ARCHIVED - Transcript / Transcription - Gatineau, Quebec - 2002-05-09
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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:
APPLICATIONS FOR TELEVISION LICENCE RENEWALS
DEMANDES DE RENOUVELLEMENT DE LICENCES DE TÉLÉVISION
HELD AT: TENUE À:
Conference Centre Centre de Conférences
Portage IV Portage IV
Outaouais Room Salle Outaouais
Gatineau, Quebec Gatineau (Québec)
May 9, 2002 Le 9 mai 2002
Volume 4
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.
Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission
Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des
télécommunications canadiennes
Transcript / Transcription
APPLICATIONS FOR TELEVISION LICENCE RENEWALS
DEMANDES DE RENOUVELLEMENT DE LICENCES DE TÉLÉVISION
BEFORE / DEVANT:
Charles Dalfen Chairperson / Président
Andrée Wylie Commissioner / Conseillère
Cindy Grauer Commissioner / Conseillère
Andrew Cardozo Commissioner / Conseiller
Stuart Langford Commissioner / Conseiller
ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:
William Howard Legal Counsel /
Leanne Bennett Conseillers juridiques
Michael McWhinney Hearing Coordinator /
Coordonnateur de l'audience
Pierre LeBel Secretary / Secrétaire
HELD AT: TENUE À:
Conference Centre Centre de Conférences
Portage IV Portage IV
Outaouais Room Salle Outaouais
Gatineau, Quebec Gatineau (Québec)
May 9, 2002 Le 9 mai 2002
Volume 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS / TABLE DES MATIÈRES
PAGE / PARA
PHASE I
CABLE PUBLIC AFFAIRS CHANNEL INC. (CPAC) 936 / 5411
Application Nos. / Nos de demandes
2002-0127-8. 2002-0128-6
PHASE II
INTERVENTION BY / INTERVENTION PAR
The Senate of Canada 1073 / 6367
PHASE III
REPLY BY / RÉPLIQUE PAR
Cable Public Affairs Channel Inc. 1103 / 6526
936
1 Gatineau, Québec / Gatineau (Québec) 2 --- Upon resuming on Thursday, May 9, 2002 3 at 0930 / L'audience reprend le jeudi 4 9 mai 2002 à 0930 5 5411 THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning, 6 ladies and gentlemen. 7 5412 We are going to resume the 8 questioning of your panel this morning. 9 5413 The first question I wanted to ask 10 you was in regard to the participation of your 11 affiliates. I think you indicated that you have 12 received approval in principle of the CCTA to the 13 proposed funding mechanism. 14 5414 MR. STEIN: Yes. Mr. Chairman, if 15 you wouldn't mind, could I make one point that might 16 help in terms of the questioning from yesterday, just 17 to make it clear? 18 5415 THE CHAIRPERSON: Sure. 19 5416 MR. STEIN: We spent a good amount of 20 time yesterday talking about the price for carrying the 21 House of Commons, the cost of that as opposed to the 22 cost of the wrap-around programming. My colleagues and 23 I thought it would be very important to emphasize that 24 since 1992, we have seen this as one service. That was 25 the whole concept that we developed, first with
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1 Mr. Juneau and then, when the CBC dropped out, on our 2 own together with the House of Commons. It would be 3 one service, an integral service. 4 5417 Yesterday it struck me how important 5 that is. It was reflected in the fact that yesterday 6 there was quite a bit of concern that the House was 7 very preoccupied with the Auditor General's report and 8 yet last evening on CPAC one was able to watch the 9 minister responsible explain at length -- not in a 10 one-minute clip, not in a two-minute clip, but at great 11 length -- exactly what the position of the government 12 was, and the opposition parties had an opportunity to 13 respond to that and to make their own points, in I 14 thought a quite civil way. 15 5418 There was a scrum, and there was tape 16 of the scrums, et cetera. 17 5419 For somebody who perhaps wasn't 18 watching the House at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, they 19 were able that evening to watch Question Period, to 20 watch the tapes at length -- not clips but tapes -- of 21 other things that happened. 22 5420 When Mr. Boudria was Government House 23 Leader, he said he saw this as a unique partnership 24 between the House of Commons and CPAC in terms of what 25 we are able to do.
938
1 5421 The point of this is we see this as 2 one service. We see the value of this as being one 3 service. The difficulty with just one feed for the 4 House of Commons is that it is only on when the House 5 of Commons is on. 6 5422 Maybe our viewing numbers aren't the 7 best numbers in the world, but the credibility that we 8 provide to the public and the opportunity that that 9 presents for the public is really important. 10 5423 We just wanted to make sure we 11 emphasized that it is one service. 12 5424 The second point we want to emphasize 13 is that we operate this on a not-for-profit basis. 14 There is no intention here, never has been and never 15 will be any intention to turn this into a profitable 16 operation. 17 5425 Some people might look at it in terms 18 of that opportunity, but that is not how we have ever 19 looked at it. We have looked at this as a public 20 service. I think Phil Lind has badgered and cajoled 21 the cable industry to staying with that principle. 22 5426 The investment that we made -- Phil 23 first convinced us to put in $4 million, and we have 24 ended up putting $40 million into it. We have met our 25 commitments all the way along. For ten years we have
939
1 met our commitments in terms of this service. Anything 2 we do over the next seven years is going to be exactly 3 on that same basis. Every penny that comes towards 4 this service goes into the service. 5 5427 We just wanted to make that clear in 6 terms of how it is priced. I just wanted to make those 7 two points. 8 5428 I don't know if anyone wants to add 9 to it, but I thought we should clarify those points. 10 Thank you. 11 5429 THE CHAIRPERSON: The second point I 12 don't think was unclear. 13 5430 On the first point, I take your point 14 about how you see it as a single service. But 15 conceptually and analytically, it is essentially two 16 undertakings combined into one. For purposes of 17 analyzing the application, we are looking at it that 18 way. From your perspective, I understand how you are 19 looking at it. 20 5431 MR. BUCHAN: Mr. Chairman, could I 21 just comment. 22 5432 I don't know that it is two separate 23 undertakings combined into one. There is a 24 licence-exempt portion of the programming that is 25 included within the service, which is the single
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1 service that CPAC has. There are two licences. One is 2 for a French-language network, and one is for an 3 English-language network. Both include licence exempt 4 programming. 5 5433 THE CHAIRPERSON: Maybe we can 6 clarify that. 7 5434 This doesn't go to what you see on 8 air and how you program it, but legally and, if you 9 like, analytically if you look at the definition in the 10 BDU regs of Public Affairs Programming Service, you see 11 the definition of a service that in effect 12 characterizes the wrap-around and not the House of 13 Commons. It wouldn't qualify if the House of Commons 14 was part of that. 15 5435 The House of Commons is an exempt 16 undertaking. The wrap-around public affairs 17 programming service is defined in the BDU regs. That 18 is how I am seeing it conceptually again, not from the 19 point of view of presentation or anything of that sort. 20 5436 MR. BUCHAN: I understand where you 21 are coming from, Mr. Chairman, but CPAC is licensed to 22 provide the House of Commons broadcast service plus 23 public affairs programming. That is how the licence of 24 CPAC reads. There is a licence for the French-language 25 service and a licence for the English-language service.
941
1 CPAC has decided at the board level that although it 2 holds two licences, it wants to run one national 3 service in both official languages, coast to coast. 4 5437 If it is going to survive as a 5 service and retain the support of all of its major 6 affiliates, it is going to have to improve the 7 French-language portion of its service. The loss of 8 one major affiliate anywhere in the country, for 9 whatever reason, jeopardizes the business plan for 10 CPAC. 11 5438 When the business decision was taken 12 last summer on the relaunch, it was decided we weren't 13 going to build a model for the English-language service 14 and cut loose the French-language service, or vice 15 versa. It was going to be run as one national 16 bilingual service but comprised within that service is 17 the licence exempt portion. 18 5439 The Commission in its Public Notices 19 and statements often refers to the licence exempt 20 portion as though it could be truncated or hived off 21 and delivered separately as though the wrap-around 22 programming, which is maybe cognate to the service and 23 complementary to the service -- and you can have a 24 discussion about that as to how diverse it is and the 25 contribution it makes.
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1 5440 It can be costed separately. That is 2 what we have done with this business plan: cost the 3 three cents for the House of Commons portion and that 4 signal going up and the other seven cents for the 5 wrap-around programming to enhance the service. 6 5441 The way it is licensed and the way it 7 is operated is as one service, both official languages, 8 coast to coast. That is the business model on a going 9 forward basis that CPAC is planning on. 10 5442 The other way you could back into 11 this, looking at the exempt portion as a separate 12 undertaking, would be to take a look at the exemption 13 order for the House of Commons broadcast service. 14 5443 The exemption order, as it is 15 drafted, wouldn't allow for a lot of the programming 16 that CPAC is currently doing and has been doing since 17 1995. It would be outside of the exemption order. 18 5444 We wouldn't under our current 19 licence -- you would have to unscramble the omelette. 20 That's all. 21 5445 THE CHAIRPERSON: The point is under 22 the exemption order, to operate the House of Commons 23 service, one operates that service on an exempt basis. 24 The CPAC licences, as I understand them, provide for 25 programming that is 100 per cent in Categories 3 and
943
1 12. 2 5446 MR. BUCHAN: It also says in the 3 exemption order at (e): 4 "...any programming included in 5 the service, in addition to the 6 coverage of the proceedings 7 themselves, is limited to a 8 description of the process of 9 the House of Commons, the 10 legislature involved or an 11 agenda, including calls for 12 submissions by Committees, etc. 13 of upcoming activities." 14 (As read) 15 5447 That would be fine. That is from the 16 old House of Commons Parliamentary Service: without 17 any comment or analysis of the particular proceedings 18 themselves. 19 5448 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. 20 5449 MR. BUCHAN: It is the comment or 21 analysis which was built into the licence in 1995 and 22 is there, and we are operating one undertaking. 23 5450 THE CHAIRPERSON: I am not 24 understanding the debate we are having. I think we are 25 on the same wavelength here.
944
1 5451 Unless I am missing something that 2 you want to come back to after the break, I see that 3 the exempt undertaking contains the House of Commons 4 plus all the items under (a) through (i), including the 5 one you just mentioned. And everything else CPAC does 6 it does, if you like, under the licence for the 7 wrap-around, as I am calling it, in Categories 3 and 8 12. 9 5452 If you are saying that some of the 10 programming -- how would you classify it under the 11 exemption order or under the CPAC licence? I am not 12 too concerned about that. If you add commentary, you 13 leave the exemption order. But fortunately, because it 14 is in Category 3 or 12, it is caught by your licence, 15 and it's fine. 16 5453 I am not trying to unscramble the 17 egg. I am just trying to conceptually understand -- 18 and I come to this more recently than you do -- how the 19 Commission has licensed it and sees it unfolding 20 through the BDU regs. 21 5454 If you like, Mr. Howard can comment, 22 possibly. But I don't think I am seeing a disagreement 23 with you on anything here. 24 5455 MR. BUCHAN: If I could repeat, 25 reading our licence, the CPAC licence, we think we are
945
1 licensed to operate one undertaking; two licenses, two 2 undertakings, if you want a French-language and an 3 English-language network, comprised of the House of 4 Commons and the public affairs programming. 5 5456 It has never been part of the 6 proposal or the concept of CPAC since 1995 that it 7 would provide the House of Commons service only. 8 5457 THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you need a 9 licence to provide the House of Commons service only? 10 5458 MR. BUCHAN: Not just the bare House 11 of Commons service. 12 5459 THE CHAIRPERSON: And anything in (a) 13 to (j) in the exemption order. 14 5460 MR. BUCHAN: But that is not what 15 CPAC -- 16 5461 THE CHAIRPERSON: I understand that. 17 But one doesn't need a licence to do that. One needs a 18 licence to go beyond that, and you have a licence that 19 permits you to go beyond that, as I see it. 20 5462 If you were only doing what was 21 described in the exemption order, you wouldn't need a 22 licence. That is the only point I am coming to. 23 5463 I am not asking you to divide it 24 sharply from a programming point of view and tell me 25 where a given program does or does not fall into (e)
946
1 that you just described. I accept that the egg is 2 unscrambled in a programming sense on an ongoing basis. 3 5464 Conceptually, anybody who wished to 4 carry the House of Commons would not require a licence, 5 including CPAC would not require a licence to carry the 6 House of Commons and anything in those categories. It 7 requires a licence to go beyond it, which you do. 8 5465 Is that a correct analysis? 9 5466 MR. BUCHAN: That is correct. 10 5467 MR. HOWARD: That is the way the 11 Commission has traditionally looked at the service. I 12 understand your argument that everything is so 13 intertwined, and I understand the attitude that CPAC 14 has always taken with regard to the entire service. 15 5468 But internally in the Commission, and 16 I think externally, the Commission has taken the 17 attitude that there were two undertakings which had 18 sort of melded, and there are other examples where 19 there had been two exempt undertakings which had been 20 melded. Some of the exemption orders specifically 21 allow the putting together of two of them. 22 5469 I can't say too much more than that. 23 It may very well be, from the way you are speaking, 24 that we should take a closer look and perhaps redefine 25 the way we look at the CPAC licence. I don't know.
947
1 5470 MR. STEIN: Mr. Chairman, could I 2 take a moment to confer with my counsel? 3 5471 THE CHAIRPERSON: By all means. 4 --- Pause 5 5472 MR. HOWARD: If I could just add, I 6 think part of the idea that the Commission had in that 7 interpretation was to ensure that if someone wanted to 8 take just the feed that comes from the Speaker -- and I 9 think the Speaker has said the feed should go to anyone 10 that wants it. I think that was part of the terms. 11 5473 MR. BUCHAN: That is correct, 12 Mr. Howard. It is a non-exclusive arrangement that 13 CPAC has with the Speaker. 14 5474 MR. HOWARD: If anyone wanted that 15 and wished to carry it, they could. So what's sauce 16 for the goose is sauce for the gander. 17 5475 MR. BUCHAN: We agree completely. 18 But conceptually -- and maybe it was because of the way 19 the questioning started yesterday, it was fine. We 20 took the three cents and we were costing it, and we 21 built the model with the three cents and the seven 22 cents. 23 5476 You might be interested to know, 24 Mr. Chairman, the same economist who did the Unitel 25 model, which ended up costing some of the shareholders
948
1 a bit of money, built that model. 2 5477 We costed it that way. But CPAC has 3 never been interested, the shareholders of CPAC have 4 never been interested in running the old House of 5 Commons Parliamentary Service, if the Commission wants 6 to look on that as one undertaking. 7 5478 We have wanted to run the larger, 8 broader, national bilingual service, with two licences 9 perhaps, but as far as we are concerned one service. 10 5479 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think that was 11 clear. 12 5480 MR. STEIN: Thank you. 13 5481 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think you 14 indicated yesterday, Mr. Stein, that the affiliation 15 agreements -- and I think Mr. Mayrand said all of 16 them -- ended on August 31st of this year. 17 5482 Is that correct? 18 5483 Are you hopeful that you will get all 19 the major cable and DTH distributors to approve and to 20 rejoin on the basis that you have put forward? 21 5484 MR. STEIN: As we said yesterday, 22 there is no alternative. We are hopeful. We don't 23 expect some of the discussions to be -- we hope to have 24 frank discussions, and I think the expectation is that 25 we will reach a good conclusion.
949
1 5485 It is kind of risky at the moment, to 2 be blunt, because some people do not see the way that 3 they can actually implement this rate in the 4 environment in which we exist. So there is a concern 5 that trying to develop this service at this rate is an 6 issue. 7 5486 I think what we have to do is take 8 the time after this hearing to work with people and to 9 talk to them about what we are trying to do and what 10 our objectives are over the next seven years. 11 Hopefully, we will convince them. 12 5487 There have been some immediate steps 13 that were taken that have now resulted in more positive 14 discussions. So I am hopeful about that. 15 5488 Colette, did you want to add to that? 16 5489 MS WATSON: It has been an 17 interesting year trying to keep all the members in the 18 boat. This is a public service. There is no 19 obligation to carry it. There is no obligation to fund 20 it. It has been a public service for ten years. It is 21 a goodwill industry. 22 5490 When companies are faced with cash 23 squeezes -- and I refer to the distributors -- they all 24 look at where they can cut costs. I am sure you have 25 read about how some distributors have opted to make
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1 some cuts. 2 5491 Obviously, CPAC was on the table for 3 some of them, and it continues to be on the table. 4 5492 I appear in front of you today as a 5 program provider, not a distributor. The reason we 6 need the rate at CPAC is so that we can go in and 7 negotiate a fair rate that applies across the board for 8 what we feel is an efficiently run bilingual, 9 not-for-profit, national commercial-free service. 10 5493 Without that published rate, what we 11 get are arbitrary -- there seems to be a sort of 12 lawlessness out there right now in terms of paying for 13 published rates for program providers. 14 5494 So we are just asking for a rate that 15 we can go to that kind of establishes a benchmark to 16 keep this service sustainable and viable. 17 5495 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. Let me ask 18 you this: Have any of the major MSOs balked at paying 19 the three cents going forward, assuming that you got 20 what you were looking for? 21 5496 MS WATSON: We have discussed it with 22 our board, not with the larger group of affiliates. So 23 within our board, no; but I can't tell you what the 24 other affiliates -- 25 5497 THE CHAIRPERSON: No balking within
951
1 the board. 2 5498 What major MSO is not on your board? 3 5499 MR. STEIN: All the MSOs are on the 4 board. 5 5500 I think the commitment to the three 6 cents is there, but for some of the distributors that 7 commitment is there based on the fact that CPAC is 8 licensed as a single service as a wrap and a 9 wrap-around basis. 10 5501 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think I am 11 understanding that from your answers. I suppose in the 12 worst case scenario of only the House of Commons 13 remaining, so to speak, the regulation would kick in, 14 and that has nothing really to do with the programming 15 side that you are referring to, Ms Watson. 16 5502 MS WATSON: We have not conferred 17 with our DTH affiliates as to whether this would be 18 appropriate. They represent a significant portion of 19 our revenue, and I can't give you a global answer with 20 respect to that. 21 5503 THE CHAIRPERSON: They are paying a 22 differential rate currently, as I understand it. 23 5504 MS WATSON: They are paying the new 24 1997, the rate that went into effect in 1997. 25 5505 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. Under this
952
1 proposal, as you said yesterday, there will be a common 2 rate, per sub rate for all. 3 5506 MS WATSON: Exactly. 4 5507 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I was 5 going to ask you a number of questions on C-SPAN for 6 information, and if you can help us that would be 7 useful. 8 5508 C-SPAN is the American public affairs 9 channel with a mission, I take it, fairly similar to 10 your own. 11 5509 C-SPAN's Web site indicates that fees 12 paid by cable and satellite affiliates carrying C-SPAN 13 funds its operations. 14 5510 Do you have any contact with them, 15 and can you tell us what their funding mechanism is? 16 5511 MS WATSON: We have a programming 17 exchange agreement with C-SPAN where they are free to 18 take programming that we uplink, as we are free to take 19 some of the programming that they uplink. 20 5512 On September 11th, for example, we 21 took the C-SPAN feed to get all of the Pentagon and 22 defence briefings, and all of that. 23 5513 So it is really related to a 24 programming exchange. 25 5514 With respect to high level
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1 discussions as to how they are funded and how we are 2 funded, I, as the operator, have not had any of those 3 discussions. 4 5515 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Stein or 5 Mr. Lind, can you assistance on that? 6 5516 MR. STEIN: On the financing issue 7 itself, in the United States the rates are not 8 regulated; the rates are deregulated. So there is no 9 such issue as a passthrough or that type of issue. 10 5517 It is funded by the cable industry, 11 but it is a different structure in the U.S. There are 12 actually programming service ownership issues. There 13 is much more integration on cable services and cable 14 delivery in the United States. 15 5518 It is financed entirely by the cable 16 industry, but there are two considerations. The first 17 is that they are deregulated, and the second issue is 18 they do not make contributions to production funds. 19 5519 MS WATSON: As an operator, if I 20 could add one -- 21 5520 THE CHAIRPERSON: Before you do, 22 Ms Watson, I want to pursue this for a second. 23 5521 I take your point that the cable 24 industry feels that it is making contributions to the 25 broadcasting system through the 5 per cent of revenues
954
1 that it pays to program production funds. 2 5522 You are saying that on the funding of 3 C-SPAN, this is something funded by the cable industry. 4 Are the DTH providers involved in the funding of it, as 5 far as you know? 6 5523 MR. STEIN: No. 7 5524 THE CHAIRPERSON: They are not? So 8 it is entirely the cable industry and no passthrough. 9 5525 MR. STEIN: There is no such thing as 10 a passthrough in the U.S. 11 5526 THE CHAIRPERSON: There is no 12 regulation governing that. 13 5527 MR. STEIN: There is no passthrough, 14 or anything. It is all free. 15 5528 MS WATSON: The cost of creating a 16 station with bricks and mortar, cameras, master 17 controls, is pretty much the same once you have created 18 that. So if they lose an MSO or a distributor, one or 19 two, their revenue base is so much larger -- it is ten 20 times what ours is with respect to the number of 21 subscribers. So it probably allows them a lot more 22 flexibility with respect to being able to continue to 23 operate in that way. 24 5529 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. They 25 amortize the cost over -- what is the number of
955
1 subscribers in the States? 2 5530 MS WATSON: I am saying the cost of 3 creating CPAC would be about the same cost as creating 4 C-SPAN, but they get ten times the revenue. So if one 5 drops off, it doesn't kill it. 6 5531 THE CHAIRPERSON: You say they get 7 ten times the revenue. 8 5532 MS WATSON: They have ten times the 9 amount of subscribers. 10 5533 THE CHAIRPERSON: What is the number 11 of cable subscribers in the United States currently? 12 5534 MR. LIND: Sixty-five, sixty-eight, 13 something like that. 14 5535 THE CHAIRPERSON: Million. And in 15 Canada? 16 5536 MS WATSON: Nine million. 17 5537 THE CHAIRPERSON: So seven times more 18 subs. 19 5538 MS WATSON: There are 7 million cable 20 subscribers, and then the rest are DTH. 21 5539 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. Who 22 contribute in Canada. 23 5540 MS WATSON: Yes. 24 5541 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 25 5542 I am going to move to a number of
956
1 questions on programming, if I may. 2 5543 The program schedule that you have 3 included with the application, and that we were 4 referring to briefly yesterday, is the schedule for 5 when the House is sitting. 6 5544 Have you filed a copy with us of your 7 existing schedule when the House is not sitting? 8 5545 MS WATSON: I don't believe we have. 9 Everything that you see in red as House of Commons 10 would be public record. It is long-form programming. 11 5546 THE CHAIRPERSON: So it would be long 12 form. 13 5547 MS WATSON: It would be committees, 14 conventions. 15 5548 THE CHAIRPERSON: So substitute for 16 the red bits the long form -- 17 5549 MS WATSON: Everything that is blue. 18 5550 THE CHAIRPERSON: Everything that is? 19 5551 MS WATSON: Blue. 20 5552 THE CHAIRPERSON: There are two 21 shades of blue, but we will let that go. 22 5553 MS WATSON: The nice bright royal 23 blue. 24 5554 THE CHAIRPERSON: What about your 25 proposed programming line-up, assuming this is all
957
1 approved? 2 5555 MS WATSON: It is relatively 3 identical. 4 5556 THE CHAIRPERSON: Relatively 5 identical? 6 5557 MS WATSON: We would add one hour of 7 French original programming between 6:00 and midnight, 8 and the long form would stay the same. 9 5558 THE CHAIRPERSON: This is really the 10 schedule you would submit if you were asked to -- 11 5559 MS WATSON: With the addition of 12 French programming. 13 5560 THE CHAIRPERSON: With the addition 14 of French programming. Where would that go? 15 5561 MS WATSON: We are in discussions 16 with the House Leader right now to see -- the fall 17 session of parliament was an anomalous year due to 18 September 11th. Normally, they rise around 5:30-6:00 19 o'clock. Lately, since September 11th, they have been 20 going to 7:00, 7:05. Tonight they are going to 21 midnight. It has been an abnormal type of year. 22 5562 One assumes we will return to some 23 sort of normality by next fall, and we will be able to 24 introduce a 6:00 p.m. hour where "Revue politique" 25 would go.
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1 5563 The House Leader promises to give me 2 a better idea of it over the summer, in which case if 3 he doesn't then we would shorten the "Prime Time 4 Politics" and look at how we would try to find the hour 5 for "Revue politique". 6 5564 THE CHAIRPERSON: At page 15 of your 7 application you describe the Parliamentary coverage 8 obligations as including House proceedings, the daily 9 repeat of Question Period, plus a minimum of eight 10 hours of coverage of House of Commons committees, as 11 well as unspecific coverage of Senate committees. 12 5565 How many hours a week does that 13 represent? 14 5566 MS WATSON: Well, it depends. We 15 have an undertaking that we will air all committees 16 that are provided to us from the House and the Senate. 17 It just varies from week to week on that number. 18 5567 When we put it in in all the public 19 record slots, if the product doesn't come in, then we 20 fill with a convention or a conference or a symposium 21 of some sort. 22 5568 THE CHAIRPERSON: Or, Heaven forbid, 23 a CRTC hearing. 24 5569 MS WATSON: Absolutely. 25 5570 THE CHAIRPERSON: Of your
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1 non-Parliamentary programming, how many hours of 2 in-depth public affairs and long-format programming do 3 you currently air each week? 4 5571 MS WATSON: In-depth is three hours a 5 day, four days a week. So that would be 12 hours. The 6 rest is all long format, public record, gavel-to-gavel 7 programming. 8 5572 THE CHAIRPERSON: Does that obtain, 9 as well, when the House is not sitting? 10 5573 MS WATSON: Yes. 11 5574 THE CHAIRPERSON: The same numbers? 12 5575 MS WATSON: When the House is not 13 sitting, everything that is House is gavel-to-gavel 14 long-form programming. 15 5576 THE CHAIRPERSON: In response to 16 deficiencies, you indicated that during the new term 17 you intend to air approximately 90.5 hours a week of 18 original programming, 32.5 in-depth and 58 hours of 19 long form. 20 5577 MS WATSON: Right. 21 5578 THE CHAIRPERSON: When the House is 22 not sitting, is there a difference in that? 23 5579 MS WATSON: The in-depth continues at 24 the same level. Long form we define as -- the numbers 25 should not change, because it is the content of long
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1 form that changes. It would either be gavel-to-gavel 2 House or gavel-to-gavel CRTC hearings. 3 5580 THE CHAIRPERSON: From your answers 4 yesterday, I gather you haven't got your contingency 5 plans made yet for those hours should you not get the 6 entire rate that you are seeking. 7 5581 Is that correct? 8 5582 MS WATSON: That is correct. 9 5583 THE CHAIRPERSON: Turning to 10 French-language programming, it is one of your 11 principles that programming must reflect Canada's dual 12 linguistic nature. 13 5584 I would ask you to comment on how you 14 accomplish that specifically. When choosing events to 15 cover, how do you take that into consideration? 16 5585 Then I will ask you some quantitative 17 questions. 18 5586 How do you select events to give 19 effect to that point? 20 5587 MS WATSON: It's very similar to how 21 community television works with respect to the 22 logistics of it. How much in advance do we get the 23 request? Do we have the resources? Is it something 24 that will -- basically, it is how much advance notice 25 we have and the resources.
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1 5588 It doesn't come across my desk. It 2 goes to a group of producers who have the mandate to 3 ensure regional coverage and long-form voice 4 distinctiveness. Does this provide a counter balance 5 to something else that has been widely covered by other 6 media? 7 5589 Then there is the whole issue of 8 sourcing things from Quebec or other originating French 9 language programming. We can tell you that everything 10 that has come across us that originates in French, we 11 go get because there isn't that much. 12 5590 From that perspective, other than 13 creating some, we are kind of left with what comes 14 across as a request. 15 5591 THE CHAIRPERSON: Could you give me 16 the number of hours of French programming -- 17 5592 MS WATSON: We do one original hour 18 per week, plus repeats. 19 5593 THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm sorry, my 20 microphone was off. I think you heard me, but I will 21 repeat it. 22 5594 I asked how many hours of French 23 programming you currently originate. 24 5595 MS WATSON: We do one hour of "Revue 25 politique" per week with repeats. "World Showcase" on
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1 occasion, we have an agreement with Publique Sinat in 2 France to take some of their programming. 3 5596 For example, on the weekend we had 4 gavel-to-gavel of the French election speeches. That 5 was about five hours of original French programming on 6 Sunday. 7 5597 Normally, we try to take at least 8 twice a month two to three hours from Public Sinat. So 9 that would be additional. 10 5598 That is what CPAC produces. All 11 Senate, House and House proceedings are in both 12 official languages. 13 5599 THE CHAIRPERSON: I guess as a 14 proportion of your non-Parliamentary programming it is 15 kind of small. 16 5600 MS WATSON: It is very small, yes. 17 As a francophone, that is something I wanted to change. 18 5601 THE CHAIRPERSON: How many hours will 19 you originate under your new proposal? 20 5602 MS WATSON: It would go up to five 21 per week with repeats on the strip programming, and 22 then on the weekends we would look for an increase of 23 about 10 to 15 per cent in long form and then continue 24 the partnership with France. 25 5603 THE CHAIRPERSON: What proportion of
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1 the non-Parliamentary hours would that represent? 2 5604 MS WATSON: I am hoping to reach 3 between 15 and 20 per cent, to reflect the population 4 break. 5 5605 I may not be able to do it in the 6 first year, because there just are not that many 7 long-form events originating in French. 8 5606 THE CHAIRPERSON: Five of the 9 non-Parliamentary hours would probably not be anywhere 10 near. 11 5607 MS WATSON: That is in the strip 12 programming. What we produce is three hours a day, 13 four days a week. So we would be producing four hours 14 a day, because you would add a fourth hour. That is 25 15 per cent right there. 16 5608 Monday to Thursday right now is three 17 hours a week that CPAC produces of in-depth 18 programming. We would increase that to four hours a 19 day, one being French. 20 5609 THE CHAIRPERSON: Would you think it 21 appropriate to add to your nature of service definition 22 the bilingual mandate as part of the condition of 23 licence? 24 5610 MS WATSON: I believe we already have 25 that.
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1 5611 THE CHAIRPERSON: You do? 2 5612 MS WATSON: Operate as a bilingual 3 service? 4 5613 MR. FORTUNE: That would probably be 5 appropriate. Currently, CPAC is licensed under two 6 licences; one in English and one is for French. 7 Presumably, as a bilingual service, it would make sense 8 to add it to the nature of service. 9 5614 I suppose if a single licence were 10 issued, then it would bilingual, I guess. 11 5615 THE CHAIRPERSON: I will let you 12 discuss that with counsel later. I have had enough of 13 a legal exercise this morning. 14 5616 Given your proposed wholesale fee and 15 your request for dual status, do you think your 16 commitments to original French language programming are 17 sufficient to justify requiring subscribers in French 18 language markets to pay for the service? 19 5617 MS WATSON: We propose to originate 20 what CPAC creates, what we feel is a 20 to 25 per cent 21 ratio. Then everything, the entire channel, would be 22 offered in French or English. So the answer is yes. 23 5618 THE CHAIRPERSON: I will get to this 24 question in a moment. I wanted to go through your list 25 of additional programs that you outline for us again in
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1 your opening statement, but I want for a moment to talk 2 about regional representation. 3 5619 I have a similar question to the one 4 I asked you regarding the French programming. How do 5 you take into consideration the different regions of 6 the country and their need to be reflected? 7 5620 MS WATSON: We take that role very 8 seriously, actually. We have a contract freelancer, or 9 stringer if you will, who covers the west for us. We 10 have one in Vancouver, one in Calgary, and then we try 11 to cover the maritimes with staff inside. We have one 12 in Montreal. We also have a little office in the 13 Assemblée nationale in Québec City. 14 5621 When you look at the list we have 15 provided, we have actually done a fair representation 16 across the country, but we would like to be a little 17 more disciplined about it in the future and create a 18 quota so that the staff have direction. When these 19 things come across their desk, they know that I need to 20 hit all ten provinces in the next 12 months. 21 5622 It provides for better balance and 22 discipline. 23 5623 THE CHAIRPERSON: Have you tallied up 24 the events that you have covered across the country say 25 over the past year?
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1 5624 MS WATSON: Year? 2 5625 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. 3 5626 MS WATSON: Probably someone has; I 4 haven't. 5 5627 I could get you that answer. 6 5628 THE CHAIRPERSON: You commit in your 7 application that you will provide at least one event in 8 each province and territory each year of the renewal 9 term. 10 5629 MS WATSON: But an incremental. In 11 my view, that is incremental to what we do now. 12 5630 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. So I was 13 asking. The previous question was: What do you do 14 now? 15 5631 MS WATSON: Right. I will get you 16 that answer. 17 5632 THE CHAIRPERSON: All right. I 18 remember once seeing a CBC item on an interview with a 19 chap outside a bar in New Brunswick, who said he had 20 identified UFOs. I happened to be speaking to the 21 producer shortly after that, and his answer was, "We 22 needed a New Brunswick story." 23 5633 I hope that that isn't going to be 24 CPAC's direction. 25 5634 MS WATSON: We have partnerships with
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1 provincial legislatures. We would cover the New 2 Brunswick budget as opposed to UFOs. 3 5635 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 4 5636 MR. STEIN: Could you just give us a 5 moment, please. 6 5637 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: It may 7 explain the problem with your ratings. 8 5638 MS WATSON: Yes. We also expect, 9 barring any change in constitutional charters, that 10 there will be two federal elections in the next seven 11 years. That allows us to go across the country and 12 provide regional perspectives, quite interesting 13 regional perspectives. 14 5639 MR. STEIN: Could I make the point, 15 as well, that with provincial legislatures we do cover 16 the budgets, and we also cover provincial elections. 17 We put that on a national basis. 18 5640 That has been quite popular, because 19 for the most part most legislatures are covered just 20 within their own province. So the ability to take 21 specific events in that province and broadcast them 22 nationally has been something -- for example, I have 23 two premiers who both thanked us for doing that. They 24 thought it was quite a good initiative. 25 5641 THE CHAIRPERSON: You have proposed
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1 the addition of several new program categories. How 2 different would the service be if these new categories 3 were approved? 4 5642 MS WATSON: The categories we have 5 asked for would allow us to program a very small amount 6 of what we believe is educational public affairs 7 related programming when the House is not in session. 8 5643 This is a personal passion of mine. 9 I have two children in the public school system, and I 10 am usually amazed and dismayed at the lack of resources 11 available to teachers in the public system -- it may be 12 different in the private system -- that are available 13 to them with respect to our own Parliamentary and 14 political system here in Canada. 15 5644 That part of me would like to help 16 change that in some way by creating a resource base 17 with the fact that it would be nice for my son to want 18 to aspire to be prime minister and not the governor. 19 It would be nice for my daughter to know that there are 20 ten provincial assemblies and not just a White House. 21 5645 It is something that we could fill a 22 void. I have been trained by Phil Lind in the school 23 of programming, and that mantra is "you find a need and 24 fill a void". 25 5646 There is a void, and CPAC can fill a
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1 need here. It is a public service I believe we need to 2 fill. 3 5647 MR. STEIN: Mr. Chairman, we did 4 undertake a number of years ago an initiative with YTV 5 to do a number of specific programs like that. It was 6 very, very successful, both in terms of their members 7 and in terms of distributing it through pay cable in 8 the classroom. 9 5648 It is along that nature of 10 programming that we would very much like to do. 11 5649 THE CHAIRPERSON: The types of 12 programs that you propose to air that would fall under 13 Category 5(b), which is informal education, recreation 14 and leisure. 15 5650 What are those? 16 5651 MS WATSON: For example, the Speaker 17 of the House has approached us to do a video on how a 18 bill is passed. So we would produce that video. We 19 would air it on the channel, and then we would make it 20 available through our CPAC in the Classroom 21 programming. 22 5652 It is a bit different from a 23 documentary, say, on the politics versus science of 24 stem cell research or what is the role of the Senate in 25 Canada's Parliamentary system; or, for example, a
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1 documentary on the official residences in Ottawa. 2 5653 These are things Canadians might need 3 or want. 4 5654 THE CHAIRPERSON: This wouldn't be 5 the Speaker of the House giving gardening instructions 6 in his garden. 7 5655 MS WATSON: No. He may like to 8 garden. I am unaware of that. It would be about how a 9 bill gets through, what the role of the Speaker is. 10 5656 THE CHAIRPERSON: So you feel you 11 need the informal part in formal education. You are 12 not, I take it, that interested in recreation and 13 leisure. 14 5657 MS WATSON: That is correct. 15 5658 THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you have any 16 plans in that area? 17 5659 MS WATSON: No. I personally do, but 18 not for the channel. 19 5660 THE CHAIRPERSON: In your long format 20 coverage of committees, hearings and conferences, and 21 so on, to what extent will your new programming cut 22 into long format gavel-to-gavel coverage? 23 5661 MS WATSON: Not in any way, shape or 24 form. 25 5662 THE CHAIRPERSON: That is the base
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1 programming and will remain that. 2 5663 MS WATSON: It is the most expensive 3 thing we do. It is the bulk of what we do. It 4 comprises the bulk of the programming schedule. 5 5664 THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you have a 6 comment on the possibility again of including long-form 7 coverage in your nature of service definition, which I 8 take it is not there currently? 9 5665 MS WATSON: I would have to confer 10 with my counsel on that. 11 5666 THE CHAIRPERSON: All right. Maybe I 12 should, too. 13 --- Pause 14 5667 MS WATSON: They tell me I would have 15 no problem with that. 16 5668 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 17 5669 If the Commission felt it was 18 important to ensure that a proportion of your 19 non-Parliamentary programming remained focused on 20 non-editorial long-format gavel-to-gavel coverage, 21 could I ask you not perhaps now but to come back at a 22 way of formatting that wording that might, further to 23 my last question, be suitable? 24 5670 MS WATSON: Yes. 25 5671 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
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1 5672 I want to ask you a question about 2 the competitiveness of what you are proposing with 3 other specialty services. We touched on it briefly 4 yesterday. 5 5673 Internally, in an effort to 6 understand the services that are licensed currently, we 7 have clustered services that are fairly similar by 8 program category. When I superimpose your new request 9 for Categories 2(a), 2(b), 3, 5(b) and 12 over that 10 list, I do get -- and I think we alluded to this 11 yesterday -- a sense of similarity, for example, with 12 program services like "ROBTv" for one that have those 13 categories, and a few more. I get a similar result, 14 even "Newsworld" with a few more categories. 15 5674 I am wondering what your response to 16 that is. If one plotted your service, as proposed, 17 against those, it would be really hard to 18 differentiate. 19 5675 That is, if you like, question one. 20 5676 Question two is simply in terms of 21 taking up the discussion we had yesterday. It is hard 22 to see, if one named a given program, how what you 23 would be carrying would not likely equally be carried 24 on "ROBTv" or "Newsworld" or "CP24", or one of the 25 other news services that are licensed.
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1 5677 Perhaps you could help me with that. 2 5678 MS WATSON: My first answer would be 3 we were here first. So they are copying our format. 4 5679 THE CHAIRPERSON: Actually, they have 5 their licences first for those categories. 6 5680 MS WATSON: For those categories, 7 right. 8 5681 THE CHAIRPERSON: You are now asking 9 to do categories that -- 10 5682 MS WATSON: But we have been covering 11 public affairs for ten years. 12 5683 Where we see the fact that we are 13 complementary and not competitive is in the fact that 14 public affairs have been covered on the main networks 15 forever. There has always been the Sunday morning 16 political wrap-up show, the Mike Duffey shows, the CBC 17 show. Now Global has one. 18 5684 Public affairs is kind of a Canadian 19 staple, if you will. So having more public affairs 20 programming is not a bad thing. We are happy to be 21 part of that medium or that genre, is you will. 22 5685 What is different is the way in which 23 we provide it. It is balanced; it is neutral; and it 24 is in-depth. It is usually from beginning to end. 25 5686 These networks have commercial
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1 constraints. They have time constraints, and sometimes 2 they have perspective. We choose to not present a 3 perspective. We choose to present you with all of the 4 sides of a particular issue and leave it at that. 5 5687 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. I think one 6 of the intervenors has raised the point. 7 5688 To the extent that these new 8 categories constitute a wider programming permissive 9 mandate for you, one intervenor at least has argued 10 that if the Commission is willing to license a service 11 that offers the categories that CPAC is now putting 12 forward as distinct from what it has already been 13 doing, this should be thrown open to a public 14 proceeding where others who might want to do the same 15 can apply. Then the Commission can get the best of 16 those competing applications and license such a service 17 rather than what might be considered incrementalism, 18 creeping incrementalism, from your current position. 19 5689 I would like you to comment on that, 20 please. 21 5690 MS WATSON: I would wonder, were they 22 to apply, if they would still come up with a service 23 that is commercial-free, bilingual and on a 24 not-for-profit basis. 25 5691 What we are doing is trying to do a
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1 better job of being the place where Canadians can find 2 a balanced neutral platform for civil discussion of 3 issues in our country not influenced by other 4 newsrooms, not influenced by corporate direction and 5 not influenced by advertisers. 6 5692 THE CHAIRPERSON: We don't know 7 whether that would be the case, is what you are saying. 8 5693 My question is: How can we be 9 certain unless we have a proceeding that tries to find 10 that out? 11 --- Pause 12 5694 MS WATSON: I guess my reply would be 13 we have been, since 1995, doing the programming we are 14 doing now. I guess what has come to the attention has 15 been how we do it, in terms of it is packaged 16 differently. It maybe looks a little slicker than it 17 did in 1995. 18 5695 The content is the same. It is just 19 how it is produced with respect to production values 20 that has changed and improved. 21 5696 We are seeking to continue what we 22 have been doing since 1995. 23 5697 With respect to Category 2(a), I go 24 back to my horse with respect to there's a need for 25 this type of public affairs documentary educational
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1 product that is not there. 2 5698 We have proposed what we find is a 3 small amount, and we would be happy to live with a cap 4 on amounts of those in order to allow the Commission to 5 have a safeguard, if you will. 6 5699 It is for Category 2(b), pardon me. 7 5700 MR. STEIN: Mr. Chairman -- 8 5701 THE CHAIRPERSON: You have put 9 forward 5 per cent limits in Categories 2(b) and 5(b). 10 5702 MS WATSON: Right. 11 5703 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Stein? 12 5704 MR. STEIN: Mr. Chairman, in terms of 13 Colette's remark about looking at more public affairs 14 programming, in the research that we did file, on 15 viewing it what was striking in that research is that 16 the amount of public affairs programming viewed by 17 Canadians has increased from 6 per cent in 1984 to 12 18 per cent in 1989. So it has doubled. 19 5705 In 1984, 38 per cent was foreign and 20 62 per cent was Canadian. 21 5706 In 1999, 64 per cent was foreign and 22 36 per cent was Canadian. 23 5707 So I would suggest to the people who 24 intervened that maybe they should look at what they are 25 doing in terms of improving the public affairs
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1 programming that we have in this country. What we are 2 trying to do with the service and what Colette has been 3 trying to do, is to make it more attractive for people 4 to watch it but totally consistent with our mandate: 5 the gavel-to-gavel, the long form, not the clips, not 6 editorial view, but just putting it straight up. 7 5708 I have to say that when I went around 8 and talked to the House of Commons individuals, all of 9 them, and in some discussions we have had with the 10 Senate, I think there is a renewed interest in 11 participating in that kind of programming because they 12 see it as a way of reaching out to Canadians rather 13 than just having American senators and congressional 14 hearings reaching out to Canadians. 15 5709 We have to have our means of getting 16 that across, and that is exactly what we are trying to 17 do. 18 5710 It may well be that this programming 19 format changes. Maybe some things work, some things 20 don't. But we do want to experiment, and we do want to 21 make sure we make it attractive to Canadians so that 22 they will watch it and we get the kind of ratings you 23 talked about yesterday. 24 5711 THE CHAIRPERSON: We may want to come 25 back to that issue, which I guess is one of -- is there
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1 a procedural fairness issue here? That is really the 2 question. 3 5712 You can comment on it now and/or 4 later. 5 5713 MR. STEIN: I understand that 6 comment. I think we just want flexibility to do things 7 within the mandate. We are not trying to expand the 8 mandate, and we are not trying to compete with these 9 services. We are just trying to experiment with things 10 within that mandate and try to make that kind of 11 programming attractive to people. 12 5714 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 13 5715 I would like to turn briefly to 14 your -- and we can do it via your opening remarks, 15 which were helpful in this regard, or in regard to the 16 programming improvements that you put forward in your 17 application. 18 5716 I am trying to relate the programming 19 to the expenses that you will incur in connection with 20 it. 21 5717 In your opening remarks you referred 22 to a service that was going to be entirely bilingual. 23 5718 Madame Watson, je pense que c'est 24 vous qui avez mentionné que les services en français 25 coûteront environ 12,5 millions de dollars pour la
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1 période. Est-ce que c'est vrai? Et 300 000 pour aider 2 les systèmes de Classe 3 à se doter des modulateurs, 3 sept millions -- spent over the licence term on the 4 regional initiatives. And then $4.6 million over the 5 licence term on closed captioning. 6 5719 That comes to a total of $24.4 7 million. 8 5720 You didn't cost out les initiatives 9 éducatives et les recours aux nouvelles technologies. 10 5721 Do you have a cost for that? 11 5722 MS WATSON: It's a capital cost, 12 probably in the neighbourhood of -- I would say an 13 approximate number would be $2 million to get capital 14 improvements. 15 5723 Then there would be an ongoing, what 16 we estimate to be between 70 and $100,000 a year of 17 bandwidth costs. It all depends on how people would 18 use it. It is difficult to estimate the take, but if 19 50 people download a clip from the House of Commons the 20 bandwidth requirement would be different than if 500 21 did. 22 5724 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. It is 23 harder to cost out on that basis. 24 5725 MS WATSON: We have budgeted between 25 70 and $100,000 for bandwidth.
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1 5726 THE CHAIRPERSON: How much was that? 2 5727 MS WATSON: Between 70 and $100,000 3 per year for bandwidth. 4 5728 THE CHAIRPERSON: When we try to 5 relate it to the overall total new spending 6 initiatives, where are we? 7 5729 We are pretty well at 24 out of the 8 $30 million on those initiatives alone? 9 5730 MS WATSON: Of operating costs. Then 10 there would be capital costs. 11 5731 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. Going on 12 the operating budget alone. 13 5732 MS WATSON: Right. All the revenues 14 pay for operating and capital. 15 5733 THE CHAIRPERSON: I am looking at 16 your new programming initiatives again, and as I say we 17 have a number of them priced in. 18 5734 Long form coverage of committees will 19 be maintained; right? 20 5735 Increase the range and depth of 21 public affairs through the addition of documentary 22 programming. What is the price tag associated with 23 that one in operating cost terms? 24 5736 MS WATSON: Simultaneous or 25 documentary?
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1 5737 THE CHAIRPERSON: These are new 2 initiatives; right? 3 5738 MS WATSON: Right. 4 5739 THE CHAIRPERSON: Increase the range 5 and depth of public affairs programming, for example, 6 through the addition of documentary programming. 7 5740 MS WATSON: We have budgeted $250,000 8 per year of licence fees for independent productions. 9 Then we have budgeted $400,000 per year -- is it still 10 $400,000 per year? 11 --- Pause 12 5741 MS WATSON: It is down to $100,000 13 per year for a staff person to do a documentary. 14 5742 THE CHAIRPERSON: What would be the 15 total for that? 16 5743 MS WATSON: It would be -- 17 5744 THE CHAIRPERSON: Somebody had the 18 foresight to bring a calculator. 19 --- Pause 20 5745 MS WATSON: It would be $2.4 million. 21 5746 THE CHAIRPERSON: And the full 22 simultaneous translation for 100 per cent of all 23 programming, is that the $12.5 million? 24 5747 MS WATSON: No. That would be the 25 cost of "Revue politique", sourcing some original
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1 long-form programming, and translation. 2 5748 THE CHAIRPERSON: Combined. 3 5749 MS WATSON: Yes. 4 5750 THE CHAIRPERSON: That would be 5 $12.5 million for those two, achieving the full 6 simultaneous translation and increasing original French 7 language programming by relaunching "Revue politique"? 8 5751 Is that the $12.5 million you refer 9 to in your opening statement? 10 5752 MS WATSON: Plus 20 per cent of our 11 long-form initiatives. 12 5753 THE CHAIRPERSON: Enhancing regional 13 coverage by delivery of at least one public affairs 14 program annually from the ten provinces and three 15 territories. 16 5754 MS WATSON: Right. It is $7 million. 17 It is about $1 million a year. 18 5755 THE CHAIRPERSON: So that is the 19 $7 million. 20 5756 MS WATSON: Right. 21 5757 THE CHAIRPERSON: The educational 22 initiatives, adding interactive components for 23 university students, more original educational 24 programming for "Cable in the Classroom". 25 5758 MS WATSON: That is the capital cost
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1 and then $100,000 a year in bandwidth. 2 5759 THE CHAIRPERSON: So that would be 3 $700,000 over the period. 4 5760 MS WATSON: Plus capital. 5 5761 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. But on the 6 operating line. 7 5762 MS WATSON: Yes. 8 5763 THE CHAIRPERSON: Building upon its 9 use of new technologies to webcast additional live 10 programming, for example, public affairs events when 11 the House is in session. 12 5764 MS WATSON: That is a capital cost. 13 5765 THE CHAIRPERSON: That is just a 14 capital cost. 15 5766 In your answer to Deficiency 18 you 16 provided some of these numbers, and you have broken 17 them down, for year one at least, by salaries and 18 benefits and production of regional conferences. 19 5767 We will see how that reconciles. I 20 wouldn't dare try to reconcile it here at this point. 21 5768 MS WATSON: I'm sorry? 22 5769 THE CHAIRPERSON: I am looking at the 23 answer to Deficiency 18. You were asked to provide, 24 for years one and three, and you did so, but it was a 25 different cut than the cut we are looking at it today.
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1 5770 Unless at the break I am told by our 2 staff that we don't have information on this, I think 3 we may have enough at this point. 4 5771 MS WATSON: The question for years 5 one and three. There was a bump in spending, so we 6 provided the answer for that. 7 5772 Your question is -- what are you 8 looking for? 9 5773 THE CHAIRPERSON: I was trying to 10 reconcile these with the block price tag, so to speak, 11 in operating costs that we have just been discussing. 12 We will analyze that, and if we have further questions 13 on that we will come back to it. 14 5774 MS WATSON: Thank you. 15 5775 THE CHAIRPERSON: I would like to 16 turn now to the question of your request for dual 17 status. 18 5776 My basic question is: What problem 19 are you trying to fix by this request? 20 5777 MR. STEIN: I will turn to Yves 21 Mayrand for this question. 22 5778 MR. MAYRAND: Mr. Chairman, what we 23 are saying is we are just trying to clarify things. It 24 seems to us that out of a set of historical 25 circumstances, in fact this licence service has been
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1 operating very close to dual status with the 2 requirements that were put in the regulations and the 3 fact that it is indeed carried on basic -- and I am 4 told that it is 100 per cent basic distribution by all 5 our distributors. 6 5779 Looking forward to the next seven 7 years, and of course to the Notice that the Commission 8 issued last fall, Notice 115, it seemed to us that the 9 most logical and clear and simple way of looking at our 10 status vis-à-vis not only the Commission but vis-à-vis 11 the various distributors that distribute us, is to have 12 official dual status. 13 5780 In that connection it is interesting 14 to note that the dual status was coined in 1993 and 15 contemporaneously with the pending application for the 16 then experimental licence of CPAC. So it is a bit of a 17 blip. 18 5781 It seems to us that it really makes 19 perfect sense for this service. Given the recent 20 announcement that you published in the fall on the 21 House of Commons proceeding and the actual de facto 22 carriage, analog basic, that the service is enjoying 23 across the land, it really is the best status and the 24 clearest one. 25 5782 That is why we have applied for it.
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1 5783 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. Without 2 wanting to go back to the discussion I had with 3 Mr. Buchan earlier, the side of that that raises the 4 fairness issue I raised earlier is that that 5 effectively makes you very similar to a specialty 6 service that enjoys that status as distinct from the 7 build-up status that you enjoy by virtue of carrying 8 the House of Commons, together with the new regs. 9 5784 MR. MAYRAND: Maybe we can deal with 10 the fairness issue. To some extent questions about 11 fairness can be raised whenever there is a change, 12 however minute, in the composition of the programming 13 schedule, if there is a change in a particular 14 descriptor of a licence. 15 5785 I would submit, though, that the 16 Commission ought to be concerned with what are really 17 substantive changes. Our view is that this service has 18 been in operation on analog to basic for ten years now. 19 We are not asking for a reshuffling of the situation. 20 We are just asking in fact for clarity and a 21 confirmation of what is the de facto status. 22 5786 Looking at the list of specialty 23 services that do at this point have dual status, based 24 on a recent update that you probably have, 25 Mr. Chairman, on the Canadian television programming
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1 services, there are 13, if my memory serves me right. 2 It seems to us that it is just as justified to have 3 CPAC officially licensed for this term on a dual status 4 basis as it is for sports services, for weather 5 services, for any other of the analog services that are 6 widely carried on basic and were essentially 7 contemporaneous to the coming in to place of CPAC. 8 5787 THE CHAIRPERSON: I hear you, 9 Mr. Mayrand, but I am on the theory of: If it ain't 10 broke, don't fix it. From a strategic point of view, I 11 wonder why you would be seeking this at this point. 12 5788 Your answer is on the table, and you 13 can add to it if you like. 14 5789 MR. MAYRAND: Two things, 15 Mr. Chairman. 16 5790 First of all, in the view of CPAC's 17 board, there is a very specific situation created by 18 the requirement the Commission has placed on the 19 distribution of the House of Commons proceedings and 20 that component of our overall service. So we have to 21 take that into account. 22 5791 Second, I think we have had a few 23 discussions yesterday and today -- 24 5792 THE CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I am not 25 understanding the point.
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1 5793 MR. MAYRAND: The point is that the 2 Commission has come up with very specific requirements 3 for the carriage of that part of the program. So it 4 seems to us we are here on our renewal application, and 5 we are saying: What status best reflects the need to 6 accommodate that requirement as part of our programming 7 schedule and service and the current situation? 8 5794 Clearly, our view is that it is dual 9 status. 10 5795 Looking forward as well, and going 11 back to your question of "if it ain't broke, why fix 12 it", going forward for the next seven years, and given 13 the fact that following your licence renewal decision 14 we will be facing all our distributors to renew 15 affiliation agreements, we have discussed on a few 16 occasions already at this hearing the importance of 17 ensuring that this public interest service, whose only 18 source of revenue is its affiliate fees, has the 19 ability to renew and conclude affiliation agreements 20 that support the service and the business plan that we 21 have put forward. 22 5796 The concern is that if there is some 23 ambiguity in the status or the need to carry the 24 service as we propose it to you, we will end up in a 25 variety of discussions with any distributor that you
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1 can think of saying: Well, we like this and that part 2 of the service. We like maybe a lower rate. We don't 3 want this; we don't want that. 4 5797 I think it gets into a very litigious 5 area. That is clearly the concern of this board, of 6 ensuring that going forward we have the tool to make 7 sure that this transition operates smoothly. 8 5798 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I think 9 I have your answer. 10 5799 Before turning the floor over to 11 Commissioner Cardozo, I think we will take a 15-minute 12 break. 13 5800 We are going to be ending the morning 14 session today at 12:00, so we will break now for 15 15 minutes. 16 --- Upon recessing at 1045 / Suspension à 1045 17 --- Upon resuming at 1110 / Reprend à 1110 18 5801 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner 19 Grauer. 20 5802 COMMISSIONER GRAUER: Thank you. 21 5803 I have just one question. I want to 22 explore with you a little further the area on regional 23 coverage. Unless I missed it, I think you talked about 24 covering issues in the various parts of the country. 25 5804 What I would like to hear a bit about
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1 is how you treat the different perspectives on an issue 2 here in some of your programming. 3 5805 In other words, from my own 4 experience I often find that there are national issues 5 in which there are distinct regional cleavages and 6 regional perspectives. 7 5806 I was interested in when you are 8 having a discipline imposed, which I think sounds like 9 a very intelligent way to go about it, if you do the 10 same discipline in ensuring you are getting that 11 perspective here in your coverage of events. 12 5807 MS WATSON: Thank you, Commissioner. 13 5808 When I first arrived at CPAC about 14 14 months ago, that is exactly what I asked in terms of 15 having worked at a cable company with operations in 16 Ontario and British Columbia, I was well aware that the 17 interpretation of something that happens in central 18 Canada is very different to people in Toronto than it 19 is to people in Vancouver. 20 5809 The question was: How do you bring 21 the regions into what does the Kyoto Agreement mean to 22 someone in Vancouver, someone in Cape Breton and 23 someone in Montreal or Toronto? 24 5810 MR. STEIN: Alberta. 25 5811 MS WATSON: And Alberta.
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1 5812 COMMISSIONER GRAUER: Oh, all right. 2 --- Laughter / Rires 3 5813 MS WATSON: To do it right, we 4 couldn't afford it. It is very difficult. 5 5814 You have to have someone on the 6 ground in each province. It then becomes to treat that 7 particular issue on a nightly basis, it was almost like 8 getting the resources of a news operation. 9 5815 What we opted for was to try and 10 present the perspectives of the Members of Parliament 11 from those regions. It is always useful to get the 12 western Caucus representative on an issue to talk about 13 softwood lumber, to talk about Kyoto, to talk about 14 whatever is happening in the House. 15 5816 We have endeavoured to do it that 16 way, because it was just too expensive to put a 17 stringer or a bureau in each of the provinces to get 18 the VoxPop perspective of it. 19 5817 We try to balance that with regional 20 long-form coverage that allows those voices to get 21 heard. 22 5818 Bottom line, there just isn't enough 23 money to do it the way I thought we could, so we try to 24 use the elected representatives to bring those 25 perspectives on behalf of their constituents.
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1 5819 COMMISSIONER GRAUER: I could go on 2 about this subject, but in the interests of 3 disciplining myself, I won't. 4 5820 Thank you very much. 5 5821 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 6 5822 Commissioner Langford. 7 5823 MR. STEIN: Could I make another 8 point about that? 9 5824 THE CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead, 10 Mr. Stein. 11 5825 MR. STEIN: During national elections 12 a couple of elections ago we did something that was 13 really quite innovative. We sent out Winnebegos in 14 western Canada and eastern Canada to cover the local MP 15 elections. It was interesting the huge positive 16 response we got from Members of Parliament, because 17 most elections, of necessity, in this country are very 18 difficult to cover and they are usually national. 19 Usually they are with the leaders. That is where the 20 press gives the coverage. 21 5826 I remember in the Hill Times one of 22 the MPs was asked the question of what he thought the 23 most significant moment of the election was, and he 24 said when the CPAC truck showed up. 25 5827 I think it was important, because we
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1 were there trying to give people a view of elections 2 from that kind of a perspective. 3 5828 There are a lot of innovative kinds 4 of things that we have to do. 5 5829 COMMISSIONER GRAUER: Thank you. 6 5830 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner 7 Langford. 8 5831 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Thanks very 9 much. 10 5832 My questions are a little scattered, 11 because when you are not the lead questioner you pick 12 bits and pieces up. So this will certainly be a pot 13 pourri. 14 5833 The first one is: Have you given any 15 thought to changing the name of this operation? Will 16 it be the Canadian Public Affairs Channel, or will it 17 continue to be the Cable Public Affairs Channel? 18 5834 MR. STEIN: Absolutely it will be the 19 Cable Public Affairs Channel. 20 5835 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: But Canadians 21 will be paying for it. 22 5836 MR. STEIN: They pay for CNN, too, 23 and it is still called the Cable News Network. 24 5837 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: That is 25 interesting; thank you.
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1 5838 Ask a question and get an answer. 2 That's what it is all about. 3 5839 I want to touch very quickly on 4 financials. Seven or eight cents doesn't really seem 5 like much of a cost for anything these days. But at 6 the same time, if people later think they could have 7 got it for a nickel or six cents, they get upset. It 8 is just the nature of the beast. 9 5840 I know we have gone on a little, and 10 we don't want to drag it on too long, but have you 11 investigated other sources of revenue? The other 12 obvious one is commercials. I know you don't want to 13 go down that route, and I understand your position on 14 that perfectly well. 15 5841 Let me give you an example. I assume 16 that you have a good relationship at this point with 17 the House of Commons, with the Speaker, with the 18 Senate. There can't be many institutions in this 19 country better connected with them and on a nice 20 business relationship than you folks. 21 5842 It would seem to me that with a 22 slight modification you could become the provider 23 commercially for House of Commons content, if I can 24 call it that, for Parliamentary comment. 25 5843 For example, if CTV wanted some
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1 Question Period, they would buy it from you. The 2 payback to Parliament would be that they would still 3 provide it free to anybody who wanted to run it 4 gavel-to-gavel, so they wouldn't be cutting out the 5 public interest in that way. But the payback to 6 Parliament would be that there might be a source of 7 income that would legitimate. 8 5844 MS WATSON: Yesterday the Chair 9 referred to us as middle men, and we are actually not. 10 The feed from the House of Commons is non-exclusive. 11 Anyone can go today and pick up the feed from the House 12 of Commons and manage to backhaul an uplink and 13 distribute it to their customers. 14 5845 Such a scenario would put us in a 15 position of being a middle man. 16 5846 It is a difficult arrangement for a 17 couple of reasons. One is technical in terms of uplink 18 and decoders and modulators. How do you ensure they 19 turn it off when the wrap-around programming comes on? 20 5847 Right now the House feeds into the 21 Parliamentary press gallery. CTV gets everything it 22 wants from the House of Commons for free. I can't see 23 them coming and graciously handing us money for 24 something they get for free today. 25 5848 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Well, we pay
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1 taxes once a year, some less graciously than others. 2 But in the public interest people do hand over money 3 back and forth. 4 5849 I think what I am hearing you say is 5 that it may be more costly and complicated underlying 6 it all -- 7 5850 MS WATSON: It would be. 8 5851 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: -- never mind 9 the philosophy of it, than you would possibly generate 10 in terms of revenue. 11 5852 MS WATSON: Yes. 12 5853 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: That was just 13 one idea. Were there any other sources of revenue that 14 you kicked around but in the end went with simplicity? 15 5854 MS WATSON: At the risk of being 16 blasphemous, we did look at the 5 per cent formula and 17 whether there was a way to reorganize that percentage 18 split. 19 5855 We felt that it wasn't going to go 20 very far in terms of opposition from CFPTA, Screen 21 Actors Guild, Directors Guild, all of those. That was 22 the only other formula we looked at. 23 5856 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Yes. When 24 you take from Peter to pay Paul, you only get the 25 support of Paul in the end, don't you.
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1 5857 MS WATSON: Yes. 2 5858 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Thank you for 3 that. 4 5859 Moving along to another area -- and I 5 think you may have answered this in a sense. You put a 6 new flavour on it in your answers to Commissioner 7 Grauer's question, but I want to be sure. 8 5860 The question I am going to ask you 9 may sound a little bizarre, but just go with it for a 10 second. 11 5861 Why in a sense would you cover 12 federal elections? Taken in isolation, it is the high 13 point of the public affairs world. But a lot of other 14 services cover elections. 15 5862 As I say, the answer may have come 16 out in your response to Commissioner Grauer, but it 17 struck me that those are big ticket items in terms of 18 costs. They are covered by a lot of other enterprises. 19 That might be a way where you could save money. 20 5863 MS WATSON: As with all of our 21 programming, we cover differently. We provide a sense 22 of neutrality, a sense of balance. 23 5864 I am not accusing anyone of being 24 imbalanced, but as Ken mentioned earlier they focus 25 their coverage on the big names, the leaders. We go
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1 deeper and more grassroots than that. 2 5865 It is a voice for the unheard on our 3 coverage. 4 5866 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: As I say, I 5 think that is the answer you gave Commissioner Grauer, 6 and it isn't one I thought of when I posed the 7 question. But I thought I would put it you anyway. I 8 thank you for that. 9 5867 I don't think I need to go any deeper 10 into that. 11 5868 I want to go to the other side of it 12 very quickly. 13 5869 As I say, these questions do jump 14 around a little, because it is not the first crack at 15 you. 16 5870 Barriers to political interference. 17 All of you have heard what is sometimes referred to as 18 the captive theory being applied to all sorts of 19 institutions -- some of which will remain nameless. 20 5871 It is hard. You are right up there. 21 You are up there all the time. You are rubbing 22 shoulders with these folks. You are often asking them 23 for favours, in the sense of access. You really are 24 almost part of the family. It is very, very close. 25 5872 How do you build in barriers to
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1 political interference. 2 5873 MS WATSON: Perhaps I could ask for 3 clarification. On the programming content? 4 5874 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Absolutely. 5 I'm sorry. What sometimes is obvious to the question 6 poser is not obvious to the poor person receiving it. 7 Let me be a little clearer. 8 5875 You are going to move much more 9 heavily in the sense of sophistication and technical 10 pizazz, if I can put it that way. You are going to 11 have much better programming if this comes through. 12 You want to have better programming. You want to have 13 programming that is attractive. You want to have 14 programming that brings the viewers to your service. 15 5876 So your wrap-around programming, as 16 we call it, will become much more attractive as well to 17 people who want to get their message across, to people 18 who have a slant on an issue, have their own 19 perspective on an issue -- and justifiably so. That is 20 why they are there. That is why they were elected. 21 5877 Still, it puts an enormous amount of 22 pressure on you and I would think would put a huge 23 amount of pressure as the show becomes better and more 24 sophisticated and more attractive. 25 5878 What sort of steps have you taken?
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1 What kinds of codes have you got? What kinds of 2 barriers have you built in to ensure that that doesn't 3 happen? 4 5879 MS WATSON: The channel is a 5 combination of House of Commons long form other than 6 House of Commons and then those in-depth political or 7 public affairs programs that we produce. 8 5880 So when we deal with politicians on 9 the small portion of the three hours a day, we deal 10 with five parties, and we deal with special interest 11 groups. We have our code, which is balance and 12 neutrality, on all of them. 13 5881 We have what we call a programming 14 policy for the channel, as well as a programming policy 15 for the program "Prime Time Politics". Both of those 16 value very highly integrity, neutrality and balance. 17 5882 We seek to inform rather than 18 challenge, but we also seek to provide all perspectives 19 of a particular issue. No one tries to influence that. 20 5883 I must tell you that actually no one 21 really comes to me for getting a perspective. I try to 22 maintain a distance from management and the production 23 crew to maintain that barrier, if you will. If I am 24 the one out there, then there has to be some sort of 25 door for people to pass through in order to get to the
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1 actual content. 2 5884 We try to maintain that separation 3 within the structure itself of the channel. 4 5885 For example, last week or two weeks 5 ago the Kyoto Agreement seemed to be prime in terms of 6 coverage out there. In our programming we aired what 7 goes on in the House of Commons, either through 8 Question Period or through Members' Statements related 9 to Kyoto. Then there are scrums. Then there would be 10 a press conference from the Sierra Club. 11 5886 We would then go into the studio with 12 the host, and you would have a representative from the 13 Sierra Club, a representative from the government, a 14 representative from the opposition, and we would debate 15 the issue. 16 5887 You would then open it up to the 17 phones and Canadians would come in. 18 5888 I believe the fact that we have the 19 opportunity for Canadians, either through the telephone 20 or the chat system we have on our open line programs, 21 they are the checks and balances in terms of calling a 22 spade a spade. We honour them for that, and we try to 23 respect that. 24 5889 So far, we haven't run into a 25 problem.
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1 5890 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: That is a 2 great answer, but I will make a prediction. If you put 3 this service into the place you obviously want to put 4 it, your life will change drastically. There will be 5 an enormous amount of pressure. 6 5891 I am glad you have the codes in 7 place, and I am glad you have the structure in place. 8 Perhaps I am a little jaded, but I think you will find 9 that there will be an amazing amount of people on those 10 phones that have marching orders. 11 5892 Good for you to be putting it in 12 place. 13 5893 I have just a couple more, very 14 quickly. 15 5894 On the other side, the down side I 16 would argue, of having more attractive programming is 17 that as you build ratings, ratings become the name of 18 the game rather than content. Without naming any 19 names, I would think that we have seen that happen in 20 some of our more established broadcasters, where 21 ratings are everything and pizazz to find ratings 22 becomes everything. 23 5895 I don't mind you taking a minute on 24 this. You may not have expected questions like this. 25 They strike me as very pertinent questions, because you
1003
1 are moving into another world and into another sphere. 2 5896 I am not trying to play your Uncle 3 Tony here and say be careful. You know exactly what I 4 am talking about. Once you play the ratings game, then 5 sometimes ratings can become everything. 6 5897 I know you have given us an 7 undertaking that you will continue with the 8 gavel-to-gavel, but the wrap-around could become quite 9 another thing. The set could become another thing. 10 Once you have stings and buzzes and all the 11 technological bells and whistles, and when you buy that 12 new equipment that you have been dreaming of, you are 13 going to buy the best and it will be able to do things 14 you just won't believe. The temptation to do it will 15 be very, very hard to resist. 16 5898 How do you build into that a plan to 17 stay the kind of -- I don't want to build a personality 18 for you but the more staid voice of public affairs, if 19 I can put it this way? 20 5899 MR. STEIN: Could you give us a 21 minute? 22 5900 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Sure. 23 --- Pause 24 5901 MS WATSON: When I first arrived at 25 CPAC on March 8, 2001 there was a meeting in the
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1 kitchen at CPAC with all the staff. 2 5902 I will reply to your "staid" comment 3 first, and then I will go through the rest. 4 5903 I said our mission is to be hip and 5 cool, and we won't be staid. Politics are not boring. 6 Public affairs is not boring. It is crucial and 7 critical to the lives, the civic life and democracy of 8 this country. Let's get out there and make this thing 9 interesting and go do our jobs and have fun at it with 10 respect to delivering balanced, neutral, informative 11 programming with respect to Canadian democracy. 12 5904 That being said, we did a benchmark 13 measure in terms of we measure reach. We discussed 14 share yesterday with the Chair, but we go by reach. 15 5905 The reason we do that is not for the 16 reason another commercial television station would do 17 it, because the better book you have, the better your 18 ad rates are with respect to how a television station 19 operates in a commercial environment. 20 5906 We are not-for-profit. The ratings 21 are merely a measure or a tool to measure our value 22 with respect to Canadian society and how Canadians are 23 viewing public affairs and the public affairs 24 programming that CPAC delivers. 25 5907 So yes, we do measure and we have
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1 measured for the last four years. Our reach on a 2 weekly basis is up 38 per cent this year over last. 3 5908 The people who work at the channel 4 are thrilled by that. It makes them smile. It makes 5 them happy. It gives them purpose. 6 5909 I don't think my board knew about 7 that 38 per cent number until this very minute, because 8 it is not something that we measure for commercial 9 purposes or for justification. It is a measure on how 10 good a job we are doing at delivering a high-quality, 11 well-produced product with respect to whether the 12 lights are on -- yes, we had real debates over sets, 13 and we spent money on a set. It is not Star Wars and 14 it is not technically elaborate, but it is appealing. 15 5910 I learned through the repositioning 16 of community television about seven years ago that you 17 can take the content and essentially keep it the same, 18 but if you package it in a way that Canadians are 19 accustomed to watching television, schedule it at a 20 regular time. 21 5911 In community television we were 22 running Santa Claus parades at 11 o'clock at night. It 23 doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 24 anyone who believes in Santa Claus is usually in bed by 25 11 o'clock at night -- well, the majority of them.
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1 5912 I guess my board believes in Santa 2 Claus. 3 5913 We apply the same principles to CPAC 4 scheduling. If you want to provide them with what 5 happened in the House today, what happened in the 6 committee rooms today, you do it at times when this 7 audience is able to watch it. That is at 11 o'clock at 8 night. 9 5914 We then looked at how to do it with 10 respect to being more inclusive of all Canadians. It 11 was important to us to have western viewers be able to 12 watch our programming in their prime viewing times as 13 much as it was for people in Ontario and central 14 Canada. 15 5915 The ratings were used to measure 16 whether people in Vancouver were being disenfranchised. 17 So we look at whether people in B.C. are now watching. 18 And they are. 19 5916 That, to me, is a measure that 20 repeating some programming at 11 o'clock so western 21 viewers can see it was the right move. We use it to 22 measure whether we are on the right strategy or not. 23 It is a not-for-profit venture, so we won't be guided 24 by that that way. 25 5917 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: It is an
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1 extensive answer, and I thank you for it. 2 5918 If I may indulge myself a little, I 3 think it is an answer that is only good today and maybe 4 for six months. I don't know how long a shelf life an 5 answer like that has, which doesn't take away from its 6 validity today. I think we have all seen the pressures 7 on people. Pressures build appetites, and appetites 8 lead to "The Antique Roadshow" on "Newsworld", I 9 suppose -- I don't know -- which seems to be a bit of a 10 disconnect when you look at it. 11 5919 That is the sort of thing that when 12 you come back before us in seven years certainly I will 13 be looking at. I don't know who else will be. 14 5920 MS WATSON: I heard you make a 15 comment to the previous applicant on 30 years. 16 5921 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Yes. But I 17 am only dealing with your first -- 18 5922 MS WATSON: Our first renewal, yes. 19 5923 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: I will also 20 be here in 21 years. 21 5924 MS WATSON: I would like to refer to 22 the fact that our proposed schedule, as we discussed 23 with the Chair earlier today, is minimally different 24 from what it is today. That in and of itself should be 25 some sort of reassurance.
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1 5925 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: My last 2 question is very detailed, and again it is a jump 3 because I am picking and choosing them. 4 5926 It may actually -- and I have never 5 been immune to doing this, as those of you who have sat 6 around watching me know. It may do no more than 7 demonstrate the depth of my ignorance on this matter. 8 But that's fine; I can live with that. 9 5927 Those who know me best already know 10 that it is just fathomless, so the rest of the world 11 might as well know. 12 5928 I don't quite understand the way DTH 13 has bought into this at the 10 cents. I don't quite 14 understand how it works since we have forborne from 15 regulating the rates. 16 5929 I understand completely how it works 17 for cable. The cable companies throw in three cents; 18 the folks throw in seven cents, and that moves to eight 19 later. But we just get a number of ten cents for DTH. 20 5930 I, for one, don't quite understand 21 how you guarantee that ten cents, how it works, how you 22 bill them. It is there, but I don't understand what 23 the mechanism is. 24 5931 MR. STEIN: Dual status. 25 5932 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Sorry?
1009
1 5933 MR. STEIN: Dual status. 2 5934 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Yes, of 3 course. The penny drops. Thanks for that. 4 5935 I have made the mistake that I 5 thought you might make: I was looking at the world 6 today and trying to figure out. All I could think of 7 was agreements or contracts or something. 8 5936 Those are my questions -- having 9 demonstrated the depth of my ignorance. 10 5937 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner 11 Cardozo. 12 5938 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Thank you, 13 Mr. Chair. 14 5939 I have some social policy questions 15 which I will go through, but I have a couple of 16 follow-up questions from the earlier questioning which 17 I wanted to clarify. 18 5940 I think, Mr. Stein, you were saying 19 that the partners of CPAC had bought into carrying on 20 with CPAC on the basis -- or they would continue to 21 commit to three cents if the wrap-around continued. 22 5941 I wanted to clarify whether that 23 meant the wrap-around with the seven cents. 24 5942 MR. STEIN: I was actually going to 25 clarify those remarks, so thank you for asking that.
1010
1 5943 In terms of the context the Chair put 2 it, which is "if it's not broke, why fix it", there are 3 some difficulties that we face at the moment. 4 5944 We have two of the distributors who 5 have raised issues with respect to carriage of the 6 service and the rate for the service. So it is really 7 quite important to us. This hearing is really 8 important, and the proposal we have put forward as a 9 total package and how it is licensed is really 10 important to ensure that we are able to keep the 11 distributors onside to carry the service as it is. 12 5945 If one distributor falls off -- and 13 we have been trying to manage to keep that distributor 14 involved. If one falls off, maybe there are 15 adjustments we can make. But if two fall off, the 16 whole viability of the service, because it is priced so 17 low and it is run such a lean way, it won't be viable. 18 5946 The pricing of the three cents is a 19 notional pricing. It is what we estimate it costs 20 within our service to do that. We are convinced that 21 if you are trying to do it on a separate basis, it 22 could be double that. 23 5947 What we have people onside is that if 24 we take it as part of -- we have people saying if we 25 take it as part from you, we will get it for three
1011
1 cents. We are saying, no, no, it doesn't work like 2 that at all. It costs us three cents to do it as part 3 of our whole package. That doesn't mean that is what 4 the cost of it would be to somebody else in terms of 5 taking that signal from the House of Commons, putting 6 it up on the satellite, distributing it to cable 7 head-ends on their own terms. 8 5948 It is really quite important, in 9 terms of how we look at this as a single service and 10 the fact that it is not really readily apparent how 11 that other portion, the House of Commons portion, could 12 be split off from the service. 13 5949 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I understand 14 that. I am just focusing on whether their interest is 15 based on their interest in the three cents, or their 16 commitment of the three cents is based on the other 17 seven cents coming through; or whether they would 18 continue. Do I understand they will continue -- 19 5950 MR. STEIN: In some cases, that is 20 correct, yes. Their interest is based on the whole 21 package coming through. 22 5951 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: On the matter 23 of notional -- when you use the word "notional", it 24 raises a question in my mind -- does that mean the 25 parties, the MSOs are actually passing on three cents
1012
1 in cash to CPAC? 2 5952 Does Colette Watson get a cheque from 3 them, or is it their in-kind contribution? 4 5953 MR. STEIN: Colette gets a cheque. 5 5954 MS WATSON: CPAC gets a cheque. 6 5955 MR. STEIN: CPAC gets a cheque. 7 5956 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: On the matter 8 of fairness of the carriage, one of the questions we 9 have to deal with, I hope you understand, is that there 10 are other services that come to us for increases in the 11 wholesale fee. A year ago we turned down a couple. In 12 fact, CCTA was here intervening against those 13 increases, or some members of CCTA. 14 5957 What one could say -- and this is not 15 what I am saying, necessarily. Let me put it 16 differently. 17 5958 Another service could come to us and 18 say this is how you licensed us, but we found there was 19 a lot of interest in some more stuff, so we got bigger 20 and expanded more, beyond what was financially viable 21 for the long term. So we are back here for an increase 22 or a rate. If you, the Commission, don't grant this to 23 us, Canadians are going to lose this wonderful service 24 that they have grown to love that we provided to them. 25 5959 Part of that answer I think has to be
1013
1 from the Commission: Don't you think you have to live 2 within your means, not just in the present but in the 3 long term? 4 5960 I wonder if you could respond to 5 that. 6 5961 MR. STEIN: I can make a couple of 7 comments, and Colette and others may want to make some 8 comments on it. 9 5962 First is that, obviously, we don't do 10 commercials. We have a single stream of revenue coming 11 into the service which is hopefully from this 12 passthrough, and that's it. There are no other 13 opportunities to raise money through advertising or 14 other commercial kind of activities. 15 5963 The second thing is we are trying to 16 set a rate now. 17 5964 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I am thinking 18 from the consumer's perspective. It means so many 19 cents more they are going to have to pay. From your 20 perspective, it is setting a rate; but from their 21 perspective, they are just having to shell out so much 22 more. 23 5965 MR. STEIN: Yes. I think the reason 24 we did the research was to basically see how consumers 25 react to that in terms of the importance of the
1014
1 service. What we have to be able to do is convince the 2 distributors -- and they are going to have to convince 3 their subscribers -- that this amount is reasonable. 4 5966 That is why we spent a lot of time 5 with the House and all the party leaders to say here is 6 what we are planning on doing. They basically said 7 they understood. I think it was reflected in the 8 interventions that were put forward. 9 5967 We received positive interventions 10 for what we are trying to do from people who would be 11 concerned about that, and there were no negative 12 interventions from consumers. 13 5968 We think what we have done is put 14 forward a balanced proposal that maintains a very good 15 service at a rate that is set for that service. 16 5969 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I think it is 17 all of those. I agree with that; that it is a balanced 18 approach and it is an important approach. 19 5970 The question that we have to deal 20 with at the end of the day is: Is this a precedent and 21 can other issues -- the political governmental nature 22 of the country is one of the most important things, 23 obviously, but there are other issues which other 24 people may feel are equally important and that we, the 25 Commission, should be taking that issue as seriously.
1015
1 5971 How do we grant this without setting 2 a precedent? 3 5972 MR. STEIN: I would like to give one 4 further comment to answer that question, and Colette 5 will have something to say, I am sure. 6 5973 We are trying to do new things here 7 that clearly derive from public policy obligations and 8 objectives that we support. One is regional coverage. 9 5974 Second is -- not second, but most 10 important probably is French; increasing the ability of 11 the service to be relevant in the French language. And 12 there are other initiatives that we have listed. 13 5975 We have laid out very clearly what we 14 will do with this budget. 15 5976 The other thing is that the money 16 that comes in is going into a not-for-profit 17 corporation, or a corporation that is run on a 18 not-for-profit basis. 19 5977 It is not that this is going to help 20 the bottom line of the cable industry or of the 21 satellite industry. This is going towards 22 strengthening this service. 23 5978 MS WATSON: Perhaps I could address 24 your fairness issue. 25 5979 The published rate that CPAC has with
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1 affiliates today is 11 cents. We are proposing a 2 decrease in the rate. 3 5980 I would like to clarify your 4 assumption that we are going to add bells and whistles 5 and do all these new things, and we would like 6 consumers to pay for them. We are coming with a very 7 lean, efficient operation that is a penny cheaper for 8 the next two years than it is today. 9 5981 What we are looking for is 10 flexibility on how that money is collected. That is 11 the new part. 12 5982 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Are you saying 13 it is something like what the GST was before it was the 14 GST; that it was a hidden tax? 15 5983 Are you saying the current thing is 16 hidden because it is not felt directly by the consumer, 17 because it comes from the MSO? 18 5984 MS WATSON: No. I am saying it is 19 the published rate. I take issue with your assumption 20 that we have increased the rate and are looking for 21 customers to pay for it. The rate has decreased. 22 5985 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: From the 23 perspective of the consumer you are saying their rate, 24 what they have to pay, is not increasing? 25 5986 MS WATSON: What I am saying is, for
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1 example, DTH customers, if I can apply your fairness 2 principle -- with DTH distributors, we have no way of 3 knowing whether consumers pay for CPAC or not. They 4 are not rate regulated. 5 5987 So there is a disparity between how 6 cable is allowed to fund this versus DTH distributors. 7 5988 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: In cable the 8 cable customer will still have to pay the seven cents 9 more. 10 5989 MS WATSON: Which is why we conducted 11 the market research which shows that there isn't a 12 whole lot. 13 5990 MR. MAYRAND: Commissioner Cardozo, 14 on the answer to the question specifically from the 15 consumer's perspective, I think it is important to 16 realize here that we have put forward a plan that was 17 fully laid out. There has been a clear indication of 18 how we viewed the funding going forward for the next 19 seven years. 20 5991 I don't recall, of memory, any 21 proposal being made for a particular charge on account 22 of programming service not raising any comment from any 23 consumer association or any individual consumer. 24 5992 As Colette was saying, additionally, 25 of course, we conducted extensive research to ensure
1018
1 that our reading was the right one. 2 5993 That is why we feel quite confident, 3 as we said in our opening remarks, that this proposal 4 is reasonable and balanced. We can say that, I think, 5 with as much confidence as we can possibly get that it 6 is the case from the consumer's perspective, as well. 7 5994 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I don't 8 disagree with that. 9 5995 MR. STEIN: I would also like to say, 10 going back to Colette's point, that as we move into a 11 deregulated environment it is important that the 12 service have a rate that reflects the cost of providing 13 the service as it exists now and as it has to be 14 relevant in the next number of years. 15 5996 That is going to be very important, 16 because we are going to find as more and more services 17 become deregulated, as Colette said, who knows how DTH 18 is paying for it because it is a deregulated rate. 19 5997 What is important for the CPAC 20 service is, as the board agreed, to have a rate that 21 was set out that would keep it as a viable service over 22 the next seven years was very important. 23 5998 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: On the matter 24 of the carriage, the dual status, have you had any 25 thoughts? Is this sort of heading towards a kind of
1019
1 green space foundation tiered kind of idea? 2 5999 MR. STEIN: No. We just want the 3 same rates as TSN. 4 6000 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I would think 5 you would consider yourselves to be more valuable in 6 some way to society than TSN. 7 6001 MS WATSON: I was asked this question 8 by the Heritage Committee last week. We feel that with 9 basic carriage we wouldn't require such a commitment. 10 6002 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I don't want 11 to advocate this, but had you considered approaching 12 this application asking for the use of 9(1)(h) of the 13 Broadcasting Act? 14 6003 Are you familiar with that? 15 6004 MR. MAYRAND: Commissioner Cardozo, I 16 think the board's view was that, again looking forward 17 for this next seven-year term, all the purposes were 18 sufficiently achieved with dual status; and in fact 19 dual status was the closest to the de facto situation 20 in the field with respect to the carriage of CPAC. 21 6005 Going one step further and declaring 22 the service mandatory, we don't think is required as 23 long as we do get dual status. 24 6006 What in practice that means is that 25 with dual status we can approach all distributors,
1020
1 whether cable, DTH or microwave, with the same uniform 2 rate for distribution on basic for the language of the 3 majority. We can look at arrangements dealing with the 4 minority language components, and in particular 5 distribution requirements that may arise with respect 6 to one or another small system. 7 6007 We think that flexibility is 8 important, as well. 9 6008 There are two advantages to dual 10 status. First of all, it is the signalling to all 11 distributors that this is the service. You can take 12 parts of it à la carte. You can always go and strike 13 your own arrangements with the House of Commons, but 14 you can take the CPAC service à la carte with parts of 15 it. 16 6009 The rate is the published rate. Here 17 is what it is. It has been reviewed extensively. This 18 is part of a public hearing. Then all the signalling 19 and all the arrangements are clear, and we can look 20 confidently to striking our new affiliation agreements 21 for the next seven-year term. 22 6010 I think that is really the thinking 23 of the board. It is the best possible way of 24 approaching this. 25 6011 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: You are not
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1 invoking the kind of national importance that one would 2 using the 9(1)(h) approach. 3 6012 MR. MAYRAND: I don't think that we 4 need necessarily to base it on the relative level of 5 national importance. As I indicated in my earlier 6 answer, it is really a reflection of the particular 7 circumstances of CPAC, your Notice 115 last fall, and 8 what we need, or we think we need as a board of 9 directors, for this non-profit public interest service 10 to carry forward for the next seven years. 11 6013 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Thanks for 12 that. 13 6014 I am about to start my social policy 14 questions. Maybe what I will do is tell you what they 15 are, and this would be a good time to break for lunch 16 and we will come back after. 17 6015 What I will be covering is: You have 18 discussed to some extent service to youth, but I had a 19 couple more questions on that; closed captioning; 20 service to the visually impaired; employment equity; 21 cultural diversity; and diversity in programming. 22 6016 Thank you for that so far. 23 6017 THE CHAIRPERSON: We are going to 24 break in a moment, but since we were on the topic of 25 dual status and what you are seeking, maybe we could
1022
1 finish that topic off since it is fresh in my mind. 2 6018 As I understand it, your asking for 3 dual status will require basic carriage on anybody who 4 wants to carry the CPAC service unless CPAC agrees 5 otherwise. 6 6019 The House of Commons will become a 7 mandatory service as a result of the new regs that are 8 coming into force. If a party wanted to carry only the 9 House of Commons and not the CPAC service, then, as you 10 said, Mr. Mayrand, they would make their own 11 arrangement with the House of Commons and carry it and 12 not carry you. 13 6020 I am wondering how you move ahead 14 from the current situation with that dual status. I am 15 not clear on what it gets you that would be that 16 different from the current situation, without having 17 the mandatory carriage. 18 6021 MR. MAYRAND: If I may, I think it 19 does, first of all, achieve greater clarity. Certainly 20 when one looks at the present situation under the 21 regulations and related policies, the transfer carriage 22 of CPAC are somewhat unclear and a bit an oddity. 23 6022 I think that achieving dual status 24 really clarifies the situation and allows us to go 25 forward for the next seven years, as I mentioned, being
1023
1 able to strike arrangements on a strong footing yet 2 still have some flexibility to deal with specific 3 situations. 4 6023 How is it different than the current 5 situation? The key difference is that, at this point 6 in time, you have addressed certainly in Notice 115 7 last fall the lack of clear distribution requirement 8 for the House of Commons programming -- 9 6024 THE CHAIRPERSON: Just to interrupt 10 you there, I thought that what the change means is that 11 it extends to DTH, for one; and second, it takes the 12 word "if" out of the current 20(2). It makes it 13 mandatory is what I think the impact of the Notice 115 14 changes are. 15 6025 Is that not your understanding? 16 6026 MR. MAYRAND: With respect to the 17 House of Commons, yes. 18 6027 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. 19 6028 MR. MAYRAND: What we are saying is 20 that in so far as this service CPAC is concerned, this 21 licensee is concerned, there still is a very crucial 22 issue of access to distribution. 23 6029 THE CHAIRPERSON: You are saying that 24 whereas now when you come to a distributor and you say 25 we are not going to consent to discretionary service,
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1 you just say that now as a negotiating point, whereas 2 if you had dual status you would say that you must get 3 our agreement. 4 6030 They need your agreement anyway, so I 5 am not understanding. Right now you control it by 6 having to agree. I can understand that with a 7 wholesale price perhaps tagged to that, you might be in 8 a slightly better position. I am just not sure how it 9 carries you forward. 10 6031 MR. MAYRAND: I am trying to be 11 helpful, Mr. Chairman. I think maybe we should make 12 sure that we discuss this answer -- 13 6032 THE CHAIRPERSON: Why don't you come 14 back after lunch. 15 6033 I know Commissioner Wylie may want to 16 ask you another one that you may want to come back 17 with. 18 6034 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: It would have 19 appeared to me that the first threshold is to make 20 yourself mandatory, and then dual status kicks in. 21 6035 That status, as far as I know, 22 attaches to services that must be carried analog, 23 either basic or discretionary. 24 6036 Maybe you can come back and tell us 25 in your plan asking for satellite to cable -- and dual
1025
1 status, as far as I know, has not been given to a 2 satellite to cable; it has been given to specialties -- 3 where the threshold of mandatory carriage is covered, 4 which is the first question, it would seem, after which 5 you say: Well, dual status, the viewer must carry me 6 on basic and here is my agreed fee. 7 6037 I haven't seen how the first block, 8 so to speak, has been covered. I may be missing 9 something, and surely you will tell us when you come 10 back. 11 6038 THE CHAIRPERSON: I suggest, also, 12 that perhaps you have a word with counsel to focus in 13 on the sections of the BDU regs that you might care to 14 address in your response. 15 6039 I think you see what the question is, 16 which is: How is your cause advanced by dual status 17 when you would remain a "may carry" after all is said 18 and done? 19 6040 MR. BUCHAN: Mr. Chairman, if you 20 have two minutes, my partner Mr. Fortune I think has 21 the answer. 22 6041 MR. FORTUNE: In Mr. Mayrand's 23 discussion he was starting with the assumption that 24 dual status assumes, as Commissioner Wylie correctly 25 pointed out, licensing as a specialty service. It is
1026
1 true; it is an assumption. 2 6042 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: That is not in 3 your application, is it? 4 6043 MR. FORTUNE: It is in response to a 5 question asked by the Commission: 6 "Would it be appropriate to 7 license CPAC as a specialty 8 service?" 9 6044 And the response was we believe it 10 would be appropriate, and it would assist us in our 11 objectives. 12 6045 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 13 6046 We will break and resume at 2:15. 14 --- Upon recessing at 1200 / Suspension à 1200 15 --- Upon resuming at 1415 / Reprend à 1415 16 6047 THE CHAIRPERSON: Welcome back. 17 6048 Commissioner Cardozo. 18 6049 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Thank you, 19 Mr. Chair. 20 6050 What I will do is go through the 21 questions I had talked about earlier in terms of the 22 topic areas. There were just a couple of questions in 23 each area. 24 6051 Essentially, we are looking for more 25 information on each of these, and it becomes a bit more
1027
1 important as you are applying to expand the kind of 2 status that you currently have. 3 6052 On service to youth, you are a member 4 of "Cable in the Classroom", and earlier today you 5 talked about providing more programming for children. 6 6053 You plan to carry on "Cable in the 7 Classroom", I take it. 8 6054 MS WATSON: Yes. 9 6055 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Are there any 10 other examples of what you can give us in terms of 11 other programming for children? Are you looking at 12 certain age groups? 13 6056 You had mentioned the example of how 14 a bill is passed in the House of Commons. I wonder if 15 you could give us an idea of some of the things you 16 will do over the course of the licence term. 17 6057 MS WATSON: We have a program, an 18 initiative that is entitled "CPAC in the Classroom". 19 With that, we include lesson plans for teachers. We 20 break it down into elementary and secondary levels. 21 6058 So teachers in K-to-8 would be able 22 to take the lesson plan and adapt it to the unit which 23 they are teaching. 24 6059 Then we have one that is a little 25 more elaborate for secondary school teachers, either in
1028
1 civics or history. It is designed or geared towards 2 those teachers. 3 6060 What it does is accompany the 4 proceedings of the House of Commons. So that lesson 5 plan is designed to accompany whether it is Question 6 Period or other proceedings from the House of Commons. 7 6061 We then create one-offs, if you will, 8 on product. For example, last fall we underwrote the 9 publishing of a collection of essays on the prime 10 ministers of Canada. These books, one in French and 11 one in English, go through all 20 prime ministers of 12 Canada. 13 6062 There is a very elaborate lesson plan 14 for elementary and secondary schools that accompanies 15 this book, as well as a component on our Web site to 16 accompany that. 17 6063 If I get into older youth, we have 18 Parliamentary interns. We have tours and briefings 19 with Encounters with Canada. Then we have journalism 20 students at the university level who do internships 21 with us for three, four weeks, depending on the school. 22 6064 In terms of programming, when we go 23 out on long-form programming, the political programming 24 is really geared to university students. We will 25 interview the youth party wing of whatever party we are
1029
1 at, and they are typically first, second year 2 university students. We don't often run in to 3 secondary students on those. 4 6065 We are working with the Justice 5 Department in creating what we call a Youth Justice 6 Series. Those are done with high school students. 7 6066 We then did an initiative about a 8 year ago, May-June, ready for July, where we went into 9 six schools, French and English, in Canada to talk to 10 them about their perspectives of Canada. 11 6067 Essentially, the camera went in and 12 the session was led by a teacher in that school. So 13 the teacher was the host of the program, and the 14 students then did a free flow of information on what it 15 means to be Canadian, what they think is wrong with the 16 country and how they would change it if they were in 17 charge. 18 6068 There are student conferences that we 19 cover, as well. We could provide you with a list of 20 those. 21 6069 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: That's good. 22 6070 You talked about interactivity on the 23 Web site, building that up. Are you looking at 24 interactivity on the main service? 25 6071 MS WATSON: We feel we are
1030
1 interactive now, as far as we are. We stream live 24 2 hours a day in two languages. Just to be clear, we 3 stream the signal that is on the air. It is not always 4 easy to stream a second feed from what is on the 5 channel. 6 6072 Our call-in programs use the phone 7 and the Web site. We have special e-mail and chat 8 rooms for the different programs that we have. 9 6073 So there are viewer participation 10 opportunities that way. 11 6074 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Closed 12 captioning, can you clarify that you -- I would assume 13 that you caption 100 per cent of the House of Commons 14 coverage. 15 6075 MS WATSON: No. Everything that 16 comes from the House of Commons is supplied. So the 17 only thing captioned supplied to us is Question Period. 18 6076 It is captioned in English and uses 19 sign language for French. 20 6077 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Do you have 21 any plans to expand that? 22 6078 MS WATSON: We caption the original 23 programming that CPAC does. So the three-hour prime 24 time block is real time captioned. 25 6079 We caption about -- what is the
1031
1 percentage of captioning? 2 6080 We caption about 40 per cent of our 3 long form and other programs, as well. 4 6081 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: So the rest of 5 the House of Commons is not captioned. 6 6082 MS WATSON: No. 7 6083 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: And there is 8 no sign language, either. 9 6084 MS WATSON: No. 10 6085 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Have you had 11 requests for sign language in English or captioning in 12 French from viewers? 13 6086 MS WATSON: No/yes; no requests for 14 sign language in English but requests for captioning in 15 French. 16 6087 There was a technological barrier to 17 it. With the help of our colleagues at Rogers 18 Television in Ottawa, we have just launched a pilot 19 test with the Senate to caption in French and English. 20 6088 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: So you will 21 have two feeds. 22 6089 MS WATSON: There are two boxes, if 23 you will, in the VBI. Well, there are four or five 24 boxes in the VBI, so there is room to include a 25 different language or a second language in the VBI.
1032
1 6090 Technologically, we are ready. It is 2 just a matter of who creates the product with the 3 House. 4 6091 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Your 5 commitment for the next term is 90 per cent original 6 and acquired in English. 7 6092 MS WATSON: Yes. 8 6093 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: And 50 per 9 cent French, if the wholesale fee is accepted. 10 6094 MS WATSON: Right. 11 6095 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: If it is not 12 approved -- I had a few of these "if it is not 13 approved" questions, and I just don't know whether to 14 keep asking them or not. 15 6096 MS WATSON: When we wrote the 16 application -- 17 6097 MR. STEIN: You could put them in a 18 positive way. 19 6098 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Which would 20 be? 21 6099 I just need to ask the questions. I 22 need to have the record on it. 23 6100 MS WATSON: When we wrote the 24 application, we had examined the Commission's track 25 record with respect to captioning, and we noticed that
1033
1 most of the licence renewals include increased 2 expectations on captioning. 3 6101 So we expected an increased 4 expectation on captioning for ourselves, which is why 5 we developed the business plan with respect to that. 6 6102 Captioning is expensive. We would 7 try to do the best we could; but it is very expensive. 8 6103 On the French side, it is not a 9 matter of willingness or funding; it is a matter of 10 supply. There is a very limited supply of real-time 11 French captioning. In fact, I think -- 12 6104 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Most of the 13 programming you are putting out is unique original 14 programming, wouldn't it be? There is some like if you 15 have a feed from France or a C-SPAN, but for the rest 16 of it, most of it is your own product. 17 6105 MS WATSON: But it is done daily and 18 live. 19 6106 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: My point is 20 more the issue of the supply isn't really relevant. 21 You have to do it all. 22 6107 Isn't that right? 23 6108 MS WATSON: Right. But on the supply 24 side in French, because it is live -- we can do French 25 closed captioning on a taped program, because you have
1034
1 a week turnaround. I have the privilege of having 2 launched captioning suites in community channels over 3 the 1990s, so there is French captioning. But there is 4 no French real-time captioning. 5 6109 On the supply side, the French 6 election on the weekend, there is no one who can do it 7 live. We don't tape the election and then air it seven 8 days from now. 9 6110 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: In English 10 your programming will be captioned live? 11 6111 MS WATSON: If approved, yes. Most 12 of our captioning is live now. 13 6112 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: You are 14 willing to accept a condition of licence for the 90 per 15 cent for English but not for the 50 per cent French. 16 6113 Is that correct? 17 6114 MS WATSON: It is a supply issue. 18 6115 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Have you 19 looked at sponsorship for closed captioning as a 20 revenue source to fund the way you do it? 21 6116 MS WATSON: We have left ourselves -- 22 we would like to explore it, but we haven't explored it 23 yet. We are not equipped for seeking sponsorships at 24 CPAC. There is no sales department. There is no 25 marketing department.
1035
1 6117 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: So if I asked 2 my question, would you still do it if the wholesale fee 3 was not approved? 4 6118 MS WATSON: The answer would be no. 5 6119 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Can I ask 6 about service to the visually impaired, described 7 video. 8 6120 To a large extent, I suppose 9 described video isn't necessary because you are not 10 dealing with -- 11 6121 MS WATSON: Drama. 12 6122 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I was going to 13 say you are not dealing with mysteries and drama, but I 14 am sure that would not be fair to your programming. 15 6123 You are dealing with talking heads to 16 a large extent, so you are not doing described video. 17 6124 How about for the documentaries that 18 you are planning to do? 19 6125 MS WATSON: I guess we could accept a 20 condition of licence that we would endeavour to include 21 audio descriptors in those. 22 6126 What is at issue is how we uplink it. 23 Right now the secondary audio channel is used with the 24 other official language. So we would have to explore 25 the technology, whether there is a third box there to
1036
1 put in that audio descriptor. 2 6127 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I am not sure 3 how much time you are going to have between now and 4 your closing comments, but I wonder if you could give 5 us a sense of a precise commitment that you could make 6 in terms of the documentaries; and if we talk about a 7 condition of licence of 100 per cent, described video 8 for documentaries, whether that would kick in in year 9 one or at a later time. 10 6128 MS WATSON: Right. I would have to 11 check to see whether we could uplink it that way 12 without compromising the minority language decision. 13 6129 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Right. 14 6130 What is your approach to audio 15 description? That is just providing the audio for 16 alphanumeric stuff that is up on the screen, like phone 17 numbers. 18 6131 MS WATSON: We do that now. 19 6132 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: How is that 20 done? 21 6133 MS WATSON: We voice it over. 22 6134 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Everything or 23 pretty well everything? 24 6135 MS WATSON: Pretty well everything. 25 But we could endeavour to do everything.
1037
1 6136 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: And that is a 2 matter of I guess staff training, and that kind of 3 stuff, just knowing to do that. 4 6137 MS WATSON: Policies and procedures. 5 6138 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Exactly. 6 Speaking about which, the next topic is employment 7 equity. 8 6139 You have filed a plan on employment 9 equity which we have looked at, and that is helpful. 10 6140 Since you are a broadcaster of under 11 100 employees -- around 40, I understand? 12 6141 MS WATSON: Yes. 13 6142 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: The Commission 14 would be responsible for monitoring the employment 15 equity of CPAC. 16 6143 You haven't filed with us any of your 17 employment equity reports to date. 18 6144 MS WATSON: We file them how often? 19 6145 MS HUTTON: If you are talking about 20 the ones that go with the annual return, yes, we do. 21 6146 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: It wasn't 22 filed with the application, but we would have had the 23 most recent -- 24 6147 MS WATSON: It was filed in November 25 with the annual returns.
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1 6148 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: That's fine. 2 6149 Have you found any particular 3 challenges in employment equity to attaining results? 4 6150 MS WATSON: No. I am a believer in 5 employment equity. We have, I think, over 50 per cent 6 women at CPAC. We have about 10 per cent visible 7 minorities. It can work. 8 6151 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Are there any 9 aboriginal people? 10 6152 MS WATSON: None. 11 6153 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Can I talk 12 about cultural diversity, which is in a sense not 13 dissimilar, but employment equity being sort of part of 14 a larger cultural diversity approach which we have 15 talked about recently in the past few years with 16 broadcasters: a reflection of the multicultural, 17 multiracial and aboriginal nature of the country. 18 6154 I noticed you have talked about it in 19 various parts. You have not filed a plan, but would 20 you be willing to file a cultural diversity plan with 21 us within, say, something like three months of a 22 licensing decision? 23 6155 What we would be looking for there is 24 a sense of what your plans are and to some extent maybe 25 codifying what you are doing; where you look at
1039
1 on-screen, off-screen plans that you have to ensure 2 that you have a diversity of people reflected both in 3 the topics that you are covering as well as the people 4 that you have as experts and talking heads and so 5 forth? 6 6156 MS WATSON: Yes, we would be happy 7 to. 8 6157 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I notice, for 9 example, last night you had the interview with people 10 from the Innu Healing Foundation. That is the sort of 11 thing that we want to encourage so that a diversity of 12 issues is portrayed on the air. 13 6158 Would you be willing to report on 14 that annually? 15 6159 MS WATSON: Yes. 16 6160 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: I have just a 17 couple of follow-up questions on regional programming. 18 6161 You said you would be doing at least 19 one event per province and territory a year. 20 6162 Does that mean you actually take 21 people out there, or you were saying earlier you have 22 people on contract. 23 6163 MS WATSON: It depends on where and 24 how long we have to be there. If it is a three or 25 four-day conference, it is sometimes less expensive for
1040
1 us to rent facilities from a provider in that location. 2 6164 There is always a core group of 3 people who go to all of these. A core of three 4 people -- the director, overseeing producer and 5 technical person -- that group travels. Either we send 6 crew or we rent crew when we are there. It varies. 7 6165 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: If you are out 8 for a convention in, say, Regina, would you have other 9 things around, or is it just going to be that one event 10 that you cover? Would you have an interview with the 11 Premier or talk to people from the Saskatchewan Wheat 12 Pool, or other types of things? 13 6166 MS WATSON: We would invite those 14 people -- depending on what the nature of the 15 conference is. If it is a youth conference, we would 16 approach different people on that. 17 6167 We have done that in the past, but I 18 don't think we do it regularly. 19 6168 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: What is your 20 sense about the degree to which people from different 21 regions are included in the talk shows that you do from 22 here? 23 6169 If I use the example of the Innu 24 Healing Foundation, you had people from Labrador and 25 Newfoundland.
1041
1 6170 MS WATSON: Right. 2 6171 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: So in a sense 3 you are getting a regional issue on the air. It is 4 being taped here, which is fine. 5 6172 MS WATSON: As much as possible -- 6 most of the time when there is a federal or national 7 issue that is being debated, these groups will come in 8 to make a representation to Parliament. So they are in 9 town. 10 6173 We don't have a big travel budget to 11 fly these people in to be interviewed. If they are 12 around, we invite them and encourage them to come on. 13 If we are travelling and there is an issue that we are 14 following, we will go look for them. 15 6174 What we do is try to make the best of 16 when they are all in town. 17 6175 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: To what extent 18 are you able to plan some of these things, like 19 conferences or whatever, a year in advance? Are you 20 doing it on a month-by-month basis? 21 6176 MS WATSON: I would say it is 22 probably a six-month look-ahead. The reports I get go 23 about six months out. 24 6177 There are some conferences like 25 Couchiching, for example, which is an annual event.
1042
1 They expect that we will be there. 2 6178 For the most part, it is a six-month 3 window, I would expect. 4 6179 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: On bilingual 5 services, you talked with the Chair about what you are 6 planning now. If I read the intervention from the 7 Commissioner of Official Languages, she was talking 8 about supporting your application because you would be 9 increasing the amount of original French programming. 10 6180 "Revue politique" is a program you 11 have currently or have had in the past? 12 6181 MS WATSON: It is a weekly week in 13 review wrap-up program. We propose to launch that as a 14 daily, which gives a more current reflection. 15 6182 The biggest reason for its existence 16 is so that we provide our francophone viewers with 17 something in a francophone perspective as opposed to a 18 translation of something. 19 6183 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: With regard to 20 increasing French programming, or original 21 French-language programming, that is your main event, 22 is it? That is the main show? 23 6184 MS WATSON: As I mentioned to the 24 Chair this morning, we will also endeavour to commit 20 25 per cent of our long form to conferences and inquiries
1043
1 that originate in French. 2 6185 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Would that 3 include documentaries? 4 6186 MS WATSON: In the application we 5 state 25 per cent of the licence fees would go to 6 French original documentaries. 7 6187 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: When you say 8 it is hard to find events, I wasn't clear. I would 9 think there were tons of events you could use. You 10 might not find them across the country, but certainly 11 in Québec you would find them and, to some extent, in 12 Ottawa, conferences and lectures and stuff like that 13 that are in French that you could run that would be of 14 interest to people. 15 6188 MS WATSON: When we find them, we 16 endeavour to put them on. 17 6189 I have a relatively decent list. I 18 guess I am going by when you compare what we get out of 19 English Canada it is not as big a number. 20 6190 For example, in the last 12 months we 21 had 15 long-form events from there out of a total of 22 155. So it is 10 per cent. 23 6191 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: If you are 24 proposing this fee across the country, it would 25 certainly be important that there be a lot more than a
1044
1 token amount of original French programming. 2 6192 MS WATSON: Well, 10 per cent isn't 3 token, but it could be improved on. We agree with you 4 there. 5 6193 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Those are 6 basically my questions. 7 6194 I just had one comment in terms of 8 the diversity of voices and perspectives that I want to 9 give you as feedback. 10 6195 Having read the transcript, I was 11 quite impressed by the range of people who have written 12 letters and who have been involved in and been on CPAC, 13 including premiers of all parties. I found you 14 strategically were able to find them, and they are 15 available across the country; but other organizations, 16 like the Council of Canadians, Heritage Canada, CLC, 17 Canadian Health Coalition, Rights and Democracy. 18 6196 I have heard over the years people 19 from these organizations who have appreciated the 20 coverage that you have provided them. 21 6197 On your board essentially it is 22 representatives of the stakeholders. 23 6198 MS WATSON: Yes. 24 6199 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: You don't have 25 representatives outside the cable industry. Have you
1045
1 thought about public interest, academics, or other 2 people interested in public policy? 3 6200 MR. STEIN: What we have tried to do 4 at the board, Commissioner, is to make it very clear 5 that the board sets standards and performance and deals 6 with agreements and financials. But we felt that in 7 order to give the right kind of freedom of expression 8 to the service and to make sure that is focused and 9 that it has a theme to it, it is best to leave that to 10 the President and General Manager. 11 6201 They have complete editorial and 12 programming freedom in terms of running of programming 13 and -- 14 6202 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: So the board 15 doesn't get involved in the programming decisions. 16 6203 MR. STEIN: Absolutely not. 17 6204 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: What are your 18 sources of community feedback or feedback from the 19 public? Have you looked at having a permanent advisory 20 committee? Do you have a mechanism whereby people with 21 various perspectives can provide you with input, leads, 22 that type of thing? 23 6205 MS WATSON: We have a very active 24 viewer database where people become members of the CPAC 25 Viewer's Club. We have a very active viewer comment,
1046
1 where people can comment either in writing, through the 2 Web or through our viewer response line. 3 6206 We look at those monthly, and I take 4 their comments into account. If I feel there is a 5 redress needed or an imbalance to be fixed, we look at 6 it and redress it. 7 6207 MR. STEIN: I think, Commissioner, 8 that the success of that approach is shown in the 9 nature of the comments and intervention that you 10 pointed out. I think the people do feel that we do try 11 to represent a diverse set of voices, and we very much 12 want to be able to do that in the future. We feel that 13 this kind of structure we now have in place is the best 14 to do that. 15 6208 COMMISSIONER CARDOZO: Those are my 16 questions. Thank you very much. 17 6209 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 18 6210 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 19 6211 Before turning over to counsel -- and 20 I know you have a response to put on the record -- I 21 want to take up the point with you, Mr. Stein or 22 Ms Watson, on the issue of point of view. I think one 23 of your answers to how do you differentiate, your 24 comment was that you don't carry a point of view. 25 6212 You are asking for Category 2(b). If
1047
1 you read the descriptions of the program categories in 2 the Commission's Notices -- and I am reading here from 3 Public Notice 1999-205. 4 6213 Category 2(b) long-form documentary 5 is defined as: 6 "Original works of non-fiction, 7 primarily designed to inform but 8 may also educate and entertain, 9 providing an in-depth critical 10 analysis of a specific subject 11 or point of view over the course 12 of at least 30 minutes..." 13 6214 I wonder how you reconcile those two 14 points. 15 6215 MS WATSON: We would not partake of 16 the "or point of view" part of that definition. We 17 would go with the previous three words, which are 18 in-depth analysis of an issue. 19 6216 THE CHAIRPERSON: I won't get into 20 what ultimately becomes a philosophical debate about 21 objectivity and no point of view, and so forth. 22 6217 You are saying that going in you 23 would in effect have a Category (b) that was excised of 24 the point of view criterion. 25 6218 MS WATSON: I guess we are guided
1048
1 every day by the programming principles which are in 2 our current licence. That is how we assemble our 3 programming. That is how it is covered. 4 6219 We strive to meet that and honour it 5 every day. 6 6220 Documentaries would be no different. 7 They would maintain balance, neutrality. They would 8 promote diversity, reflect the linguistic duality of 9 the country, and they would contain no commercial 10 content. 11 6221 Basically, that is what guides us now 12 and it would guide us in documentaries. 13 6222 What we are proposing in the 14 application are educational things like how a bill gets 15 passed. I think it is doable to create something like 16 that without a point of view perspective on it. I 17 think it is doable to do the official residences of 18 Canada without a point of view. 19 6223 I think it is also doable to explore 20 stem cell research and the politics versus the science 21 by presenting both sides of an issue and letting the 22 viewer decide for him or herself. 23 6224 THE CHAIRPERSON: I will avoid the 24 temptation of embarking on a philosophical discussion 25 with you and ask whether you want to respond to the
1049
1 questions we were discussing with regard to dual 2 carriage. 3 6225 I know that counsel has a number of 4 questions on that subject. 5 6226 MR. STEIN: Yes, thank you. 6 6227 MR. MAYRAND: Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, 7 it would be useful to address our basic views as to the 8 issue of dual carriage and specialty status before we 9 get into the detailed questions. 10 6228 THE CHAIRPERSON: By all means. 11 6229 MR. MAYRAND: Hopefully, it won't add 12 more complexity to the discussion. It will clarify 13 things a bit. 14 6230 Part of the difficulty we had just 15 before the lunch break was that in our view -- and we 16 actually said that in a reply to one of your written 17 questions, which is on the record -- we feel what is 18 best to achieve the purposes that are being sought for 19 this seven-year term for CPAC is to be licensed for 20 this term on a dual status as a specialty service. 21 6231 The uncertainty was the specialty 22 service connection. 23 6232 That certainly adds in that case a 24 very critical component looking forward for the 25 accomplishment of our objectives and the sustenance of
1050
1 the financial plan. And that is access. 2 6233 Without getting into a very detailed 3 discussion of the various provisions in the 4 distribution regulations applying to cable on the one 5 hand and to DTH on the other, clearly you are quite 6 right in saying dual status all by itself probably does 7 not meet really what we are after here. 8 6234 I hope that clarifies the point of 9 view. 10 6235 In fact, we were pretty well 11 operating on the assumption that the two more or less 12 go together. We thought there was a reflection of that 13 in your Notice of Public Hearing where you specifically 14 contemplated the possibility of CPAC for this term 15 being licensed as a specialty programming service with 16 dual status. 17 6236 Clearly, there can be other ways in 18 which the objective is achieved, and we could think 19 mechanically of at least three, one being for this 20 licence for the next seven years being licensed as a 21 specialty programming service with dual status. We 22 think that that is the simplest one mechanically. 23 6237 Another way of looking at it -- and 24 we have also referred to that in our written answers to 25 your question -- was that we could contemplate a
1051
1 specific amendment or a set of specific amendments to 2 the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations to deal 3 specifically with our service. 4 6238 We could also -- and that has been 5 referred to earlier in the discussion before lunch 6 time -- envisage a situation where there would be an 7 order concerning the carriage of the service. 8 6239 However, I think this group believes 9 very much that the simplest cleanest way to achieve the 10 purpose is to go the specialty dual status route. 11 6240 Let me explain what our thinking is 12 in that regard. 13 6241 Obviously, we have put forward our 14 plans. There has been a full public process. There is 15 a record. There has been a full discussion of the 16 issues. We are facing renewing all our affiliation 17 agreements this coming August 31st. 18 6242 Is it necessary to enter into an 19 additional process because we are going the route of 20 specific amendments to the regulations or the route of 21 an order? 22 6243 The other consideration was, I think, 23 that we think that dual status with the access that 24 goes with a specialty service licence allows us to deal 25 effectively with distributors and at the same time deal
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1 with the whole matrix of possibilities or difficulties 2 that may arise with any particular distribution 3 component with any particular distributor, particularly 4 the smaller ones. 5 6244 The Commission may feel that it is 6 better, for any number of reasons, to spell all that 7 out in detailed regulations or a detailed order. That 8 is entirely your privilege. 9 6245 We feel that the simplest way to do 10 it is really dual status as a specialty service. It 11 fits very nicely with the distribution and linkage 12 notice that you have. 13 6246 Maybe I am going out on a limb here, 14 but I don't think you even need to amend that. There 15 is a basket provision that allows you to designate a 16 service as dual status once you have decided to license 17 us as a specialty. 18 6247 So it fits in, I think, very well. 19 6248 THE CHAIRPERSON: Basically, leaving 20 aside whether there has or has not been enough notice 21 to actually make a licensing decision to transform you 22 into a specialty service, your point is that if the 23 CPAC service were licensed on a "must carry" basis 24 essentially, then you would have clout in negotiating 25 with other distributors, DTH systems, perhaps members
1053
1 of the industry who were not willing to continue on as 2 CPAC members. 3 6249 They would then, if they wanted to 4 carry the House of Commons, in effect have to carry the 5 whole service. 6 6250 MR. MAYRAND: As I mentioned, there 7 are at least three ways that we can ensure that we 8 don't run into a scenario whereby any one major 9 distributor, for instance, would create a difficulty 10 with the overall plan, and others would probably have 11 the same difficulty and say, "I am not going to agree 12 to less favourable carriage terms to me." 13 6251 That leads to an intractable 14 situation. We have commitments to the House of Commons 15 we have to carry forward in the next seven years. That 16 is really the fundamental concern. 17 6252 THE CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps you could 18 discuss a point that is raised in ExpressVu, a 19 non-appearing intervenor's written intervention. 20 6253 If you want to get it, it is 21 paragraph 9 of that intervention, where ExpressVu notes 22 that: 23 "The Commission had intended to 24 require all BDUs to distribute 25 the House of Commons but not
1054
1 necessarily the entire service. 2 However, as long as CPAC 3 included that component, 4 ExpressVu submits that CPAC 5 should not be licensed in such a 6 manner that the entire CPAC 7 service achieves mandatory must 8 carry status as part of the 9 basic service. To do so would 10 preclude a BDU from accessing 11 only the House of Common feeds 12 or another programming licensee 13 from incorporating the House of 14 Commons' feeds inside its 15 format." (As read) 16 6254 Would you comment on that? I 17 appreciate you will have a chance at reply to do so, 18 but since it is pertinent to our discussion I thought I 19 would give you the opportunity now. 20 6255 MR. MAYRAND: Yes, certainly. I 21 think the key words there are "mandatory must carry 22 status". Precisely that is what we tried to avoid here 23 by saying all we are asking for is being recognized as 24 a specialty service. 25 6256 Certainly I think if out there in the
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1 public there really isn't very much of a view that CPAC 2 is not one of the special purpose services that are 3 being offered on basic. So I think it is very 4 consistent. It really comes short of going the 5 mandatory route. All it says is we have specialty 6 status. We have access subject to channel capacity, 7 the usual rules, the same way as any other dual status 8 specialty service. But it is not then a service that 9 is absolutely mandated in all circumstances. 10 6257 That, we thought, made a lot of 11 sense. 12 6258 THE CHAIRPERSON: Although the House 13 of Commons portion is. 14 6259 MR. MAYRAND: Although the House of 15 Commons is. As we have said, it remains possible in 16 the scenario we have put forward to you for any BDU 17 potentially to think it is somewhat advantageous to 18 strike a separate arrangement with the House of Commons 19 and uplink the feed and process the signal, et cetera. 20 6260 We don't think it makes much sense in 21 this setting and the size of market we have here in 22 Canada to have multiple distribution arrangements and 23 uplinking of essentially the same component. But I 24 guess the possibility is there. 25 6261 THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that
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1 you don't think they would be precluded, other BDUs or 2 other programming licensees, from carrying the House of 3 Commons? 4 6262 MR. STEIN: Our House of Commons 5 agreement specifically states that. 6 6263 THE CHAIRPERSON: So that is your 7 response to that point; thank you. 8 6264 Counsel. 9 6265 MS BENNETT: I would like to follow 10 up a little bit on this issue, and I have a couple of 11 other clean-up questions. 12 6266 First of all, with respect to the 13 possibility of an order pursuant to 9(1)(h) of the 14 Broadcasting Act, would it be your view that such an 15 order would apply to all distributors, for example 16 including DTH? 17 6267 MR. BUCHAN: Yes, it would. 18 6268 MS BENNETT: For example, in the case 19 of DTH, while under the regulations the passthrough 20 portion wouldn't apply in the way it applies to cable, 21 a 9(1)(h) order could apply to DTH in the sense of 22 limiting the amount of the fee that could be passed 23 through to subscribers? 24 6269 MR. BUCHAN: We have discussed that a 25 bit, counsel, and we think that it would certainly be
1057
1 within the competence and the imagination of the 2 Commission to come up with an order that would be 3 appropriate for both cable BDUs and BTH BDUs and MMDS 4 BDUs, as well. 5 6270 MS BENNETT: In response to 6 deficiency questions with respect to the mechanism for 7 implementing your carriage request, you made a note 8 that if CPAC was approved to carry these additional 9 program categories, it would be appropriate to amend 10 the definition of public affairs programming in the 11 Broadcasting Distribution Regulations. 12 6271 Could you comment on how the 13 definition should be amended in light of the additional 14 categories that you are requesting, and could you 15 comment on how the definition could be amended in a way 16 that preserves CPAC's distinctiveness as a service and 17 the expectation that CPAC will be complimentary to the 18 public affairs programming provided by other Canadian 19 broadcasters. 20 6272 MR. FORTUNE; I think the purpose of 21 the amendment to the definition would be -- you have 22 asked for quite a lot there, obviously. 23 6273 The problem with the definition now, 24 of course, is that it is limited to a category of 25 programming, a single category of programming
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1 essentially. There are also interstitials, but those 2 are interstitials. 3 6274 I suppose the definition could be 4 broadened to say a service designated as a public 5 affairs programming service that also distributes 6 proceedings of the House of Commons, for example. It 7 would be within the Commission's authority to decide 8 which public affairs programming services were also 9 able to distribute proceedings of the House of Commons. 10 6275 Essentially, it would be in the 11 Commission's court as to who would become a designated 12 public affairs programming service that also 13 distributes proceedings of the House of Commons. That 14 would be one method to do it. 15 6276 Just to fill out a little bit on 16 Yves' comments, which were I thought very 17 comprehensive, if the regulatory route were chosen, one 18 of the difficulties is how does one take that 19 definition of public affairs programming service and 20 reflect it in the various sections of the regulations 21 that would be affected by a regulatory approach as 22 opposed to a dual status specialty service approach. 23 6277 Essentially our suggestion is that an 24 appropriate definition for a public affairs programming 25 service be devised that would capture CPAC's status and
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1 then have that definition reflected in the appropriate 2 sections of the regulations. 3 6278 MS BENNETT: Could you comment on 4 what that appropriate definition would be? 5 6279 Where we are coming from is you have 6 requested these additional program categories -- for 7 example, 2(a), 2(b) and 5(b), I think it was -- and 8 CPAC currently has recognition in the regs because of 9 its distinctiveness as a public affairs programming 10 service. 11 6280 So if the Commission was going to add 12 those categories and amend the meaning of public 13 affairs programming in the regs, could you comment on 14 what an appropriate definition would be? 15 6281 MR. FORTUNE: If the purpose of the 16 regulation was to capture the regulatory status to be 17 accorded CPAC, I guess there are two ways to go: one 18 could attempt to devise a general regulation; or one 19 could specify CPAC, where appropriate. 20 6282 We are talking about the first idea, 21 which is to devise a general definition for a public 22 affairs programming service. 23 6283 What I am trying to suggest is that 24 the category of programming is not what makes it a 25 public affairs program. It is the nature of the
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1 service. It is whether it is focused on public 2 affairs. 3 6284 There is no shortage of documentaries 4 that are not focused on public affairs. For ten years 5 now CPAC has prospered under a nature of service 6 definition which says: Provide Parliamentary 7 proceedings and public affairs programming. 8 6285 I would say CPAC is a public affairs 9 programming service. 10 6286 Is that helpful? I don't mean to be 11 obtuse. I think a definition could be devised that 12 captured CPAC's nature as a public affairs service. 13 6287 MR. BUCHAN: Counsel, could I just 14 add we don't have that definition with us today, but it 15 was CPAC's response, and it remains CPAC's response, to 16 the deficiency question 23. 17 6288 The answer was that CPAC believes the 18 simplest means to accord CPAC's service dual status 19 would be, as the Commission suggested in paragraph (a) 20 of its own question, to license it as a specialty 21 service and to amend the distribution and linkage rules 22 to include CPAC in the list of services with dual 23 status. 24 6289 I want to deal with the idea of 25 procedural fairness, because I don't want to leave
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1 hanging on the table. We don't really understand where 2 the issue of procedural fairness comes up. We applied 3 to have the licence amended, and that was in February. 4 That is why we are here today in May. 5 6290 It has been a somewhat iterative 6 process that has gone through deficiency questions and 7 responses to deficiency questions and a Notice of 8 Public Hearing and written interventions and replies to 9 those interventions and then this public hearing. 10 6291 One of the issues that we responded 11 to was: What was our preferred way to see this 12 implemented, the easiest way to have it implemented. 13 It was, as Mr. Mayrand suggested, to have CPAC 14 classified as a specialty service. 15 6292 We think that the power exists 16 clearly under section 9 of the Act to renew the licence 17 and change the category. It is a different class of 18 licence. We didn't use specialty service application 19 forms. We applied for the renewal of the licence. 20 6293 We have had the licence since 1995, 21 and we have applied to have the licence renewed for 22 another seven years. We, through this process with the 23 Commission -- and it is all on the public record, and 24 it is flagged in the Notice of Public Hearing for 25 discussion at this hearing -- have suggested that
1062
1 CPAC's position is that the easiest way to do it is 2 specialty service and dual status. 3 6294 We believe there is no question of 4 denial of procedural fairness. Anybody else had an 5 opportunity to intervene and to comment, and that is 6 why we are having this discussion today. 7 6295 It remains our preferred option, and 8 we don't think there is a procedural fairness issue. 9 6296 MS BENNETT: Thank you. 10 6297 My next question relates to the issue 11 of the fee and what the appropriate mechanism would be 12 for implementing a passthrough for CPAC if CPAC was not 13 a specialty service, particularly with reference to the 14 specific references to specialty service and sections 15 52 and 54 of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations. 16 6298 I wonder if you could comment on, 17 again: If CPAC was not a specialty service, what would 18 be the mechanism for authorizing a passthrough? 19 6299 Would it flow through the BDU regs or 20 would some other mechanism be necessary? 21 6300 MR. FORTUNE: We discussed that at 22 lunch to some extent, and the third proposal I think 23 Yves had identified today was to achieve the same 24 effect as granting CPAC dual status licensed as a 25 specialty service through amendments to the BDU
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1 regulations where appropriate. 2 6301 Part of the passthrough mechanism in 3 the regulation speaks of a passthrough fee authorized 4 by the Commission and payable to a broadcasting 5 undertaking. 6 6302 So, clearly, CPAC is a broadcasting 7 undertaking and that portion is fine. 8 6303 The second portion of the regulation 9 speaks specifically of specialty services, I think. 10 Assuming that a fair definition for public affairs 11 programming service or an explicit reference to CPAC 12 were deemed to be appropriate, then the regulation 13 could be amended accordingly. 14 6304 Yves Mayrand also reminded me 15 recently that there is the -- this provision I am 16 speaking of deals with the notice essentially of the 17 rate to be charged. Yves had reminded me that there is 18 an industry commitment to give notice of any such rate 19 increase that would come into effect, in any event. 20 6305 We think the mechanism could be found 21 to accord CPAC virtually the same status through 22 appropriate regulatory amendments where necessary. 23 6306 MS BENNETT: Thank you. I just have 24 one last question about your French-language 25 programming commitments. It is sort of a
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1 clarification. 2 6307 You have indicated that 25 per cent 3 of the licence fees for documentary programming would 4 be dedicated to French-language productions. 5 6308 Could you comment on the possibility 6 of turning that into a condition of licence? 7 6309 MS WATSON: We would be prepared to 8 accept that as a condition of licence. 9 6310 MS BENNETT: Thank you. 10 6311 Those are all of my questions. 11 6312 THE CHAIRPERSON: Gentlemen, I am 12 going to have you earn your money today, the lawyers, 13 because I am going to ask you to take me through it. I 14 am trying to figure out what I am missing in some of 15 this. 16 6313 First of all, let me see if I 17 understand the way the BDU rules would operate under 18 your proposal. 19 6314 If you were designated a specialty 20 service, assuming we accepted your argument that notice 21 had been given and that fairness wasn't an issue, and 22 we said okay, you are a specialty service, would there 23 be any more need for the definition of public affairs 24 programming service and the references to it in the BDU 25 regs?
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1 6315 MR. FORTUNE: I don't know if there 2 are any other public affairs programming services. I 3 don't know. But as it relates to CPAC, no. 4 6316 THE CHAIRPERSON: As far as you are 5 concerned, it would not. All right, that's clear. 6 6317 If we took a different route and we 7 simply looked at section 18(5) of the BDU regs and we 8 added another category -- and this would be you would 9 not be designated as a specialty service, Plan B -- 10 then presumably that carriage regulation would be 11 subsections (a) and (b) could be amended to make 12 reference to a public affairs programming service, and 13 you get that same carriage. 14 6318 Is that correct? 15 6319 MR. FORTUNE: That's correct. 16 6320 THE CHAIRPERSON: Good. So I am 17 clear on that. 18 6321 MR. MAYRAND: Just with a couple of 19 additions, Mr. Chairman. 20 6322 Then automatically there would be 21 some slight change required to the definition of the 22 public affairs programming service at the beginning of 23 the regulations and also -- 24 6323 THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you mean to 25 incorporate the new program categories?
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1 6324 MR. MAYRAND: Yes. And also you 2 would have to remove the reference in section 19, which 3 is the services that may be distributed. 4 6325 So presumably if there is access, 5 then that is where they ought to be. Of course, you 6 would have to do that both with respect to cable 7 licensees and also to DTH licensees. So amendments 8 would be required on the DTH part, as well. 9 6326 THE CHAIRPERSON: So section 39, is 10 it? 11 6327 MR. MAYRAND: That is correct. 12 6328 THE CHAIRPERSON: All right. I think 13 we are on the same wavelength as to the mechanics. 14 6329 Now help me out with the final 15 question, which is -- I am still not quite certain. 16 You are on basic service, you said, and 100 per cent of 17 systems. You control the service. It is a scrambled 18 egg, as you said, the House of Commons and the rest of 19 CPAC fully integrated. 20 6330 You also said, and correctly, that 21 the House of Commons agreement provides for 22 non-exclusive distribution. 23 6331 I am still hard pressed to understand 24 what this gains you. 25 6332 I am assuming the passthrough item is
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1 resolved to your satisfaction, from your point of view. 2 I am still not sure what you gain by the request for 3 "must carry" -- or for dual status, let's call it. 4 6333 MS WATSON: If I could just clarify 5 one thing. 6 6334 We have basic distribution on 100 per 7 cent of our affiliates. That's different from 100 per 8 cent of subscribers. 9 6335 THE CHAIRPERSON: I take the point. 10 But the House of Commons will become a mandatory 11 carriage, must carry, so anybody who wants to carry the 12 House of Commons, I mean, yes, can try to unscramble 13 the air, get their own feed, and so forth, but which 14 they will continue to be able to do, whether this 15 proposal goes forward or not. 16 6336 So I am still trying to -- there is 17 something missing in the logic of the request here. 18 6337 MR. MAYRAND: Let me try and answer 19 your question, Mr. Chairman. 20 6338 I guess, as we mentioned, it's very 21 critical that this service, no matter how it's 22 specifically tagged or categorized, has to have at 23 least access for its entirety to all major BDUs, and 24 that's what dual status provides with the specialty 25 categorization.
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1 6339 Now, specifically the dual status, I 2 don't think we are contemplating, and certainly that is 3 the source, I think, of the confusion. In our view the 4 best way of approaching this is us having a specialty 5 designation with dual status. That's what fits most 6 nicely and elegantly with the whole framework of the 7 BDU regs as they are and the distribution and linkage 8 requirements and the policies of the Commission. 9 6340 As well, we submit to you that it is 10 entirely consistent with the actual carriage situation. 11 It does not create an upheaval, and fourthly and 12 lastly, it's consistent with your notice last fall in 13 115. 14 6341 Now, if we have specialty status with 15 no dual status being confirmed, we are concerned that 16 we are dealing with distributors as a standalone public 17 interest service that has no leverage to go through its 18 very critical stage of renewing all its affiliation 19 agreements. 20 6342 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think I 21 understand that point, but I guess a distributor who 22 wanted to just carry the House of Commons -- so under 23 that scenario, a distributor who wanted to carry just 24 the House of Commons and get the feed separately would 25 be required to carry your service?
1069
1 6343 MR. MAYRAND: Well, if a distributor 2 wanted to carry only the House of Commons and decided 3 to strike an agreement, a separate agreement with the 4 House -- as we said our agreement with the House is not 5 exclusive -- certainly a distributor could attempt to 6 do that. 7 6344 Now, certainly we would not want that 8 to mean that as a licensed service CPAC has the 9 obligation to fulfil its own agreement with the House, 10 make these commitments to enhance programming, take all 11 the obligations and be required to piece off part of 12 the service and give it to any distributor under 13 different arrangements. That's the central issue. 14 6345 This perhaps to emphasize the point. 15 I don't think that whether it's the satellite, the 16 cable, or specialty service, I don't think that any 17 service licensed by the Commission has been imposed any 18 requirement to offer part of its schedule à la carte. 19 6346 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Wylie? 20 6347 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Mr. Mayrand, 21 would it be your view that if we limited ourselves to 22 amending a 185 by adding this service, CPAC as however 23 defined, and taking it out of Section 19, would bind 24 DTH to carry it? 25 6348 MR. MAYRAND: Well, I think that --
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1 6349 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: To carry the 2 whole wrap around as well? 3 6350 MR. MAYRAND: You would need also an 4 amendment to the appropriate section in the part that 5 applies to DTH. Section 18 would not be sufficient. 6 6351 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: I hear your 7 argument, Mr. Buchan, and obviously there is a good one 8 to be made that proper notice has been given, but this 9 is getting a little more complicated than what we put 10 out because it's a combination of the creation of a 11 specialty service which, as Commissioner Langford 12 discussed this morning, could morph -- and we hear your 13 intentions -- could morph into something else at which 14 point you would get into the argument of IDTH who now 15 have half the cables subscribers have to carry this 16 service over which I have -- it's not my service, it's 17 a specialty service. I have a service on my own now 18 that I could integrate in instead. 19 6352 So it would bind everybody and it 20 would also, I suppose, raise the question of why this 21 service should be getting this status at this time as a 22 wrap around and as upgraded or defined to be closer to 23 something other than what it was before potentially. 24 That is we are giving a new specialty licence to a new 25 service for mandatory carriage on basic with a fee.
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1 6353 Dual status is fine, but if it's 2 owned by the cable operators, they are hardly going to 3 be put it on discretionary and not get the fee. So 4 it's mandatory carriage on basic basically, on cable 5 that you get. 6 6354 So maybe, Mr. Buchan, you have more 7 to add about whether this is getting more complicated 8 than was envisaged by -- well, it was envisaged by, for 9 example the Chair just read from the Bell ExpressVu 10 intervention. 11 6355 MR. BUCHAN: The only thing that I 12 could say to that, Madam Wylie, is that obviously Bell 13 ExpressVu read the Notice of Public Hearing and Bell 14 ExpressVu filed an intervention. We replied to the 15 intervention and they certainly have the lawyers to 16 understand the regulations and to deal with the 17 regulations as well as anyone else. 18 6356 The regulations are very complex. 19 There is no question they are very complex, but I was 20 only speaking on the question of procedural fairness as 21 to whether or not the power under Section 9 in amending 22 a licence could also be the power to amend the licence 23 to put it into a different class of licence and whether 24 sufficient notice had been given to the public and the 25 public had been given an opportunity to comment and to
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1 participate in the proceeding. 2 6357 When it has been flagged, as it has 3 been, in the Notice of Public Hearing, and when there 4 is a specific deficiency and response and CPAC's 5 position is clear as to what it asked for, what it 6 preferred, and the reason that we prefer it is because, 7 I have to say this, but the regulations are so complex 8 that this is the easiest way to get there. 9 6358 It's like finding your way through 10 the Briar patch and we thought this is the only way to 11 get out at the other end short of an order, and the 12 order looks simple, but then when you start to think 13 about doing the order, then you start to have to amend 14 the regulations. Then when you have to amend the 15 regulations and change the definition of public affairs 16 programming, then we get back to my friend's question 17 to my partner over here and it gets very complicated. 18 6359 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I think 19 we have the points. 20 6360 Thank you very much, ladies and 21 gentlemen. 22 6361 MR. STEIN: Thank you. 23 6362 THE CHAIRPERSON: Those are our 24 questions. 25 6363 Mr. Secretary?
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1 6364 MR. LEBEL: Mr. Chairman, the 2 appearing intervention on this application will be 3 presented by the Senate of Canada and Mr. Gary O'Brien 4 will introduce the Senate's panel. 5 6365 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. O'Brien? 6 6366 MR. LEBEL: Mr. O'Brien, you have ten 7 minutes to make your presentation. 8 INTERVENTION 9 6367 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. 10 6368 Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. My name 11 is Gary O'Brien, and I am the Deputy Clerk of the 12 Senate. 13 6369 On behalf of the Senate of Canada, I 14 would like to thank you for providing us with this 15 opportunity to appear before you today. 16 6370 I would like to begin by introducing 17 the members of the Senate panel. They are, to my 18 immediate left, Mark Audcent, Senate Law Clerk and 19 Parliamentary Counsel. To his left is Mme Diane 20 Boucher, the Director of Communications for the Senate, 21 and to my right is Gilles Daigle from the firm of 22 Gowling Lafleur Henderson, Counsel to the Senate of 23 Canada. 24 6371 Mr. Chairman, the Senate is involved 25 in this proceeding for one fundamental reason. We want
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1 to make sure Canadians in all regions of the country 2 have the opportunity, in reasonable television viewing 3 periods, to scrutinize the work of the Senate. 4 6372 We believe that this should be part 5 of the mandate of CPAC and its coverage of 6 parliamentary proceedings. The Senate firmly believes 7 Canadians have the right to be provided with a fair, 8 full and balanced coverage of Parliament, composed as 9 it is of two different, but complementary Houses. 10 6373 A lot has changed since the Senate 11 was awarded its current licence. Changes in technology 12 have introduced the efficiencies of digital 13 broadcasting. In the past seven years, the Commons has 14 also started coverage of Committee proceedings. 15 6374 There have been changes in the Senate 16 as well, reflected in an agreement we first signed with 17 CPAC in 1997. That was when the Senate formally turned 18 the cameras on, and we began learning the implications 19 of television coverage. 20 6375 We have been working with the House 21 of Commons Broadcasting Service to develop the 22 infrastructure and to produce quality broadcast 23 products, yet CPAC has failed to broadcast all of the 24 programming that the Senate has provided to it or 25 scheduled that programming in most unfavourable
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1 time-slots. 2 6376 Commissioners, it is most important 3 that you understand that the Senate programming, as 4 well as that of the House of Commons, comes to CPAC at 5 no charge to them. the Senate pays entirely for the 6 cost of its committees' broadcast. 7 6377 Throughout this process the Senate of 8 Canada has tried to negotiate with CPAC, only to be 9 told by CPAC management that the Senate is not part of 10 the channel's mandate. This is why the Senate is here 11 today seeking inclusion in CPAC's licence renewal. 12 6378 On a parliamentary channel, Canadians 13 should get to see the entire parliamentary system at 14 work. 15 6379 MR. AUDCENT: Mr. Chair, 16 Commissioners, why is it important that the Senate have 17 its rightful place in the television coverage of 18 Parliament? Because Canada has a bicameral Parliament. 19 6380 In the Quebec Secession Reference 20 case in 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada identified 21 four fundamental principles of the Canadian 22 Constitution. Those four principles are democracy, 23 federalism, the rule of law, and the protection of 24 minorities. 25 6381 The Parliament of Canada embodies
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1 these four principles. Parliament assembled is the 2 primary source of federal law. The elected House of 3 Commons embodies the democratic principle. The two 4 remaining principles are manifested in the Senate, 5 which is the federative house of the regions and the 6 House that represents and serves minorities. 7 6382 In the 1979 Senate Reference 8 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada held that: 9 "The Senate has a vital role as 10 an institution forming part of 11 the federal system created by 12 the Act." 13 6383 Referring to the Constitution Act of 14 1867. 15 6384 Consider federalism. Today, under 16 the democratic principle, 60 per cent of seats in the 17 House of Commons are from Ontario and Quebec, 55 per 18 cent of seats in the Senate are from regions other than 19 Ontario and Quebec. 20 6385 Consider diversity. Senate 21 appointments through the years have given a face to 22 Canadian diversity by ensuring additional 23 representation in Parliament for the English-speaking 24 minority in Quebec; the Acadian minority in the 25 Maritimes; the Black population of Canada; Aboriginal
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1 people. Six of today's 97 Senators are Aboriginals. 2 6386 The Senate also has the highest 3 percentage of women of all the legislative assemblies 4 in Canada, and one of the highest percentages of women 5 in legislative assemblies throughout the world. 6 6387 There are 31 women in today's Senate, 7 representing 32 per cent of our members, a percentage 8 higher than that of virtually all western democracies. 9 6388 Showing Senators at work to Canadians 10 will allow all Canadians to judge for themselves the 11 worth of the Senate. We invite the scrutiny. The 12 Senate asks you, the Commission, to give Canadians the 13 opportunity to see not one, but both Houses at work. 14 6389 The House of Commons has been called 15 the living room of the nation. Placing the emphasis on 16 this central role, the House has chosen -- with good 17 reason -- to showcase Chamber proceedings, in 18 particular Question Period. 19 6390 For the Senate, the choice to be made 20 is between showing the Chamber, where Senators talk to 21 Senators, or showing committees, where Senators talk to 22 Canadians. Why this positive choice, in the interests 23 of Canadians, should entail reduced scheduled coverage, 24 to their detriment, is not obvious to us. 25 6391 Constitutionally, the Houses of
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1 Parliament are autonomous and equal. Using equality as 2 the yardstick, the Senate would be entitled to the same 3 45 to 50 hours of guaranteed coverage that CPAC 4 provides to the House of Commons every sitting week. 5 6392 The Senate's requests are founded on 6 three base premises. First is the core principle that 7 we encourage and expect CPAC to honour its agreement 8 with the House of Commons. That agreement commits most 9 of CPAC's weekday, daytime broadcast hours in sitting 10 weeks. 11 6393 Secondly, we recognized a need to 12 strike a balance between CPAC's obligation to carry 13 parliamentary programming, including Senate 14 programming, we think, at prime times and its need to 15 respect its other programming goals. 16 6394 Finally, we took into account our 17 past track record on production and our plans to double 18 production capacity. 19 6395 From these premises, we developed a 20 request that starts with a modest increase of 21 programming hours and continues with incremental 22 increases over the years. 23 6396 Since our product is relatively 24 evergreen, we propose to accept that our hours be 25 spread evenly throughout the year, over both sitting
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1 and non-sitting weeks, including the summer. However, 2 we need guaranteed, fixed broadcast hours in time 3 periods that make coverage available to the greatest 4 number of Canadians. 5 6397 These are the principles that 6 underlie the terms that we request you to make a 7 Condition of Licence for CPAC. 8 6398 Will Canadians watch Senate 9 Committees on TV? Based on our broadcasting experience 10 to date, we believe the answer is yes. Auditor-General 11 Sheila Fraser is quoted in the Hill Times of Monday, 12 April 29, 2002 as saying: 13 "I must admit I always find 14 Senate committees very 15 interesting. People are very 16 well informed. They tend to 17 have followed an issue for many 18 years -- as you can see some of 19 the Senators have been following 20 this for 10, 15 or even 20 21 years. They are very 22 knowledgeable and very 23 interested in the issues and I 24 always enjoy the hearings before 25 the Senate."
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1 6399 l would like to close with some 2 Western commentary, through the words of Barbara Yaffe, 3 published in the Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times 4 Columnist on March 5th of this year: 5 "A just-released report on 6 Canadian security and military 7 preparedness is an absolute 8 mind-boggler. It's noteworthy 9 that it took a Senate committee 10 ... to reveal this stuff." 11 6400 Given the chance, Canadians will take 12 note. 13 6401 Mme BOUCHER: Monsieur le Président, 14 Mesdames et Messieurs les Conseillers. 15 6402 Comme vous le mentionnait notre 16 légiste parlementaire dans sa présentation, nos comités 17 sont à la base des travaux du Sénat. 18 6403 Qu'il s'agisse d'avortement, 19 d'euthanasie, de drogues illégales, de sécurité dans 20 nos ports, de pauvreté, d'immigration ou de problèmes 21 reliés à la santé, nos comités sont au coeur des débats 22 qui affectent la vie quotidienne des Canadiennes et des 23 Canadiens. 24 6404 L'expérience et les connaissances que 25 possèdent nos sénateurs leur permettent de débattre des
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1 questions de l'heure dans un esprit moins partisan. 2 6405 Ces faits sont en grande partie 3 corroborés par la couverture médiatique reçue par nos 4 comités au cours de la dernière année. La question se 5 pose donc : Est-ce-que CPAC est consciente de ce rôle 6 important du Sénat, et a-t-elle su donner accès 7 raisonnable à la population canadienne des grandes 8 questions traites par notre institution au cours des 9 dernières années? Parfois oui, mais souvent non. 10 6406 La réponse de CPAC à l'intervention 11 déposée par le Sénat nous laisse perplexes. Entre 12 autres, CPAC affirme que le Sénat siège moins de 13 semaines que la Chambre des communes. C'est faux. 14 6407 Par exemple, lors de la dernière 15 année financière 2001-2002, le Sénat a siégé 26 16 semaines comparativement à 25 semaines pour la Chambre 17 des communes. 18 6408 CPAC affirme aussi qu'au cours des 19 derniers mois le Sénat n'a pas produit sur une base 20 mensuelle un minimum de huit heures par semaine de 21 séances. C'est faux. Dans la dernière année 22 financière, la moyenne mensuelle d'heures produites 23 dans les semaines où le Sénat siégeait a été de huit à 24 24 heures par semaine. 25 6409 D'ailleurs, la moyenne d'heures
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1 totales d'enregistrement produit durant les semaines de 2 séances aura été de 14 heures par semaine dans la 3 dernière année. 4 6410 CPAC affirme de plus que toutes les 5 séances des comités transmises par le Sénat à CPAC ont 6 été télédiffusées. C'est faux. Cent-onze heures 7 d'enregistrement n'ont jamais été mises en ondes. 8 D'ailleurs, ses propres rapports démontrent que des 9 dizaines de séances n'ont jamais été télédiffusées. 10 6411 La suggestion de CPAC à l'effet 11 qu'une partie des 111 heures non télédiffusées serait 12 due à de l'édition par CPAC ou à des problèmes 13 techniques avec le matériel soumis par les Services de 14 radiotélédiffusion de la Chambre des communes est sans 15 fondement. 16 6412 CPAC maintient-elle vraiment que ces 17 facteurs ont causés la perte de près de 30 pour cent de 18 la programmation produite par le Sénat? CPAC n'a 19 certainement jamais été en mesure d'identifier le 20 matériel qu'elle allègue inapte être télédiffusé. 21 6413 CPAC continue de soulever 22 l'importance d'un horaire fixe pour permettre 23 l'accessibilité des téléspectateurs à sa propre 24 programmation. Or, jusqu'à ce jour, les comités du 25 Sénat ont été télédiffusés à l'aveuglette pendant des
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1 heures variées qui ne permettent aucunement aux 2 Canadiens de suivre les travaux du Sénat. 3 6414 La proposition du Sénat est juste et 4 réaliste. Les Canadiens et les Canadiennes ont le 5 droit d'être informés et le Sénat a le devoir de leur 6 être imputable du travail effectué en leur nom. 7 6415 Au cours de la dernière année 8 financière, 24 comités permanents, sous-comités et 9 comités spéciaux ont tenu 544 réunions, siégé 1 117 10 heures, déposé 139 rapports et entendu 1 885 témoins. 11 6416 Depuis 1998, le Sénat a augmenté sa 12 production télévisuelle de 143 pour cent, passant de 13 154 à 375 heures d'enregistrement. Ces chiffres 14 augmenteront de façon considérable dès l'année 15 prochaine lorsque le Sénat doublera sa capacité 16 technique d'enregistrement par l'installation 17 d'équipements fixes dans deux salles de comités. 18 6417 Comme vous pouvez le constater, 19 l'entente conclue il y a cinq ans avec la CPAC est 20 maintenant fort désuète et nécessite un rajustement 21 censé. 22 6418 Nous espérons que vous pourrez 23 apporter les correctifs nécessaires pour redresser 24 cette situation d'importance pour l'imputabilité 25 parlementaire.
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1 6419 MR. DAIGLE: Monsieur le Président, 2 chers conseillers. J'aborde brièvement la demande de 3 CPAC concernant le changement de son statut actuel de 4 distribution à celui de double statut. 5 6420 Dans l'Avis public CRTC 2001-115, en 6 date du 6 novembre 2001, le Conseil a reconnu 7 l'importance d'assurer à tous les Canadiens l'accès aux 8 débats de la Chambre des communes et de ses divers 9 comités. 10 6421 Selon le Sénat, les mêmes 11 considérations s'imposent à l'égard de sa 12 programmation. Ce qui importe pour le Sénat, c'est que 13 toute programmation parlementaire, y compris celle du 14 Sénat, soit mise à la disposition du plus grand nombre 15 possible de Canadiens. 16 6422 Dans la mesure où le statut de 17 distribution double demandé par CPAC permettrait au 18 service de négocier avec les distributeurs la 19 possibilité d'offrir le service sur des volets 20 facultatifs qui, par définition, sont accessibles par 21 un nombre moindre d'abonnés que le service de base, eh 22 bien alors le Sénat s'y oppose. 23 6423 Mr. Chairman, the Senate's proposal, 24 as set out in its written intervention, would ensure 25 that the greatest possible number of Canadians are
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1 given the opportunity to access the Senate's 2 programming during reasonable viewing periods, in a 3 manner consistent with their ability to view the 4 proceedings of the House of Commons as well. 5 6424 CPAC is not a typical service. It is 6 a unique service, with a unique public service mandate, 7 that should be subject to whatever regulatory 8 requirements are necessary to ensure that special role 9 as broadcaster of parliamentary proceedings is 10 adequately fulfilled for the benefit of all Canadians. 11 6425 Conditions of licence consistent with 12 the Senate's proposal would ensure the fulfilment of 13 that mandate. 14 6426 Mr. Chairman, the issue of CPAC's 15 mandate is among the most important issues underlying 16 this entire proceeding. CPAC's application suggests 17 that the service is attempting to transform itself from 18 a parliamentary broadcasting service to a mainstream 19 public affairs specialty service. 20 6427 In this respect it would appear that 21 CPAC has no reservations about relegating Senate 22 programming to the middle of the night while reserving 23 prime-time hours for its own productions, including 24 long-form documentaries. There is something wrong with 25 that picture, Mr. Chairman.
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1 6428 CPAC has a fundamental decision to 2 make. If it wishes to continue as the country's 3 parliamentary channel, it should be made to come to 4 grips with the fact that Canada's Parliament consists 5 of two Houses and that Canadians have the right to 6 scrutinize the work of all parliamentarians, not just 7 those of the House of Commons. 8 6429 If, on the other hand, CPAC prefers 9 to operate a specialty service that would broadcast 10 mainstream public affairs or documentary programming, 11 then it should surrender its current licence and apply 12 for a specialty service licence in accordance with the 13 Commission's established procedures. 14 6430 The Commission should not allow CPAC 15 to use its current licence as a springboard to 16 transform itself into something it was never intended 17 to be, at the expense in particular of the ability of 18 Canadians to access and scrutinize the important 19 activities that take place in their country's 20 Parliament. 21 6431 MR. O'BRIEN: It is the view of the 22 Senate that only specific conditions of licence will 23 ensure that the Senate's proposals are fully respected 24 by CPAC. 25 6432 The use of words such as "encourages"
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1 or "expects" in the licence decision will ultimately 2 leave the implementation of the Senate's objectives to 3 the discretion of CPAC. 4 6433 We are concerned that CPAC is 5 striving to limit its parliamentary obligations, rather 6 than seeing the opportunities that parliamentary 7 television coverage provides Canadians. 8 6434 Given the Senate's prior experience 9 with the service and CPAC's expressed opinion that its 10 mandate does not include the Senate, we are not at all 11 confident the service would implement the Senate's 12 requests without conditions of licence. 13 6435 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 14 6436 We now welcome your questions. 15 6437 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much 16 for that presentation. 17 6438 I notice that in -- dans les 18 commentaires de Mme Boucher vous avez mentionné qu'il y 19 a certains aspects de la réplique de CPAC avec lesquels 20 vous n'êtes pas d'accord. 21 6439 C'est assez clair, mais je vous 22 demande si à la page 1, paragraphe 2 de la réplique, 23 est-ce que vous êtes d'accord avec eux en ce qui 24 concerne les sujets qui sont différents aux débats -- 25 overview of issues?
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1 6440 Mme BOUCHER: A la page 1? 2 6441 LE PRÉSIDENT: A la page 1, oui, le 3 deuxième paragraphe. Quant à eux il y a deux sujets 4 qui ne sont pas résolus entre vous autres et eux 5 autres. 6 --- Pause 7 6442 MR. DAIGLE: Perhaps I could be of 8 assistance on that question, Mr. Chairman, in 9 indicating that those issues are indeed in dispute. 10 6443 There is the additional issue of the 11 contextual programming that forms part of the Senate's 12 request with respect to the production of a Senate or 13 Senator profile programming, but ultimately what we are 14 looking at are four issues: Minimum number of hours, 15 fixed time blocks, or fixed schedule, prime time and 16 this contextual programming that I have just referred 17 to. 18 6444 THE CHAIRPERSON: So you are taking 19 time blocks as separate from schedule. 20 6445 MR. DAIGLE: I guess what needs to 21 be -- time blocks and schedule would be the same. It's 22 in the prime time aspect, when should those time blocks 23 fit. 24 6446 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right, fair enough. 25 They didn't mention the point about the profiling
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1 programs, 26 one-hour programs. You are correct. They 2 haven't agreed to that. 3 6447 MR. DAIGLE: I believe it is referred 4 to later on in their reply to our intervention, but 5 admittedly not in this introductory section. 6 6448 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. And that is 7 an unresolved issue? 8 6449 MR. DAIGLE: That's correct. 9 6450 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. 10 6451 Do you have any other comments than 11 the ones Mme Boucher made on the reply of CPAC, just to 12 sort of focus the debate for their comments and reply. 13 This is an iterative process now where we have had the 14 application, the intervention, the reply, your comments 15 and will conclude with their reply, their oral reply. 16 6452 MR. AUDCENT: Perhaps we could 17 characterize the reply as the "trust us" response. If 18 we look at paragraph 4, they indicate that they will 19 carry all Senate programming, and if we look at 20 paragraph 19, CPAC indicates that it has offered six 21 hours scheduled minimum -- minimum. 22 6453 If we look at paragraph 21, you will 23 note that they intend to address the issue of 24 operations of the Senate which is the wrap around 25 programming issue.
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1 6454 So that's the "trust us" response. 2 It's all coming, but the problem is the House of 3 Commons has an agreement and the Senate doesn't have an 4 agreement. So an agreement to be negotiated. Well, 5 what will be the basis of the negotiations? 6 6455 If you go to paragraph 14 of their 7 reply, you will find the statement that the current 8 eight hours is reasonable and appropriate. We had 9 eight hours in 1998. By the time we get to the 10 extension you are looking at 2007. 11 6456 If you look at paragraph 18 of their 12 reply, the current scheduling is reasonable and 13 balanced. So that is the position from which the 14 negotiations will take place. 15 6457 Finally, if we come back to the 16 question of broadcasting all of the Senate material, 17 the undertaking was already there to broadcast all of 18 the Senate material. You heard Mme Boucher. The 19 Senate position is: We get out numbers from the House 20 of Commons, the House of Commons tells us to televise 21 this much. We get our numbers from CPAC. CPAC 22 televises -- we televise this much and there is a gap 23 of 111 hours, I think the number is. 24 6458 So they are not broadcasting all the 25 hours. So I think that that sort of the Senate's
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1 analysis of the response that we got. 2 6459 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So those are 3 your comments on their reply. 4 6460 Have you canvassed other countries in 5 regard to the carriage of let's call it the 6 non-elected, usually Upper, I suppose, Chambers and by 7 camera legislatures elsewhere as to the practice? 8 6461 MR. AUDCENT: No, we haven't. 9 6462 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. So you 10 can't inform us as to, for example, whether the House 11 of Lords in the U.K. is televised. Does Australia 12 still have an Upper House? Australia's Upper House is 13 elected. 14 6463 MR. AUDCENT: Australia's Upper House 15 is elected. The American Upper House is elected and 16 the House of Lords we haven't looked. 17 6464 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right, you haven't 18 looked at it. 19 6465 I think your position is pretty 20 clear. We have a difference here and I think your 21 intervention was very fulsome and helpful as were these 22 comments. 23 6466 You are leaving us with an important 24 question to try to grapple with. 25 6467 Do you have anything else to add?
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1 6468 MR. DAIGLE: If I might just make a 2 couple of concluding remarks, Mr. Chairman? 3 6469 THE CHAIRPERSON: By all means. 4 6470 MR. DAIGLE: There are a number of 5 issues that I think are of primary importance. I 6 think, for instance, that Mme Watson hit the nail on 7 the head during CPAC's presentation when she talked 8 about the importance of fixed scheduling. I think the 9 words she used were: If you want to build an audience 10 you need a fixed schedule. 11 6471 On some days the Senate's programs 12 are on at seven in the morning. On some days they are 13 on at two in the morning and sometimes they are on at 14 three in the afternoon. 15 6472 If you were to ask the members of 16 this panel when the Senate committee proceedings are on 17 this week, I am not sure that they would be able to 18 five you an answer. I am not sure that CPAC would be 19 able to give you an answer. 20 6473 If that's the case, we certainly 21 can't expect Canadians to be able to find the 22 programming during the schedule. So that's obviously a 23 key point. 24 6474 In terms of what the Senate has 25 suggested and requested in terms of conditions of
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1 licence, the key there again is: Number of hours, 2 fixed scheduling and prime time. Whether those blocks 3 are on a daily basis becomes somewhat irrelevant, but 4 it's the number of fixed hours during prime time that 5 obviously becomes important if the greatest number, 6 greatest possible number of Canadians are going to have 7 access to that Senate programming. 8 6475 Perhaps, since it has been the 9 subject of so much discussion, the dual status issue is 10 of particular importance to the Senate for this reason: 11 There has been much talk about the Commission's 12 decision on mandatory distribution of the House of 13 Commons programming that will be leading to an 14 amendment to the regulations to the extent that the 15 intention there is that the House of Commons, and only 16 the House of Commons programming be distributed on a 17 mandatory basis. That leaves the Senate programming as 18 part of the wrap around portion of the CPAC 19 programming, if I can call it that. 20 6476 If CPAC's request for dual status 21 were to be granted in the circumstances, then indeed it 22 would open the door to a significant number of 23 Canadians potentially not having access to that Senate 24 programming. So we view that issue as being very 25 important.
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1 6477 THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm having a hard 2 time understanding your position on that issue. 3 6478 Are you saying that if we granted 4 dual status and hence mandatory carriage -- 5 6479 MR. DAIGLE: That the problem is that 6 the mandatory carriage, as I understand the 7 Commission's intention, would be limited to the House 8 of Commons programming as opposed to parliamentary 9 programming as a whole. 10 6480 THE CHAIRPERSON: Oh, I see. 11 6481 MR. DAIGLE: If the intention was to 12 expand the amendment to the regulation to include 13 parliamentary programming as a whole, then the issue 14 indeed goes away. But in the absence of that 15 distinction -- and we will have to wait for the draft 16 regulation to see exactly how it's worded -- the Senate 17 would obviously be left vulnerable if indeed the 18 regulation was limited to the House of Commons 19 proceedings. 20 6482 THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, I think it's 21 pretty clear from the Public Notice, and this was 22 before my time, but in reading it the Notice is pretty 23 clear that the amendment will deal with the 24 distribution of the proceedings of the House of Commons 25 and its various committees.
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1 6483 MR. DAIGLE: That's correct, and if 2 that turns out to be the case then we reiterate our 3 concern about the request for dual status. 4 6484 THE CHAIRPERSON: Which is? 5 6485 MR. DAIGLE: The fact that in the 6 absence of any mandatory distribution of Senate 7 programming, dual status could allow CPAC, as we 8 understand it, to negotiate distribution on a 9 discretionary tier. 10 6486 THE CHAIRPERSON: I don't think 11 that -- you are going to get to a level of 12 unprecedented conclusion, between you and me, if we 13 carry this debate on, but I think the point is that 14 with mandatory carriage of the CPAC service, in 15 addition to what is already being provided for in 16 respect of the House of Commons of the entire service, 17 whatever is in that service, whether your proposal is 18 accepted or not, will be subject to mandatory carriage 19 under their proposal. 20 6487 MR. DAIGLE: If it is the CPAC 21 service as a whole, then the Senate does not have an 22 issue, Mr. Chairman. 23 6488 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think that's what 24 they are requesting. 25 6489 MR. DAIGLE: And if that is --
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1 6490 THE CHAIRPERSON: You will correct me 2 if I am wrong. 3 6491 MR. DAIGLE: If that is the case, 4 then indeed we don't have a problem. 5 6492 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 6 Commissioner Langford? 7 6493 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Thank you. 8 6494 There is underlying sort of 9 fundamental supposition in your whole approach to this 10 that I want to explore briefly with you, if I may. 11 6495 I am reminded of an old Arabian 12 curse, which most of you will have heard, and 13 translated it's something like: May you get what you 14 wish for. I wonder if you may not be falling into one 15 of those horrible "get what you wish for" situations. 16 6496 I will tell you what I am thinking. 17 I am reading, just taking today's presentation, it's 18 the freshest in our mind. You want to be seen in 19 reasonable television viewing periods you say. 20 6497 However, you say on page 5: 21 "However, we need guaranteed, 22 fixed broadcast hours in time 23 periods that make coverage 24 available to the greatest number 25 of Canadians."
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1 6498 And then, on page 9, at the bottom, 2 you speak about reserving prime-time hours for the 3 Senate. 4 6499 I wonder if you have available, if 5 you have done any studies, you have purchased any 6 studies, commissioned any studies, which show when the 7 highest viewing times for CPAC are, the highest 8 audience numbers, the highest numbers of eyeballs, as 9 they say in the trade. 10 6500 This isn't a trick question, by the 11 way. I don't have those studies. 12 6501 MR. DAIGLE: I don't understand the 13 Senate to have done so. I think that the Senate would 14 probably have taken as its lead the fact that CPAC 15 seemed to consider those prime-time hours very 16 important for its purposes. 17 6502 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: Well, it is 18 conceivable, I would argue, that prime time is the very 19 time you don't want to be on because you are up against 20 "Survivors" and "Friends" and "ER" and all of those 21 other programs and perhaps that's just when you don't 22 want to be on. 23 6503 I mean, have you considered that as a 24 possibility? 25 6504 MR. DAIGLE: I think that as between
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1 three in the morning or seven to two in the morning and 2 prime time, the Senate would take its chances with the 3 prime-time programming. 4 6505 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: I don't mean 5 to be patronizing in any way, but you may be wrong on 6 that -- and I don't know that you are wrong, but you 7 may be wrong. 8 6506 The viewing numbers that we have 9 overall for CPAC, the audience shares from the last 10 sweeps are very low, and I am not trying to be 11 insulting to CPAC. They have said themselves that they 12 are very low. They are trying to get them up and they 13 have come here with a proposition to make their 14 programming a little more cosmopolitan, a little more 15 polished, whatever the word is, so that it will be more 16 attractive to viewers. 17 6507 But they are not high now and it 18 struck me that -- and I don't mean to tell you how to 19 put your case -- if I were wording your sentence in the 20 top paragraph of page 5 which now reads: 21 "However, we need guaranteed, 22 fixed broadcast hours in time 23 periods that make coverage 24 available to the greatest number 25 of Canadians."
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1 6508 I might add to that: "who are 2 watching" or "who will watch" as a concept because, as 3 I say, without studies, some sort of indication, it may 4 be that you are giving the best times up. 5 6509 One is always surprised to find 6 out -- I mean, if you think you get bad times, you 7 ought to see what the CRTC gets, I mean wow!. Yet 8 there is always somebody who has seen you and you are 9 always scratching your ear or spilling coffee down your 10 front. That's the scene that somehow every one of your 11 friends on earth knows. 12 6510 So anyway, I leave that with you. 13 Your answer is you haven't done the studies. It 14 doesn't necessarily deal your request any kind of a 15 death blow or anything, but I would suggest that things 16 are not always as they seem in broadcasting. 17 6511 MR. O'BRIEN: If I could, 18 Mr. Commissioner, just add a caveat that one thing the 19 Senate does not want to do is to interfere or conflict 20 with the House of Commons in its broadcasting hours 21 which is rebroadcast. I believe QP is rebroadcast at 22 10:00 p.m. in the evenings. We do not want to conflict 23 with that. 24 6512 But what we do want to emphasize is 25 that Canadians know when the House of Commons is being
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1 broadcast. They know that. They don't know when the 2 Senate is being broadcast and that's what we are trying 3 to achieve. 4 6513 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: So you are 5 not necessarily tied to prime time. You are more 6 concerned with certainty. 7 6514 MR. O'BRIEN: We are concerned with 8 certainty and a reach to get to the greatest number of 9 Canadians possible -- possible. 10 6515 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: So that may 11 not be prime time, in fact. 12 6516 Would you agree that it may not be 13 prime time? I'm not trying to trap you -- 14 6517 MR. DAIGLE: I guess what it boils 15 down to is that certainly it has been the Senate's 16 understanding that prime time would be the best period. 17 6518 If that, as it turns out, is not the 18 case, then I guess the Senate stands to be corrected on 19 that issue. But as between fixed periods in the middle 20 of the night and fixed periods in prime time, I think 21 that the position of the Senate stands that the 22 prime-time period is the one that is most attractive 23 and the one requested. 24 6519 COMMISSIONER LANGFORD: At least it 25 would be the basis of negotiations from a different
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1 perspective. But we will hear from CPAC in reply and 2 it will be interesting to hear what they say. 3 6520 Thank you very much. 4 6521 THE CHAIRPERSON: Gentlemen, I am new 5 to this position, and I am interested in the history of 6 this. As I read the notice that the Commission issued 7 on the 6th of November referring to making the carriage 8 of the House of Commons mandatory, I am just wondering 9 whether you participated in that proceeding leading up 10 to that. 11 6522 MR. DAIGLE: No. Certainly to my 12 knowledge, the Senate was not involved, and I suspect 13 that at the time, this would have been well over a year 14 ago now, it was probably on the expectation that an 15 agreement would in fact be reached between the parties. 16 Obviously that didn't happen. 17 6523 THE CHAIRPERSON: I see. So you were 18 negotiating at the time? 19 6524 MR. DAIGLE: I'm mot sure if 20 negotiations would have started that early, but they 21 have been ongoing for quite a bit of time. 22 6525 THE CHAIRPERSON: This is just last 23 November. And although this channel is called the 24 Parliamentary Channel, when one reads the history of 25 the channel as set forth in the last renewal decision,
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1 and so forth, it has always been a House of Commons 2 carriage channel plus. I guess over the year the 3 Senate hasn't been involved until I guess this 4 proceeding. 5 6526 MR. DAIGLE: That's correct, and if 6 indeed in the past it so happens that the Senate may 7 not have been within the mandate of CPAC, the Senate is 8 here asking you today to change that. 9 6527 THE CHAIRPERSON: I understand. 10 6528 Thank you very much. We will now 11 take a break and resume in 15 minutes with the reply 12 from the applicant. 13 --- Upon recessing at 1600 / Suspension à 1600 14 --- Upon resuming at 1615 / Reprise à 1615 15 6529 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Secretary? 16 6530 MR. LEBEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 17 6531 We have now reached Phase III in 18 which CPAC is granted a period of ten minutes to 19 respond to all interventions submitted to the 20 applications. 21 REPLY / RÉPLIQUE 22 6532 MR. STEIN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 23 6533 With me, of course, I have Colette 24 Watson. On her left, Joel Fortune and on my right the 25 Secretary to CPAC, Bob Buchan.
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1 6534 We want to first express our 2 appreciation to all of the intervenors who involved 3 themselves in this process. We did a comprehensive 4 reply to those intervenors who made particular comments 5 and we also did a separate reply in terms of the 6 comments that were made in writing by the Senate. 7 6535 We appreciate very much all of the 8 support we received for the renewal of our licence and 9 I want to express that appreciation here. 10 6536 In these remarks, we would like to 11 address the comments made by the senior staff of the 12 Senate and deal with the particular issues that they 13 raised. 14 6537 The first point I would like to make 15 is that we agree with very much of what the Senate and 16 the staff representing the Senate have said. 17 6538 On just a few key points of what we 18 agree with is that, first of all, CPAC will continue 19 to -- we believe we have, but in any event we will in 20 the future continue to broadcast throughout the full 21 term of our renewed licences all programming that is 22 provided to CPAC by the Senate. So that's something we 23 have committed to. 24 6539 We have also committed to fulfil the 25 Senate's request for improved webcasting of Senate
1104
1 committee proceedings and to make that available 2 through the service. 3 6540 We have also agreed that we should 4 continue discussions with the Senate to come to an 5 agreement with the Senate and I think that those in 6 themselves are significant agreements. 7 6541 We have also, in terms of the key 8 issue of schedule time, have indicated to the Senate 9 that we would be willing to continue discussions to 10 come to some balance in terms of having scheduled time 11 for Senate committees so that people would know or be 12 informed as to when they are available because we 13 basically understand and appreciate the importance of 14 the Senate committee proceedings. 15 6542 In terms of the points made with 16 respect to the comparisons between the House of Commons 17 and the Senate, I think there are two essential 18 differences. The first is that our service has always 19 had at its core raison d'être the House of Commons and 20 its committees. As you pointed out in the discussions 21 back to 1992, they have always been based with that 22 cornerstone of the House of Commons and that's 23 reflected in 115 as well in terms of the CRTC's order. 24 6543 In terms of the Senate, there is a 25 fundamental difference as well in the sense that the
1105
1 House of Commons has agreed to be televised. The 2 Senate Chamber is not televised so that in terms of a 3 strict comparison between the two Houses there is, from 4 a television point of view, a very strict difference 5 and that is the House of Commons proceedings, gavel to 6 gavel, are live and are televised. The Senate has 7 decided that that is not, in their view, the way they 8 wish to proceed. 9 6544 So we then come to the work of the 10 two Houses of Parliament and that is the committee 11 work. We believe that we should obviously provide 12 equal treatment to the committee work between the House 13 of Commons and the Senate, but we do have an agreement 14 with the House of Commons and that agreement is based 15 on eight hours and it does not have a schedule. 16 6545 So in terms of the letter and the 17 spirit of the House of Commons, which we are required 18 as a Board to adhere to in our condition of licence, we 19 have found it difficult to come to a final agreement 20 with the Senate. That would offend, in our view, those 21 principles. 22 6546 Now, we are quite willing to continue 23 these discussions and we would like to come to some 24 arrangements in terms of having specified times for 25 Senate committees and we would like to do that, but we
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1 do not believe that the CRTC should impose conditions 2 that give priority to Senate committees over House 3 committees and we do not believe that the CRTC should 4 impose conditions on our fundamental responsibility as 5 a broadcast licensee to be responsible for the 6 programming that we do often. 7 6547 So I think on those bases, with those 8 may I say caveats, we are, of course, willing to 9 continue our discussions with the Senate over the near 10 term to try to come to some common view as to how to 11 proceed on this. 12 6548 I will now ask Colette Watson to make 13 a few comments. 14 6549 MS WATSON: We would like to respond 15 to some of the comments made by the Senate with respect 16 to CPAC's performance on Senate committee hearings. 17 6550 When we read the Senate's 18 intervention and the claim that 111 hours went missing, 19 we took that very seriously. So we looked at whether 20 it was a process or procedural error on our part in 21 terms of where these hours went. It was a very intense 22 exercise to try and determine where these records came 23 from. 24 6551 In order to be precise, we got 25 records from the House of Commons broadcasting service
1107
1 and then we had our own logs to compare them with. The 2 times just were not clear. So we went back to the 3 transcripts of each of these committees and found that 4 although the tapes may have been rolling or a committee 5 was scheduled say from nine in the morning to eleven, 6 it may not have started until 9:20, 9:40, in which case 7 when you bill that over the course of 12 months, it 8 accounted for about 100 of those 111 minutes. 9 6552 So we still feel that we were -- we 10 still stand by our claim that we air everything that 11 comes to our office with respect to Senate committee 12 hearings. 13 6553 With respect to the times of 14 broadcast, if I can refer the Commission to the 15 Senate's intervention and the charts attached to it. 16 6554 If I look at their own charts as to 17 when the Senate airs throughout the year, you will 18 notice pretty even distribution throughout the 19 broadcast day. So their claim that it is either prime 20 time or 2:00 in the morning is perhaps a little 21 misleading; that they do air throughout a wide variety 22 of times. 23 6555 I hear them when they say they would 24 like a specific block of time. We have endeavoured to 25 commit a minimum number of hours that are in a
1108
1 specified block of time. At issue is the tonnage of 2 that time. What we feel we can contribute and what 3 they feel is the right number is at difference here. I 4 believe that is what is at issue. 5 6556 We also don't feel that we are a 6 public affairs mainstream channel. We feel we are a 7 unique complementary channel that deals with the work 8 of Parliament and both houses. We do treat the Senate 9 work in our produced original programming, and we do 10 have senators on to discuss their reports. 11 6557 We are dealing with what is called 12 the Kirby Committee at the moment on their recent 13 health report, and we have had senators on panel 14 discussions with medical doctors and other groups 15 interested in whatever the issue may be. 16 6558 With respect to our claim that the 17 Senate is not part of the mandate, in our discussions 18 with the Senate we have never said that. We have said 19 Senate committee hearings are not part of the mandatory 20 licence. Their assumption was that they fell into the 21 House of Commons definition. 22 6559 So we clarified that for them; that 23 that includes House of Commons gavel-to-gavel 24 proceedings. It doesn't even include House of Commons 25 committees. Committees from the House of Commons, as
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1 well as Senate committees, are part of CPAC's 2 wrap-around programming. 3 6560 Those are my comments. 4 6561 CONSEILLÈRE WYLIE: Madame Watson, 5 quand vous avez comme vous l'avez mentionné 111 6 « minutes », vous vouliez dire 111 « heures »? 7 6562 Mme WATSON: Merci pour la précision. 8 6563 MR. BUCHAN: Could I clarify one 9 point? 10 6564 I was at a meeting where the senior 11 representatives from the Senate and Ms Watson were 12 there, and this issue of mandate did come up. I can't 13 remember precisely what was said, but certainly we 14 talked about mandate. We talked about mandate in the 15 context of what is in CPAC's licence, what is in the 16 exemption order, and what is CPAC mandated from the 17 Commission to do. 18 6565 That was the context in which this 19 thing came up. 20 6566 If there is ever a "she said, he 21 said" kind of discussion, it was pretty clear to me 22 from that discussion that that is what we were talking 23 about. There has never been any suggestion in any of 24 the discussions that I have been privy to or informed 25 of that anyone from CPAC has suggested that Senate
1110
1 programming is not appropriate wrap-around programming 2 or cognate complementary programming for the CPAC 3 service. 4 6567 I think it hard for Ms Watson to say 5 "I didn't say that or I did say that". 6 6568 I just want to corroborate her 7 remarks. 8 6569 Thank you. 9 6570 THE CHAIRPERSON: I have just a few 10 questions. 11 6571 On the last point, that the Senate 12 has requested a condition of licence, what is your 13 position on that in regard to Senate programming? 14 6572 MR. STEIN: Well, it's a bit 15 difficult to suggest anything. With the House of 16 Commons we came in agreement first, and then we came 17 forward and that is the way it has proceeded. 18 6573 So it is tricky in these 19 circumstances to say what we would have in that, 20 because we would want it to reflect the agreement that 21 we came to with the Senate. 22 6574 I think the point we would want to 23 make is that -- and I think if there were 24 misinterpretations of things over the past number of 25 years about all this, we think Senate committees are
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1 important. We think they are a very important part of 2 the proceeding and of the proceedings of the Houses of 3 Parliament, as the representatives from the Senate 4 pointed out. 5 6575 So a recognition of that is not at 6 issue. What is at issue is because the Chamber itself 7 is not covered, then what exactly are we agreeing to 8 that is parallel with the House of Commons? It is an 9 issue. 10 6576 THE CHAIRPERSON: I take your point. 11 6577 Perhaps this might be helpful, since 12 we are into a kind of dispute settlement mode on this 13 point. 14 6578 What if you were to put forward in 15 your nature of service bullets in your description what 16 you think would be an appropriate reference to Senate 17 coverage in your service? The intervenor would then 18 have an opportunity to comment on it, and the 19 Commission could then make a decision as to what might 20 be the appropriate way of enshrining that, short of a 21 condition of licence, let's say. 22 6579 MR. STEIN: We have a commitment to 23 do the eight hours of scheduled time. 24 6580 Are you reflecting something more 25 general than that?
1112
1 6581 THE CHAIRPERSON: I was thinking of 2 something more general than that in regard to the 3 service. It is called the Parliamentary Affairs 4 Channel, Cable Parliamentary Channel, and so forth. 5 6582 You might want to suggest a bullet 6 again and put that forward, or you might not. I leave 7 it to you to decide what to do. We can then govern 8 ourselves accordingly. 9 6583 MR. STEIN: I think something that 10 would indicate that we would be willing to look at or 11 would be bound by fair and equitable treatment and 12 coverage of the House and Senate Committees might be 13 appropriate. 14 6584 THE CHAIRPERSON: You can submit 15 something that we would then ask the intervenor to 16 comment on. 17 6585 I appreciate that you might get 18 agreement with them; but given the track record, you 19 probably won't. 20 6586 MR. STEIN: We do want to come to an 21 agreement with them. 22 6587 THE CHAIRPERSON: I understand. 23 6588 Did you want to correct the record, 24 Madame Watson, sur les autres points que Mme Boucher a 25 soutenu sont faux dans la présentation qu'ils ont
1113
1 faite? 2 6589 Mme WATSON: Si on a mal calculé le 3 nombre de semaines qu'ils ont siégé, c'est une 4 différence d'une semaine. Donc ce n'était pas pour 5 vous cacher quelque chose. On a probablement mal 6 calculé. Je n'ai pas fait le calcul moi-même. 7 6590 LE PRÉSIDENT: Je pense aussi qu'il y 8 avait une constatation que la moyenne mensuelle 9 reproduite dans les semaines était de huit à 24 heures 10 par semaine -- ils ont dit que vous avez affirmé qu'au 11 cours des derniers mois le Sénat n'a pas produit sur 12 une base mensuelle un minimum de huit heures par 13 semaine. 14 6591 MS WATSON: I return to what they say 15 the tonnage is and what we say the tonnage is. The 16 fact that the transcript shows there was a 111-hour 17 difference probably would translate over to that claim 18 that we say we get, on average, a lower amount than 19 they seem to think they are sending us. 20 6592 The Senate historically would send 21 between 20 and 30 hours a month prior to September 22 11th. After September 11th the Senate was very active 23 in committee hearings and was giving, for two months in 24 October and November, between 40 and 50 hours a month. 25 6593 We were not able to air those within
1114
1 the same week, because at that same time, due to 9/11, 2 the House was sitting late, and there were many 3 emergency debates. 4 6594 I don't know if any of you recall 5 what the Parliamentary session was like last fall, but 6 on average two to three hours a week the House was 7 sitting until midnight debating C-36 and other bills. 8 6595 So we were not able to get caught up, 9 if you will, with the televising of the Senate 10 Committee hearings until the end of December and over 11 the Christmas period. But in normal times, when the 12 House isn't sitting in emergency debates -- for example 13 tonight the House will be sitting until midnight. 14 6596 So these things all bump everything 15 else, including Senate Committees. There isn't some 16 machiavellian plan, it is all part of what happens when 17 the House sits late. 18 6597 So we do try to catch up. It does 19 get the first priority with respect to catching up. 20 6598 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 21 6599 Two final questions I have and I 22 think counsel has a number of further questions. 23 6600 On the issue of mandatory carriage as 24 distinct from dual status -- your counsel is there, 25 Mr. Stein, and perhaps they would want to address this.
1115
1 6601 I think Mr. Buchan has informed us 2 earlier that in his view there has been adequate notice 3 as to specialty service status. 4 6602 I wonder whether, Mr. Buchan, you 5 feel that there has been adequate notice on the issue 6 of mandatory carriage? 7 6603 MR. BUCHAN: Mr. Chairman, the same 8 Notice of Public Hearing that contained the issues to 9 be discussed flagged specifically the specialty 10 programming service in amending the distribution 11 linkage roles, as I read out earlier. It went on to 12 say: 13 "Any other options and/or 14 methods for according CPAC 15 distribution on a dual status 16 basis should the Commission wish 17 to grant CPAC's request." 18 (As read) 19 6604 It doesn't say "mandatory carriage". 20 6605 We weren't seeking mandatory carriage 21 and I didn't speak to that issue before, but the notice 22 was given that we were looking at specialty service and 23 dual status and any other options, but it does say: 24 "...for according ... 25 distribution on a dual status
1116
1 basis..." (As read) 2 6606 THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. 3 6607 So my discussion with Mr. Mayrand -- 4 and if he wishes -- I'm sure he is in the room -- he 5 can participate. 6 6608 I discussed two options about 7 mandatory carriage. One was via specialty service and 8 the other was via an amendment to section 18(5) of the 9 regulations that would add the public affairs 10 programming service to that provision and thereby grant 11 it mandatory status. 12 6609 We agreed, I think, on those two 13 routes, one of which is implicit in the notice that was 14 given and my question is: Is there adequate notice on 15 proceeding along the second route towards mandatory 16 carriage? 17 6610 MR. BUCHAN: There are three lawyers 18 at the table, Mr. Chairman. I am going to be the 19 senior counsel and ask my partner, Mr. Fortune, to 20 start. 21 6611 MR. STEIN: I hope there is one point 22 of view. 23 --- Laughter / Rires 24 6612 MR. FORTUNE: I think specifically 25 with that section of the regulations, 18(5), that is
1117
1 the section that accords specialty services access to 2 distribution undertakings, certain categories of 3 distribution undertakings. 4 6613 So I guess I would say if one adopts 5 the same approach, the same distribution undertakings, 6 the same section of the regulations where amended, 7 there is really, as far as the affected parties, I 8 would think it is virtually the same thing as granting 9 CPAC a license for a specialty service. It is not 10 quite the same as issuing a mandatory order that would 11 apply, for example, to Class 3 BDUs, just for example. 12 6614 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 13 6615 MR. BUCHAN: C'est tout. 14 6616 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very 15 kindly. 16 6617 Counsel. 17 6618 MR. BENNETT: Thank you. 18 6619 I just have a couple of questions to 19 follow up on. 20 6620 Firstly, I would like to take another 21 crack at the issue of the definition of "public affairs 22 programming". We talked about it earlier, but just to 23 try again. 24 6621 Right now the definition of "public 25 affairs programming" in the regs refers to specific
1118
1 program categories and you have requested approval for 2 additional program categories. 3 6622 In light of the expectation that CPAC 4 is expected to complement the public affairs 5 programming of other Canadian broadcasting services, if 6 the Commission wanted to fence in CPAC's public affairs 7 programming, whether that be through the nature of the 8 service definition or through definitions of the 9 categories particularly for CPAC or some other 10 mechanism, could you comment on what the appropriate 11 fencing in would be? 12 6623 MR. BUCHAN: Could we just take a 13 minute and we will -- 14 --- Pause 15 6624 MS WATSON: Mr. Chairman, while they 16 deliberate, I owed you an answer from earlier this 17 morning and the number is 155 public events over the 18 course of the last 12 months that CPAC carried. 19 6625 THE CHAIRPERSON: This is from 20 across -- 21 6626 MS WATSON: Across Canada. 22 6627 THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you have it 23 broken down? 24 6628 MS WATSON: Yes, I have, and we would 25 be happy -- would you like us to table that?
1119
1 6629 THE CHAIRPERSON: And every province 2 and territory is included? 3 6630 MS WATSON: Yes. 4 6631 THE CHAIRPERSON: What is the lowest 5 of any event in any province or territory? 6 --- Pause 7 6632 MR. FORTUNE: I think that is a 8 poser -- so essentially the question -- 9 6633 MS WATSON: Hang on. 10 6634 MR. FORTUNE: Okay. 11 6635 MS WATSON: Nunavut is 1, Yukon is 2, 12 and then the second one -- P.E.I. is 2, Saskatchewan 13 is 6, Quebec is 15, Ontario is 33, Nova Scotia is 7, 14 Newfoundland is 9, New Brunswick is 4, Manitoba is 4, 15 B.C. is 8, Alberta is 18. 16 6636 THE CHAIRPERSON: I was hoping the 17 B.C. number would be higher. 18 6637 MS WATSON: Me too. 19 --- Laughter / Rires 20 6638 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 21 6639 COMMISSIONER GRAUER: In more than 22 one way it is a long way off. Right? 23 6640 MR. STEIN: I think it depends on the 24 Chairman. 25 6641 MR. FORTUNE: We have just been
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1 discussing and I guess essentially what it boils down 2 to is: What is public affairs? 3 6642 That is obviously a difficult 4 question. It gets into almost the philosophical 5 questions that the Chairman was referring to earlier, 6 but we would like to have an opportunity to reflect on 7 this and perhaps submit what we would perceive to be an 8 appropriate, somewhat expanded nature of service 9 definition for CPAC, if that would be acceptable to the 10 Commission. 11 6643 MS BENNETT: I think that would be 12 fine. Sure. 13 6644 MR. BUCHAN: Counsel, when we submit 14 that, we can also submit -- or we could submit 15 something you requested earlier, which was a definition 16 of "long-form programming". That we have. That is a 17 little easier. 18 6645 MS BENNETT: Okay. Thank you. 19 6646 Another question. I just want to 20 follow up on something you said a little earlier. 21 6647 Can you explain why you include the 22 House of Commons committees as part of CPAC service as 23 opposed to part o the exempt service? Because the 24 exemption order does allow for inclusion of the House 25 of Commons committees.
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1 6648 MS WATSON: It says "some" I believe, 2 and so -- does it say "some parliamentary" and "some 3 hearings"? 4 6649 MS BENNETT: Paragraph (a) says: 5 "...the programming service 6 provided by the undertaking 7 consists of coverage of the 8 proceedings of the House of 9 Commons or of the Legislature by 10 province or territory of Canada, 11 including its various 12 committees." (As read) 13 6650 MS WATSON: Is it attached to the 14 House of Commons or all of the Legislatures? 15 6651 THE CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps one of 16 your three lawyers can give you a copy of the 17 exemption order. 18 6652 MS WATSON: Exactly. No, I guess it 19 was more of a clarification. 20 6653 It is there in writing, but does it 21 attach to the House of Commons or the provincial 22 Legislatures and "its various committees". 23 6654 So I guess we could think that is 24 part of the wrap-around -- not the wrap-around but the 25 exempt portion.
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1 6655 The point I was making is that the 2 Senate Committees are not included in that definition 3 and they are part of the wrap-around. 4 6656 MS BENNETT: So your point was it is 5 the Senate committees that are part of the wrap-around, 6 not the House of Commons committees. 7 6657 MS WATSON: Right. But we would like 8 to be able to give fair and equitable treatment of the 9 committees of both Houses. 10 6658 MR. BUCHAN: Counsel, I think too 11 there is a little bit of history to this. When CPAC 12 first got into the business the House of Commons 13 broadcast service was providing coverage of the House 14 and not at that time of committees. 15 6659 There was discussion about the 16 possibility of doing committees and whether it would be 17 CPAC's cameras that would come in or whether the House 18 of Commons broadcast service would provide committee 19 coverage. It grew over time, but I think that at CPAC 20 the thinking has always been the core was the live 21 proceedings of the House of Commons plus one repeat of 22 Question Period a day. The committees have been 23 considered to be an add-on which have grown in 24 importance. 25 6660 I think you are quite right in terms
1123
1 of you are reading from the exemption order. Right? 2 Is that where you are reading? 3 6661 THE CHAIRPERSON: That's right. 4 6662 MR. BUCHAN: I would take the "and 5 its committees" to be referable back to the House of 6 Commons. 7 6663 MR. FORTUNE: I think this is the 8 bug-bear a bit that we talked about first thing about 9 the exempt versus the licensed portion. So when 10 Ms Watson spoke she referred to the exempt programming. 11 6664 I think in fact what she had in mind 12 was the licence, CPAC's licence, which reads -- there 13 is English and French, there are two licences, as you 14 know: 15 "CPAC to provide via satellite 16 coverage of the proceedings of 17 the House of Commons, as well as 18 public affairs programming." 19 (As read) 20 6665 As you will see, there is no 21 reference to committees. It is: 22 "...coverage of the proceedings 23 of the House of Commons, as well 24 as public affairs programming." 25 (As read)
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1 6666 MS BENNETT: Thank you. 2 6667 One last question and then a 3 follow-up on the filings that you will make a little 4 later. 5 6668 Could you comment on the implications 6 for the service if the Commission were to approve a 7 pass-through portion of half the amount that you have 8 proposed and grant CPAC the mandatory carriage? 9 6669 MR. STEIN: Are you proposing half 10 the rate, but mandatory carriage? Is that what I 11 understand? 12 6670 MS BENNETT: Half the pass-through 13 portion. 14 6671 MR. STEIN: No, because that would 15 not give us the financial numbers to be able to do the 16 proposals -- the activities we laid out in the 17 application. In terms of the actual subscribers it 18 would not make that much difference. The revenues 19 would be reduced according to the rate, not because of 20 the mandatory carriage. 21 6672 MS BENNETT: Okay. 22 6673 Now, just a follow-up on what you are 23 intending to file. 24 6674 I think there was the question of the 25 condition of license -- or the nature of service
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1 reference to long format coverage. 2 6675 I think there was also a question 3 about a possible COL with respect to the proportion of 4 non-parliamentary programming focused on non-editorial 5 long-form gavel-to-gavel coverage. 6 6676 Would you like to follow up with that 7 as well? 8 6677 MR. BUCHAN: Yes. 9 6678 MS BENNETT: Okay. So there are 10 those two specific things, and then you mentioned 11 earlier that you would file an addition to the 12 programming principles related to the inclusion of the 13 Senate programming. 14 6679 Would you be in a position to file 15 something within five calendar days? 16 6680 MR. BUCHAN: Yes. 17 6681 MS BENNETT: Thank you. 18 6682 Those are all my questions. 19 6683 THE CHAIRPERSON: Commissioner Wylie. 20 6684 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: You were asked 21 by counsel whether half of the fee, or whatever level 22 of the fee and mandatory carriage. What if I were to 23 ask you what if you had a certain portion of the fee 24 only, carriage as you want, but limited to Category 3, 25 as you are today?
1126
1 6685 In other words, wrap-around, but the 2 wrap-around we now have and a lower fee and carriage in 3 whatever way we find to give you the assurances you 4 want, but not to raise all these issues of fencing and 5 morphing and 5 per cent of this and 5 per cent of that. 6 If you were limited to reporting and actualities, but 7 with the recognition that a fee is in order and assured 8 carriage? 9 6686 MS WATSON: Madam Vice-Chair, the 10 most expensive thing we do as CPAC is long-form 11 programming. So what it would do is would be to reduce 12 the British Columbia long-form coverage to four, in 13 Alberta to four and New Brunswick to one, because 14 without budget to travel to those cities to do that, 15 that is what we can't do. 16 6687 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: When you answer 17 this, do you mean that is related to whether you can do 18 Category 3 or not, or relating to the amount of the 19 fee? I was suggesting a fee that somehow would be 20 arrived at to cover an improvement in Category 3. What 21 would hold you to Category 3? 22 6688 I may have misunderstood when you say 23 long-form programming is expensive. 24 --- Pause 25 6689 MS WATSON: I guess what I thought
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1 you were implying was that those that are not Category 2 3 are the expensive pieces of our application. 3 6690 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: And does that 4 raise concern? 5 6691 MS WATSON: Raise the procedural 6 error? 7 6692 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Well, not only 8 procedural error. Not necessarily was this public 9 notice sufficient notice, but is the entire process 10 inside the broadcasting system, as it has developed in 11 the last while -- does that raise a problem? 12 6693 Commissioner Langford talked of 13 morphing. There are other people who say we may want 14 to do this type of programming. 15 6694 If you read these other categories, 16 they can be scary to those who have that concern. 17 6695 Maybe you can also, if counsel 18 agrees, give us some idea -- and we will have to look 19 at all options -- of what would happen if we accepted 20 the need for a fee, we accepted the usefulness of the 21 wrap-around and therefore of some type of guaranteed 22 status but held you to reporting in actualities in 23 section 3. 24 6696 You may not want to answer that right 25 away, but it will be something that we may look at. So
1128
1 you may want to address what would be a reasonable 2 level of fee under that situation. 3 6697 Perhaps we can ask you when you 4 redefine your nature of service, fencing it in, that 5 you do it -- you have done it using categories and 6 fencing with the 5 per cent per semester in some 7 categories, but whether you would also try to define 8 public affairs without reference to these categories. 9 Do it both ways. 10 6698 MS WATSON: I will make one statement 11 and then defer to counsel on your other comments. 12 6699 What I would like to get across is 13 that, by and large, for the last seven years the 14 content hasn't changed that much. In 1995 CPAC was 15 doing phone-ins, and in 2002 CPAC is doing phone-ins. 16 6700 We, I guess limited to Category 3, 17 would not have allowed the Innu Healing Foundation come 18 on last night and give its perspective on whatever the 19 issue isn't. 20 6701 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: Maybe you 21 shouldn't have. 22 6702 MS WATSON: We feel that it falls 23 right within the six programming principles under which 24 we operate, and that is to provide a balance and 25 diversity of points of view and create a platform for
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1 other voices. They don't get on other channels. 2 6703 What happened is the definition of 3 programming categories changed after our licence was 4 issued. What we are trying to do is get with the times 5 of the changes that were incorporated after our licence 6 was issued. 7 6704 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: We have to 8 explore all options and give you an opportunity to 9 respond to all options. 10 6705 I think those questions are some that 11 you should respond to: What would happen if you were 12 kept to Category 3 type of programming? What fee would 13 be necessary, then, to maintain this as a viable 14 service? 15 6706 And define your nature of service by 16 reference to the categories, public affairs, or without 17 reference to the categories; to have two ways of doing 18 it. 19 6707 There are concerns raised, obviously, 20 about this expansion. 21 6708 And nature of service, if my 22 recollection is correct, is defined often by other than 23 categories of service. It is used by points of 24 references as guideposts, but you could attempt perhaps 25 to define public affairs without those references,
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1 which you yourself have to limit to 5 per cent. 2 6709 If you look at 5(b) you are 3 experienced enough that I don't have to point out to 4 you all the things that can fall under 5(b). And even 5 under 2(b) and under 5(b), where there is a limitation. 6 Nevertheless, it is difficult to fence in. 7 6710 Perhaps that would help us. I will 8 leave it to counsel. 9 6711 MS WATSON: Is this a document 10 required in five calendar days? 11 6712 MS BENNETT: Is that a possibility? 12 6713 MR. BUCHAN: I think it is always 13 possible. 14 6714 MS BENNETT: Is it reasonable? 15 6715 MR. BUCHAN: Just to clarify for the 16 people in the room that don't live in these programming 17 categories, we are basically talking no documentaries 18 and no analysis, really. 19 6716 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: No. We are 20 asking you, if I follow counsel, to define a public 21 affairs wrap-around program. If I look at your 22 arguments, I think I could easily extract paragraphs 23 that lead me to believe that is basically the core of 24 what you want the wrap-around to be and why it is in 25 the public interest.
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1 6717 How do you fence that in or define 2 it, by reference to categories or perhaps without 3 reference to categories, as well? The categories open 4 all kinds of -- even with my little experience, I can 5 find cooking shows, travel shows, gardening shows, 6 hobby shows, sports. 7 6718 MS WATSON: Some sort of assurance 8 that we won't be doing hobby/travel shows. 9 6719 COMMISSIONER WYLIE: No. Assurance 10 that you will be doing a public affairs wrap-around. 11 6720 MS WATSON: Exactly. 12 6721 THE CHAIRPERSON: You might actually 13 try both. Try a definition and nature of service and 14 then perhaps suggest ways in which, by condition of 15 licence or otherwise, you might narrow the descriptions 16 in the categories to fence in your public affairs 17 mandate. 18 6722 MR. STEIN: We will do that. 19 6723 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very 20 much. It has been very informative. 21 6724 Counsel, do you have a further 22 question? 23 6725 MS BENNETT: I should clarify for the 24 record that CPAC will file these things within five 25 calendar days, and intervenors will have three days to
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1 provide their comments. 2 6726 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very 3 much. 4 6727 MR. STEIN: Thank you for your time. 5 6728 THE CHAIRPERSON: We will take a 6 brief break of five minutes. We will come back at 5:05 7 with the next hearing. 8 6729 That closes this hearing, actually. 9 6730 MR. LEBEL: Mr. Chairman -- 10 6731 THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm sorry, I always 11 forget this. 12 6732 Go ahead, Mr. Secretary. 13 6733 MR. LEBEL: Just before you pull the 14 plug, sir, I would like to indicate that there are 21 15 non-appearing applications on the agenda of this public 16 hearing. Interventions were received on some of these 17 applications. 18 6734 The interventions, along with the 19 application, will be considered by the Commission, and 20 decisions will be rendered at a later date. 21 6735 Now this, Mr. Chairman, completes the 22 agenda of this public hearing. Thank you. 23 6736 THE CHAIRPERSON: This hearing is 24 adjourned. 25 6737 We will reconvene with another
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1 hearing at 5:05. 2 --- Whereupon the hearing concluded at 1700 / 3 L'audience se termine à 1700
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