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Offrir un contenu dans les deux langues officielles

Prière de noter que la Loi sur les langues officielles exige que toutes publications gouvernementales soient disponibles dans les deux langues officielles.

Afin de rencontrer certaines des exigences de cette loi, les procès-verbaux du Conseil seront dorénavant bilingues en ce qui a trait à la page couverture, la liste des membres et du personnel du CRTC participant à l'audience et la table des matières.

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

                   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:

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

HELD AT:                                TENUE À:

Gallery I                               Gallery I
Landmark Hotel &                        Landmark Hotel &
Conference Centre                       Conference Centre
1400 Robson Street                      1400, rue Robson
Vancouver, B.C                          Vancouver (C.-B.)

March 17, 1999                          Le 17 mars 1999

                          Volume  2
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

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

BEFORE / DEVANT:

Cindy Grauer                            Chairperson / Présidente
                                        Commissioner / Conseillère

ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTES:

Carolyn Pinsky                          Commission Counsel /
                                        Avocate du Conseil

Marguerite Vogel                        Regional Director,
                                        Vancouver / Directrice
                                        régionale, Vancouver

Sandra Caugh                            Regional Office, Vancouver/
                                        Bureau régional, Vancouver

HELD AT:                                TENUE À:

Gallery I                               Gallery I
Landmark Hotel &                        Landmark Hotel &
Conference Centre                       Conference Centre
1400 Robson Street                      1400, rue Robson
Vancouver, B.C                          Vancouver (C.-B.)

March 17, 1999                          Le 17 mars 1999

                          Volume  2
                          StenoTran

                              ii

            TABLE OF CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIÈRES
                                                          PAGE

Presentation by / Présentation par:

Ms E. Bradley                                              387

Mr. Chris Haddock                                          394

Mr. J. Spark                                               398

Ms Catherine Murray                                        406

Ms Isable Minty                                            415

Ms Romney Grant                                            426

Ms Glynnis Whiting                                         429

Mr. Owen Underhill                                         433

Mr. Robert Anderson                                        441

Mr. Howard Grieves                                         450

Ms Mickey Rogers                                           453

Ms Nettie Wilde                                            458

Ms Judith Marcuse                                          467

Reply by: / Réponse par:

Ms Rae Hall                                                470

                          StenoTran

                             384

 1                        Vancouver, B.C. / Vancouver (C.-B.)
 2     --- Upon resuming on Wednesday, March 17, 1999
 3         at 0900 / L'audience reprend le mercredi, 17 mars
 4         1999 à 0900
 5  1521                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Good morning,
 6     ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this public
 7     consultation on the CRTC.
 8  1522                 My name is Cindy Grauer and I am the
 9     CRTC commissioner for British Columbia and the Yukon. 
10     We are here to gather your views and comments on CBC
11     radio and television, in your opinion, how should the
12     Canadian broadcasting corporation fulfil its role in
13     the coming years.
14  1523                 CBC is a national public service,
15     broadcasting in English as well as in French.  It plays
16     an important role in the Canadian broadcasting system. 
17     Today many elements are constantly being added to the
18     broadcasting system as new technologies multiply,
19     converge, open up new horizons and increasingly offer
20     new services.
21  1524                 In this context we want to know what
22     are your needs as viewers and listeners of the CBC. 
23     Given that it is very important that the commission
24     hears what you have to say, we must not lose site of
25     the fact that the CRTC is a public organization that
                          StenoTran

                             385

 1     serves Canadian citizens.  In this capacity we are
 2     responsible to you.  This is why my fellow
 3     commissioners and myself find it vital to come and meet
 4     with you to discuss these issues and why we are holding
 5     this series of regional consultations from one end of
 6     the country to the other in 11 Canadian cities from
 7     March 9 to 18th.
 8  1525                 These consultations are designed to
 9     give you a chance on the eve of a new millennium to
10     express your opinion on the CBC's role, the programming
11     it offers and the direction it should take at the
12     national, regional and local levels.
13  1526                 Through these consultations we hope
14     to enter into an open dialogue with you and hear your
15     concerns.  Your comments will form part of the public
16     record which will be added to the record of the public
17     hearing on the CBC that will begin in Hull next May
18     25th.
19  1527                 At this upcoming hearing, the
20     commission will examine the CBC's application for the
21     renewal of its licences, including radio, television
22     and its specialty services Newsworld and RDI.
23  1528                 You can also take part in that public
24     hearing by sending your public your comments to the
25     CRTC.  If you wish to do so, please refer to the
                          StenoTran

                             386

 1     specific licence renewals being examined when you file
 2     your comments.
 3  1529                 Now, I would like to come back to
 4     today's consultations which is the last morning of our
 5     Vancouver consultations which started yesterday.
 6  1530                 Please allow me to introduce the CRTC
 7     staff who will be assisting us today.  To my right is
 8     Carolyn Pinsky, our legal counsel, and at the front
 9     registration desk are Marguerite Vogel and Sandra Caugh
10     from the western regional office.  Please feel free to
11     call on them about any questions you have on the
12     process today or any other matter.
13  1531                 So that you all have the opportunity
14     to speak, we ask that you all limit your presentation
15     to ten minutes.  As these consultations are a forum
16     designed to listen to you, and we want to listen to as
17     many participants as possible, we will not ask any
18     questions unless we need clarification.
19  1532                 At the end of this session
20     representatives from the local CBC stations will have a
21     chance to offer their views as they are naturally very
22     interested in the issues we are discussing here today.
23  1533                 Before we start, I would like to ask
24     our legal counsel to go over some of the housekeeping
25     matters regarding the conduct of this consultation. 
                          StenoTran

                             387

 1     Thank you.
 2  1534                 MS PINSKY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.
 3  1535                 I just would like to go over a bit of
 4     the process today.  We will be calling the presenters
 5     up in groups to take their place around the table and
 6     then I will be calling on each presenter individually
 7     and he or she will have ten minutes to make his or her
 8     presentation.
 9  1536                 Actually, we do not have that many
10     people around the table, so certainly if anyone else
11     wants to sit around the table, even if you are not
12     presenting, feel free to do so.
13  1537                 For those who are here but do not
14     wish to make an oral presentation, we do have comment
15     sheets available at the front desk as you walk in.
16  1538                 So if you would like to put some
17     thoughts in writing they will be put on the public
18     record.
19  1539                 Without further ado, I will call the
20     first presenter, Ms Bradley.
21     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
22  1540                 MS BRADLEY:  Good morning.  As I am
23     in the last flight of the intervenors, I have the
24     benefit of hindsight and I can concur wisely with all
25     of those eloquent people who have gone before in
                          StenoTran

                             388

 1     support of the CBC.
 2  1541                 There seem to me two obvious problems
 3     for the CBC and the first, of course, is money.  My
 4     answer to this is that government must commit dollars
 5     and adequate dollars for CBC radio and at the very
 6     least for CBC television news.
 7  1542                 The CBC presents the only opportunity
 8     we have for a mirror in this country by a medium not
 9     owned by a large commercial entertainment network.  It
10     must be funded.  But the personal views of the Prime
11     Minister or of his wife should not feature in the
12     funding of the CBC, whether harmful to the CBC or
13     helpful.  Such interference is harmful to the office of
14     the Prime Minister.
15  1543                 Further, it is nothing but ridiculous
16     to suggest that the CBC be privatized.  Where these
17     suggestions have come from private broadcasters it is
18     evident their aim is to inflate their already excessive
19     profits by eliminating the relatively small CBC
20     audience share.  Where political, the Reform Party,
21     after all, is not a national party and should not
22     purport to speak for all Canadians in this matter any
23     more than the Bloc Québécois when in opposition or when
24     the opposition was legitimately a national party.
25  1544                 So, to the funding.  The money has to
                          StenoTran

                             389

 1     come from somewhere and I suggest the following
 2     sources:  The same place from which warships were
 3     financed to send to the Gulf war, the same place from
 4     which we got the money to pay off the investors in the
 5     Pearson Airport, the same source for the $2 million or
 6     so with which we paid off former Prime Minister Brian
 7     Mulroney.
 8  1545                 In short, government has wonderful
 9     resources to make reparation for its blunders while it
10     is our money, and let us use revenues to accommodate a
11     national broadcasting system.
12  1546                 Like medicare, universal education,
13     the right to shelter if we want it, it will and it must
14     come.
15  1547                 As with the other sad disparities in
16     that great socio-political culture to the south, must
17     we also emulate the U.S. in becoming the second
18     democracy in the western world that does not support a
19     national broadcasting system?  Of course, the U.S. is
20     the only one at this time.
21  1548                 I reluctantly concede that the second
22     problem we have is audience.  That is only a problem
23     for those with different philosophies of what is
24     actually a public service.  Yesterday and Sunday, on
25     "Cross-Country Checkup", I heard different view points
                          StenoTran

                             390

 1     for the necessity of appealing to many tastes, even the
 2     obligation, as I heard with horror on "Cross-Country
 3     Checkup", to give more air time to a more distinctly or
 4     redder-necked point of view.
 5  1549                 I certainly agree that we make no
 6     apologies for a recognized high standard of
 7     entertainment and news production.  Let us not try to
 8     be all things to all people.  A watering down that
 9     becomes dumb and yet dumber inevitably.  Let us be
10     educational, meticulous, well spoken, objective,
11     wide-ranging in news and public affairs.  Let us be
12     witty where we are supposed to be and not differ with
13     Canadians' record of comedians record of critics.  Let
14     us be original and Canadian where it fits in drama and
15     music.
16  1550                 Are these sexy goals for the American
17     glutted schlock entertainment kids of today?  No, and I
18     do not care.  As a university instructor for 20 years,
19     a member of a family of farmers, thoughtful ones, and
20     four of the best print and electronic news editors in
21     Canada, as a writer myself, I have long since given up
22     on the idea that every Canadian young person, my own
23     three included, will read the classics, listen to
24     classical music or enjoy exclusively the work of
25     long-dead artists poets and philosophers.
                          StenoTran

                             391

 1  1551                 However, we do not need to patronize
 2     our youth by playing to their lowest common
 3     denominator.  Let us never dumb down the CBC for the
 4     sake of ratings.
 5  1552                 I have finally come to the conclusion
 6     that the tastes for what I cautiously deem good
 7     entertainment and excellent news coverage may not be so
 8     much cultivated as inherited.  Like those children who
 9     have been read to and become life-long readers, so the
10     offspring of CBC habitues may be osmotically or somehow
11     genetically programmed to become CBC people.
12  1553                 No one programmed anything for me
13     other than "Just Mary" or, for my children,
14     "Razzle-Dazzle" and "Friendly Giant" when I could
15     barely follow the lightening literary and musical
16     references.  I learned to love Nathan Cohen and Lester
17     Sinclair, as my children have the latter, and Marjorie
18     Doyle, Bob Kerr, Holger Peterson and so on.
19  1554                 When Clyde Gilmore's beautiful
20     tribute was aired, I was thrilled to hear the young
21     voices lauding his memory.  Let us not spoon feed our
22     youngsters in order to wean them away from more raucous
23     more violent American programs.  After all, the way
24     "Coronation Street" is going, they can get enough sex
25     and violence right there, or on Mary Walsh's new show.
                          StenoTran

                             392

 1  1555                 When all else fails, there are still
 2     my young cousins on the Prairies whose best signal in
 3     the summer with those hot shot ear phones in their posh
 4     new tractor cabs comes from the CBC, they will soon be
 5     addicted to quality.  And all those kids in the subway
 6     in Toronto, the Skytrain here, the ear phones are often
 7     turned to CBC.  And there are those captive kids who
 8     ride around in mom's and dad's pick up or hold the
 9     wallpaperer that is being stuck up or weed the garden
10     while mom's or dad's boom box is tuned to that that
11     steady outpouring of good stuff.
12  1556                 And the summer cottages and ice
13     fishing huts and drilling rigs where you are stuck with
14     older and wiser hands, there are infinite variety of
15     ways in which we can prevail and inundate those
16     malleable little grey cells, or is it the hypothalamus
17     of the nation that you have to titillate.
18  1557                 You can tell that science was not one
19     of might have great absorptions from the CBC.  Anyway,
20     we can finally attune those listeners to great music,
21     the likes of Earl Cameron, the well-chosen words of and
22     sophisticated humour of Canadians from Alice Munro to
23     he who was Chief Dan George and the immortal Robertson
24     Davis.  Maritime fiddlers and Gary Falgar and Moe
25     Kaufman, not least the Goldberg Variations which came
                          StenoTran

                             393

 1     out of CBC Toronto studios first.
 2  1558                 Once hooked, our audience is there. 
 3     It grows by that clever osmotic congenital process I
 4     outlined.  Numbers are not as important except to the
 5     strange bottom liners who would pay taxes only to have
 6     a concession at a bigger, more expensive Expo, as are
 7     our few desperately important ways to know we are
 8     Canadians.
 9  1559                 I will close with the last list. 
10     These are some of the things and the names that as a
11     kid on the prairie a young mother in four Canadian
12     cities who could but rarely afford theatre, a
13     grandmother in a fifth, Toronto, and Vancouver now, I
14     would never have learned about or even based a career
15     on without CBC.
16  1560                 Here is my list:  Ovide,
17     Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, Victenstein, "Fortune
18     in Men's Eyes", "Mon Oncle Antoine", "Going Down the
19     Road", Greshen Gelena, Marie-Claire Blais, Maia, Louis
20     Amois, Duke Redburg, George Riga, the Pluff family,
21     Norval Morriseau and Allan Papp's paintings, both first
22     seen on television, CBC.  Allan Ackborn, John Osbourne,
23     Beckett, Jeff McKenna reading Joyce, "Alibi", Pinter,
24     Andrew Allen's spectacular radio production of "Heart
25     of Darkness", Erica Ritter, Paul Sinclair, W.O.
                          StenoTran

                             394

 1     Mitchell's plays, Linda Griffiths, Oscar Peterson, the
 2     Elmer Eisler singers, the Vancouver Symphony, "Thompson
 3     Highway", George Grant, M.J. Caldwell, Desmond Morton,
 4     Rachel Carson, Mark Kingswell.
 5  1561                 It is for the CRTC to realize this
 6     potential for all those Canadians who come after us,
 7     the potential to know, to grow, to change and to become
 8     a part of Canada that we really recognize as our own. 
 9     Thank you.
10  1562                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
11     Bradley.
12     --- Applause / Applaudissements
13     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
14  1563                 MR. HADDOCK:  Hi.  It is hard for me
15     to be quite as articulate as that initial speaker.  My
16     name is Chris Haddock and I am the executive producer
17     the creator and head writer of "Davinci's Inquest".
18     --- Applause / Applaudissements
19  1564                 MR. HADDOCK:  Thank you.
20  1565                 Which is the CBC's number one rated
21     drama and the number one rated Canadian produced drama
22     on any of the Canadian networks.  That is just an
23     indication that the numbers do come to quality, I
24     believe.
25  1566                 Speaking as a citizen, a consumer of
                          StenoTran

                             395

 1     culture and as a TV audience member, I face when I turn
 2     on the television a proliferation of great variety of
 3     channels yet increasingly a monoculture.  It is an
 4     American culture and it is commercial.  Unless I watch
 5     the CBC.  I watch the other private Canadian
 6     broadcasters and they broadcast American culture with
 7     the occasional Canadian produced, American looking show
 8     hammocked between a couple of American shows.  It all
 9     looks very similar with rare exception.  I certainly
10     recognize no one from my neighbourhood or any Canadian
11     neighbourhood I have ever been in.
12  1567                 Speaking as a producer, I find my
13     experience in providing a show for the CBC to be
14     exceptional.  I maintain a unique degree of creative
15     freedom.  I write a show that is specifically Canadian,
16     specifically Vancouver, about specific Vancouverites in
17     specific neighbourhoods.  I have found, as a writer and
18     producer, that the more specific you are and are able
19     to be, the more universal you become.  This has been
20     proven in the Canadian audience embracing something
21     that is so specifically about Vancouver.
22  1568                 This could occur only, I believe, at
23     this time in my career and certainly for this show,
24     only on the CBC.  Certainly on no other network in
25     Canada.
                          StenoTran

                             396

 1  1569                 The CBC in this regard, in embracing
 2     something like this, is ahead of the trend
 3     internationally as audience and elected officials
 4     abroad rebel against pre-dominantly American fare on
 5     their TV screens and begin to develop national content
 6     and content regulations where their stories can be told
 7     and their lives reflected.
 8  1570                 I believe that television is a place
 9     where culture is formed and critiqued, where an
10     exchange between artists and citizens takes place.  It
11     is vital that we have a venue where commerce does not
12     rule or will be our only ruler.  This venue is the CBC. 
13     Does the CBC fulfil its role as a national public
14     broadcaster well?  No, not well enough and there is
15     always room for improvement.  Should it fulfil its role
16     in a different manner, as in the past, but we cannot
17     mandate quality we can only recognize it and encourage
18     it.
19  1571                 The CBC as a national and public
20     broadcaster has a mandate to licence produce and
21     broadcast Canadian culture, our ideas, stories and
22     experience.  However, each year we see its budget
23     slashed and pilfered to the point where its voice grows
24     dim and weak.
25  1572                 I would like to endorse everything
                          StenoTran

                             397

 1     that the first speaker said, unfortunately, I have not
 2     heard what speakers yesterday or across the country
 3     have said.
 4  1573                 Really, I recognize that what has
 5     been given to me as a writer and an artist is a
 6     tremendous opportunity.  I think that really that the
 7     only thing that where this kind of opportunity is
 8     offered to people such as myself is on the CBC.  I know
 9     that people like myself who are writers who wish to
10     enter the world of television find it extremely
11     difficult and are often, you know, crushed at the gate.
12  1574                 I think that it takes a great deal of
13     support which I have experienced not only on this show
14     but in my experience as a writer in Canada from the
15     CBC.
16  1575                 Indeed, I have worked for all the
17     networks, all the American networks and I have worked
18     for the Canadian networks and my relationship with the
19     CBC is something that is unique and special and could
20     occur nowhere else.
21  1576                 I believe that people who do not work
22     on the inside of the industry trying to produce it,
23     recognize the tremendous value of an organization such
24     as this and it is recognized internationally when I go
25     to international television markets, increasingly
                          StenoTran

                             398

 1     producers, individual producers and citizens look to
 2     Canada and to the CBC specifically as a model where
 3     people like myself citizens and artists can be
 4     nurtured.  I just want to say thank you very much for
 5     letting me appear and speak.
 6     --- Applause / Applaudissements
 7  1577                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
 8     Haddock and congratulations on the success of your
 9     show.
10  1578                 MS PINSKY:  Mr. Spark is the next
11     presenter.
12     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
13  1579                 MR. SPARK:  Good morning, ladies and
14     gentlemen.  Thank you very much for the opportunity to
15     speak this morning.  CBC is an institution that is near
16     and dear to my heart.  I have been a listener for a
17     long time.  I come from Victoria.  I am glad to see
18     that I came for some typical Vancouver weather this
19     morning.
20  1580                 I am pleased to present my comments
21     here and add them to the others that are expressed
22     across the country in support of the CBC which I
23     believe to be a unique cultural entity.  It has had a
24     significant impact on my own life as well as on the
25     lives of many Canadians across the country.
                          StenoTran

                             399

 1  1581                 I grew up with the CBC in the '40s
 2     and '50s in Ontario and I have fond recollections of
 3     many programs that I think played a role in my own sort
 4     of development.  I think, particularly of programs like
 5     and it does not mean very much, I guess, to B.C., but
 6     the "Ontario Neighbourly News" was a program that ran
 7     for years in Ontario.  It was a collection of stories
 8     from the weekly rural newspapers.
 9  1582                 There were lots of vignettes and lots
10     of insights into the lives of Canadians across the
11     country.
12  1583                 Some of the great writers of this
13     country, John Grainey, W.O. Mitchell, "Jake and the
14     Kid" and so on.  And I also remember the voices of the
15     news reporters in the war and from other parts of the
16     country and around the world.
17  1584                 I also remember the programs of live
18     music and live drama in the '40s and '50s which
19     unfortunately have come and gone but nonetheless have
20     made a contribution to Canadian culture in general. 
21     With a name like mine, "Spark", it was probably my
22     destiny to become a broadcaster.
23  1585                 When I started my radio career, there
24     were two CBC networks in radio, Dominion Network which
25     I was young and I found frankly boring at times and the
                          StenoTran

                             400

 1     TransCanada Network which provided mandatory and
 2     discretional programs programming to broadcasters
 3     across the country.
 4  1586                 Many private broadcasters especially
 5     those in the rural communities subscribed to CBC news
 6     and other features through one or the other of these
 7     two networks.  For many years, Canadians were served by
 8     a broadcasting system which was fashioned mainly out of
 9     compromise between public and commercial broadcasting
10     objectives.  That sort of demarcation seems to have
11     become a bit grey in recent years.  I think there was
12     much more of a sense of broadcasting as a community
13     service in those days.
14  1587                 During the '70s, while working at
15     places distant from Canada, I learned to count on Radio
16     Canada International for a uniquely Canadian
17     perspective on world and domestic events.  Just one
18     sort of brief illustration of that was in Spain during
19     the Falklands conflict.  I felt a bit isolated along
20     with other Canadians felt a bit isolated in terms of
21     getting information on a timely basis that was somewhat
22     objective.
23  1588                 The Spanish language media were
24     clearly aligned with the Argentinian view and the BBC,
25     who has always had great respect in my books for its
                          StenoTran

                             401

 1     journalistic integrity and so on, became the propaganda
 2     voice of the government of the time over night and it
 3     was very difficult to get any objective information.
 4  1589                 At the time, RCI did provide a
 5     welcome kind of insight into the events that were going
 6     on and perhaps allayed some of our own anxieties at the
 7     time.
 8  1590                 In Germany, while working with the
 9     Canadian Forces Network, RCI provided program,
10     administrative and cultural support to the network.  I
11     was able at that time to get some glimpses, as brief as
12     they might be, into the problems of funding support
13     from different ministries, whether National Defence,
14     External Affairs or the Treasury Board.  And the impact
15     of successive budget reductions had not yet reached a
16     critical point, but they were certainly evident back in
17     the '70s.
18  1591                 As a CBC northern service line
19     manager during the early '80s, I assisted in
20     presentations to the taskforce on broadcasting policy,
21     the Kaplin-Sojeau committee and in submissions to the
22     CRTC related to the renewal of the CBC radio network
23     licence.
24  1592                 I worked in the Arctic at the time,
25     the Inuvik production centre was informally targeted
                          StenoTran

                             402

 1     for significant reductions at one point which really
 2     would have been quite devastating for the thousands of
 3     ordinary people many of them on subsistence incomes who
 4     were native to the north who lived in settlements great
 5     distances from civilization in one of the most isolated
 6     and hostile elements on earth.  Fortunately the service
 7     was spared at that time due to many local interventions
 8     and the CRTC, and a truly northern communication system
 9     assistance began to develop.
10  1593                 As a Canadian, I am concerned about
11     some of the changes that I have seen over the past few
12     years.  I unfortunately gave up on television a couple
13     of years ago, after years of aggravation about the way
14     commercials are handled and every time I go back to
15     check it out it seems to be worse.
16  1594                 Personally, I find the commercial
17     interruptions on TV like the clutter on the Internet
18     and the roadside signs going into some towns are about
19     equally tasteless and offensive.
20  1595                 So I really cannot comment on the
21     direction of CBC television except to say that any huge
22     enterprise involving thousands of people and millions
23     of dollars in equipment is bound to be inefficient and
24     wasteful some of the time, but that is not
25     justification for CBC budget cuts.
                          StenoTran

                             403

 1  1596                 I am concerned at this juncture that
 2     the quality of national radio programs has suffered
 3     without much comment from the top.  Certainly, there
 4     continue to be exemplary programs throughout the
 5     different services of the CBC.  Some of them are block
 6     busters in intellectual and cultural terms, but they
 7     seem to be fewer.
 8  1597                 I am also concerned about what might
 9     be a trend toward a more authoritarian attitude to
10     government when it comes to dissent.  Ordinary people,
11     especially at the community and regional levels have
12     more and more reasons for dissent as they are the ones
13     directly affected mostly by the socio-economic changes
14     of the '90s.  It is a growing number and their concerns
15     are often poorly represented in the political process
16     and priorities of the country.  Fewer of their stories
17     find a voice on the CBC which has lost much of its
18     journalistic edge and resources.
19  1598                 The opening of our frontiers to free
20     trade will continue to present awesome challenges to
21     Canadian cultural and political sovereignty to say
22     nothing of the impact of the global business impact. 
23     Just because someone says it is not so does not
24     necessarily make it so.
25  1599                 The buck has been synonymous with the
                          StenoTran

                             404

 1     bottom line for so long that we seem to have forgotten
 2     other values that are equally important to the quality
 3     of life.  While the ethics and values of the
 4     marketplace hold sway through most of Canadian life, it
 5     is the responsibility of every Canadian to safeguard
 6     our cultural future even though the cost may be high. 
 7     The cost of not doing so leads us down the path of
 8     manifest destiny.
 9  1600                 The corporation has been diminished
10     through neglect but it is still viable if there is a
11     will to reaffirm our own cultural values through it. 
12     That is, as they say, the $64,000 question.
13  1601                 Great numbers of cable and satellite
14     channels do not do it for me.  From the point of view
15     of media consumer, what I call the orgy of
16     entertainment options has become a bit of a fetish in
17     this country.
18  1602                 One of the things that I most admired
19     about the CBC when I worked for the corporation was the
20     vigorous assertion of programming as the main focus in
21     all its endeavours.  That is what made it an exciting
22     place to be.
23  1603                 As a listener, in 1999, that
24     commitment seems to have been lost in spite of the
25     restructuring of CBC Ottawa's bureaucracy.  There is
                          StenoTran

                             405

 1     still a fairly large administrative infrastructure in
 2     place which creating inefficiency and binds the
 3     structure into a centrist, urban mode, I believe.
 4  1604                 The corporation's brief experiment
 5     during the '80s into regional broadcasting never really
 6     had a chance although I believe it was the right idea,
 7     its timing and conception were unfortunate and it was
 8     stillborn.
 9  1605                 There are many good arguments in
10     favour of decreased centralization of the CBC.  In my
11     view, in a world where profit taking is unfettered,
12     public money must continue to support public
13     broadcasting in the interests of freedom of expression
14     and the exchange of ideas.
15  1606                 Increasingly, control of public
16     services is devolving to the community level.  The
17     corporation needs to re-examine its management model, I
18     think, develop more sensitivity to changes in Canada
19     and focus more on programming which is responsive to
20     national and community needs.  It must maintain a good
21     journalistic infrastructure nationally and abroad,
22     acting as a conduit for news across the country.  By
23     all means, set basic technical administrative and
24     programming standards nationally, but put the resources
25     and control where they will do the most good and be
                          StenoTran

                             406

 1     most accessible to ordinary Canadians in the regions
 2     and in the communities.
 3  1607                 In conclusion, I would appeal to the
 4     commission for leadership again and keeping public
 5     broadcasting not only alive but viable and thank you
 6     very much for the opportunity to present my views.
 7  1608                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
 8     Spark.
 9  1609                 MS PINSKY:  Ms Catherine Murray is
10     the next presenter.
11     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
12  1610                 MS MURRAY:  Good morning and thank
13     you Commissioner Grauer and to the commission for
14     scheduling a second day here in Vancouver due to the
15     demand to appear.  I was one of the late callers and
16     astonished at the lineup and at the fact that I could
17     not get in last night so thank you for getting up early
18     again this morning.
19  1611                 I teach communications at Simon
20     Fraser university.  I am on the board of a number of
21     agencies including B.C. Film here locally which invests
22     as "Davinci's Inquest" as a very small partner and a
23     number of other not-for-profit community entities.
24  1612                 But I am speaking this morning as a
25     citizen and a concerned citizen.  I have also been
                          StenoTran

                             407

 1     honoured and privileged to share, I think, many of the
 2     concerns that have been expressed around the table. 
 3     But I thought what I could do this morning is address
 4     the challenge of leadership, as Mr. Sparks has called
 5     it, facing the commission in this very important period
 6     of transition to the new millennium and fundamental
 7     structural changes in our broadcasting environment.
 8  1613                 I think that the CRTC is going to be
 9     faced with public demands coast to coast for leadership
10     of the sort that it exhibited and manifested in the
11     early '70s when really the CRTC under the then chairman
12     Pierre Juneau initiated the radio revolution which, in
13     fact, meant a reversal of advertising on the public
14     network -- public radio network and I think led to an
15     extremely interesting period of programming diversity
16     and innovation for that network.
17  1614                 I think the challenge facing the CRTC
18     will be to redress its silence in the last six to --
19     well, really four critical years when cuts to the CBC
20     have really meant that it was at risk of compliance
21     with the terms and conditions of its last licence
22     renewal.
23  1615                 So, like it or not, I think that the
24     commission's dilemma is that you will have to rule on
25     the impact of these cuts on public value for money
                          StenoTran

                             408

 1     within the CBC and the basis for my case this morning
 2     is to encourage you to exhibit moral leadership and to
 3     take risks in this next licensing hearing.
 4  1616                 I happen to be one of the ones who
 5     believes that the commission is a very important part,
 6     a player in holding the CBC to account on the part of
 7     Canadian voters and taxpayers.  But the CRTC is only
 8     one player in a very important triad.  The other
 9     players in a public corporation like the CBC are the
10     Auditor General.  And the Auditor General has been
11     silent for over four years on the corporation.  And I
12     think the fact that the Auditor General has not had a
13     recent review of the CBC really sends the CRTC into the
14     next round of hearings with an unacceptable level or
15     lack of information on public value for money.
16  1617                 I would encourage attention being
17     paid in the next decisions to do with the CBC licence
18     renewals to the accountability system and to the CRTC's
19     role in that system and perhaps to the idea that, in
20     future, the Auditor General's cycle review of the
21     corporation be conducted prior to the public hearings
22     around licence renewal.  I think the links of
23     accountability are out of phase.
24  1618                 The role of the Auditor General is to
25     rule on effective value for public money.  Rules of
                          StenoTran

                             409

 1     internal accounting, validity of cost separation, a
 2     range of issues that I think are fundamentally
 3     important as a knowledge base for commissioner's and
 4     citizens who wish to intervene effectively in the arena
 5     to make value judgments.
 6  1619                 The role of the commission obviously
 7     is going to be to rule on qualitative compliance with
 8     the act on the part of the CBC.  Important social
 9     issues, market entry issues, intention of the CBC to
10     file for future licences, for example, in specialty
11     hearings or in the radio side for a youth new media
12     network.
13  1620                 A range of questions to do with
14     impacts on other licensees and finally and perhaps most
15     importantly in today's highly contentious partisan
16     atmosphere around the editorial conduct of the CBC, I
17     think that the CRTC cannot back away from its role as
18     court of appeal for broadcast standards and complaints
19     of editorial bias.  I think the other parallel hearing
20     which the commission is undertaking to do with
21     standards of self-regulation in broadcasting is an
22     equally important hearing to this one.
23  1621                 In fact, I have argued in other
24     arenas it is time to really reassess who should be
25     accountable for very serious allegations of partisan
                          StenoTran

                             410

 1     political bias.  I think that it is no longer
 2     appropriate for the CBC's ombudsperson or officer of
 3     media accountability to be the only one to hold the
 4     bag, so to speak.
 5  1622                 The third area I think in the triad
 6     for public accountability is the role of the
 7     parliamentary committee.  I have argued elsewhere that
 8     we simply must change the way that we make public
 9     appointments to the board of the CBC and in particular
10     how the president is appointed and the president should
11     not be appointed by the Prime Minister.
12  1623                 So I think that the commission is
13     going to have to address the accountability structure
14     and questions to do with procedural reform to public
15     accountability of the CBC in order to enhance its
16     trust.
17  1624                 Now, I think that the substantive
18     policy issues facing you are very serious indeed and I
19     understand, although I was unable to attend yesterday,
20     there continues to be burning concern coast to coast on
21     the public consultations as indeed we encountered a
22     couple of years ago in the mandate review committee for
23     viable, distinctive, local service.
24  1625                 That local service does not have to
25     take the same formula for every province or every city
                          StenoTran

                             411

 1     or market.  In fact, it should demonstrate editorial
 2     difference.
 3  1626                 I think the second main issue facing
 4     the CBC is its contribution to racial and cultural
 5     diversity.  I think here the CBC, while obviously
 6     apparently ahead in hiring and promotion, for example
 7     of minorities from other races and so on, compared to
 8     the private sector, in fact, it would be very important
 9     that this diversity is increasingly being felt in all
10     levels of prime time national and regional programming.
11  1627                 I have also argued that the
12     commission will have to rule on the impact of the cuts
13     and I think the biggest issue facing the commission is
14     going to have to be to talk about the health of the
15     increasingly commercialized regime, especially facing
16     television.
17  1628                 And I believe that the amount of
18     advertising revenues that the public broadcasting
19     television network must now raise in order to support
20     its activities has crossed the danger threshold.  It
21     certainly several years ago was equivalent to 50 per
22     cent of its operation in television English and the
23     French language, it now presumably has increased from
24     that threshold and the danger is less from overt
25     censorship than a covert search to expand audiences and
                          StenoTran

                             412

 1     go for programs only that will attract the largest
 2     numbers.
 3  1629                 So the biggest qualitative impacts
 4     that I am concerned about as a citizen would be the
 5     insertion of news in the national news and empirical
 6     questions to do with the impact on length of news
 7     items, quality of news items, soft versus hard news
 8     items and the fundamental question if the tradeoff in
 9     revenue is achieved has in fact been worth the change
10     or dilution of standards.
11  1630                 The mandate review committee several
12     years ago found that the commercial thrust in
13     television was reflected in the over representation of
14     sports.  My impression is that sports has been rolled
15     back somewhat but not enough.
16  1631                 The new threat is that there will be
17     substitution of programming to other very popular items
18     to do with comedy and so on and a persistent
19     representation of children's arts and science
20     programming which is a cause for concern on the
21     television side.
22  1632                 I think the mandate review committee
23     report was extremely controversial and indeed really
24     the recommendation to do with the tax drew such
25     visceral response from the private sector that, in
                          StenoTran

                             413

 1     fact, the report probably did not receive its due
 2     public attention.
 3  1633                 I think that the main failure on the
 4     part of the report was the failure to draw attention to
 5     the problems of commercial revenues.  The fact that
 6     citizens have very little choice of non-commercial
 7     programming, less than 5 per cent our research found at
 8     that time, and my impression is that has diminished.
 9  1634                 We note with interest that even
10     advertisers are complaining about advertising clutter
11     in the TV policy hearing and have lobbied in the TV
12     policy hearing to cap the number of minutes and not
13     allow more as a very minimum.
14  1635                 From an audience research
15     perspective, advertorials are becoming increasingly
16     hard to distinguish to the average citizen with
17     secondary and post-secondary education and ads, as I
18     think most citizens fail to realize, shape the length
19     of the news item and the flow in a very fundamental way
20     and there are fundamental social impacts of advertising
21     introduction and increased televisual aesthetic means
22     of product spilling into all kinds of program creation. 
23     These impacts are increasingly being felt in shorter
24     attention span and other social costs to do with the
25     under representation of minorities, women and promotion
                          StenoTran

                             414

 1     of consumerism.
 2  1636                 I think the most important issue is
 3     that advertisers create a system which responds to the
 4     direct demand from advertisers not the true end viewer
 5     or consumer.  This is both manifestly inefficient and
 6     subject to distortion of true viewer or citizen wants.
 7  1637                 So I think that there is no question
 8     that the commission will be asked to rule on the
 9     viability of the health of the public broadcaster and
10     in particular the impact of the cuts in forcing the
11     corporation to move increasingly to advertising and
12     that is, I think, a very important social question.
13  1638                 In the future, the CBC will be
14     relying more and more on innovation and new services to
15     do with subscription or transaction services for earned
16     revenues from certain citizens.
17  1639                 This may a bigger part in the
18     financial structure of public broadcasters worldwide
19     and, in fact, we see entities like the BBC increasingly
20     diversifying to new specialty channels and a range of
21     others.
22  1640                 I think it is unfortunate that the
23     last round of licensing has significantly ignored the
24     CBC as a partner and/or sole licensee in entities.
25  1641                 I think it is tragic that our public
                          StenoTran

                             415

 1     broadcaster, for example, has no share in the History
 2     Channel which was launched which seems to me to be a
 3     natural partner for a public broadcaster.
 4  1642                 It is very important that the
 5     commission endorse the need for innovation and a social
 6     audit of the public broadcaster in the future and that
 7     there be new public benchmarks for the quality of
 8     performance of the CBC.
 9  1643                 This really implies a renewal of the
10     CRTC's own mandate in research and providing a catalyst
11     for the development of an independent research media
12     monitoring agency which can, in fact, conduct
13     qualitative research on contents and audiences and so
14     on which really allow us to build our case that we are
15     receiving as taxpayers excellent public value for
16     public money.
17  1644                 Thank you.
18  1645                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very
19     much, Dr. Murray.
20     --- Applause / Applaudissements
21  1646                 MS PINSKY:  Ms Isabel Minty is the
22     next presenter.
23     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
24  1647                 MS MINTY:  My apologies for not being
25     better organized.  I also am appreciative of those who
                          StenoTran

                             416

 1     have spoken before me and I also would like to say what
 2     I am going to say to you as people going around Canada
 3     listening to us that I recognize that you have a
 4     conflict of interest and it is very hard to tell
 5     persons in that position to disregard your conflict of
 6     interest, but I feel if you do not in this instance,
 7     you are just going through a song and dance and there
 8     is no consequence.  It is an appearance of listening
 9     but the intention to take action, if it is not there,
10     it invalidates what this process is.  So I am prefacing
11     my remarks with that, because I just want that on the
12     record before I start.
13  1648                 What does the CBC mean to me?  To a
14     great extent, the CBC represents our country to me, our
15     beautiful land, its millions of diverse and charming
16     inhabitants, its contrasting seasons, its immensity,
17     its challenges and its rugged beauty.  And I am not
18     going to be emotional, but I feel that this is what we
19     are at risk of losing because it is smart, it is
20     contemporary to disregard all of this because when that
21     window is closed, it will be closed forever and the
22     people who destroy it are killing our way of life of
23     being a Canadian.
24  1649                 CBC is a great educator for all of us
25     about all of us, our past, our present.  And it gives
                          StenoTran

                             417

 1     food for thought about our future.  The research work
 2     and the intelligence that goes into every piece of work
 3     of presenters that they bring forward and that
 4     excellence shines through reflecting the caliber of the
 5     staff at CBC and never insults the listener or the
 6     viewer and the expertise of these technical crews will
 7     now be on the block because I think we have to
 8     recognize that this is a step in the privatization of
 9     this national service.  And I appreciate what was said
10     earlier, because I, too, listened to CBC radio as a
11     young person at home with children, babes.  And, to me,
12     all the thousands of Canadians that we have come to
13     know and have been introduced to would never have
14     happened without the CBC.
15  1650                 But I am here to do more than sing a
16     love song to the CBC.  I am here to lend my voice, a
17     sharply critical one to what I consider to be the
18     decisions that are destroying our federal
19     communications networks.  I wrote a very critical
20     letter to CBC management in early March and I would
21     like to read a few paragraphs to let you know where I
22     am coming from:
23  1651                 "Dear senior managers, cowards all,
24     also known as sell-outs of the CBC, including and since
25     Mulroney's leadership years:  You have kept your
                          StenoTran

                             418

 1     paycheques coming because you have agreed to erode,
 2     emasculate and destroy eventually our national
 3     broadcasting corporation's both radio and TV.  If you
 4     were not willing participants, you would have walked
 5     over the past 15 years as managers, you have been
 6     willing and anxious to run the company that pays your
 7     salary into the ground.  You are supposed to be
 8     exercising the mandate you hold in the name of
 9     Canadians, not in the interests of whatever national
10     government may be in Ottawa.  In the face of criticism
11     from the ruling party, you have steadfastly shown
12     timidity and acquiescence instead of the courageous and
13     straightforward responses needed to defend the company
14     and Canadians' interests.  I do not want to list your
15     backslidings, but I do want to address the latest mess
16     you have caused."
17  1652                 And then I discussed that any outfit
18     that had managed to rob their employees of their
19     salaries deserves to be fired especially when their own
20     salaries had been going in the opposite direction.
21  1653                 "Then, when the employees finally say
22     they are prepared to go on strike, if management cannot
23     agree to a decent wage increase, they throw them out
24     onto the street.  They will not come to the table and
25     come to a middle way to find a solution.  Rather than
                          StenoTran

                             419

 1     come to the table to reach that situation, they stop
 2     the wonderful continuation so that the ruination of
 3     this magnificent institution will be moved forward and
 4     you prove repeatedly your inability to do the jobs you
 5     agreed to undertake.  Over these years only one man in
 6     a leadership management role had what it takes to
 7     refuse to conspire in the destruction of the CBC.  He
 8     had to walk, because the creep bureaucrats like all of
 9     you refused to stand with him.  You are bought and sold
10     paper pushers who admire what your paycheques buy more
11     than you respect the integrity that belongs to the CBC
12     position that you hold."
13  1654                 That is sort of the background for
14     what I am here to say.
15  1655                 Why would a federal government in a
16     country as enormous and sparsely populated as ours
17     decide it is in the national interest to weaken our
18     most important communication links?  We are told that
19     if CBC is to survive, it will be only a shadow of its
20     former self.  Cutbacks must continue in all kinds of
21     programming:  Documentary making, in news room staffs,
22     film making, live production of all kinds, et cetera.
23  1656                 At the same time, we are told there
24     will be more partnerships with independent film makers
25     and commercial corporations who will bleed the CBC of
                          StenoTran

                             420

 1     their expertise and financial capital while making use
 2     of CBC facilities and technology for their private
 3     gain.
 4  1657                 We are told that the CBC TV should
 5     undertake to develop new specialty channels that would
 6     attract particular audiences and would be supported by
 7     cable subscribers.  We are told in addition to CBC
 8     Radio One and Two, where we already endear more repeat
 9     shows than should be considered a reasonable number,
10     CBC management is going to push for a CBC youth
11     station.
12  1658                 We are reassured to know that scarce
13     insufficient tax dollars will be available for that. 
14     Well, youth radio is hardly available on every
15     commercial frequency across the dial, regardless of the
16     chronological age of the listener.  CBC needs to be
17     reminded that adult listeners of every chronological
18     age seek out the CBC.
19  1659                 In response to every appeal to get
20     our late local CBC TV news moved back to 11 o'clock,
21     when most of the viewers look forward to seeing it, we
22     are told no, no, you must have another opportunity to
23     see the national, your third since nine o'clock.  We
24     are told wait 'til 11:30 to see your local news.  We
25     are told to wait 'til 11:30 to see our national news. 
                          StenoTran

                             421

 1     Then you can watch it in competition with the two
 2     better funded news rooms.  They have the funding to pay
 3     for the staffing needed to cover evening events.  And
 4     so our local CBC news room at 11:30 is in competition
 5     with far better funded news rooms and it might have, if
 6     it stayed at 11 been in competition with the poorest,
 7     next to CBC, attended funded news rooms.
 8  1660                 What we can understand from that,
 9     that is not to be done because CBC management wants
10     local news rooms dead and buried.  But cover youth
11     radio stations, yes, sir, specialty TV, oh, that is a
12     really great idea, financially support commercial
13     channels oh, that is a winner.  It is just not good
14     enough.  It will not wash.
15  1661                 Now, as we well know, the undermining
16     of all our public institutions followed in the wake of
17     the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA.
18  1662                 They had to be harmonized with those
19     existing in the U.S. and, as we know, many of our
20     national publicly funded institutions are non-existent
21     down there.  Dismantling and eliminating had to occur
22     very quietly, incrementally, because similar to the
23     frog who remains unconcerned in the gradually warming
24     pot, the transnational corporations wanted Canadians to
25     remain passive and oblivious of the cut backs a
                          StenoTran

                             422

 1     population aroused to fighting the cut backs is not and
 2     it is still not wanted.  It was to be avoided at all
 3     costs to the point of political and bureaucratic
 4     bare-faced lies and deceptions.
 5  1663                 That is what I am wondering if that
 6     is what this process of pretending to listen, taking
 7     the concerns of Canadians is an exercise to let us
 8     too-polite Canadians feel that we have an opportunity
 9     to say rather than being massively out on the streets
10     which is where we all should be taking on the
11     criminality of this kind of conduct.
12  1664                 The liberal government's willingness
13     to accommodate U.S. transnational corporations' desire
14     to implement the MAI has put new pressure on the CBC. 
15     The dismantling of our national communication network
16     is a must-do first.  Disconnecting Canadians one from
17     the other on a daily basis is essential to pave the way
18     for an easier path to achieve -- to wreck, to break
19     Canadians allegiance one to the other.
20  1665                 After all, the taxpayer has been sold
21     the bill of goods, has been dished the mantra for years
22     that we can no longer afford any of the these national
23     treasures, especially our CBC.
24  1666                 Now, I must apologize because I have
25     to find where I go next.
                          StenoTran

                             423

 1  1667                 In these days when nine conglomerates
 2     own all the international media, a thinking populace
 3     would probably agree that an independent national media
 4     would be well worth spending tax dollars on to keep it
 5     independent and objective.  Canadians deserve to see
 6     and hear what is going on in the world through Canadian
 7     reporters' eyes who are not subject to the whims of the
 8     management of a few cartels that dominate the
 9     international media.  The Ted Turners, the Conrad
10     Blacks and the Rupert Murdochs.  Yes, Conrad Black's
11     media empire is one of these nine.
12  1668                 These empires -- and we all know
13     it -- sell themselves by creating division promoting
14     division amongst the citizenry, ethnic, religious,
15     economic, racial, political, et cetera, infotainment
16     substitutes for, and is called the news.
17  1669                 Sections of the printed press are
18     devoted to professional sports, the more violent the
19     better, films and entertainment, the more skin the
20     better, food and wine, the more gourmet and expensive
21     the better.  That is the direction that the
22     international media want us to be in because as we have
23     been told by people who observe the media and are
24     students of the media, that in this way, they are
25     managing consent as the man par excellence has told us
                          StenoTran

                             424

 1     and the other thing they create is a mindlessness that
 2     is needed in order that they can make the advances they
 3     want.  And we have to understand.
 4  1670                 We are being led to our nation's
 5     demise by Mammon bewitched, shrewd, well organized
 6     rapacious plunderers.  These people want it all.  And
 7     if we do not stand up and say what we have and value is
 8     worth spending money on, we have rocks where our brains
 9     are supposed to be.
10  1671                 I do not know whether anyone
11     yesterday drew your attention to the absolutely superb
12     Darryl Duke editorial in our local paper.  Did you
13     receive a copy?  Because if you did not, I would like
14     to leave you one.
15  1672                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  By all means, you
16     can leave it.  It has certainly been brought to our
17     attention.  If you would like to leave it, it will go
18     on the record again.
19  1673                 MS MINTY:  Because he has pointed out
20     that this mantra that we have been dished that we
21     cannot afford it, that it is totally expensive is
22     totally exploded.
23  1674                 In Canada, the taxpayer for our
24     national broadcasting system pays by far the least by
25     multiples than other nations across the world and the
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 1     lies and the deceits that we are told and expected
 2     politely to accept is outrageous and has to be turned
 3     around.  We pay $27 per citizen as Darryl Duke points
 4     out, $27 to keep this wonderful system going.  Belgium
 5     pays $58, the U.K. $60, Japan $56 and Switzerland $109. 
 6     I do not think anyone has ever suggested that the
 7     people of Switzerland do not know exactly what is the
 8     benefit way to conduct their nation's business.
 9  1675                 Thank you.
10     --- Applause / Applaudissements
11  1676                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
12     Minty.  I wanted to clarify for you what your concerns
13     were with respect to the conflict of interest in your
14     opening.  I think you said you acknowledge we had a
15     conflict of interest.  I am not quite sure what you --
16  1677                 MS MINTY:  Well, I know you are
17     young, but I did not know you are that young.  The
18     thing is, when you come out and listen to people and I
19     do not care what the issue is, someone has employed you
20     to do that.  You have to make a report and you make the
21     report to the folks who have hired you.
22  1678                 MS PINSKY:  Actually, I will just
23     explain a bit of the process.
24  1679                 Commissioner Grauer is here to
25     collect the comments that presenters are making and
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 1     these comments will form part of the record of the
 2     proceeding which are considered by all commissioners
 3     including Cindy Grauer when they make their decisions
 4     on the CBC renewal applications.
 5  1680                 The record does not form a report, if
 6     you are thinking of to government or to something like
 7     that.  It is part of a record that the commissioners
 8     themselves, including Commissioner Grauer consider when
 9     making their decisions.
10  1681                 MS MINTY:  Well then, I will respond
11     to that.  I have read and responded mentally to CRTC
12     news coverage of hearings they have been through and I,
13     as a reader and listener, am constantly amazed at how
14     they can proceed with what decisions they come to after
15     they have heard what citizens who come before them have
16     to say.
17  1682                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mrs.
18     Minty.
19  1683                 MS PINSKY:  Romney Grant is the next
20     presenter.
21     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
22  1684                 MS GRANT:  I am here to speak in
23     support of the CBC as both a consumer and an
24     independent producer.  CBC has always provided the
25     primary pipeline to Canadian culture to me and my
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 1     family.  It is the safe and intelligent haven from the
 2     extraordinarily powerful American entertainment machine
 3     which looks, feels and sounds not very real.
 4  1685                 CBC provides constant reminders of
 5     our regional diversity and talents.  It shares the
 6     values of the thinking public, a quality not often
 7     found in the private broadcaster.  As a consumer, I
 8     look forward to the continued presence of a strong
 9     public broadcaster to educate and entertain me and my
10     family.
11  1686                 As an independent producer, I can
12     only comment on my own experience with the CBC and it
13     has been overwhelmingly positive.  Currently, our
14     company is producing a series for pre-schoolers called
15     "Scoop and Doozy", it is a national series produced in
16     this region.  I originally pitched it to CBC Vancouver
17     who invested funds to start development.  After some
18     coaxing, CBC Toronto moved it to the top shelf and
19     contributed to more development and ultimately to
20     production.
21  1687                 Needless to say, the combined support
22     of CBC Toronto and CBC Vancouver to the financial
23     package made the project viable.
24  1688                 For a small producer building
25     relationships with broadcast partners is key.  It is
                          StenoTran

                             428

 1     difficult although not impossible to build a
 2     relationship with a team that is thousands of miles
 3     away.  The presence of CBC Vancouver regional support
 4     has been essential in the development and continued
 5     good health of the series.  They have been mentors
 6     without being intrusive, offered technical information
 7     and assistance when asked, worked hard to monitor the
 8     smooth running of the production, remedied problems and
 9     quickly and actively sought feedback and I suspect they
10     were able to provide CBC Toronto with comfort regarding
11     the nature of this small producer.
12  1689                 Without a strong regional team "Scoop
13     and Doozy" may well not have happened or may not have
14     happened as well.  It is always easier to deal with
15     people you know.
16  1690                 CBC Toronto has also been good to
17     work with and pleasant to deal with.  From a creative
18     perspective, they have respected our creative integrity
19     and independence.  They have facilitated rather than
20     interfered.  From a business perspective, I believe
21     they balance their own interests with that of a
22     producer, no pushovers but not inflexible, not
23     unreasonable.  From a creative and business perspective
24     there was an ongoing willingness to do what was
25     reasonably required to make the production happen,
                          StenoTran

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 1     their contribution to the production demonstrates their
 2     level of support.
 3  1691                 And finally, in closing I would like
 4     to say, unlike many private broadcasters, CBC has
 5     demonstrated its willingness to support independent
 6     production with creative heart and not always mass
 7     market support.
 8  1692                 I hope my children continue to
 9     benefit from the distinctive voices and enlightened
10     entertainment showcased on CBC.
11  1693                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
12     Grant.
13     --- Applause / Applaudissements
14  1694                 MS PINSKY:  Perhaps I will just run
15     through the list again.  I do not have anyone marked
16     here who would like to make a presentation in addition
17     to those who have done so this morning, so I will just
18     go through in case someone is here.  Mr. Rogers, Ms
19     Whiting -- oh, sorry, that is in the marked out, great. 
20     If you want to make your presentation now.
21     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
22  1695                 MS WHITING:  My name is Glynnis
23     Whiting.  I would like to thank the CRTC for being here
24     to listen to what we have to say.
25  1696                 I am a producer, writer, director and
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                             430

 1     have also worked in affiliation with the CBC as a
 2     trainer going back many years.  My first experience
 3     with the CBC is -- goes back almost 20 years when I
 4     first won a national radio drama competition that gave
 5     me the legs to move forward and follow my dreams.
 6  1697                 I have been an audience member all my
 7     life and, addressing what Ms Bradley said earlier, I
 8     remember one day visiting my mother and the CBC being
 9     on the radio when I was -- when I was visiting or
10     getting into my car, turning the radio on which
11     automatically went to CBC and going directly to my
12     daughter's house, going to her apartment and CBC radio
13     being played when I went in.  So it certainly is
14     something that follows from generation to generation.
15  1698                 This morning I would like to address
16     two points in regard to CBC television which has been
17     the arm of CBC that I have been most involved with in
18     the last decade or so.
19  1699                 The points I would like to make are
20     in regard to the evolving role of the CBC as well as
21     the CBC as the purveyor of Canadian culture.  I will be
22     brief.
23  1700                 The CBC is a national treasure but at
24     the same time I think there is no question that there
25     is need for change.  Responding as best they could to
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                             431

 1     the battery of cut backs, it is time to step back and
 2     examine what remains.
 3  1701                 When CBC first went to air, it had a
 4     daunting role.  There was no television programming
 5     available.  It took responsibility not only as a
 6     broadcaster but also as a producer and a trainer and
 7     was highly successful.  Successful to the point that
 8     now, in its maturity, and existing among a mature
 9     industry, the mother corp. can assume her role as the
10     title suggests as the Canadian Broadcasting
11     Corporation, a broadcaster leaving the production of
12     content that will reflect Canada to Canadians up to the
13     Canadians for whom the corp. has intentionally laid the
14     groundwork.
15  1702                 That brings me to the second point.
16     Since its inception, the CBC has been the strongest
17     mechanism available to Canadians to know ourselves.
18     From head to toe, inside out.  It is vital that our
19     national self-image also include from sea to sea.
20     Having produced documentaries for CBC, I have seen the
21     pride of the individuals who have been profiled in the
22     documentaries as well as the individuals in the
23     community, the audience members seeing stories about
24     their region reflected across Canada.  And I think it
25     is an important point that we look at the need for the
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                             432

 1     regional programming to be reflected across the
 2     country.
 3  1703                 There is no better tool from which to
 4     forge national unity.  We seem to be in a heyday of CBC
 5     participation in British Columbia.
 6  1704                 The current administration sees value
 7     culturally and politically in ensuring that our voices
 8     are heard.  But we have seen that before.  We have also
 9     seen the opposite, an almost total silence of regional
10     voices depending on the mercurial will of the CBC
11     administration.
12  1705                 The ideal CBC will be a public
13     broadcaster with a clearly regulated mandate to give a
14     national window to interpretations of Canada and her
15     people in documentary and drama, in arts and
16     entertainment programming which are created and
17     controlled from a regional base.
18  1706                 The changes that the CBC faces demand
19     support from our government to be a public broadcaster
20     they cannot also be serving the master of commercial
21     industry.  It is an unfair position to put the CBC in
22     to expect both.
23  1707                 I loudly applaud the CRTC for
24     examining the entire CBC at this time in its history
25     and ask you not to shy away from major change but to
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 1     welcome it as an opportunity to shape the strongest and
 2     most meaningful public broadcaster in the world.
 3  1708                 Thank you.
 4  1709                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
 5     Whiting.
 6     --- Applause / Applaudissements
 7  1710                 MS PINSKY:  I just notice that we
 8     have another presenter who is at the table if you could
 9     introduce yourself, please.
10  1711                 MR. UNDERHILL:  My name is Owen
11     Underhill, from Vancouver New Music.
12  1712                 MS PINSKY:  You can make your
13     presentation now.
14     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
15  1713                 MR. UNDERHILL:  My name is Owen
16     Underhill.  I am artistic director of Vancouver New
17     Music, a performance organization originally formed in
18     1973 and one of Canada's largest three new music
19     groups.  I am also a composer and a conductor and a
20     former vice-president of the Canadian League of
21     Composers and Canadian Music Centre.
22  1714                 My comments today will be focused on
23     CBC radio and the essential role that it plays in
24     broadcasting and promoting Canadian culture to
25     Canadians in the regions and across the country.
                          StenoTran

                             434

 1  1715                 Canadians do have a vibrant, distinct
 2     and multifaceted culture.  It is essential if that
 3     culture is to be nurtured and if that culture is to
 4     have maximum number influence and impact that the
 5     citizens of this country have the opportunity to
 6     experience it on a day-by-day basis.
 7  1716                 This is because a cultural experience
 8     is a participatory experience, an interactive
 9     experience.  Radio is a facile and effective medium to
10     amplify that process.  To bring the concert from the
11     Winnipeg New Music Festival or the Vancouver
12     International New Music Festival to an audience across
13     the country, radio and CBC radio in particular serves
14     as a networker.
15  1717                 When a concert of Vancouver New Music
16     is broadcast, not only does our audience increase, but
17     our effectiveness as cultural ambassadors is greatly
18     multiplied.  When CBC Two's weekly show, "Two New
19     Hours" or daily evening show "In Performance"
20     broadcasts our concert, I hear about it often months
21     and years afterwards from those who are listening.
22  1718                 As a matter of fact, as a member of
23     the CBC Two newshour's e-mail list, I can hear about it
24     the very next day from listeners across the country a
25     group who is for the most part non-music practitioners
                          StenoTran

                             435

 1     who are passionate about Canadian music and the place
 2     of Canadian music in our culture.
 3  1719                 As an artist who is dedicated to the
 4     promotion of contemporary musical expression through
 5     concert, opera, theatre and recorded media, I can say
 6     without hesitation that CBC radio has more than any
 7     other disseminator of culture played an integral role
 8     in bringing the work of the Canadian composer to the
 9     Canadian public.  This is an historical fact when one
10     looks at the role of the CBC in supporting and
11     broadcasting the music of composers of the generation
12     of John Vinzwag, John Beckwith or the recently departed
13     Harry Summers.
14  1720                 In comparing those golden years of
15     the '40s and '50s to the present, it is amazing to
16     consider how Canadian compositional activity once
17     largely centred in Toronto and Montreal now flourishes
18     in every corner of the country.
19  1721                 The variety, distinctness and
20     excellence of Canadian music is truly a good news story
21     and CBC radio, through its national and regional
22     broadcasting has done a creditable, even admirable job
23     in reflecting this extraordinary transformation in
24     Canadian cultural activity.
25  1722                 In referencing the positive role of
                          StenoTran

                             436

 1     CBC radio in the past and present, I must extrapolate
 2     to the future with the hope that the resources and
 3     wisdom will exist to ensure that the CBC and CBC radio
 4     in particular will continue to reflect and participate
 5     in the Canadian cultural identity some 40 years hence.
 6  1723                 As a composer, I have a particular
 7     interest in Canadian content and specifically Canadian
 8     content which includes the primary creator or composer.
 9  1724                 In the case of the composer of
10     serious music, as our national royalty organization
11     SOCAN refers to it, CBC radio has been far and away the
12     major player in broadcasting Canadian composer content. 
13     This is how it should be and is what should be expected
14     from a national broadcaster.  I firmly believe that
15     Canada's national broadcaster does have a special role
16     in presentation of Canadian programming.
17  1725                 In the case of Canadian serious
18     music, there are many success stories where this music
19     is asserting its relevance and reaching a wider public
20     in the orchestral concert hall, in the development of
21     Canadian opera, through Canada's international
22     leadership in technological areas such as
23     electro-acoustic music, through new music festivals
24     that are something of an international phenomenon, in
25     Canadian choral music, et cetera, et cetera.
                          StenoTran

                             437

 1  1726                 I am happy to say that CBC radio has
 2     in large part been a major player in transmitting these
 3     success stories to the Canadian public, thus
 4     celebrating and informing our people about our culture.
 5  1727                 In looking to the future, I believe
 6     that CBC radio should play, if anything, an even larger
 7     role in broadcasting the music of the Canadian composer
 8     in all its splendid diversity and in a manner that will
 9     keep and even enhance the listening audience.
10  1728                 I would be remiss if, as a Canadian
11     composer, I did not say a few words about the CBC
12     Vancouver orchestra.  This orchestra last year having
13     celebrated its 60th anniversary has done more than any
14     other Canadian orchestra in performing and developing
15     Canadian repertoire and presenting that repertoire to
16     an international audience.  Of course, statistics back
17     that up.  In records since 1962, the CBC Vancouver
18     orchestra has played 318 Canadian works, total number
19     of Canadian performances 448, just from 1962.
20  1729                 As a radio orchestra and the only
21     remaining radio orchestra of the national broadcaster,
22     it is a jewel that should continue to be supported. 
23     The discography of this orchestra on CBC records is
24     world class and the representation of the CBC orchestra
25     on air through in-house broadcasts, concerts and CD is
                          StenoTran

                             438

 1     one of the most outstanding distinguishing features of
 2     CBC radio.
 3  1730                 And now, if I may speak as a
 4     performer, the CBC Vancouver orchestra has done more
 5     than any other orchestra to nurture Canadian conductors
 6     and give opportunities to Canada's most talented
 7     soloists.  In so doing, it has at the same time
 8     preserved standards of the highest excellence and
 9     served as a stepping stone for Canadian conductors and
10     soloists who have gone on to success elsewhere on the
11     national and international stage.
12  1731                 In addressing the issue of national
13     and regional interests, one of my fears is that CBC
14     radio, and here I am talking of the English network,
15     will become even more pre-dominantly based in Toronto
16     to the detriment of the regions.
17  1732                 Although it is clearly a challenge
18     from the point of view of stretched resources and
19     shrinking budgets, I think it is critical that CBC
20     radio be able to maintain both a strong national and a
21     dynamic regional presence.
22  1733                 The great advantage of national radio
23     shows, as I have personally experienced them is that
24     they do an invaluable service in speaking to the whole
25     country, drawing it together, allowing one aesthetic
                          StenoTran

                             439

 1     voice to speak to another.
 2  1734                 Regional programming is equally
 3     effective.  It gives an opportunity in the case of
 4     music broadcasts to present distinctive aesthetic
 5     stylistic and cultural identities particularly to given
 6     areas.
 7  1735                 For example, especially fascinating
 8     has been the series of broadcasts on "West Coast
 9     Performance", a weekly regional show here in British
10     Columbia on CBC stereo of the music of brilliant
11     Vancouver ensembles and musicians representing various
12     ethnic musics as they exist in Vancouver, Chinese,
13     south-Asian, Korean, Vietnamese, et cetera.
14  1736                 It is my belief that both the
15     national and regional programming must continue to be
16     maintained if the CBC is to flourish as a relevant
17     broadcaster in the various communities of this country.
18  1737                 In coming to a close, I must, in
19     speaking on behalf of radio, argue for continued and
20     enhanced funding.  Although I can certainly be
21     supportive of extrapolating many of the principles here
22     to CBC TV, I would hope that there be recognition on
23     the part of the CRTC, CBC management and government
24     that CBC radio if properly supported can be as relevant
25     in the 21st century as it has been in the 20th.
                          StenoTran

                             440

 1  1738                 Finally, although I have talked here
 2     from the personal experience of a composer, conductor
 3     and artistic director who has been fortunate enough to
 4     be broadcast on many occasions on CBC radio, I wish to
 5     reinforce that my submission should not be understood
 6     as arising out of self-interest.  Rather, my emphasis
 7     is on serving the broad interests of the Canadian
 8     public.
 9  1739                 If Canadian cultural expression is to
10     continue to play an important part in the lives of
11     Canadians, then we must be active in ensuring that the
12     voices of Canadian performers and composers are playing
13     their way into the living rooms and kitchens of
14     Canadians.  If our generation is to be a wise partner
15     in this ongoing legacy, one thing it should ensure is
16     that CBC radio continues to survive and even better
17     thrive well into the future.  This is in my opinion in
18     the public interest.
19  1740                 Thank you very much.
20  1741                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
21     Underhill.
22     --- Applause / Applaudissements
23  1742                 MS PINSKY:  I will continue to go
24     through the list in case there are other presenters
25     here who have not identified themselves to the front
                          StenoTran

                             441

 1     desk.
 2  1743                 Mr. Michael Bociurkiw.
 3  1744                 Ms Mavis Jones.
 4  1745                 Mr. Robert Anderson.
 5     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTAITON
 6  1746                 MR. ANDERSON:  Madam Chairman,
 7     members of the commission, I would like to speak to you
 8     this morning exclusively about radio.  I invite you to
 9     focus on two functions of CBC radio both of which need
10     to be strengthened.  These two functions will be needed
11     more and more as the demographic distribution of
12     Canadian society changes and as our economy and
13     population become more and more international.
14  1747                 The first important function is
15     radio's delivery of an alternative in small towns and
16     reflection of local situations.  The second important
17     function is radio's reflection of Canadian interests
18     and diversity to international audiences and conversely
19     its delivery to Canadians of the widest possible
20     interpretation of world news.
21  1748                 The enhancement of both these
22     functions is going to cost money and that means that
23     the CBC simply cannot achieve them and save money at
24     the same time.
25  1749                 It is time to stop seeing CBC radio
                          StenoTran

                             442

 1     as a place where the government can save money.  Of
 2     course, in the matter of radio, we are talking about
 3     very small amounts of money.  So what is being saved is
 4     nickels and dimes, unfortunately.
 5  1750                 The enhancement and achievement of
 6     these two functions will reap benefits and that
 7     ultimately means money.  Put the other way, failure to
 8     achieve these two functions will cost Canada plenty.
 9  1751                 What is important about CBC radio's
10     two functions of local reflection and global
11     interpretation?  And why will their importance
12     increase?  Let us start with local reflection and the
13     delivery of the sound of alternatives.
14  1752                 The gradual demographic drift back to
15     small towns spilling over and away from large urban
16     areas is the wave of the future.
17  1753                 Some people are fed up with life in
18     the cities.
19  1754                 Our national economy needs durable,
20     small-town economies within rural hinterlands.
21  1755                 These towns have gradually begun to
22     try to attract people with the skills which can make
23     them work.  People in these situations need to know
24     that they are not alone.  They need to know that other
25     people are telling their story in similar
                          StenoTran

                             443

 1     circumstances.  CBC radio can reflect that and thus
 2     strengthen their confidence.
 3  1756                 A significant population who have
 4     always lived in or are moving to small towns is an
 5     important part of our economy.  There are literally
 6     thousands of such places.  They all have a similar
 7     arm's length relationship to cities like Montreal or
 8     Vancouver.
 9  1757                 What is more important, they live in
10     small places where, if it exists, private radio creates
11     an acoustic desert, providing little more than road
12     reports and occasional talk shows.  There are oases in
13     this desert, but they are very, very few.  The acoustic
14     desert in small towns proves that market failure
15     operates in radio, too.
16  1758                 Not only do those people pay for and
17     need CBC's radio reflection of their local situation in
18     a wider context, but they also need to hear alternate
19     sounds, the sound of jazz and blues, world music,
20     renaissance instrument and the new music composed by
21     Colin Brown who recently spoke to you.
22  1759                 The lonely but aspiring fiddler in
23     Canoe Creek needs to hear the violin played a dozen
24     different ways and not just by Ashley McIsaac.
25  1760                 The young high school student in
                          StenoTran

                             444

 1     Comox needs to hear about exciting Japanese or Russian
 2     research projects at home and not have to wait until
 3     she goes to university.
 4  1761                 The solitary writer in Cranbrook
 5     needs to hear someone talk intelligently about Danté or
 6     the Booker Prize while he drives to his job that pays
 7     his rent.
 8  1762                 There are doctors, accountants,
 9     visionaries and mechanics who all want to move into
10     small towns.  They hesitate to do so because, as we all
11     know, small towns are both very supportive and very
12     limiting.  The winter is long, there is isolation,
13     drinking and suicide.  People need an alternative.
14  1763                 Now, all these people need to be
15     reached by the CBC, but they themselves need to reach
16     beyond Canada through the CBC.  They need CBC radio not
17     just because they might eventually be world famous as
18     fiddlers, writers or scientists, they indeed might;
19     they also need CBC radio because they might be very
20     good, but not be world famous and their towns and
21     regions need them as much as the national collective
22     identity needs them.  Simply by living there and doing
23     what they do well, they make their towns and regions
24     habitable, interesting, richer and thus more
25     sustainable.  If they cannot survive there, they will
                          StenoTran

                             445

 1     have to move and become aspiring and lonely in Toronto.
 2  1764                 A country cannot fully develop that
 3     way, as the CRTC has known for years.  Communication
 4     and broadcasting have to be decentralized for Canada to
 5     work.  Therefore, the entire landscape of the people I
 6     am describing, its valleys, hills, fields and canyons
 7     should be bathed in the three main CBC radio signals,
 8     two English and French.  Perhaps other languages will
 9     join them.  All Canadians pay for the CBC radio in
10     their taxes and there should not be a place in this
11     country where one cannot receive those three signals
12     very well.
13  1765                 It cannot be argued that the audience
14     for classical music in little towns is small and,
15     therefore, the expensive commercial broadcasting is not
16     justified.  In the same way the local culture
17     achievements and problems of small town needs
18     reflection across the country so the benefit the world
19     offers in radio should be available to them.
20  1766                 I make these observations to you
21     having been a CBC listener for 40 years.  I have
22     listened in little places you might never have heard of
23     like Horse Fly and Canoe Creek.
24  1767                 I have been a Radio Canada
25     International listener and a news junkie for years.
                          StenoTran

                             446

 1  1768                 So I have wanted to hear the CBC in
 2     India, in Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta, Shanghai, Manila,
 3     Bombay, where I have been working and studying since
 4     1961.
 5  1769                 I have also studied the attitude of
 6     those populations to Canada's trade and diplomatic
 7     interests and Canada's diversity.  I have been a steady
 8     listener to French language Radio Canada from Montreal
 9     and just completed a year and a half participation in
10     the BBC radio audience by living in Cambridge, England.
11  1770                 I also have regular contact in the
12     university with some of the best and the brightest
13     young Canadians.  Thus, I study the grasp of the larger
14     world and attitude of these younger Canadians and my
15     concern for the collective interpretation of the world
16     arises from my study.
17  1771                 I am sometimes chilled to see the
18     narrow range of sources used by people who do not know
19     where else and who how else to look.  This is in a
20     supposedly information rich environment like Vancouver.
21  1772                 The other function I am stressing
22     today, and I will close, is the international one,
23     reflecting the interests and diversity of Canada to
24     foreign audiences and bringing the widest possible
25     interpretation of world news to Canadians.
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 1  1773                 I want to focus on news and
 2     interpretation of news that shapes our national
 3     intelligence and our regional consciousness.  The CBC
 4     should not diminish its search for news across the
 5     world.  Of course, this costs money, so CBC radio
 6     should look for imaginative ways to achieve this
 7     function and contain its cost.
 8  1774                 I understand the historic distinction
 9     between RCI and the CBC.  I understand they are
10     separately funded, but to address those potentially big
11     international radio audiences including in their
12     languages, the CBC requires a serious increase in
13     capacity in order to be effective.
14  1775                 We must expand our capacity, not
15     reduce it.  We need to continue to maintain our bureaus
16     around the world, perhaps holding down costs by
17     combining television and radio reporting or by
18     utilizing bilingual Canadian reporters.  CBC may need
19     to share reporters, too.  For example there are
20     long-time reporters like Lise Ducette in Jerusalem who
21     works for both the BBC and the CBC radio.
22  1776                 We need also to find long resident
23     journalists in these places who know the language there
24     plus French and English.  The CBC could cultivate and
25     develop their understanding of Canada for relatively
                          StenoTran

                             448

 1     low costs, thus enabling them to make interpretations
 2     that are meaningful to Canadians.  If such people are
 3     rare, we can train them.
 4  1777                 We need continuing interpretation of
 5     news in Canadian terms to assist a young generation of
 6     Canadians including in small towns to grasp of the
 7     world.  This is a grasp they cannot get through the
 8     Internet.
 9  1778                 I am not advising a parochial
10     Canada-only angle on the news broadcasting inside
11     Canada, that is a tendency that must be arrested.  Nor
12     am I suggesting that the CBC should restrict our voice
13     to international audiences simply to stories about
14     Canada.  Frankly, other people do not find us that
15     interesting to listen to Canada-only news.  But these
16     foreign audiences appreciate our interpretation of news
17     that matters to them if they can find it on their
18     radios.  They have spoken to me about their desire to
19     know about Canada in a matter-of-fact and daily way. 
20     Radio is ideal for that.
21  1779                 The CBC has to reach the elites in
22     other countries, that is true.  We must overcome our
23     misunderstandings of the world as well as our
24     disassociation from the world and our indifference to
25     the world.  All of these tendencies are found among
                          StenoTran

                             449

 1     many Canadians.
 2  1780                 Since the world reach of our other
 3     media, our television, our cinema, our other cultural
 4     representations is necessarily limited, the
 5     international power of radio becomes more attractive. 
 6     These are the reasons my two recommendations to the
 7     CRTC are simple but important.  One is that the CBC
 8     should rebuild its ability to reflect local situations
 9     and provide an alternative sound to small towns.  This
10     means bathing the entire country in universal
11     broadcasting with all CBC radio signals going
12     everywhere.
13  1781                 The other recommendation is that the
14     radio should expand its coverage, interpretation of
15     world news for Canadians, provide a reflection of
16     Canadian interests and diversity to international
17     audiences.  This means that when we go to negotiate our
18     interests and problems with people who make up those
19     international radio audiences, we will feel better
20     understood and conversely we will understand the world
21     much better and thus feel at home in it.
22  1782                 Thank you.
23     --- Applause / Applaudissements
24  1783                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
25     Anderson.
                          StenoTran

                             450

 1  1784                 MS PINSKY:  I will continue through
 2     the list to see if any other presenters have arrived. 
 3     Mr. Howard Grieves.
 4     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
 5  1785                 MR. GRIEVES:  Good morning.  My name
 6     is Howard Grieves and I have been involved most of my
 7     working life with educational publishing and I greatly
 8     regret in the last few days I have not had the expected
 9     time to prepare to the depth I wanted and I feel that
10     particularly after the previous presentation.  But I am
11     going to just go with a few initial points here.  At
12     least it will be short.
13  1786                 My remarks will deal with radio in
14     view of the massive availability of popular U.S. fare. 
15     The function of CBC TV has to be radically rethought
16     and I have a great deal of trouble doing so.  All I can
17     say is I find it hard to think of a country without its
18     own TV service, but I find few reasons that it has to
19     be around.
20  1787                 The big dilemma, of course, is that
21     all pay for the CBC but few take advantage of the
22     service.  And I believe that CBC must be able to accept
23     this and not feel they must pursue the majority which
24     is served by a multitude of stations anyway.  To try to
25     compete would surely be very costly and something the
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                             451

 1     private stations would be very antagonistic to, by the
 2     way, I think.
 3  1788                 The private stations seem to direct
 4     just about all their efforts to the 18-to-34
 5     demographic with all its disposable income.  To the
 6     rest of the population that seems like a tyranny of the
 7     majority.  The CBC must be allowed to serve an
 8     otherwise quite disregarded market with confidence.
 9  1789                 While it is probably too late to do
10     anything about it, the provision of the magnificent new
11     CBC headquarters building in Toronto seems like an
12     ill-directed use of minimal CBC funds in a time when a
13     singer can record his track while listening to a band
14     playing their contribution in Los Angeles as his
15     co-singer records simultaneously in New York, it seems
16     that the broadcasting services could be diversified
17     across the country with interoffice communication via
18     phone, e-mail, computer TV or video conferencing.
19  1790                 The concentration in Toronto does
20     rather remind one of the episode in the BBC's "Yes,
21     Minister" when deputy minister, Sir Humphrey scotched
22     the idea of moving the war office for good reasons of
23     economy to Manchester since the general's wives would
24     not be able to shop at Harrod's.
25  1791                 As a school textbook salesman, I
                          StenoTran

                             452

 1     spend much time in schools and find little awareness of
 2     the CBC there amongst teachers or pupils.  I know from
 3     the CBC website that the CBC is beginning to make
 4     available its tapes from past programs to schools.
 5  1792                 I hope this intervention into schools
 6     can be done in such a way that it will be used to
 7     generate curiosity and direct towards the regular CBC
 8     programs and thus help develop a new audience.
 9  1793                 I was glad to see on the website that
10     English as a second language was being seriously noted.
11  1794                 General promotion of CBC programming
12     through the inclusion in "Saturday Night" magazine is
13     appreciated but could it not be much more generally
14     available?
15  1795                 Thank you.
16  1796                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr.
17     Grieves.
18     --- Applause / Applaudissements
19  1797                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  We will take our
20     morning break now and reconvene at 11.  Thank you.
21     --- Recess at 1040 / Suspension à 1040
22     --- Upon resuming at 1105 / Reprise à 1105
23  1798                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  We will reconvene
24     now.
25  1799                 MS PINSKY:  I will just go through
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                             453

 1     the list to see if there are additional presenters
 2     here.
 3  1800                 Ms Mickey Rogers, if you are here,
 4     you can come up to the table.  Mr. Michael Bociurkiw,
 5     Ms Mavis Jones, Ms Nettie Wilde, she's here.  And Ms
 6     Judith Marcuse.
 7  1801                 Also, for those who have just
 8     arrived, I will remind everyone that they have ten
 9     minutes to make their presentation.
10  1802                 So the first presenter will be Ms
11     Mickey Rogers.
12     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
13  1803                 MS ROGERS:  My name is Mickey Rogers
14     and I am one of the founders and partners of Forefront
15     Entertainment here in Vancouver.  And we do both
16     production and distribution and I worked at CBC radio
17     many, many years ago, so I have worked at the building
18     as people here in Vancouver like to call it and I am
19     really glad to be here now as opposed to a year ago
20     where it would be a variation on "Sleepless in
21     Seattle", it would be "Whining in Vancouver" about the
22     CBC.  So I am very happy not to be whining.
23  1804                 I think it is important to see the
24     changes that the CBC is making and we have been
25     involved in some of those things in terms of producing
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                             454

 1     a half-hour comedy called "The 11th Hour".  And it has
 2     been done in partnership with the CBC and I think it is
 3     a really good example of a model of working with the
 4     infrastructure of the CBC and working with the
 5     independent production community to create a new way of
 6     being in terms of production.
 7  1805                 And we are also fortunate that we are
 8     working as co-producer on Phil Savitz' "These arms of
 9     money" and also as distributors of "Edgemont Road",
10     which is a teen drama.  So, as I said, I am really
11     happy that I am here today as opposed to a year ago
12     where I would have been quite whiny.
13  1806                 I guess I also have to preface my
14     remarks by saying that I am a strong supporter of
15     public broadcasting and especially in the context of
16     the world media if I can take it out into a larger
17     forum.
18  1807                 You know, as your probably aware, the
19     international media is being controlled by fewer and
20     fewer people, the Rupert Murdochs and his sons and
21     daughters, the Beitelsmans, the Warners and not to
22     mention the Disneys.  So there is increasing media
23     ownership by very few people.
24  1808                 Yesterday, I was at a conference and
25     someone suggested that the tenets for private
                          StenoTran

                             455

 1     broadcasters, there are four tenets actually and they
 2     are profit, profit, profit and then the laws and
 3     regulations.
 4  1809                 So when I go to international
 5     television markets, you can see the consolidation
 6     happening every spring and every fall and there is
 7     fewer and fewer players.
 8  1810                 And so it is within this context that
 9     I think the CBC is a very important player in Canada
10     and needs to be strengthened to reflect us as
11     Canadians, us within the broad community also within
12     the CBC itself to show our ideas and our aspirations. 
13     And, again, within a global context.
14  1811                 The other thing that came very
15     strongly at this conference yesterday was the need to
16     be technologically ready to adapt to the convergence
17     that will occur in the next decade and I think that is
18     certainly what the CBC needs to be ready to do as well.
19  1812                 So I have five points that I think
20     the CBC has to do if I ruled the world.  First of all
21     it has to get itself a really good leader, someone who
22     has visions, someone who is not harnessed by political
23     needs or desires and really someone who can lead the
24     corporation as a lean and mean machine into the future
25     to give Canadians a voice and a forum.
                          StenoTran

                             456

 1  1813                 And I really think that part of this
 2     person's mandate has to be to hire a very strong lobby
 3     group or a lobbyist or whatever to ensure that
 4     politicians are not wowed by private broadcasters for
 5     their own gain.
 6  1814                 And I think that is really important
 7     that as a group there are strong voices to be heard in
 8     Ottawa so that when moneys are being taken away from
 9     the CBC that someone is there to defend them.
10  1815                 Also, I think that the CBC needs to
11     go back to its roots of really nourishing Canadian
12     talent and innovation in all aspects of the media and
13     to give us the quality that we deserve and I think
14     certainly feature film is in there, drama, sports.
15  1816                 To be a little self-serving, I think
16     that the regions really have to be seen as an integral
17     part of any kind of programming decisions that the CBC
18     makes that all shows in all aspects of the service come
19     from Canada's different parts, to give us a really
20     strong sense of community that I think we desperately
21     lack at times and desperately seek as Canadians.  And I
22     think that, again, it is using the talents much like we
23     have with "The 11th Hour" and the infrastructure that
24     the CBC has to build a strong base of operation within
25     the independent community as well.
                          StenoTran

                             457

 1  1817                 And I think that the CBC needs to be
 2     spending more money on young people's programming.  I
 3     think that right now, the CBC spends very little on
 4     children's programming and I know they need to spend
 5     their money in prime time and I also think that it
 6     ignores its youth at its peril, that people do not get
 7     into the habit of turning their remote to the CBC at
 8     all.  And we have to see young people as a regenerative
 9     audience.  And that it is almost like using the
10     Molson's Canadian "I am Canadian" cool logo, they had
11     to hire the ad team from Molson's Canadians, although I
12     know that is supposed to be beer drinking and all that
13     kind of stuff, but I think that that is really
14     important.  Because I think, without young people, the
15     people who are supporters of the CBC right now are too
16     old.
17  1818                 Also, I think they need to look at
18     selling off some of the real estate that they have and
19     use those savings for new technology.  And I guess, for
20     me, I have always had a bit of a love-hate relationship
21     with the CBC, I must admit.
22  1819                 And so I was sort of waving back and
23     forth in terms of the comments I wanted to make.  As I
24     was writing, I just became more impassioned about how
25     important it was for us to have that strong voice in
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                             458

 1     media, that it is becoming increasingly more fragmented
 2     and that I think it is really important to support the
 3     CBC and the kinds of moves that it is making in its
 4     path to be a multifaceted service.
 5  1820                 I am sure that many programmers at
 6     the CBC would like to see the $400 million put back
 7     into their coffers now and to be able to do the kind of
 8     programming that they have visions of.  So those are my
 9     remarks.
10  1821                 Thank you.
11  1822                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
12     Rogers.
13  1823                 MS PINSKY:  The next presenter is Ms
14     Nettie Wilde.
15     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
16  1824                 MS WILDE:  My production company is
17     Canada Wilde Productions.  We make feature length
18     documentary films.  All of our productions, all of our
19     feature length documentaries have been aired as
20     90-minute or two-hour prime time programs on the CBC. 
21     The last film is called "A Place Called Chiapas", it
22     was produced in association with the CBC.
23     --- Applause / Applaudissements
24  1825                 MS WILDE:  Thank you very much.  It
25     just won the Genie award for best documentary in Canada
                          StenoTran

                             459

 1     and it is being released around the world and right now
 2     in 18 cities it is being released theatrically in 18
 3     cities across the U.S.  I say this because it has been
 4     a success and part of that is, of course, the CBC's
 5     success.
 6  1826                 To put it into context, this film
 7     could not have been made without the CBC.
 8  1827                 TVO, for instance, was interested. 
 9     They could offer only a one-hour time slot and
10     financing which would trigger a final budget of
11     approximately $300,000 to $350,000.
12  1828                 This film ended up as a two-hour
13     television, in a two-hour slot with a budget of
14     $870,000.  It could not have been made without a public
15     broadcaster behind us.
16  1829                 I am going to speak strictly from the
17     perspective of a documentary film producer in
18     Vancouver.  I need to back up a little bit.  Vancouver
19     has become in the film and television industry in
20     general, a service industry.  It services other
21     people's dreams.  We are terrific technicians, we spin
22     other people's dreams, American dreams and Toronto
23     dreams and I think one of the ways of changing a very
24     serious situation with a few exceptions like Mickey
25     just touched on is to really and truly enforce the
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                             460

 1     regional programming of our public broadcaster.
 2  1830                 I think that it is important that the
 3     mandate of the CBC, that CBC be given the mandate to
 4     make stronger regional programming, that it be funded
 5     to do so and what will happen is that if that happens
 6     is a more realistic working relationship is going to
 7     start develop between the film makers and the CBC.
 8  1831                 Now, again, keep in mind that I am
 9     speaking as a documentary film maker.  I think that the
10     CBC is starting to make more inroads in the dramatic
11     front than it is in the documentary front.  I think
12     documentaries, however, are something that we are all
13     proud of and they are in trouble.  So I want to speak
14     directly to that.
15  1832                 I would also, overall, recommend that
16     the CBC keep an eye -- program an expandable slot for
17     documentaries such as myself because -- such as ours,
18     because right now, when you have a great big
19     documentary project like this, the CBC is forced
20     basically to stick it somewhere in the program where it
21     will fit because it does not -- there is not a slot
22     that accommodates it and so you end up with these
23     bigger projects going up like we did, being stockpiled
24     at the beginning of the season.
25  1833                 I want to make an overall statement
                          StenoTran

                             461

 1     here in that I really support public television with a
 2     strong base in the regions.  I do not support
 3     dysfunctional public television.  I think that CBC,
 4     which I have worked with, is a dysfunctional family and
 5     I think it is in trouble.  And I do not think that this
 6     should be a surprise.
 7  1834                 I think that CBC has been traumatized
 8     by enormous cut backs and by an equally enormous
 9     political will of our government.  So what do we
10     expect?  I do not think it should be any surprise to
11     us, but I want to offer these stories which are
12     personal ones to give some kind of an insight into my
13     experience with this dysfunctional family, both good
14     and bad.  And I also want to express my belief that I
15     believe that a vital regionally-based public television
16     network is possible.
17  1835                 The first story has to do with a
18     $1,000 cup of coffee.  It exists.  The CBC, to the
19     degree that it can within the situation right now, does
20     send producers out to talk to the likes of me, but of
21     course those people come out on a once or maybe
22     biannual basis.  If I have an idea that falls between
23     those trips, I have to somehow get myself to Toronto.
24  1836                 Within the structure of co-producing
25     a production with CBC, there are some really pragmatic
                          StenoTran

                             462

 1     realities.  They are called rushes, rough cut, fine
 2     cut.  The CBC has to be able to be in the room to take
 3     a look at my work, to be able to give me the nod so
 4     that I can be paid and we can move on to the next
 5     stage.
 6  1837                 Right now that great big building on
 7     Hamilton Street does not have one individual who can
 8     walk down to my cutting room and say, "You know,
 9     Nettie, that shot does not work" or "I do not get it,
10     maybe we could the work together to try to come up with
11     some kind of solution", or pat me on the back and we
12     can move on to the next stage.
13  1838                 I think this is something which is on
14     the one hand a small detail, but it reveals a big
15     problem.  I think it reveals a lack of confidence and a
16     lack of money and a lack of programming that is based
17     in the regions.  I think this can be changed and I
18     think it should be.
19  1839                 The second story has to do with
20     contracts.  My sense is that co-production contracts
21     should build a healthy relationship and not a feudal
22     one.  As independents at this point in time, we are
23     bullied into signing contracts that make no sense for
24     us or, I might add, for the other agencies that are
25     involved in the finances that go behind making a
                          StenoTran

                             463

 1     co-production with the CBC.  I think that there should
 2     be an increase of the CBC envelope at Telefilm.  I do
 3     not support that envelope being cut down, but I think
 4     it should be on the condition that CBC contracts get
 5     more realistic.
 6  1840                 At this point, the 24-page
 7     co-production contracts, I think, should grant creative
 8     and editorial control to the director, not take it
 9     away.  And I think that the current clauses relating to
10     distribution and recoupment of the money to the
11     funders, including the CBC, but the other funders, is
12     not realistic.
13  1841                 I think that currently, my contract,
14     for instance, with the CBC hinders the distribution of
15     the film and its ability to make money and I think that
16     the contracts -- now I am now speaking as a film maker,
17     not a lawyer, but when I am actually out there trying
18     to work the film, I am finding that this contract is,
19     in fact, in conflict of interest with other financial
20     partners in the project.
21  1842                 I want to give you an example of
22     this.  When our film was completed, we were accepted
23     into the Berlin Film Festival.  This was seen as a good
24     thing by everyone, including the CBC.  Why?  Because
25     not only is it prestigious, but it is also an
                          StenoTran

                             464

 1     opportunity to get the film out into the second biggest
 2     market in the world.  There is other film makers, there
 3     is other film festivals, there is other broadcasters,
 4     there is other theatrical distributors who are there. 
 5     But when it actually came down to the dollars and cents
 6     of how in the world we were going to get to Berlin, we
 7     had no money.  And Telefilm Canada one of our other
 8     investors came on board with $14,000 to get us to
 9     Berlin on the condition that Telefilm be paid back on
10     the first line of recoupment.
11  1843                 All the investors agreed except for
12     CBC.  CBC at this particular point in time, it is
13     important to note, was a 7 per cent equity investor in
14     our film.  This is apart from the broadcast licence. 
15     At this point, we had the tail wagging the dog.
16  1844                 It got to the point where it got so
17     close to our deadline that Telefilm said, "Get on the
18     plane, Nettie, we will duke it out with CBC later."
19  1845                 This is a small story, it is a
20     picayune story, but it reveals a working relationship
21     which is very taut between independent documentary
22     producers and the CBC.  And I think in great part it
23     has to do with not having the ability to build up
24     strong working relationships with our producers.
25  1846                 Think for a moment of our other
                          StenoTran

                             465

 1     funders.  They all had offices and operating producers
 2     in Vancouver.  They got it much better than the CBC
 3     did.  So when we talk about increasing regional
 4     programming and increasing a regional relationship with
 5     our film makers, it is not hocus-pocus touchy feely
 6     stuff, it has to do with really concrete working
 7     relationships that create not just good working
 8     relationships but good movies.  I think this attitude
 9     can change.  And I think these contracts can change.
10  1847                 My third story that I would like to
11     end on is a success story.  It starts with problems,
12     however, with the contract.  CBC current affairs and,
13     again, this is quite different from what I understand
14     is evolving within the drama program, but at this point
15     CBC current affairs does not allow theatrical release
16     of a film before the film's air date.  Theatrical
17     release being when we go into the theatres if you have
18     a film that is in film and has the legs to do so. 
19     Historically, CBC has been resistant to what I think is
20     the common sense of using the press coverage of a
21     theatrical release to promote the broadcast.
22  1848                 But here, the regional head of CBC,
23     Rae Hall, got it.  She understood that when "A Place
24     Called Chiapas" was finished, that it was, in fact,
25     very important for it to go theatrical to whatever
                          StenoTran

                             466

 1     limited degree that we could work it out.  Why?  I
 2     think it is because she lives here.
 3  1849                 Because she knows, she had a sense
 4     that this was a sorry of a film and a crew that was
 5     based out of Vancouver that had done good and that
 6     there was potential to exploit that.
 7  1850                 I would have preferred to have had
 8     this kind of treatment right across the country, but
 9     because we had the relationship with Rae, she was able
10     to do what she could within the CBC at least
11     regionally.  What she did is she got together with
12     myself and with Leonard Shine, who is the owner and
13     programmer of Festival Cinemas and we worked out a
14     co-launch of our movie so that "A Place Called Chiapas"
15     was launched in public on the big screen a few days
16     before the broadcast and then went to air and, in fact,
17     the theatrical launch went right through the broadcast.
18  1851                 What happened was a bunch of things.
19     First of all, CBC was seen not only as the producer,
20     Rae actually introduced the film at its opening at the
21     5th Avenue Cinema, but it was seen to be honouring the
22     players, it was seen to be in the real world in terms
23     of publicity and distribution and CBC was celebrated. 
24     It was a win-win situation.
25  1852                 Again, this is just a small story,
                          StenoTran

                             467

 1     but I think it is a real hands-on example of how a
 2     regionally based broadcaster can actually work versus
 3     what we have now.  I think we have a situation of a
 4     building under great stress and a somewhat hollow
 5     political mandate which is not basing our regional
 6     broadcaster in the regions.
 7  1853                 I think a strong regional CBC will
 8     rescue us from a city of technicians spinning the
 9     dreams of others and I think that a strong regional CBC
10     will help us to tell our own story.
11  1854                 Thank you.
12     --- Applause / Applaudissements
13  1855                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
14     Wilde, congratulations on the success of your film.
15  1856                 MS PINSKY:  Ms Judith Marcuse is the
16     next presenter.
17     PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION
18  1857                 MS MARCUSE:  I am a choreographer and
19     producer.  I work in live theatre.  I work in
20     television and in film and I am just going to make a
21     very short statement which is global and then reduce
22     down to a particular.
23  1858                 In these times of economic and
24     cultural globalization, the unique roles of public
25     broadcasting become even more important as part of our
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                             468

 1     fight, our defence of our cultural sovereignty.
 2  1859                 Until the CBC has a board which can
 3     truly support an inclusive vision, one which is
 4     responsive, innovative and integrating, and until there
 5     is some possibility and sense of stability within the
 6     corporation, many constituencies, communities,
 7     individual voices will continue to be marginalized,
 8     left out of that dialogue we need in order to create a
 9     new consciousness or a richer consciousness of who we
10     are culturally as a country.
11  1860                 We need places where we can hear
12     ourselves and that includes young people.  I really
13     reiterate Mickey's statement about the lack of support
14     for those voices, those disenfranchised voices.  We
15     need to hear those voices within the regions and from
16     those regions back and forth with the rest of the
17     country.  There are virtually no other places other
18     than broadcasters, public broadcasters to go.
19  1861                 Here is a particular.  As far as I am
20     aware, my organization created the last locally
21     produced-for-television dance for the network in 1984. 
22     In 1993, we produced a live stage-to-TV dance
23     production which was shot here but produced in Toronto.
24  1862                 I believe this was the last time any
25     substantive dance work was created west of Winnipeg for
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 1     any network across the country.  I want to reiterate
 2     Nettie's thousand-dollar cups of coffee.  I have had
 3     several, many of those thousand-dollar cup cups of
 4     coffee in Toronto.
 5  1863                 It is almost impossible to develop
 6     working relationships with someone who is 3,000 miles
 7     away.  We need to reinforce the power of the regions to
 8     be responsive to the voices within their own
 9     communities, it is absolutely critical.  And the larger
10     argument I make in terms of our own identity as a
11     country is the most relevant part of that argument.
12  1864                 I am certainly not here to knock the
13     CBC, but I am here to support a vision for our public
14     broadcaster and to argue for an end to political
15     interference and to an acknowledgement that the CBC is
16     part of the essence of Canada and needs no more
17     attacks.
18     --- Applause / Applaudissements
19  1865                 MS MARCUSE:  And needs no more
20     attacks, but needs to be celebrated and strengthened.
21  1866                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms
22     Marcuse.
23  1867                 MS PINSKY:  I will call to see if
24     there are other presenters here, is a Mr. Michael
25     Bociurkiw here?  Ms Mavis Jones?
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 1  1868                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Well, we have no
 2     more presenters I guess that concludes the Vancouver
 3     consultations.
 4  1869                 What I would like to do is thank all
 5     of you for coming to share your views and helping to --
 6     oh, I forgot CBC, sorry.
 7  1870                 I would like to invite CBC to come
 8     up -- you would think that after sort of a day and a
 9     half I would remember that.
10     REPLY / RÉPLIQUE
11  1871                 MS HALL:  Thank you, Madam Chair and
12     thank you, again, to the CRTC for letting the CBC be a
13     part of these public proceedings.  My name is Rae Hall
14     and I am the regional director for television for CBC
15     British Columbia.
16     --- Applause / Applaudissements
17  1872                 MS HALL:  Thank you.  I am speaking
18     on behalf of Susan Engelbert, my colleague, who is the
19     director of radio here and also several distinguished
20     colleagues in the room.
21  1873                 As we normally spend our days
22     involved in getting programs to air, both on radio and
23     TV, and dealing with how to do that effectively with
24     fewer resources, it is rare that we get the opportunity
25     to spend two days listening and watching the people who
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 1     are usually watching and listening to us.  And, as you
 2     have told your stories, and you have relived moments,
 3     you have remembered about the CBC, let me tell you, you
 4     have given us some moments to remember.  And on those
 5     days when it is tough working at CBC, I am going to
 6     remember them.
 7  1874                 Your observations have been
 8     insightful.  Your caring and passion is appreciated
 9     more than you realize.  And all of it will be important
10     to us and, of course, to the CRTC as we look at our
11     picture of the future and figure out a way to move
12     forward.
13  1875                 Several of you have made specific
14     representations and we will be responding to you each
15     personally at a later date and time.  You have
16     mentioned your concerns about the staff of CBC.  And I
17     can tell you that, as our labour difficulties continue,
18     we are all working hard to find a solution that will
19     have us all back working together soon and working
20     towards the future.
21  1876                 Now, there are a few observations
22     where there are factual issues that I would like to
23     deal with.  So this is not substantive, it is just to
24     put a few things on the record.
25  1877                 There have been many comments about
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 1     commercials, your support for a non-commercial CBC
 2     radio.  Just one factual point about commercial revenue
 3     on television.  That revenue as a proportion of the
 4     English television budget continues to be well under 50
 5     per cent.  And just as a point of information, all of
 6     that revenue, or that revenue goes back to support all
 7     the services of CBC, not just television but radio as
 8     well.
 9  1878                 There have been comments made this
10     morning and yesterday regarding our foreign bureaus
11     given the recent news about closures.  I can tell you
12     that CBC is not withdrawing from international
13     coverage.  We are committed to a Canadian perspective
14     on the globe.
15  1879                 We are, however, examining methods to
16     do that as efficiently and effectively as possible and
17     Mr. Anderson's presentations certainly give us some
18     food for thought today.
19  1880                 Finally, I can tell you that all of
20     that myself and all of my CBC colleagues here today
21     work every day to make programs happen.  You are right,
22     it is more difficult at times to keep our eye on that
23     central core, but you need to know that that is where
24     we spend most of our time and that is where our hearts
25     lie and that is what we pay the most attention to.
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 1  1881                 And there has been good news in the
 2     case of CBC television in an industry where audience
 3     share is increasingly fragmented, CBC television is one
 4     of the few networks in North America where our share in
 5     this last season has stayed much the same.  In almost
 6     every other case, Canada and the United States, that
 7     share has gone down.  And we have done that with a
 8     schedule that in prime time is almost completely
 9     composed of Canadian drama, comedy, information
10     programming and documentaries.
11  1882                 Let me just say, in closing, that as
12     all of you have spoken from the heart, it has been
13     received the same way and it has been extremely
14     heartening to hear from all of you.  Because, you are
15     right, it is sometimes a challenge working inside the
16     CBC, but let me tell you it is always a privilege and
17     it is certainly a privilege to serve an audience like
18     you.
19  1883                 Thank you very much.
20     --- Applause / Applaudissements
21  1884                 THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Ms Hall.
22  1885                 I would also like to just notify
23     every one that we have comment cards at the desk.  If
24     people have comments additionally, or if you did not
25     present and want to make comments, please fill them out
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 1     and you can leave them with us.
 2  1886                 Additionally, we will be issuing a
 3     public notice towards the end of March announcing the
 4     proceeding which will consider the actual licence
 5     renewal application.  Those hearings will begin May
 6     25th, in Hull.  But the public will have until the 30th
 7     of April to make any further submissions you may wish
 8     to with respect to the licence renewals.
 9  1887                 The public notice will set out the
10     issues and will identify the locations where the
11     applications can be examined.
12  1888                 So in closing what I would like to do
13     is thank each and every one of you.  I think over 150
14     people appeared here in Vancouver.  Yesterday we had
15     the chair of the commission, Françoise Bertrand was
16     here and the two of us were able to listen to what
17     everyone had to say and I just want to reiterate how
18     important it is for those of us on the panel to who
19     will be on the panel for the licence renewals to hear
20     from people right across the country.  It informs our
21     views and our understanding of the issues that are
22     facing us and the CBC as we head into the next
23     millennium.
24  1889                 So thank you again to each and every
25     one of you for taking the time.
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 1  1890                 And thank you to Carolyn Pinsky, our
 2     legal counsel and Margaret Vogel as well as to the
 3     staff, the translators, court stenographers and
 4     technicians.  So that concludes this consultation.
 5  1891                 Thank you.
 6     --- Whereupon the consultation concluded at 1140 /
 7         Le consultation se termine à 1140.
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