                  I know myself I have never in my life
18     been polled, yet public policy is constantly being
19     pursued as far as public opinion polls.  It is a very,
20     very small percentage of the population that is polled
21     daily on large issues.  I think there has to be a way,
22     possibly through our television sets and our remote
23     controls, that we as Canadians can have a more
24     democratic system of polling.
25  587                  There is a direct relation between
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 1     money spent and local and regional voices.  When money
 2     is cut, that's the first thing that's cut.  It's ironic
 3     that we finally have a TV anchor in Windsor who is from
 4     Windsor, Jennifer Gates.  I feel this is very
 5     important, having someone who understands the issues of
 6     the community from the inside rather than having to
 7     learn about it from a city from the outside.
 8  588                  As far as radio is concerned, I just
 9     read something about the CBC proposing a third network,
10     a youth network.  Whether this is true or not, I'm not
11     sure.  Whether this is a good idea, I think perhaps a
12     better idea might be an overhaul of Radio Two rather
13     than starting a new network.
14  589                  Also, I think a youth network is a
15     misnomer.  Perhaps it should be called "Forty and Under
16     Radio".  I feel that CBC Radio does not speak to me.
17  590                  If CBC could put out programming as
18     diverse and challenging as National Public Radio does
19     in Detroit, people would take notice.  I think that
20     wall to wall classic music and flaccid radio dramas do
21     not appeal to most people.
22  591                  Lastly, I would like to speak about
23     autonomy.  I think CBC TV and radio does not have to be
24     free of commercials, but they must be free of the
25     corporate agenda, which includes government at all
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 1     levels.
 2  592                  I think this should include the
 3     freedom from censorship and/or persecution of reporters
 4     and the employment of scab labour practices during
 5     legal strikes.
 6  593                  Our Canadian tolerance comes not from
 7     being meek and docile, but from our willingness to see
 8     an issue from all sides.  We should not let jingoism
 9     and demagoguery blind us with convenient sound bytes
10     about global market forces and political partisanship.
11  594                  A national public broadcaster can and
12     should continue to strive to look and listen and tell
13     all the things of concern to Canadians.  We are, all of
14     us, Canadian culture and we must be allowed to know
15     ourselves.
16  595                  Thank you.
17                                                        1830
18  596                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
19     Lefebvre.
20  597                  Mr. Lahay.
21  598                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
22  599                  Barri Cohen, please.  Ms Barri Cohen. 
23     Wes Chalmers.  Wes Chalmers.
24  600                  Okay.  That concludes what we have of
25     the first ten.  I would like to just go through the
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 1     list again to make sure that some people have not come
 2     in late.
 3  601                  Trevor Price.  Trevor Price.  Barb
 4     Duke.  Barb Duke.  Joyce Whitaker.  Barri Cohen.  Barri
 5     Cohen.  Wes Chalmers.  Wes Chalmers.
 6  602                  We will go through the second set of
 7     ten, please.
 8  603                  Thank you very much for your
 9     presentations.  Again, I say if you have a presentation
10     you wish to leave with the Commission, please feel free
11     to do so.
12  604                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Transcripts are
13     available on the Web at our site or, if you wish, you
14     can ask for a hard copy by writing to the CRTC or
15     phoning the 800 number.
16  605                  MR. LAHAY:  Our next set of ten
17     presenters, please.  Kendall McKinney, Ryan Bayley and
18     Mathew Clark, Dina Jones, Mike Rogers, Mr. Reitz, Ted
19     Wheeler, Vito Signorile and Veronika Mogyorody, Chad
20     Grant, Barbara Cunningham and David Nitschke.
21  606                  Please come forward and have a seat
22     at the front table here.  We will start when everybody
23     is seated, please, with the first one.
24  607                  Kendall McKinney.  I will start again
25     just to see who is here.  Please, again would you
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 1     identify yourself when you speak.  If there is more
 2     than one person in any group, please subsequently
 3     identify yourself.
 4  608                  Kendall McKinney.
 5     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 6  609                  MR. McKINNEY:  Good evening.  My name
 7     is Kendall McKinney.  I have got a very informal
 8     presentation that represents my personal views.
 9  610                  I wish to start out by saying that I
10     am an avid CBC Radio listener, less so a consumer of
11     the TV service of any nature.  The purpose of these
12     hearings, of course, is to review the licensing
13     requirements.
14  611                  The comments that I have to make, of
15     course, will reflect some licensing concerns but will
16     also touch upon policy matters which the CRTC I
17     recognize does not have direct control over. 
18     Nonetheless, I believe the whole purpose of this
19     proceeding is to reflect the views of the public and
20     should be reflected back to the funding agencies for
21     the CBC because that's really the key to the whole
22     importance of the CBC.
23  612                  Whether it's radio or TV, the issue
24     that we are talking about here is fundamentally
25     Canadian content above and beyond the Canadian content
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 1     regulations that may be found in radio, television or
 2     any other media such as might be found in C-55
 3     currently.
 4  613                  The issue is also public broadcasting
 5     as opposed to corporate values.  It was said by the
 6     previous presenter, and I think rightly so, that the
 7     electronic media is to Canada in its second century
 8     what the railways were to it in its first century.
 9  614                  The CBC is a deliberate exercise in
10     nation building.  That policy objective should be
11     reiterated, recognized and reflected in licensing
12     requirements.  It is unique.  Quite unlike other
13     private licensed electronic media, it should not be
14     compared directly to those electronic media for reasons
15     that I will get into.
16  615                  For example, simple reasons of
17     quality, alternative views and voices, simple ability
18     to hear each other, to see each other, to see our
19     stories, our history, our views, our people, our
20     places.  The reason why this has to be done through a
21     public broadcaster with proper funding and with a
22     deliberate Canadian orientation is due to simple market
23     reality.
24  616                  As has been referred to earlier, we
25     sit across from one of the most saturated medium
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 1     markets in North America, especially in radio, in the
 2     form of Detroit.  The market reality that is created by
 3     simple market forces is a lowest common denominator
 4     form of broadcasting, try to get the most for the
 5     least.
 6  617                  The market driven broadcasting is
 7     loyal to stockholders, not to fellow citizens.  It is
 8     overwhelmingly American in its orientation.  That's no
 9     shot against the Americans or their broadcasting.  It's
10     simply the fact that it overwhelms us by the simple
11     volume of their broadcasting capabilities.
12  618                  Mere economics dooms a Canadian
13     production that will reflect any of the values to which
14     I have alluded so far, no matter how good they are,
15     although there has been some criticism of the quality
16     of that broadcasting.  Even if it was to be the best
17     quality all the time, it would still be a problem
18     without public support and licensing requirements that
19     reflect that.
20  619                  Just as a Canadian moose may be a
21     very strong and healthy animal, it is always going to
22     lose in a head to head competition with a woolly
23     mammoth.  It's simply a matter of size.  That cannot be
24     gotten around.
25  620                  There is no such thing as a level
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 1     playing field with a market that is ten times your
 2     size.  You will hear American stories.  You will hear
 3     American views, American voices and American places in
 4     broadcasting if it's allowed to go to simple market
 5     forces.  It can't be gotten around.
 6  621                  In the alternative, where else but
 7     through a public broadcaster such as the CBC are we
 8     going to see, hear and share Canadian stories, stories
 9     about our history?  Nowhere else except CBC was going
10     to run a story, a film on the Avro Arrow.  Nowhere else
11     have I or do I ever expect to hear or see anything
12     about the debacle at Dieppe.
13  622                  We are sitting across the street from
14     Dieppe Gardens here memorializing it.  Without CBC, how
15     many Canadians would ever have a chance of knowing
16     about why Dieppe is important and why there is a
17     memorial to them right here in this town.
18  623                  Whether it's the controversy over
19     "The Valour and the Horror" or the less controversial
20     but equally educational "Canada Remembers", it informs
21     me about the seminal events that cast a shadow even
22     into this part of the century of Canada's war history.
23  624                  This is an event that marked my
24     parents' generation.  If I am to understand them, I
25     must understand that and where do I hear or see
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 1     anything relating to that on the commercial media?  The
 2     answer is "I will not".
 3  625                  Or its ideas.  I might mention the
 4     "Ideas" program on CBC radio.  You can get a pretty
 5     good education right there just listening to that one. 
 6     Or "This Morning Magazine".  Whether it's the arts,
 7     whether it be classical through Radio Two, although I
 8     might add that Radio Two could do a little bit better
 9     if it was dedicated programming all the time instead of
10     just part time, or whether it's popular culture through
11     DNTO.
12  626                  Again, I emphasize that it's not an
13     issue of quality.  The quality, as I can tell you from
14     my experiences in the Canadian music community, be it
15     folk music or be it classical, is there, but if there's
16     no place, no forum for those songs to be sung or for
17     the arts to be discussed or for the literature to be
18     read, then it might as well not exist at all.  CBC
19     provides that forum.
20  627                  It's also a matter of diversity.
21     Whether it be in the news through simple news
22     broadcasting or through programs such as "As it
23     Happens" or Cross-country Checkup" on radio, it's all a
24     matter of very unique perspective that cannot, will not
25     and never has been addressed through any other forum.
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 1  628                  As I said, and I will wrap this up,
 2     the threats come simply from the dominance of the
 3     reality of the American market.  We are not Americans. 
 4     We are Canadians.  We have our own unique perspective,
 5     history, a million stories to tell.  They will not be
 6     told through the American media because they have their
 7     stories to tell.
 8  629                  Although when listening to them, now
 9     and again, I want to hear my neighbours that are a
10     little closer to me first and my neighbours that are
11     across the river second, not the other way around.
12  630                  It's a threat from corporate values,
13     you know, the values of profit first and lowest common
14     denominator versus the values of our fellow citizens in
15     a deliberate attempt to build this nation to what it
16     can be, should be and, God willing, with our help will
17     be.
18  631                  It is a matter of a threat to a
19     valuable contributor to this whole process that is
20     dying by 10,000 cuts, one position at a time.  Right
21     now we have got front-line workers who provide us with
22     all this information, with all this broadcasting, out
23     on strike right now, maybe more going, just as there
24     was eight years ago, thousands of people marching on
25     this street right in front of this hotel, because we
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 1     realize that there has to be some mechanism to call a
 2     halt to the madness that is destroying the broadcaster
 3     of our national dream.
 4  632                  I would urge the CRTC to use whatever
 5     offices and mechanisms are at their disposal to apply
 6     pressure to call a halt to what is threatening both the
 7     quality of the existing broadcasting, its future in its
 8     entirety.
 9  633                  These values can only be made real,
10     can only be put into play if the adequate funding is
11     there so that there are good quality people in adequate
12     numbers able to earn a secure living by telling us our
13     stories.
14  634                  Thank you.
15  635                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
16     McKinney.
17  636                  Mr. Lahay.
18  637                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
19  638                  Ryan Bayley and Mr. Mathew Clark. 
20     Please state your name if you are going to talk first
21     and then second, please.
22     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
23  639                  MR. CLARK:  Good evening,
24     Commissioners.  I am Mathew Clark and this is Jeff May.
25  640                  As an individual speaking as a part
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 1     of the public for the City of Windsor, I am glad to be
 2     here tonight.  I will try and keep this as short as
 3     possible.
 4  641                  Thank you.
 5  642                  A little over two weeks ago I spoke
 6     with CBC spokesperson Ms Ruth Ellen Soles.  One of the
 7     questions raised was the fact that the CBC in the new
 8     strategy was to eliminate all U.S. programming.
 9  643                  I brought to her attention the fact
10     that on Sunday nights CBC airs movies produced from The
11     Wonderful World of Disney, an American production
12     company.  Ms Soles responded by saying that the CBC
13     considers The Wonderful World of Disney under a
14     category "best television programming from the rest of
15     the world".
16  644                  After investigation, I found Decision
17     No. 94-437, issued on July 17, 1994, that you, the
18     Commission, does mention the term "best of the rest" in
19     a paragraph under Canadian content.  You refer to this
20     as the best television program for the rest of the
21     world, excluding U.S. programming.
22  645                  You state that "the best of the rest
23     should be interpreted as embracing a diversity of
24     programming whose sustained and sustaining equality
25     extends beyond the normally found in standard U.S.
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 1     commercial network fare so abundantly available to most
 2     Canadians".
 3  646                  From my point of view, Disney does
 4     not fit under the category "best in the world".  It's
 5     just CBC's way of sneaking in an American produced
 6     movie into a category which it's not suited for.  To go
 7     along with the CBC is holding a Disney contest which is
 8     advertising their Web site
 9  647                  For a person to win, they must watch
10     specific Disney movies and follow the specifications
11     brought forth.  Why can't CBC hold other types of
12     contests promoting Canadian shows during prime time?
13  648                  As we have seen a decrease in
14     American programming on the CBC, there are still
15     concerns on this topic.
16  649                  Looking at the CBC lineup, I was
17     amazed to see that "The Simpsons" and "Wonder Years"
18     are still being broadcast.  There have been reductions
19     in U.S. programming by the way of eliminating soap
20     operas in place of Canadian ones.  It's all fine and
21     dandy, but why "The Simpsons" and "Wonder Years" still
22     being aired?
23  650                  Decision No. 94-437, section 3, part
24     (c), states:  "Particular emphasis on redeveloping the
25     television service so that eliminating U.S. programming
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 1     from television schedules to be replaced by new
 2     Canadian programs and high quality non-U.S. foreign
 3     material".  By still airing "The Simpsons" and "Wonder
 4     Years", the guidelines are not being kept.
 5  651                  Our next concern is involving the
 6     amount of sports being broadcast on the CBC.  I was
 7     under the impression that the CBC stated a new strategy
 8     to reduce the place of sports being broadcasted except
 9     for that of hockey.
10  652                  When talking to Ms Ruth Ellen Soles,
11     she responded by saying that the reduction of sports
12     was never mentioned by the CBC.  Decision No. 94-437
13     encourages CBC to replace some of its professional
14     sports coverage with under-represented programs.
15  653                  The Commission's reasoning was that
16     alternative sources of such coverage to sports are now
17     available to most Canadians.  The fact is that CBC
18     sports coverage is widespread and in fact may be taking
19     up valuable air time for other programs.
20  654                  This being said, I was wondering
21     whether CBC had actually spoken on this topic or, as Ms
22     Soles claims, the CBC has never spoken about this
23     topic.
24  655                  In conclusion, we feel that our
25     points are valid and hope you consider this when
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 1     renewing the CBC's licence.
 2  656                  Thank you.
 3  657                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
 4     Clark, and is it Mr. May?
 5  658                  MR. CLARK:  Yes.
 6  659                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very
 7     much.
 8  660                  Mr. Lahay.
 9  661                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
10  662                  Dina Jones, please.  Dina Jones.
11     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
12  663                  MR. FARQUHARSON:  Mr. Lahay, Ms Cram,
13     allow me to introduce my associates, Mrs. Dina Jones
14     and Ms Melanie Jones.  My name is Colin Farquharson.
15  664                  We have come here today to bring to
16     your attention how we feel that the CBC is not
17     fulfilling their role as our national public
18     broadcaster with respect to the independent film making
19     community.
20  665                  As we head into the new millennium,
21     we need to move away from the high degree of
22     preferential treatment in a documentary film unit at
23     the CBC.  This inequity can be seen in the way the CBC
24     favours the same producers and directors by giving them
25     numerous assignments while lesser known independents
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 1     struggle to find work.
 2  666                  According to Guy Lepinsky's article
 3     entitled "Fortress CBC", and it appeared in last
 4     summer's edition of "The Ryerson Review of Journalism",
 5     it states that out of 49 original documentaries which
 6     aired on the series "Witness" between 1995 and 1998,
 7     nearly half were produced or directed by current or
 8     former CBC employees.
 9  667                  More specifically, former CBC
10     producer Brian McKenna and Gord Henderson had seven
11     documentaries aired.  Also, former CBC reporters Gerry
12     Thomson and Josh Freed had seven documentaries aired
13     between the two of them.  This favouritism limits the
14     amount of diversity while concurrently restricting the
15     Canadian viewer.
16  668                  The documentary focus program "Rough
17     Cuts" claims to speak with voices previously unheard or
18     with visions that have not been screened on more
19     traditional news programs.  Unfortunately, this program
20     airs on "CBC Newsworld" which, being a news network,
21     falls under "all journalistic policy and practice of
22     the CBC".  Also, "Newsworld" has a budget of only one
23     tenth as much as the English CBC.
24  669                  With regard to "Rough Cuts", the CBC
25     claims that they will continue to take risks with
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 1     newcomers, but the old cliche stands with the addition
 2     that experienced individuals in the production team
 3     benefit and protect traditional CBC editorial and
 4     journalistic excellence.
 5  670                  "Rough Cuts" senior producer Gerry
 6     McIntosh even conceded that because "Rough Cuts" is
 7     aired on a news network, the documentaries need to
 8     follow journalistic policy.  This requirement
 9     undermines the guidelines that are set out for the show
10     which appear on the show Web site.
11  671                  The first paragraph states
12     "Innovation, diversity, independence and cost-effective
13     production are the hallmarks of 'Rough Cuts'".  Nowhere
14     does it read that the viewership of the show expects a
15     journalistic tone and to keep that in mind if you are
16     planning to submit a proposal.
17  672                  It's a well known fact that Canada
18     excels in the production of documentary films and
19     documentaries written, produced and directed by
20     Canadians are very unique.  However, it has become
21     increasingly obvious that there needs to be some new
22     blood let into the CBC.
23  673                  The independent production sector
24     shouldn't have to struggle to find an audience because
25     this is where today's new ideas and originality can be
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 1     found.
 2  674                  We feel that the CBC can rectify this
 3     situation in part by considering the idea of
 4     considering the idea of commissioning the production of
 5     mini-docs.  Now, mini-docs are a terrific way for
 6     young, less experienced film makers to hone their
 7     skills on shorter five to seven minute projects before
 8     taking on larger full length documentaries.
 9  675                  Not only would this fill segments of
10     shows that aren't quite long enough for their allotted
11     time slots, but it would also allow for many new,
12     aspiring documentary film makers to release amusing and
13     contemporary work.
14  676                  Possibly a one hour show specifically
15     devoted to broadcasting these films would help the new
16     film makers.  It would help them a great deal.  As
17     well, broadcasting these films during the evening
18     instead of having mobile programming signing off for
19     the broadcast day would also be a great benefit.
20  677                  In the CBC's mission statement they
21     profess that the CBC will lead the way in producing
22     meaningful programming that reflects the diversity of
23     Canada, using people with diverse talents and
24     perspectives.  In truth, the CBC is failing members of
25     the independent documentary film industry in Canada.
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 1  678                  To conclude, we feel that when
 2     inexperienced and independent film makers are denied
 3     the opportunity to broadcast their work nationally, the
 4     state of the industry suffers as well.
 5  679                  Thank you.
 6  680                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
 7     Farquharson, and is it Ms Jones and Ms Jones?
 8  681                  MR. FARQUHARSON:  It is.
 9  682                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.
10  683                  Mr. Lahay.
11  684                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair,
12     our next presenter, Mike Rogers.
13     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
14  685                  MR. ROGERS:  Good evening.  My name
15     is Mike Rogers.  I am an avid CBC listener.  I just
16     want to give my two cents worth since I have the
17     opportunity.
18  686                  I think that the CRTC has to save the
19     CBC from ruination.  As some people have already
20     alluded to, we can't compete with the Americans.  It's
21     not a level playing field.  Canadians need a voice on
22     the global playing field.
23  687                  I feel that this CBC network provides
24     that.  They might have some problems and they maybe
25     need to refine some things, but overall I think we are
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 1     doing pretty good in giving Canadians a chance to
 2     showcase what talents they do have and get a voice when
 3     they might otherwise not be heard.
 4  688                  I don't have a television.  I haven't
 5     had one for 14 years.  The big reason is because of the
 6     Americanization.  I listen to CBC all the time.  I find
 7     it's very beneficial.  I have two little girls who have
 8     grown up to know what CBC is and know what Canadians
 9     are.  In Windsor, that's quite different.  I'm not
10     originally from here.
11  689                  I think shows like "Cross-country
12     Checkup", the morning shows that are on, like right now
13     things are sort of in limbo with all the strike action,
14     but when things get on track, it's good to be able to
15     turn on the radio and know that you are going to have
16     some kind of Canadian viewpoint.  For us to lose that,
17     it would be very sad.
18  690                  We have a local radio station that's
19     a private station.  You don't even know it's Canadian
20     because they market themselves as American even though
21     they have their network and employees from Canada. 
22     They still market themselves to the American audience
23     for advertising dollars.  Canadians, people away from
24     here, wouldn't know that it was a Canadian station.
25  691                  That's where the dollars talk. 
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 1     Advertisers go where the money's at.
 2  692                  CBC doesn't have a large audience,
 3     but we still need to have a voice.  I think it's very
 4     important for us as Canadians to stand up for our
 5     nation and not let government funding cause the
 6     ruination because of all the money that is spent on
 7     different things the government does, this one of the
 8     few examples of money well spent, in my opinion.
 9  693                  I can't say enough.  There are some
10     people here that agree.  Some will disagree.  I think
11     we have to stand up for ourselves and be Canadian.  I
12     can't really fill up the ten minutes.  I just wanted to
13     make sure I had my two cents worth.
14  694                  I hope that this leads to some good
15     viewpoints.  I appreciate the opportunity.
16  695                  Thank you.
17  696                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
18     Rogers.
19  697                  Mr. Lahay.
20  698                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Commissioner
21     Cram.
22  699                  Mr. Reitz, please.
23     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
24  700                  MR. REITZ:  Thank you.
25  701                  My name is Conrad Reitz.  I am here
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 1     just as an ordinary citizen who listens to the radio,
 2     watches TV and plays on my recently acquired home
 3     computer system.
 4  702                  While a professional librarian, I
 5     work at the University of Windsor.  I have been living
 6     in Windsor for 34 years.  I'm due to retire next year
 7     and I can see me in my declining years still spending
 8     my time listening to the radio, watching TV and playing
 9     around on my home computer.
10  703                  When I was preparing this
11     presentation, I got a bit concerned because it sounded
12     very dogmatic.  I was a bit concerned that it may sound
13     negative and un-Canadian.
14  704                  I was really surprised and pleased at
15     the number of points that I wanted to make that other
16     people have been making all along, maybe attached a
17     different spin to it, but the same points were made
18     over and over again.  I hope that what I have to say
19     will reinforce some of these points.
20  705                  I also wanted to make a particular
21     point of making a distinction between CBC radio and CBC
22     television.  Talking about them in the same breath and
23     comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges. 
24     Let me first address CBC radio.
25  706                  We have got three radios now in our
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 1     family, two in our house and one in our car.  All three
 2     are tuned constantly to CBE 1550.  Why is that? 
 3     Because CBC radio provides us with a window to the
 4     world, to Canada and to our local community.
 5  707                  Through programs such as "Morning
 6     Watch" and "Crosstown" we are kept informed of events
 7     and happenings in Windsor and the tri-country area by
 8     people like Paul Vaisey and Barbara Peacock who come
 9     into our homes on a daily basis and who we look on as
10     friends and members of our family.
11  708                  On the regional and the national
12     basis, I have come to rely on CBC Radio for
13     authoritative news, features and current events,
14     national, regional and locally, through such great
15     programs as "The World at Six", "As it Happens",
16     "Cross-Country Checkup", "Sunday Morning" and for
17     entertainment and culture, I turn to DNTO "Ideas" and
18     CBC Radio Two, although I would like to reinforce a
19     point made by somebody this afternoon about the
20     dreadful reception of Radio Two and the weak signal
21     which is really something that should be addressed.
22  709                  The great thing about radio is I can
23     do other things while listening to my favourite program
24     like driving my car or sitting at my desk at work or
25     keeping busy on my own computer, reading, gardening, et
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 1     cetera.
 2  710                  All I can say about CBC radio is keep
 3     up the good work and more of the same.  The problem is,
 4     of course, that the vast majority in CBE's listening
 5     area are usually tuned into other station.  CBE has
 6     less than 7 per cent of the audience share.  Fifteen
 7     per cent listen to its main competitor, CKOW, and 6 per
 8     cent to CKWW.
 9  711                  Sixty-four per cent of our local
10     citizens tune in to American stations.  That in itself
11     doesn't bother me.  CBE caters to a small, select group
12     of informed citizens.  It does, however, raise an issue
13     that is central to the question that must be answered
14     about CBC Television which is where should the emphasis
15     be placed?  This has come up constantly in other
16     presentations.  On popularity and market demand or on
17     quality?
18  712                  My quarrel is not so much with CBC
19     television as it is with television as a medium.  I
20     would probably be considered to be a difficult and
21     deviant viewer, at least that's what I thought of
22     myself as inclined to some other people talking that
23     don't watch television at all for the reasons that
24     bother me about television generally as a medium.
25  713                  My 15 hours in front of the tube each
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 1     week consists, I have to admit, of watching movies,
 2     documentaries, musical shows and stock car racing. 
 3     Almost all my TV watching is confined to the History
 4     Channel, Bravo!, Space, Vision, Discovery, A&E and TNN,
 5     with the occasional network stock car racing movie and
 6     a smattering of PBS and, of course, I have to say
 7     Elwy's "Saturday Night at the Movies" on TVO.  I
 8     wouldn't miss that for anything.
 9  714                  As far as I'm concerned, what we get
10     from CBC's local Channel 9 is indistinguishable from
11     the programming of the other Canadian commercial
12     channels.  It is not at all clear to me what is meant
13     in this context by public broadcasting.
14  715                  Supposedly our tax dollars go to
15     support the CBC, but surely the primary financial
16     support comes from advertisers.  Millions and millions
17     of dollars are involved in sponsoring the Olympic
18     Games, "Hockey Night in Canada" and the nightly news.
19  716                  Whenever I do force myself to watch
20     the 11 o'clock national news, I am bombarded with inane
21     commercials about the merits of maxi pads and
22     detergents, mouthwash, mutual funds, hardware stores,
23     on and on and on.  The only difference I can see, quite
24     frankly, between the CTV and CBC news is one of the
25     news readers has more hair than the other.
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 1  717                  How does the CBC differ in this
 2     respect from CTV as far as the viewer is concerned?  I
 3     have been told that public broadcasting will tackle
 4     themes that private broadcasters will avoid.  If it
 5     wasn't for the CBC, who would carry Meech Lake
 6     discussions, political conventions and celebrations
 7     live, matters of vital concern to the majority of
 8     Canadians.
 9  718                  It has also been suggested that a
10     public broadcasting system will report with more
11     integrity, honesty and openness on issues of the day
12     because it is accountable to the public whereas private
13     broadcasters are accountable only to their sponsors.
14  719                  If it is inherent in the nature of
15     journalism, I would hope that public or private that
16     reports should have integrity, honesty and openness. 
17     What is the difference between having a sponsor or the
18     government or a lobby group looking over the network's
19     shoulder trying to stifle stories on investigations
20     that might cause embarrassment.  Dare I mention the
21     examples of "This Hour has Seven Days" and "The Valour
22     and the Horror"
23  720                  While doing research for this
24     presentation, I spent some time watching shows that I
25     previously avoided like the plague, like "22 Minutes"
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 1     and "The Beatty Show" and Julie Gordon and "The Red
 2     Green Show".  I can really see no difference between
 3     these shows and the inane drick(ph) that pollutes the
 4     barren wasteland that many connect with television.
 5  721                  Then, of course, it would be a dull
 6     world, I'm sure we will agree, if we all liked the same
 7     thing.  However, it does raise the question:  Is
 8     Canadian drick to be preferred to American drick?
 9  722                  The problem with CBC television as it
10     is presently constituted is it tries to be all things
11     to all people.  It tries to cater to popular taste
12     while attempting to satisfy the more discriminating
13     viewer.  It tries to be a national network promoting a
14     sense of Canadian identity while at the same time
15     paying lip service to local and regional coverage.  As
16     a result, it fails dismally on most counts.
17  723                  I think that it's national news is
18     superficial and extreme with very little hard news and
19     a surfeit of information type feature stories.
20  724                  CBC news, in effect all Canadian
21     television news, presents a selective and distorted
22     view of Canada.  Most Canadians, for instance, have a
23     preconceived notion of issues relating to Quebec that
24     they have assimilated from television.  This point was
25     made very strongly by the gentleman from Toronto this
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 1     afternoon.
 2  725                  The CBC has attempted to involve the
 3     public in debates on current issues such as this and
 4     others through the medium of townhall meetings, but
 5     these have all been selective, staging, manipulative
 6     and lacking credibility.
 7  726                  I suppose we in Windsor should be
 8     grateful that the CRTC has decided to pay us a visit,
 9     particularly in view of the fact that a group of
10     citizens had to fight tooth and nail to keep a CBC
11     station in Windsor a few years ago.  However, local
12     news coverage still leaves a great deal to be desired.
13  727                  CHWI does a far better job with local
14     news.  I have yet to receive an explanation as to why
15     it is necessary to have "The National" on three times
16     in one evening, at nine o'clock on "Newsworld", at 10
17     and 11 on Channel 9.  This means that the local news is
18     shunted to 11:30 p.m. when all normal Canadians are in
19     bed and the rest are up watching David Letterman or Jay
20     Leno.
21  728                  Many of us only get home from work at
22     six o'clock.  They, by missing the local CBC television
23     news, have to put up with the so-called regional news,
24     which consists almost entirely of the latest murders
25     and real estate scams in Toronto.
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 1  729                  The only comprehensive regional
 2     coverage that I have been able to find is provided by
 3     the Global Network at 11 o'clock in its "Ontario
 4     Report".  Is it any wonder some of us tune in to
 5     Channel 6 or, better by far, "The World at Six" on the
 6     radio?
 7  730                  I have to admit though I heard that
 8     Jay Leno did include an Essex County reference in a
 9     monologue a couple of nights ago when he made a crack
10     about the hullabaloo surrounding a local restaurant.  I
11     should mention I heard this on CHWI six o'clock news.
12  731                  Normally CBC television is justified
13     on the grounds it provides the only real Canadian
14     content we have, that Canadian content must be
15     protected at all costs.
16  732                  I grew up in a country that didn't
17     have TV, believe it or not, until the late seventies,
18     supposedly in order to protect the large
19     disenfranchised majority of the population from
20     foreign, that is to say American influences, and giving
21     them perhaps ideas above your station.
22  733                  I would really like to know what the
23     difference is between this type of state control and
24     the policy of cultural protection as implemented by the
25     CRTC.  I would be interested to know what share of the
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 1     local market the CBC has and what percentage watches
 2     American television in order to demonstrate how
 3     effective this cultural protectionism is.
 4  734                  Considering the question as to the
 5     role that the CBC should play, which is a fundamental
 6     question we have been asking ourselves, should play in
 7     the presentation of Canadian programming, my response
 8     is why should the CBC present the programs at all?
 9  735                  Why can't the CBC be turned into a
10     production company, possibly by amalgamation with the
11     National Film Board?  It could then concentrate on
12     producing outstanding documentaries, dramas and
13     features like, and these have been mentioned repeatedly
14     today, "Boys of St. Vincent" or "Butterbox Babies",
15     "Allo, Allo", "Dionnes", "Anne of Green Gables",
16     "Witness", "Marketplace", et cetera, et cetera, or
17     entertainment specials featuring Canadian performers?
18  736                  In marketing them aggressively, the
19     television stations make work.  Make those available in
20     Canada, in the U.S. and in the rest of the world.  If
21     they are of high quality and sufficiently interesting
22     and entertaining, they will find their own market,
23     however specialized that may be.
24  737                  Surely two objectives will be
25     achieved.  It will inform Canadians about themselves
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 1     and their country and inform the rest of the world
 2     about Canada.
 3  738                  In its present form, the corporation
 4     is an inadequate unsatisfactory hybrid, neither a
 5     public nor a private broadcaster, but a bit of both.  I
 6     think that the time has come for the CBC and for
 7     Canadians to decide what it is to be.
 8  739                  I don't under any circumstances want
 9     my remarks to be construed as favouring privatization
10     of the CBC because that's not what I'm saying at all. 
11     I'm also not advocating that the marketplace should be
12     the prime determinant, but rather acknowledging, as has
13     been mentioned previously, the fact that this is the
14     way things are in the television industry.
15  740                  I don't have any answers, only
16     questions and concerns.  To sum up, I think the major
17     issue that CBC Television has to decide for itself is
18     whether to focus on popular programming or on quality
19     programming and whether or not it should concentrate on
20     producing and marketing these programs rather than
21     competing with the commercial networks in the very
22     expensive and risky undertaking of transmitting these
23     programs to a fickle and to a dubious audience.
24  741                  Thank you.
25  742                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
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 1     Reitz.
 2  743                  Mr. Lahay.
 3                                                        1905
 4  744                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 5  745                  Mr. Ted Wheeler, please.
 6     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 7  746                  MR. WHEELER:  Thank you.
 8  747                  Ted Wheeler.  I am speaking on my own
 9     behalf.  My views are my own.  I am a very pro CBC
10     listener.
11  748                  Does the CBC fulfil its role as a
12     national public broadcaster?  In my estimation, as a
13     national public broadcaster, the CBC, clearly fulfils
14     its role as a viable and valuable source that bonds our
15     vast country together, bringing a level of unity that
16     literally stretches from coast to coast.
17  749                  It is the only means by which
18     Canadians are invited to contribute their views on any
19     subject matter.  I base this comment on personal
20     experience.
21  750                  As a professional truck driver, I
22     routinely listen to CBC throughout the day as I go
23     about my job.  I wake up to "CBC Overnight" in the
24     morning, followed by local programming at 6:00 a.m.  My
25     interest is peaked by interesting and informative story
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 1     lines and news content that affects my world.
 2  751                  National news on the hour and local
 3     news on the half hour keeps the information current and
 4     relevant.  Paul Vaisey, our regular local host,
 5     captures our interest not only in how he questions his
 6     guests, but how he invites all his listeners to voice
 7     their opinion on the subject at hand.
 8  752                  In so doing, our community is built
 9     in a way that is not possible otherwise.  This
10     community's citizens gain a sense of belonging and
11     interconnectedness as they share their views and
12     opinions.
13  753                  At 9:00 Avril and Michael of the
14     "This Morning" program introduce the audience to an
15     eclectic assortment of guests from Canada and beyond,
16     interspersed with music and personal opinions. 
17     Programming in this realm includes regular regional
18     reports from across Canada as well as interviewing
19     guests from around the world regarding world issues.
20  754                  This not only strengthens the link we
21     have as Canadians, but on a broader scope connects us
22     internationally as well.  Ultimately we, the listeners,
23     are able to form a more personal and informed view of
24     the country in which we live relative to the larger
25     world around us.
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 1  755                  At 12:00 noon, the "Radio Noon"
 2     program continues the theme with more regional news and
 3     views, followed at 1:00 with "The Phone-in Hour" and
 4     always relevant questions and guests.
 5  756                  The "Monday Garden Show" seems to be
 6     a most popular theme and I'm sure could run all day.
 7  757                  At 2:00 p.m. from Vancouver we are
 8     introduced to Bill Richardson who hosts "The Roundup"
 9     and each day offers the listener a recap of important
10     events from previous days' broadcasts.  Moreover, he
11     provides a forum for listeners to voice their opinion
12     on anything of importance to them and music requests.
13  758                  We can say hello to loved ones or to
14     a country full of people going through life together. 
15     Further, in keeping with this tradition, CBC recently
16     used this program to invite Canadians "to blow their
17     own horns" in support of Canada Day.
18  759                  From coast to coast, calls came in
19     from people who care about Canada, once again
20     strengthening the bond felt as Canadian citizens.  As
21     an individual, I felt more one with our country. 
22     Moreover, there is serious programming as well as
23     comedy, something for everyone.
24  760                  When 4:00 p.m. comes, it is back to
25     local news and views.  Road and weather reports help
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 1     the day shift make it home and the night shift to start
 2     their jobs.  It is refreshing to hear from local
 3     specialists in many fields of interest such as in
 4     nature, computers, et cetera, along with the constant
 5     opportunity to offer personal feedback, again something
 6     for everyone.
 7  761                  As my workday ends, the 6:00 p.m.
 8     national news presents extended news coverage, followed
 9     by "As It Happens" at 6:30 which opens us up to the
10     world.  This basically ends my time with CBC Radio on
11     any given day.
12  762                  I definitely believe that CBC fulfils
13     its role of keeping the people of Canada informed.  No
14     other corporation has done better at allowing citizens
15     from coast to coast to participate in our democracy. 
16     It affords the opportunities that are not possible
17     anywhere else.  For example, citizens are encouraged to
18     call from telephones no matter where they are, whether
19     in the home, the car or office.  Also, we are invited
20     to use e-mails and faxes.
21  763                  Could it be better?  Yes. 
22     Terminology could be improved.  For example, when
23     program hosts people with disabilities, they should
24     introduce or speak of the individuals before naming the
25     disabilities.  For instance, it is better to state
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 1     "people who are blind" and not "blind people".
 2  764                  Moreover, in my estimation, hosts
 3     sometimes offer poor examples of the use of terminology
 4     such as the term "geek", the word "got" which is a
 5     personal affront to myself -- I just hate that word --
 6     and "stuff".
 7  765                  In reality, the use of these types of
 8     words lowers the calibre of programming in that they
 9     seem to talk down to the listener and/or fail to
10     respect the guest.
11  766                  However, further changes would
12     require both increased funding by the federal
13     government as well as reduced tinkering by upper
14     management.  For example, the 90 second local news
15     breaks which interrupt the flow of programming is found
16     in "This Morning" program, "Radio Noon Phone-In" and
17     "The Roundup", fail to add significant input in my
18     estimation, thus they do not serve a seemingly
19     worthwhile purpose and should possibly be re-evaluated
20     at this time.
21  767                  Moreover, due to funding cutbacks,
22     significant employees were laid off who highly
23     contributed to the quality of programming we once
24     enjoyed.  For example, subsequent to staff reduction
25     was an apparent loss of local programming like
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 1     "Personality Profiles" on the "Crosstown" program.
 2  768                  Now, in reference to the television
 3     station.  Since the television station reopened, local
 4     news has been restored.  This is of particular
 5     significance since we live in a border town that
 6     bombards us with U.S. news and information.
 7  769                  Likewise, any news we receive from
 8     the CBC in the Windsor area mostly originated from
 9     Toronto which made the citizens of Essex County feel
10     that they were not a part of Canada either, thus we had
11     a complete lack of autonomy in the Windsor area.
12  770                  The restoration of the local news
13     program is highly significant to the area, yet I feel
14     that so much more could be done at a local level.  For
15     example, Windsor provides courses in communication and
16     drama at both university and college levels, yet
17     nothing seems to be supporting these educational
18     programs in terms of presentations to the public via
19     local television for those of us who do not have cable
20     television.
21  771                  Nationally, "This Hour", "Air Farce"
22     and other comedy programs are an excellent platform for
23     airing Canadian talent and satire that is not available
24     on other stations.  Likewise, significant programs such
25     as "Marketplace", "Venture", "On the Road Again", "Wind
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 1     at my Back", "Road to Avonlea" and "Coronation Street"
 2     are British imports and would not be shown without CBC.
 3  772                  In conclusion, regionally or
 4     nationally, it all comes down to funding.  In my
 5     estimation, good is not cheap and cheap is not good, at
 6     least on a consistent basis.
 7  773                  While this committee can recommend
 8     renewal of a licence, if funding isn't increased, then
 9     programming will continue to suffer at all levels. 
10     Locally, the corporation should allow greater autonomy
11     for their own workforce which is highly trained and
12     skilled so they are able to show the area in a more
13     personal and exciting way.
14  774                  Nationally, I feel the CBC does a
15     good job of showing us a wonderful cultural diversity
16     and lifestyles that comprise the Canadian landscape.
17  775                  Should the program be different from
18     other radio and TV outlets?  It should be different in
19     that radio should remain commercial-free and be
20     non-biased, which is a problem with other radio
21     outlets.  This has ultimately eliminated
22     sensationalistic comments and programs and commercial
23     programs in the CBC programming thus far which is much
24     appreciated.
25  776                  CBC television should continue to air
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 1     local news, but at more reasonable times such as at
 2     11:00 p.m. rather than 11:30.  Moreover, while I'm not
 3     a hockey fan, I think CBC does a good job of airing
 4     hockey and other sports such as the Olympics and figure
 5     skating programs.
 6  777                  We as a country cannot afford to be
 7     without the CBC in my estimation.  I feel the overall
 8     cost spread over all taxpayers is a very good value for
 9     dollars spent.  If the federal government continues to
10     cut funding and upper management continues to tinker
11     with the operation, then we will all lose a most
12     valuable resource and Canada will cease to exist in its
13     present form.
14  778                  In short, we might question what
15     would Canada be without the CBC.
16  779                  Thank you very much.
17  780                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
18     Wheeler.
19  781                  I have to ask, did you change your
20     name when you became a truck driver to Wheeler?  Sorry.
21  782                  Mr. Lahay.
22  783                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Mr. Wheeler.
23  784                  Vito Signorile.  I'm sorry if I am
24     mispronouncing your name there.
25     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
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 1  785                  MR. SIGNORILE:  Vito Signorile here.
 2  786                  I have rather general comments to
 3     make, in a way repeating what I think is becoming a
 4     mantra:  Save the CBC.  I certainly want to join my
 5     voice in that mantra as well.
 6  787                  Every country worthy of being called
 7     a nation protects its borders.  We in Windsor have a
 8     right to expect that any Canadian government, no matter
 9     what party, would zealously protect and nurture our
10     collective identity as Canadians.  In this process,
11     there is a central role for a publicly owned and
12     publicly controlled broadcasting company.
13  788                  The "Windsor Star" in a recent
14     editorial compares the CBC to a propaganda machine like
15     "Pravda", the official newspaper of the former Soviet
16     Union.  That the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state
17     is unquestionable, but it is ironic that a totalitarian
18     newspaper, subject to the censorship policies of its
19     owners and its advertisers, should complain about
20     propaganda from the CBC.
21  789                  "The Star" failed to note that,
22     unlike Pravda and its own publication, the CBC is a
23     creature of a democratic system of government and was
24     designed to nurture that system.  If anything, the CBC
25     should be strengthened and made more independent so
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 1     that it can continues to do its job.
 2  790                  Indeed, until recent cuts by the
 3     federal government, the CBC had been doing quite an
 4     outstanding job of putting Canadians in touch with one
 5     another and with the world, a job it continues to do
 6     but with every increasing difficulty.
 7  791                  It has also been invaluable as a
 8     medium ready to challenge the political and cultural
 9     presumptions of the country.  On radio, such programs
10     as "This Morning", "As It Happens" and "Ideas" are to
11     my mind without parallel anywhere in the world.
12  792                  On TV we are blessed with meaningful
13     and penetrating programs such as "The Nature of
14     Things", "Witness", "The Fifth Estate", "Marketplace"
15     and "The Journal".  Even comedy shows like "The Royal
16     Canadian Air Farce" and "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" can
17     be counted on to make significant commentary on our
18     political and social life.
19  793                  The same applies to local
20     programming.  Local TV news and radio shows like
21     "Morning Watch" and "Crosstown" are an essential
22     element in the lives we Windsorites live daily as
23     Canadians.
24  794                  We now witness in the private sector
25     a love affair with "infotainment", a blurring of the
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 1     distinction between information and entertainment. 
 2     This is a fatal mistake for we stand to lose a powerful
 3     and much needed vehicle of information and civic
 4     values.
 5  795                  The CBC has been and must remain a
 6     source of honest, truthful, courageous news and
 7     analysis.  This will not be attained by putting the
 8     whole of our media into private hands.
 9  796                  It is the task of governments to
10     guarantee the necessary independence of information
11     that our common existence as citizens of this nation
12     requires and it was the promise of the present
13     government to do so.
14  797                  It should live up to its promise and
15     put the CBC on a regimen of full and stable funding. 
16     But even this would not go far enough.  The fundamental
17     importance of the CBC for our ability to function as a
18     nation dictates that it must be independent of any
19     sitting government.  No government, no matter how large
20     its majority, should have the option of destroying or
21     diminishing the heartbeat of our nation, the oxygen of
22     our democracy.
23  798                  The CBC must remain in the public
24     domain, but like the Supreme Court, it must also be
25     free of interference from whatever party happens to
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 1     form the government.
 2  799                  As our national conscience, as the
 3     pre-eminent vehicle of our self-awareness as a nation,
 4     it remains a national treasure.  Surely it should not
 5     be up for sale.
 6  800                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 7     Mr. Signorile.
 8  801                  Mr. Lahay.
 9  802                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
10  803                  Veronika Mogyorody, please.
11     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
12  804                  MS MOGYORODY:  Thank you.
13  805                  My name is Veronika Mogyorody and I
14     will probably be saying and reflecting most of what
15     people have said already, but these are my own personal
16     viewpoints.
17  806                  I would like to begin by saying that
18     I believe Canada has one of the best public
19     broadcasting systems in the world, and that as
20     Canadians our quality of life is dependent upon having
21     access to the type of programming the CBC has to offer.
22  807                  In a time of increasing fragmentation
23     throughout the world, the CBC offers Canadians a kind
24     of social cohesion.  Through its vast programming it
25     effectively reflects the kind of relationship we have
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 1     as a people within a multicultural nation.  Our
 2     identity as individuals is contextualized within the
 3     framework of the larger national community.
 4  808                  Living in Windsor and having close
 5     American neighbours, we are constantly bombarded with
 6     the crass and pedestrian cultural products that the
 7     United States so slickly turns out.  It is absolutely
 8     essential that the CRTC recognizes the important role
 9     the CBC plays in preserving Canadian identity in
10     Canada's southernmost city.
11  809                  I would like to think that Canadian
12     broadcasting isn't threatened by the current
13     viciousness that questions all forms of state
14     involvement and culture and social life.  The structure
15     of the CBC should not come under attack because the
16     public sector is generally under attack, or because
17     privatization is seen as desirable by particular
18     politicians.
19  810                  Canadians should have the right to
20     universally available radio and television service that
21     is free of charge and does not discriminate against the
22     poor or those living in inaccessible areas.
23  811                  In the last few years the cable and
24     satellite industries have gained considerable
25     importance in Canada, yet the idea that these private
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 1     stations can be the central agent for the promotion of
 2     Canadian culture is absolutely ludicrous.
 3  812                  Let's face it:  For most of these
 4     private companies programming and funding decisions are
 5     made primarily from the perspective of economic gain
 6     and financial responsibilities to shareholders.
 7  813                  Most stations represent special
 8     interest groups, and each of these groups is treated as
 9     a distinct unit within the population.  This may be
10     fine when concentrating on the delivery of specialized
11     material, but we need a Canadian broadcasting station
12     that goes beyond a myopic view of what is relevant or
13     sellable.
14  814                  We must recognize that the
15     marketplace, and specifically private sector radio and
16     television, generally don't have the mandate or goal of
17     representing all Canadians.  When I tune into or turn
18     on the CBC I know I will get information about this
19     country and all its citizens from each of its three
20     coasts.
21  815                  Most of the media content being
22     generated today from America and many Canadian sources
23     has no other aim than to amuse, flatter, excite,
24     mystify or titillate.  The public is held hostage to
25     endless commercials.  I find this incessant bombardment
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 1     of marketing propaganda intrusive, repetitive,
 2     unproductive and infuriating.  We need asylum away from
 3     this objectionable commercialization of the entire
 4     world.  Thankfully, CBC radio has managed to fight off
 5     the worse of this degradation.
 6  816                  In conclusion, I would hope that the
 7     members of the CRTC panel recognize that the CBC is
 8     respected and appreciated for its balanced coverage of
 9     news and current affairs, and that it offers quality
10     programming in a variety of areas such as the arts,
11     humanities and sciences, which is valued by Canadians
12     for its inclusiveness and representation of the entire
13     country.
14  817                  The CBC continues to fulfil its role
15     as a national public broadcaster and serves the needs
16     of its viewers at both the regional and national
17     levels.  As we approach the new millennium it is
18     important to acknowledge that the CBC is one of the few
19     remaining platforms for the intelligent exchange of
20     knowledge, culture, criticism and experimentation.  It
21     needs to be left flexible and it need to be left
22     intact.
23  818                  Thank you.
24  819                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
25     Ms Mogyorody.
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 1  820                  Mr. Lahay.
 2  821                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 3  822                  Chad Grant, please.
 4     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 5  823                  MR. GRANT:  Hello, ladies and
 6     gentlemen.
 7  824                  I am a student from the University of
 8     Windsor and so are my colleagues Damian Porter and
 9     Tahric Finn.  I wish to address a problem that I feel
10     can be corrected.
11  825                  One of the CRTC's mandates is to
12     reflect the wishes of the community.  In one of the
13     CRTC's decisions, 94-437 from July 27, 1994, the CBC
14     was expected to increase the representation of
15     multicultural minorities in the mainstream programming
16     of both networks in a manner that reflects
17     realistically the participation in a Canadian society
18     and that will help to eliminate negative stereotypes. 
19     But, in my opinion, the CBC has failed to accomplish
20     this nationally and regionally.
21  826                  The census that was done from 1996
22     shows that there are over 570,000 blacks in Canada.  As
23     we near the Year 2000 it is safe to assume that this
24     figure has increased substantially.  The fact of the
25     matter is that there are very few blacks in CBC's
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 1     television programming.
 2  827                  An example of this is how CBC does
 3     not reflect regionally its ethnicity in the casts of
 4     Black Harbour.  Nova Scotia has always had a large
 5     black population.  Out of the 800,000 residents in Nova
 6     Scotia there are approximately 35,000 blacks living in
 7     Nova Scotia according to the 1996 census.  Out of the
 8     10 cast members from Black Harbour, not one of them is
 9     black.  This is an unrealistic portrayal, to believe
10     that there are no blacks living in Nova Scotia making a
11     living out of fishing.
12  828                  You cannot ignore the fact that black
13     Canadians have made a large, positive impact on Canada. 
14     One does not have to look further than the festival
15     known as Carabana.  The amount of money that is poured
16     into the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industry
17     is a large sum of money, but there still remains a
18     negative misrepresentation of blacks in Canadian
19     television, that was supposed to be dispelled from the
20     CRTC's decision.
21  829                  MR. PORTER:  Good evening.  My name
22     is Damian Porter.
23  830                  Television is the most influential
24     forum of media present in today's society.  It provides
25     the public with thousands of images and volumes of
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 1     information through the news, sitcoms and dramas.  We
 2     believe that the majority of images and information
 3     provided to the Canadian public about black people and
 4     the black community are inaccurate or negative.
 5  831                  Although the bulk of this information
 6     comes from the American stations, which outnumber their
 7     Canadian counterparts, it is essential that the CBC
 8     strives to give accurate portrayals of black Canadians.
 9  832                  For example, Yale University scholar
10     Martin Gillins(ph) points out that although only 29 per
11     cent of poor Americans are black they make up 65 per
12     cent of the poor people depicted on television.  It is
13     these types of negative images that Canadians get from
14     TV which must be combatted.
15  833                  A Canadian example of this is shown
16     by the inaccurate perception of Caribbean-born
17     immigrants.  In an Angus Reid Southam news poll of
18     1,508 Canadians taken in 1994, 51 per cent supported
19     the view that certain racial or ethnic cultural groups
20     are more likely to be involved in crime than others,
21     when in fact government figures indicate that less than
22     1 per cent of all Caribbean-born immigrants in Canada
23     wind up in penitentiaries.
24  834                  This perception, unlike most, can be
25     attributed to portrayals in Canadian media.  For
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 1     example, when Ben Johnson was awarded the gold medal
 2     for the 100 metre dash in 1988 the headlines were
 3     "Canadian Wins Gold".  However, after his positive
 4     steroids test he was the disgraced Jamaican-born
 5     sprinter.
 6  835                  The CBC needs to provide programming
 7     which portrays black people accurately in relation to
 8     the black communities in Canada.
 9  836                  MR. FINN:  Good evening.  I am Tahric
10     Finn.
11  837                  An example of programming that fits
12     this niche -- or did fit this niche is the program that
13     was aired on CBC called Straight Up.  However, the show
14     didn't receive the exposure that it needed to take off. 
15     The show was run for six weeks in its first season in
16     1996.  It was then run for seven episodes two years
17     later in 1998.  The momentum brought on by its early
18     critical acclaim contributed -- or momentum brought on
19     by its early critical acclaim was then lost.  This
20     obviously contributed to its failure.
21  838                  Since the show catered to a younger
22     audience advertising could have been more effective had
23     it been directed to this audience, meaning ads on
24     alternative radio stations, billboards, bus shelters,
25     et cetera.
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 1  839                  A relatively low budget show such as
 2     this had the ability to turn some profit as well as
 3     attract a much needed younger audience to the CBC.
 4  840                  Having had the opportunity to live on
 5     an international border, I realize that black Canadians
 6     have a rich culture that has yet to be given the
 7     reflection it requires, and it is much different than
 8     the American culture.
 9  841                  Since the majority of black Canadians
10     live in large cities, i.e., Toronto, I have seen a
11     fairly representative cross section having lived in the
12     Toronto area myself.  Most of my peers are first
13     generation Canadians, therefore black Canadian culture
14     is a fairly new one.
15  842                  The 1996 census states that visible
16     minorities represent 11.7 per cent of the total
17     population.  Nearly 45 per cent of Canada's population
18     acknowledges some degree of non-British or French
19     ancestry.
20  843                  Canadian immigrants are no longer
21     strictly western Europeans.  Therefore, programming
22     must become more reflective of the population.  The CBC
23     needs to use their resources to fill in where the
24     American stations aren't filling in instead of trying
25     to compete.
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 1  844                  That's it.
 2  845                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 3     Mr. Grant, Mr. Porter and Mr. Finn.
 4  846                  Mr. Lahay.
 5                                                        1930
 6  847                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you.
 7  848                  Barbara Cunningham, please.
 8     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 9  849                  MS CUNNINGHAM:  My name is Barbara
10     Cunningham.
11  850                  I am a radio listener, not a TV
12     viewer.  Thus, as much as I would dearly love to defend
13     everything about the CBC, it is only fair to confine my
14     remarks to what I know well from my own experience.
15  851                  I first became acquainted with the
16     CBC in the mid-60s when I was housebound as a young
17     mother with two babies.  I was a newcomer to Canada
18     then from the U.S.  I used to start most days with
19     Morningside.  That program made me feel connected to
20     other people -- other adults to be specific.
21  852                  Over the years I was also repeatedly
22     amazed and touched by how strongly I felt connected
23     through that program to this country and its concerns.
24  853                  This sense of connection eventually
25     broadened to include many other CBC programs that have
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 1     become part of my life.  Bits of Music & Company on the
 2     way to work; pieces of Take-Five or Ontario Today while
 3     running errands during my lunch hour; going home with
 4     Disc Drive and Jorgen Goth's Inimitable Musings; after
 5     supper with As It Happens; and, later on, Danielle
 6     Charbonneau and her classy French Undertones in music
 7     for a while; then Lister Sinclair's Ideas when I'm
 8     feeling highbrow at night; and even the occasional
 9     dabble with the Royal Canadian Air Force -- Farce.
10     --- Laughter / Rires
11  854                  MS CUNNINGHAM:  And I miss my early
12     Sunday afternoons with Clive Gilmour, time spent with
13     Barb Kerr, Vicky Gaverone, of course Peter Gwozski.  I
14     was there at Windsor's gathering in the local CBC to
15     witness his final Morningside program and I have the
16     commemorative mug to remind myself permanently of that
17     remarkable event.
18  855                  I listen to the CBC news every day,
19     morning and evening, and I love my little ritual of
20     checking my watch at 1:00 to be sure it's still in tune
21     with the CBC.
22  856                  The CBC really is a part of my life. 
23     Sometimes I don't even know what show I'm listening to,
24     and it doesn't matter.  I'm simply grabbed by what I
25     happen to tune into.  Sometimes it's a radio play or a
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 1     story being told or a reading of poetry.  Sometimes
 2     it's a discussion or an interview or a piece of music,
 3     and I sit in my car listening rather than going about
 4     my next errand.
 5  857                  Stewart McLean's Vinyl Cafe is a good
 6     example.  I caught snippets of his stories for some
 7     years before it registered with me that Morley and Dave
 8     were a couple and they were always on the same program
 9     at the same time of the week.
10  858                  I was lucky enough to receive a copy
11     of Maclean's latest book for a Valentine gift this
12     year, and when I brought it to the office to share with
13     my coworkers I had a delightful surprise.  As I walked
14     around with the book here and there several times
15     through the day, Morley and Dave lovers popped up in
16     the most unexpected places.
17  859                  And as much fun as that was, it is a
18     particular pleasure of a different kind to introduce
19     newcomers to Morley and Dave and the Vinyl Cafe.  In
20     fact, it has been my pleasure to share the CBC in
21     general with coworkers and friends.  I have made it a
22     point to get the CBC radio schedule, make copies of it
23     for interested people, and to leave extra copies lying
24     loose in the lunchroom awaiting fate.
25  860                  The CBC has had an important impact
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 1     on my life.  More than any other specific influence, it
 2     was the CBC that gradually led me to think of Canadians
 3     as "us" and of Americans as "them".  Eventually, this
 4     change in perspective and attachment led to my becoming
 5     a Canadian in 1975.
 6  861                  As an American immigrant I was
 7     admiring, even a bit puzzled at first, by the CBC.  We
 8     had nothing like it back home, even counting National
 9     Public Radio.
10  862                  As a Canadian I love the CBC and I am
11     enormously proud of it.
12  863                  I worry that the CBC technician
13     strike is occurring during these CRTC hearings.  It is
14     an unfortunate coincidence which surely does nothing to
15     help the CBC, but seven years without a raise -- of
16     course there is no money for a raise.  The CBC has had
17     its budget amputated year after year with nothing but
18     further cuts in sight.  It is such an easy target.  And
19     yet, the CBC struggles on, still doing its job with
20     ever decreasing funds, under increasingly difficult
21     circumstances.
22  864                  I am frustrated and I am really
23     worried.  I listen to the young fellow down there
24     talking about how there is no chance for young film
25     makers, I listen to concerns about excessive sports
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 1     programming, I hear about cheap U.S. reruns.  I mean,
 2     these things are happening because we don't have enough
 3     money for good Canadian programming.
 4  865                  I ask you not to extinguish the CBC. 
 5     If it were privatized then quality radio, at least,
 6     would disappear from my life and the lives of so many
 7     others like me.  Whatever would take its place would be
 8     like everything else on radio, and we already have more
 9     than enough of that.
10  866                  Recently I read a letter to the
11     editor in some newspaper which said that the only
12     people who cared about the CBC were its employees who
13     were trying to protect their jobs and that the CBC
14     should be privatized.  I was deeply offended by that
15     remark, and then I became frightened, because opinions
16     like his might prevail unless ordinary people like us
17     come out of the woodwork to tell everyone what the CBC
18     means to us, and I am very happy to see lots of us here
19     tonight.
20  867                  Thank you.
21  868                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
22     Ms Cunningham.
23  869                  Mr. Lahay.
24  870                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
25  871                  David Nitschke, please.
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 1     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 2  872                  MR. NITSCHKE:  Thank you for this
 3     opportunity.
 4  873                  About seven years ago I began
 5     listening to CBC One and Two.  I was 25 years old at
 6     the time and had just graduated from university and
 7     began my career as an electrical engineer.
 8  874                  My comments today are about CBC
 9     radio, not television.  I don't watch TV.
10  875                  The CBC appeals to me in several
11     ways:  It provides me with thought provoking
12     programming.  Among my favourites, Tapestry, Ideas, As
13     It Happens, Quirks & Quarks, and Cross Country Checkup.
14  876                  I look to the program hosts as role
15     models for my own inquisitive mind.
16  877                  On Morningside, I like the way Peter
17     Gwozski made his guests feel important, be they an
18     average Canadian or a Prime Minister.  I actually
19     employ his cap-in-hand approach in many of my business
20     dealings.
21  878                  I like the way Bob MacDonald can
22     simplify complex scientific principles so that I can
23     understand.  I employ those same techniques myself.
24  879                  I find the hosts of programs
25     inquisitive and ready to learn from their guests.  I
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 1     try to emulate this.
 2  880                  CBC radio is portable.  I can listen
 3     to programs while driving, cooking or working in my
 4     shop.  This portability appeals to my desire to
 5     multi-task.  Unlike reading or sitting in a class, the
 6     CBC can inform and entertain wherever you can put a
 7     radio.
 8  881                  The style of interview-based news
 9     coverage is unique.  I have never heard any other radio
10     news program use this technique to the extent the CBC
11     does.  To me, this is the best style of news
12     presentation since it is straight from the horse's
13     mouth, so to speak.  Listeners can judge for themselves
14     the credibility of what is being said rather than being
15     spoon fed from a prepared interpretation.
16  882                  Canada is a big place and there is no
17     other system that binds us together as well as the CBC. 
18     The CBC is a vehicle where we can share our views and
19     listen to our fellow Canadians.
20  883                  I don't believe that the CBC can be
21     everything to everyone, and I don't believe that the
22     CBC is perfect.  Every system has its flaws and every
23     system can be improved.  However, I do believe the CBC
24     does satisfy a vital niche.
25  884                  I find it difficult to imagine what
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 1     my life, not to mention radio programming in general,
 2     would be like without the CBC.  I don't want to be
 3     shouted at by raucous early morning radio hosts.  I
 4     don't want to listen to what someone else considers the
 5     top 40.  I don't want to be spoon fed the same drivel
 6     day-in, day-out.  I do want to be informed and
 7     entertained by intelligent commercial-free radio.
 8  885                  Just one of the things I would like
 9     to say is that I have really enjoyed listening to the
10     variety of comments this evening.  I wish I was as
11     erudite as your visitors here this evening and
12     presenters.  I wish I had thought of a lot of things
13     that they thought to say, and I want to thank you for
14     the opportunity.
15  886                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
16     Mr. Nitschke.
17  887                  That is the end of our list.  What I
18     am proposing is that Mr. Lahay would call all of the
19     individuals who did not answer our first call, and if
20     there are no further individuals wishing to make
21     presentations, then we will hear from CBC, and I'm sure
22     we would all like to hear from CBC.
23  888                  Mr. Lahay.
24  889                  MR. LAHAY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
25  890                  Trevor Price.
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 1  891                  MR. PRICE:  Yes, right here.
 2  892                  MR. LAHAY:  Okay, Mr. Price.  Please
 3     have a seat at the table.
 4  893                  Barb Duke.  Barbara Duke.  Joyce
 5     Whitaker.  Joyce Whitaker.  Barri Cohen.  Barri Cohen
 6     and Wes Chalmers.  Wes Chalmers.
 7  894                  If any of those people are here,
 8     please come to the front table.
 9  895                  Thank you.
10     --- Pause / Pause
11  896                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Go ahead,
12     Mr. Price.
13     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
14  897                  MR. PRICE:  I apologize for not being
15     here earlier, but I failed to get any information about
16     the change of venue and went to the Caboda Club and
17     then raced down here, and I'm glad I didn't miss it.
18  898                  I have heard with interest the other
19     presenters and, of course, coming near the end rather
20     than at the beginning I would be repeating a lot of
21     remarks made by other people and I would choose not to
22     do that.
23  899                  However, I will try to deal with the
24     four questions which you sent out as questions which
25     you wanted comments on.
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 1  900                  I have written a prepared statement,
 2     but rather than read that I will take points which I
 3     believe may be somewhat different than what other
 4     people have said.
 5  901                  I came here from Britain in the
 6     1920s -- my 20s rather, not the 1920s.  I'm not that
 7     old.
 8     --- Laughter / Rires
 9  902                  MR. PRICE:  I was raised on the BBC
10     and thought that there was no finer broadcasting system
11     in the world than the BBC, which I believe the Canadian
12     Broadcasting Corporation has modelled itself on to some
13     degree.
14  903                  The BBC does hold the lamp of public
15     broadcasting for the rest of the world, and that fact
16     is attested to by the fact that many other broadcasting
17     systems throughout the world -- and I have been to
18     Australia and New Zealand and across the United States
19     and Canada -- do purchase and use a lot of BBC
20     programming, both radio and television.
21  904                  However, I am pleased to say that
22     having been an avid follower of the CBC for all the
23     time that I have been in Canada, over 40 years, it has
24     made me a Canadian.  When I came to Canada -- and it
25     was on an impulse -- about all I knew about Canada was
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 1     Rosemarie and Gentille Alouette, and not a whole lot
 2     about this country.
 3  905                  It was the CBC which actually has
 4     given me a deep and profound knowledge of this country
 5     and an appreciation of it as a place to spend my life
 6     and to raise my family.  It has really made me a
 7     Canadian.
 8  906                  It does that because it explores
 9     every aspect of Canadian life.  It has done that in
10     many ways, through drama, through documentaries,
11     through the news, through the exchanges of opinions
12     across the country, and more and more you get to sort
13     of feel just what different parts of the country are
14     like.
15  907                  Now, one of the big problems with the
16     CBC is that in the time of diminishing government CBC,
17     like a lot of other services, has felt the axe, and the
18     quality has depreciated.  I would like to mention a few
19     things which I feel are not as good as they used to be.
20  908                  I always enjoyed the very deep and
21     profound analyses that were made in The Journal and the
22     great interviewing of Barbara Frum.  I'm sorry to say
23     that the magazine which has replaced it does not
24     compare with that.  And it is not entirely the fault of
25     the personnel working on the magazine, it is a result
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 1     of deep cuts that have been made in the budget, because
 2     The Journal was a very expensive program.
 3  909                  The foreign coverage of the CBC is
 4     rather poor, and that is because it doesn't have the
 5     correspondents all over the world that the BBC has, and
 6     it has to use the BBC quite often for news and coverage
 7     of places where trouble suddenly erupts and we have
 8     nobody on the spot.
 9  910                  Now, the CBC has often been
10     criticized for being liberal, even left wing.  That, I
11     think, is because it does represent the views of
12     ordinary people, and not the views so much of the
13     corporate elite who hold positions of power and control
14     most of the private media in this country.
15  911                  When they talk about the beauty of
16     competition and let the marketplace decide what
17     Canadians can choose to listen to, it is a sad fact of
18     life that a very small group of people in this country
19     who have a particular point of view, are in a position
20     to foster this point of view, and there isn't really
21     very little competition.
22  912                  Now, the CBC faces a very difficult
23     problem coming up to the next millennium, and that was
24     one of the issues which you asked us to address.
25  913                  We are now coming into, on cable TV,
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 1     a 70-channel world, possibly in a few years we will
 2     have the 500-channel world, and with so much to choose
 3     from is there sufficient support to support a public
 4     broadcasting system, which is quite costly and which
 5     might not offer a whole lot of difference from the
 6     1,001 choices that are out there.
 7  914                  Well, my answer to that is that we
 8     probably need the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or
 9     something like it, more than ever.
10  915                  Now, many of the presenters here
11     tonight spoke very strongly in favour of the radio and
12     what they had gotten from it.  There was a much less
13     great approval of television.
14  916                  Now, if you cast your mind back to
15     some years ago, both radio and television got part of
16     their revenue from commercial sponsorships,
17     advertising.  It was decided, beneficially I believe,
18     to make the radio not supported by commercial
19     advertisements, and that gave it the freedom to be more
20     experimental and actually improved the quality of the
21     radio and made it what it has been, and so valuable in
22     terms of the depth and quality of all kinds of things
23     that the radio covers, information, news,
24     entertainment, music, drama, poetry, reading from
25     Canadian literature, et cetera.
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 1  917                  There is much less praise for CBC
 2     television.  When it comes to the hockey cup finals and
 3     it is TV every night all night long and the news is --
 4     used to be put on very late and cause me much upset. 
 5     Now of course it can come through on Newsworld -- I got
 6     to thinking:  Well, what if TV, like television in
 7     Britain, was not commercially supported?
 8  918                  Now, the fact is that since the major
 9     cuts were made the CBC has to be -- has become more
10     dependent upon selling advertisements, but although it
11     is very difficult to get the revenue and budget figures
12     of the CBC, the information which I have been able to
13     glean tells me that something like $400 million of
14     revenue comes from advertising.  You might say:  Well,
15     they can hardly do without that.
16  919                  However, of that $400 million I
17     believe -- and someone may be able to correct me --
18     something like $205 million is spent on the
19     infrastructure and employees needed to get that
20     advertising.  So the net profit is less than
21     $200 million, which in broadcasting and media terms is
22     chicken feed.  It's not a huge sum of money.
23  920                  I would say that it would be a brave
24     and pioneering experiment for CBC to be cut loose from
25     the commercial world and become a truly public
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 1     broadcasting television network, and have its revenue
 2     from other sources.
 3  921                  Now, I have a suggestion for three
 4     steps to substitute the revenue that it would lose and
 5     also, of course, to increase the revenue so that the
 6     programming can be brought up to the level that it once
 7     had.
 8  922                  First of all, I think CBC could
 9     relinquish sports coverage.  It has held onto sports
10     coverage tenaciously because that is where the most
11     profitable advertising comes from.
12  923                  It could also give up advertising and
13     grant it over to the private sector.  In return for
14     these concessions to the private sector, the private
15     sector, through its license fees, would support public
16     broadcasting because it would be getting sports, which
17     it obviously would greatly desire, and it would have a
18     clear field to get commercial advertising.
19  924                  I'm not saying that cable revenues
20     and private sector broadcasting revenues would be
21     sufficient to make up for the shortfall and to increase
22     the CBC budget.  The government obviously has to kick
23     in quite a bit more.  Now, it is improving the transfer
24     payments to the health service and to education, so I
25     think it is time to do it for the CBC.
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 1  925                  The CBC is the mainstay of Canadian
 2     culture and identity, and the Minister of Heritage,
 3     Ms Copps has said that it is very important, along with
 4     many other countries, to resist the flood of
 5     American -- I won't call it culture, but media output
 6     which pours over the rest of the world as a product. 
 7     Because they call their film an industry and their
 8     broadcasting an industry and the output a product.
 9  926                  However, most countries in the world
10     cherishing their national identity, their national
11     culture and wishing to develop it and make it grow, see
12     a public broadcasting system which puts that first as
13     very important.
14  927                  The third thing I think would be that
15     if the CBC television was to concentrate on quality --
16     and I hate to bring the BBC in again, but as the BBC
17     has done -- then we would be able to sell those
18     programs across the world.  We do sell some right now,
19     but I think that the quality could be improved if we
20     were to concentrate on what is essentially a niche
21     market.
22  928                  It is pretty evident here from the
23     people who have been here tonight that there is a
24     niche, and without being an intellectual snob I would
25     say that these are the people who are the thinking
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 1     people, who are public opinion leaders, and it is the
 2     quality of the CBC's influence which must be looked at
 3     and not all this ratings business which says that 6 per
 4     cent listen to the CBC and all that.
 5  929                  The people who are fervent supporters
 6     of the CBC are the influential people in this nation. 
 7     And the CBC is absolutely essential for democracy,
 8     because despite the critics from right wing interests,
 9     if you listen to programs like The House, which gives
10     the political spectrum on a Saturday morning; As It
11     Happens, which interviews politicians in the evening;
12     interviews on election coverage and the magazine
13     program on television, and so on, all parties are given
14     their fair share.  Since the Reform Party has become
15     the Official Opposition they have enjoyed a very large
16     segment of CBC coverage.
17  930                  So who can say that the CBC is not
18     unbiased and not objective?  Much more so than the
19     newspapers that we read.  The "Windsor Star", which
20     used to have an objective editorial now and again is
21     completely coloured in its views and would have us
22     become -- judging by its views on many things, the
23     environment, broadcasting, and so on -- a satellite of
24     the United States and would throw open the doors to CNN
25     to make Canada a branch plant.  I hope that never
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 1     happens.
 2  931                  Thank you.
 3                                                        2000
 4  932                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you,
 5     Mr. Price.
 6  933                  It is now CBC's turn in the hot seat,
 7     or rebuttal.
 8     REPLY / RÉPLIQUE
 9  934                  MS FRY:  My name is Miriam Fry.  I am
10     the Regional Director of Radio for Ontario.
11  935                  I have colleagues in the other room
12     listening to the other presentations:  Bruce Taylor,
13     who is the Regional Director of Television for Ontario;
14     and Maryse Leureau, who is representing French radio
15     and television tonight.
16  936                  I first wanted to thank the
17     Commission for facilitating these presentations to take
18     place and for giving us the opportunity to hear from
19     all of you.  Usually we hear from people when they pick
20     up the phone to complain about something specific that
21     they didn't like, or sometimes even that they liked,
22     and it was really wonderful to hear from people in a
23     much wider area.
24  937                  We are going to make a point of
25     getting back to each person individually to address
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 1     some of the concerns that were raised, at least those
 2     over which we have control.
 3  938                  I certainly heard from people tonight
 4     about the importance of CBC in their lives, and
 5     obviously as someone who works in radio I really
 6     appreciated the comments about radio.  I think it is
 7     really wonderful that people feel that it is both their
 8     right and their responsibility to talk about the good
 9     and the bad things about CBC, because that means that
10     people feel strongly the CBC belongs to them.
11  939                  The importance of the local station
12     came through very loud and clear tonight, as it did
13     this afternoon as well.
14  940                  So once again, thank you all very
15     much.
16  941                  My colleague, Michael Harris, would
17     like to say a few words.
18  942                  MR. HARRIS:  I am Michael Harris.  I
19     am from English Network Television in Toronto, and I
20     have a cold.  Partly I think I have a cold from -- I
21     attended CRTC sessions in St. John's, Moncton, Sydney,
22     Charlottetown and now this one, and this is the last
23     one.
24  943                  What I would like to say, I would
25     like to thank the CRTC and I would like to thank you,
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 1     because I think more than pouring over overnight
 2     ratings, or worrying about the budget, or worrying
 3     about the strike, that listening to the thoughtful
 4     opinion of people who care about public broadcasting is
 5     a better clue for us to keep us at least within sight
 6     of the right path, if not on it.  I appreciate the
 7     trouble you have all gone to, and be assured that your
 8     message is getting carried back.
 9  944                  So thank you, and thank you.
10  945                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  This concludes the
11     consultation.
12  946                  I want to thank each and every person
13     for coming and giving us their thoughts.  I want to
14     thank the technical people, I want to thank our staff,
15     the CRTC staff, and CBC.
16  947                  Thank you very much.
17  948                  Oh, Mr. Signorile?
18  949                  MR. SIGNORILE:  Just a question.
19  950                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.
20  951                  MR. SIGNORILE:  I would like to ask
21     if these two people from the CBC might tell us, if they
22     do have ideas on this, what we as the public can do to
23     further the restoration of the CBC.
24  952                  Would that be out of place?
25  953                  THE CHAIRPERSON:  Actually, yes,
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 1     because it is a public hearing.  It is our public
 2     hearing, the CRTC.
 3  954                  I think these people might, however,
 4     be walking outside the room in a few seconds.
 5     --- Whereupon the consultation concluded at 2003 /
 6         Le consultation se termine à 2003
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