ARCHIVÉ -  Transcription

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE

             THE CANADIAN RADIO‑TELEVISION AND

               TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

 

 

 

 

             TRANSCRIPTION DES AUDIENCES DEVANT

              LE CONSEIL DE LA RADIODIFFUSION

           ET DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS CANADIENNES

 

 

                       SUBJECT/SUJET:

 

 

 

DIVERSITY OF VOICES PROCEEDING /

AUDIENCE SUR LA DIVERSITÉ DES VOIX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HELD AT:                              TENUE À:

 

Conference Centre                     Centre de conférences

Outaouais Room                        Salle Outaouais

Portage IV                            Portage IV

140 Promenade du Portage              140, promenade du Portage

Gatineau, Quebec                      Gatineau (Québec)

 

September 19, 2007                    Le 19 septembre 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

DIVERSITY OF VOICES PROCEEDING /

AUDIENCE SUR LA DIVERSITÉ DES VOIX

 

 

 

 

 

BEFORE / DEVANT:

 

Konrad von Finckenstein           Chairperson / Président

Michel Arpin                      Commissioner / Conseiller Rita Cugini                                  Commissioner / Conseillère

Andrée Noël                       Commissioner / Conseillère

Ronald Williams                   Commissioner / Conseiller

Stuart Langford                   Commissioner / Conseiller

Michel Morin                      Commissioner / Conseiller

 

 

 

ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:

 

Chantal Boulet                    Secretary / Secrétaire

Nick Ketchum                      Hearing Manager /

                                  Gérant de l'audience

Shari Fisher                      Legal Counsel /

Bernard Montigny                  Conseillers juridiques

 

 

 

 

 

 

HELD AT:                          TENUE À:

 

Conference Centre                 Centre de conférences

Outaouais Room                    Salle Outaouais

Portage IV                        Portage IV

140 Promenade du Portage          140, promenade du Portage

Gatineau, Quebec                  Gatineau (Québec)

 

September 19, 2007                Le 19 septembre 2007

 

- iv -

 

           TABLE DES MATIÈRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

                                                 PAGE / PARA

 

INTERVENTION BY / INTERVENTION PAR:

 

Canadian Conference of the Arts                   559 / 3154

 

Communications, Energy and Paperworkers           591 / 3370

  Union of Canada

 

Fédération nationale des communications           636 / 3607

 

Conseil provincial du secteur des communications  644 / 3652

  du Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique

 

Canadian Media Guild                              708 / 4000

 

Canadian Association of Journalists               718 / 4038

 

Fédération professionnelle des journalistes       748 / 4210

  du Québec

 

Conseil de presse du Québec                       778 / 4383

 

Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information        818 / 4660

  du Journal de Montréal

 

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council              838 / 4768

 

Canadian Film and Television Production           868 / 4902

  Association

 

 

 

                 Gatineau, Quebec / Gatineau (Québec)

‑‑‑ Upon resuming on Wednesday, September 19, 2007

    at 0830 / L'audience reprend le mercredi

    19 septembre 2007 à 0830

LISTNUM 1 \l 1 \s 31463146             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Madame Boulet, I think we are ready.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13147             LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci, Monsieur le Président.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13148             Bonjour, tout le monde.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13149             Avant de débuter, j'aimerais vous aviser que, pour les fins du dossier, Quebecor Média Inc. a déposé un tableau, auquel ils ont référé dans leur présentation hier, qui démontre l'évolution de la télévision canadienne de langue française et la croissance de la diversité des voix.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13150             Ce document sera versé au dossier public et est disponible dans la salle d'examen.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13151             We will now proceed with our next intervenor, the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13152             M. Alain Pineau will be making the presentation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13153             Monsieur Pineau, you have 10 minutes for your presentation.  Please go ahead.  Thank you.

INTERVENTION

LISTNUM 1 \l 13154             M. PINEAU : Bonjour...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13155             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  Could you press that button, the red ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13156             MR. PINEAU:  Sorry.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13157             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  This is the only legal red light district in this area.

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

LISTNUM 1 \l 13158             MR. PINEAU:  Thank you for reminding me.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13159             Good morning, Mr. President and mesdames et messieurs les commissaires.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13160             Comme on vous l'a dit, je suis Alain Pineau, directeur général de la Conférence canadienne des Arts.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13161             The Canadian Conference of the Arts is a non partisan organization founded more than 60 years ago and it is Canada's largest arts umbrella organization dedicated to cultural development ‑‑ cultural police development, sorry.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13162             We come here with a fairly unique perspective in the sense that although I speak on behalf of our members, I don't speak on behalf of any form of self‑interest because that is not the kind of organization we are.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13163             We have written to you in the spring to recommend this hearing, so we are pleased to have the chance to appear before this panel.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13164             Over the past two years we have been following quite closely and intervening frequently in the numerous important reviews the Commission has been conducting on issues crucial to the pursuit of the objectives of the Broadcasting Act:  Commercial Radio Policy review; impact of new technologies on traditional broadcasting; Over‑the‑Air TV Policy review; Canadian Television Fund; major consolidation files in the audiovisual sector; et cetera.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13165             We who keep insisting on the importance of fair, open and transparent processes on cultural policy reviews could only be happy to hear on Monday that the Commission will be holding a public hearing on the CTF.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13166             Of course, we are also happy to see the release last Friday of the 330+ pages of the Dunbar‑Leblanc report.  The deadline for comments on that and Public Notice CRTC 2007‑10, to which it is related, is October the 9th.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13167             We are still waiting with anticipation for the release of the latest hundred of pages of CanWest documents for which comments are due on October the 10th.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13168             With respect, Mr. Chairman, we do not understand the rationale for this latest deadline of October the 5th about matters you will set out at the end of the current hearing on Friday.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13169             You are, as guardian of the cultural objectives of the Act, dealing with many different parties, all of whom have important interests in our broadcasting system.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13170             Organizations like ours are doing our best to keep up with the load but we are non‑profit charities preoccupied, like you, with the public good.  We are not the people you license and regulate, nor the people who work for them, and we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on lawyers and consultants.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13171             While we welcome and expect openness and transparency, we submit that fairness should also be applied in the processes this Commission sets in motion.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13172             In our view, scheduling three major CRTC deadlines over six days in October after a full week of hearing here and what we have been all dealing with through the summer places onerous demands on the Canadian public and on public interest not‑for‑profit groups like the CCA.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13173             These overlapping deadlines place the Canadian public at a clear disadvantage we submit to you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13174             We are, therefore, asking now informally that you postpone at least one of these, namely, the Dunbar‑Leblanc 2007‑10 comments.  After all, the hearing to consider those matters will not take place until the end of January.  We would suggest that if meaningful public debate on this most important issue is what we want, a more reasonable deadline would be something like mid to late October.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13175             Can I go on with now the presentation?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13176             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Absolutely.  Why don't you finish your whole presentation ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13177             MR. PINEAU:  Okay.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13178             THE CHAIRPERSON:  ‑‑ and we will comment and question on the entirety then.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13179             MR. PINEAU:  Thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13180             I am now going to move over to the issue of how we can assess the impact of concentration of ownership, which is the gist of the current hearing.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13181             I will concentrate on two broad issues this morning.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13182             First, what hard evidence do we have to assess the real effects that concentrated ownership has already had on the content we see and hear in our country.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13183             Second, I would like to say a few words about the Australian point system which appears to be gaining currency in some circles.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13184             First, let me say that we are impressed that over 2,000 Canadians took the time to write to you to explain their reasons for opposing more concentrated media ownership in Canada because, like you, they appreciate the economic, cultural and democratic significance of the media in our society.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13185             This is a testimony to the faith they put in your mandate and we know that their views would be considered.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13186             Over and over again in the recent hearings and in the previous 25 years, you have heard from broadcasters and BDUs alike that less regulation is what is required to ensure the vitality of their sector.  They also argue that they must be allowed to grow stronger and make more money to confront change, to compete nationally, internationally and so on.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13187             Ironically, these very same people run to the barricades when there is a mention of maybe deregulating simultaneous substitution or territorial exclusivity for cable.  Obviously, not all regulations are equally bad or burdensome.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13188             On the telecommunication side of your activities, the government has made clear it desires to see less regulation and to let market forces prevail.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13189             As far as we know, and maybe we are wrong, no such direction has been issued to you by the Heritage Minister about your stewardship of the cultural objectives of the Broadcasting Act.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13190             In fact, the expression of Canadian cultural identity as specified in the Broadcasting Act, in our opinion, would never have occurred and will never take place without strictly enforced regulation for the public good, just as Canada as a country would not have come to exist without political will and a very large dose of regulation in a variety of sectors of activity.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13191             In broadcasting we have heard calls for concentration of ownership for the past two decades, as I was saying earlier, under the thesis that only then could cultural businesses reach the critical mass necessary to produce quality Canadian programming Canadians would like to see in a variety of genres.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13192             We are not lacking talent.  Everything that is going on south of the border with our own talent is a proof to that and this has been evoked many times here.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13193             At acquisition hearings and at licence renewal time, promises have been heaped upon promises that we would see the wonderful results for great Canadian programming of allowing takeovers and deregulations.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13194             What exactly are those results we are talking about?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13195             How much new original drama has our system produced each year?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13196             How much new original programming overall has our system aired, not just in TV but in radio too?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13197             How many new full‑time jobs have these new original hours helped to create and where are the jobs located?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13198             Since the CRTC obtains data from broadcasters that would answer these questions, it would have been useful if Canadians had obtained that kind of information in the notice of this hearing, I would submit.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13199             As citizens, all members of the CCA share the concerns relative to the plurality of voices and opinions in news and current affairs but we will leave these concerns for others to debate here.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13200             What we will address is as conglomerates get larger, how are we to measure the impact, positive or negative, on the cultural objectives of the Act?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13201             Where is the hard evidence that our BDUs are in jeopardy if they are not allowed to grow bigger?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13202             Where is the hard evidence of how larger broadcasting groups have so far generated more original Canadian content?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13203             Where is the hard evidence to show that sharing resources in larger ownership groups had led to a larger and stronger sector of employment for Canadian men and women?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13204             In other words, who will show us the public benefit of all this need for ever‑bigger players in the field?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13205             What we do know seems pretty grim.  To take but one example, in 2006 our broadcasters spent more than $478 million acquiring foreign, i.e. mainly American, drama shows.  This is almost seven times more than they spent on Canadian drama in the same year.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13206             Just 10 years ago in 1996, foreign drama spending was only four times higher than spending on Canadian drama.  What has concentration of ownership done for us and what does it promise to do in this field?  The track record doesn't seem to be very good.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13207             So when originating broadcasters and BDUs, who increasingly are one and the same, say they need to be bigger to be more competitive, are they talking about competition to create Canadian dramas or to buy U.S. products?  Are they talking about competition to better serve Canadians with Canadian programming or to ensure profitability?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13208             I think these are fair questions and I don't see many answers to them.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13209             We had hoped to hear more from them, from broadcasters, this week than the same old line about how they need to grow larger to compete but what we have heard looks more like creative writing than solid empirical analysis.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13210             Basically, all we have heard is that having fewer ownership groups is better than having more because ‑‑ well, because it is more profitable to own more than to own less.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13211             We submit that one needs more than this kind of unsubstantiated self‑interested opinion to decide whether more concentrated ownership will serve Parliament's goals for our broadcasting system, and since the Act's goals are easy to quantify, that should be the real measure of whether regulation is working or not, not just our unsubstantiated opinion or anybody else's for that matter.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13212             Right now, only two groups have data to answer the questions we raise today and in our brief:  the CRTC and the broadcasters.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13213             Lack of quantitative information places the Canadian public at a clear disadvantage and lack of transparency, I would suggest.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13214             In that vein, another very important issue that we would like to address is the reporting of financials by ownership groups.  Aggregated disclosure is a good first step in principle but it will not help analyze the impact of changes in ownership over time on programming quantity, quality and content.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13215             We have heard private broadcasters' opinions that they will be harmed if their financials are disclosed.  Well, exactly where is the specific, demonstrable and proven harm in releasing historical financial data about individual stations?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13216             We certainly don't want to know how much CTV pays Lloyd Robertson but Canadians are entitled to know how much CTV, UTV and other programming services spent on non‑news content if it wants to have its licence renewed on existing terms.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13217             Now, I would like to turn a few remarks ‑‑ and I am done ‑‑ to the Australian point system, if I may.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13218             Over the past two days there has been some discussion about whether Canada should adopt the Australian point system as a way of regulating media concentration and cross‑media ownership.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13219             Frankly, Mr. Chairman, here again, we believe there is need for objective peer‑reviewed research on this issue before we adopt such a model.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13220             We have had neither the time nor the resources to evaluate the Australian model.  However, we would offer one cautionary note in the preliminary work that we are doing in that field.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13221             Canadian newspaper reports have discussed the Australian model as one which prevents media concentration.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13222             Our own colleagues in Australia have told us in recent days that they are seriously concerned that the model adopted last year is actually encouraging greater concentration of ownership and reducing the diversity of voices in Australia.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13223             They point out that the number of media voices, i.e., major newspapers, more television outlets and major radio stations, in a city media market needs to be only five and in regions only four.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13224             Yet, when the new media ownership laws were enacted, there were 13 major media owners in Sydney and 11 major media owners in Melbourne.  It appears the rules touched off a flurry of corporate jockeying, the latest of which was CanWest Global acquiring majority ownership in Channel 10, according to the information we have.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13225             As a conclusion, although we would prefer a strong regulatory approach that mandates expenditures on and exhibition of Canadian content and enforces that regulation, the alternative that we have supported in the past and still support today is for competitive licence renewals and transfers on the theory that those who really want to obtain or keep their licences will really make the strongest commitment to attractive Canadian content, which is the purpose of the Act and the purpose of licensing.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13226             If you are looking for real incentive for licensees, we can't think of a better one than that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13227             In closing, I want to assure you that the CCA will be very pleased to support an outcome from this hearing that strengthens openness, accountability, fairness, public service, and first and foremost, the realization of Parliament's objectives for our broadcasting system.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13228             Je vous remercie beaucoup de votre attention, et je suis prêt à répondre à vos questions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13229             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much for your very helpful contribution.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13230             Let me just comment on a few things that you raised, the issue of deadlines and the necessity for you and other organizations to have sufficient time to do it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13231             I cannot give you an answer off the bench, so to speak, here but I hear what you have just said, that those three deadlines on those three major hearings are more or less in the same time frame and your plea for having more time on Dunbar‑Leblanc.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13232             We will look at that at the Commission and make a decision.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13233             MR. PINEAU:  Thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13234             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Your point registered, let us put it that way.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13235             MR. PINEAU:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13236             THE CHAIRPERSON:  The second one, you said you are not aware of any direction re market forces like we have in telecom, that we should only regulate in the case of market failure.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13237             You are absolutely right, we have no such direction and you have probably seen my own speeches on that subject.  I have always said since the goals of the Broadcasting Act are primarily social and cultural, we will always have regulation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13238             The goal is while we regulate, to the extent that it is possible, let us unleash market forces so as to create value, innovation, et cetera, but not at the expense of Canadian content or access to the system.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13239             That is the balance we are trying to strike and I think that that is perfectly consistent with what the Broadcasting Act says.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13240             Thirdly, the Australian system, you mentioned the unintended consequences, that in effect a law that was enacted in order to ensure plurality of voices seems to have stirred a merger wave because those who are above the minimum threshold say, oh! we can merge and have no problem.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13241             That is exactly one of the issues that we confront and we have very clearly in mind during this hearing.  We don't want to adopt a rule which has an unintended consequence and, as in Australia seems to suggest, counter to what actually was intended.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13242             Lastly, you said there is no evidence that large players means more Canadian content or more Canadian production.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13243             I take it from that you don't accept the argument that we have had from the various broadcasters and BDUs before us who say:  We can undertake as part of a condition of licence much larger commitments if we are large and healthy organizations.  If we are small or independent, then those commitments are smaller and you impose them, CRTC, so you know yourself what we can bear and what we cannot bear.  And in effect, there is a correlation between the amount of Canadian production, Canadian content and the size and health of our companies.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13244             MR. PINEAU:  Well, I guess the position we are taking is that they are saying that again.  Let us look at what they have been saying over the past 20 years and see what it has produced, and the results, as I said, are not very convincing.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13245             Why would we believe more?  I mean how come there is less drama?  After 10 years of incentives and 10 years of a form of deregulation and so on and so forth, where are we at in practical terms in Canadian content and in local content?  Maybe those objectives or those targets need to be looked at but where is the evidence, how do we know?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13246             In all honesty, we have wanted over the past year to do that sort of studies but we can't access the basic data to come to you and say, yes, there is a trend, yes, there is an impact and it has led to this and to that.  The only thing I have to listen to is, you know, oh, bigger is better because we promise we will do this.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13247             I mean, honest to God, we have a document about this thick that goes back to the 1960s about all the promises that have been made on Canadian content.  I can provide that to you if you want.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13248             It is just a long, long, long sequence of oh! well, yeah, this is coming.  And now we talk about "Corner Gas."  Yeah, "Corner Gas" is good and maybe another program is good also but where are we at in terms ‑‑ what do we watch ‑‑ well no, not what do we watch, that is not the question.  What is offered to us?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13249             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Right.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13250             MR. PINEAU:  What is offered to us?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13251             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  If you have that document, I would appreciate it if you would file it with us by October 5.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13252             My colleague Rita Cugini has some questions for you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13253             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13254             Good morning, Mr. Pineau.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13255             You state in your written submission:

"We believe, like many others, that highly concentrated media ownership structures limit the diversity of programming content to which Canadians are entitled by law." (As read)

LISTNUM 1 \l 13256             You mentioned in your opening statement the words "hard evidence" quite often.  So I am going to ask you:  What hard evidence do you have?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13257             MR. PINEAU:  I don't have hard evidence to that effect, but I have some arguments and things to point to in terms of what would provide the answer.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13258             I want to go back to the Chair's question earlier.  We are not saying that concentration of ownership is a bad thing in itself.  We are not against concentration of ownership because the realities of this country, in any case, and the realities of audiovisual business is that you have to have the critical mass to do it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13259             But the thing is that it seems that this is the unattainable dream because in quantity ‑‑ well, quality is more difficult to assess but certainly in quantity, we have not seen any kind of increase on choices and everything in terms of what is being offered.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13260             There are pluses and minuses to this concentration of ownership.  I mean producers or people would argue maybe that it is much better if you go to three or four places to get ‑‑ rather than run after 17 different places to try and place your material because people have got to have the critical mass but then you are in the hands of two or three who decide.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13261             If there is one‑stop shopping, you were turned down and that is it, you have no other access for funding anywhere.  So the smaller the number of broadcasters who will commit to programming, through licence fees and everything, and develop a project and hire independent producers, the smaller the choice that you have.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13262             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Were you here Monday morning when the CAB ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13263             MR. PINEAU:  No.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13264             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  ‑‑ appeared before us?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13265             MR. PINEAU:  No.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13266             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  They said that Canadians on a per capita basis have more indigenous services than even the United States.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13267             MR. PINEAU:  That may well be the case.  What is being carried by those services is what we want to know.  I mean the fact that you have a station that is identifiable per capita more than the U.S. doesn't mean anything about what it is that you are putting on that station.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13268             That is the question and that is where we need to have station program logs and that sort of thing to do the analysis, to answer the questions that you are asking of me today because I cannot answer that question at this moment in precise and convincing terms.  I can only tell you that this is what we need to know before we start believing that, you know, oh, we have a great diversity of voices.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13269             I mean the number of repetitors of the CBC doesn't mean that we have 1,000 Canadian broadcasters.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13270             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  No, but it is also in the interest of those broadcasters to differentiate the services one from the other in order to attract the largest possible audience.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13271             MR. PINEAU:  Well, yes.  And you know what, I subscribe to ExpressVu.  I have subscribed to ExpressVu for the past 10 years.  I have seen the 500‑channel universe come to me.  I scroll it night after night and I see the same titles and the same titles and the same titles from the different zones and from the U.S. and from the various stations of Global and various stations of CTV and so on and so forth.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13272             Where do they distinguish themselves is certainly not in terms of programming.  It is supposed to be local programming and where is that beyond the news and what is the state of the news?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13273             I will leave that to my specialist colleagues and members from the journalistic side of the equation to talk to you about that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13274             But where do they distinguish themselves?  Through commercials that they don't run because they are not U.S.  But otherwise, it should be through programming.  Let us see what programming they do and I can't tell you that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13275             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Is that what is behind one of the specific recommendations that you make and that is:

"That Canadians be provided with different sources of original news, information and entertainment programming rather than the repurposing of existing programming on different programming services." (As read)

LISTNUM 1 \l 13276             MR. PINEAU:  Well, there is that too.  I mean I have been partly in the business of broadcasting and I know that repurposing ‑‑ and I am now in the business of communications with the job I have and repurposing everything that we do is a great thing and it does leverage the possibilities.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13277             There is a point though beyond which there is no more diversity.  It is always the same thing that you read in the paper, you hear on the radio, you read in your magazine and you see on your TV set because it is all owned by the same people who have introduced great synergies and have melded together their newsrooms and their reporting staff and their analysts and everything and it is the same opinion all over the place.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13278             So the multitude of outlets doesn't provide the multitude of diversity of views and I think that is what we were saying.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13279             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  But your recommendation is quite specific, so I am wondering if you have any suggestions as to how exactly we would do this.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13280             MR. PINEAU:  Well, could I take that under ‑‑ and table the answer with you because I ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13281             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Absolutely.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13282             MR. PINEAU:  ‑‑ would rather not improvise on this one.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13283             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Absolutely.  I think October 5th is the ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13284             MR. PINEAU:  Good!  Yes, we will.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13285             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Just one more deadline for you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13286             MR. PINEAU:  Yes.  Oh, it is the same as the other.

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

LISTNUM 1 \l 13287             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  You also recommend:

"That the CRTC maximize the strengths and efficiencies of competitive marketplace theory by allowing new parties to apply for existing licences at the time of renewal or transfer." (As read)

LISTNUM 1 \l 13288             And you did speak briefly about that this morning.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13289             MR. PINEAU:  Yes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13290             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  But, as we know, transfers of ownership can be quite disruptive not only to the parties that are involved but to the system in general.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13291             So is your recommendation not just causing more disruption within the broadcasting system?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13292             MR. PINEAU:  Okay.  Can I address that also in our written comments because I think it is a fair question?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13293             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Okay, thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13294             And just one more point.  You talk about the availability of information.  You do know that we, of course, publish on our website ownership charts for all of the broadcasters that we license.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13295             I am going to go through a little bit of a list and the risk is always that I will leave somebody off the list, so I apologize now if I have left anybody off.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13296             But certainly in terms of Canadian programming, the CTF, the CFTPA, the Guilds, we publish a broadcasting monitoring report.  I believe Canadian Heritage also publishes a report.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13297             Do you not have access to this information because I do believe they are all available on their websites?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13298             MR. PINEAU:  Yes, but the information that we are requesting to do the kind of analysis that we want to do, I believe, is not accessible.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13299             I will also take this under consideration, if I may, and I will reply to that in writing as well ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13300             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Absolutely.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13301             MR. PINEAU:  ‑‑ if what it is that you have quoted on your list is not what we are after ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13302             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Okay.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13303             MR. PINEAU:  ‑‑ because, I am sorry, I don't have all the answers.  I don't have many resources but I can go to that level of detail in all files.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13304             COMMISSIONER CUGINI:  Okay, thank you very much.  I appreciate that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13305             Mr. Chairman, those are my questions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13306             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Michel, you had a question?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13307             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  Well, a question following up on Mrs. Cugini's question regarding availability of financial information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13308             Obviously, most of the players that we are talking here are publicly traded companies.  They are releasing segmented information that you can find in their annual report and even in their annual notice.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13309             I heard you mentioning that ‑‑ you gave the example of a broadcaster where his foreign drama investments were four times his Canadian investment 10 years ago and now it is 400 times what ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13310             MR. PINEAU:  That is the system, it is not one ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13311             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  That is the system.  You got that information from somewhere.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13312             MR. PINEAU:  Yes, absolutely, but that is not the level of information we are looking for.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13313             I think also, if I may, I will reply to your question in writing about the problem that our request or our suggestions could create for private broadcasters.  We believe that this is a red herring but I have to set out the arguments, line them up for you to consider.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13314             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13315             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13316             Stuart.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13317             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13318             I am obviously not going to fall into the trap of any detail questions here because I am just giving you more workload ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13319             MR. PINEAU:  Thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13320             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  ‑‑ but I would like to go back to something very basic, very fundamental.  What triggered this line of inquiry in my mind was not only your written submission and what you said, but particularly your barely controlled outrage over the growing gap between the spending on foreign, i.e., American drama programming, and Canadian programming.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13321             I guess the fundamental question underlying that, as far as I am concerned, is:  Do you accept what seems to be the first principle of conventional Canadian television operations, that is ‑‑ and this is the one they quote to us all the time, and have since, I don't know, when there were wooden wheels on cars, I suppose.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13322             That principle is that they require American programming in order to survive, in order to have Canadian programming of any sort.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13323             Do you accept that first principle that they quote?  Or, in fact, is that questionable as well?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13324             MR. PINEAU:  I think this is a very interesting question that you are raising.  It is very fundamental and, as such, it is very difficult ‑‑ it is just as difficult as various specific issues that were raised before were for me.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13325             I would agree with you that it is questionable.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13326             I have worked for 34 years ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13327             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  Excuse me.  I didn't say it was questionable.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13328             I rarely interrupt, but I didn't say it was questionable.  I just wondered whether you found it questionable.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13329             MR. PINEAU:  Okay.  Well, yes, I find it is questionable, in the real academic sense of the question.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13330             It is interesting to look at this issue, because, as I said, I worked for 34 years at the CBC and I heard this argument over and over again in the days when the CBC was broadcasting American programming, and then they slowly got weaned out of that and left the field and everything.  But it was the argument.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13331             To the best of my knowledge, the money for the CBC was not made up by an increase in contributions from government, because those were times of major cuts to the CBC budget.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13332             It's not a study, but it seems to, at least, ask the question:  How useful is American programming to raise money.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13333             The other question is, yes, but if the price of getting that American programming has grown exponentially, as it seems to have ‑‑ maybe parity with the Canadian dollar will help that for a bit, but where is the increase in funding for Canadian ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13334             If you look at the progression of the two, it's a nice "V".  It's a big split.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13335             Okay, they generate a lot of money by selling American products, but what does it yield at the end of the day, if that is the argument, that they need that to finance ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13336             That's why, in a sense, we need to know where is the programming money going ‑‑ at least looking at the programs that they put on the air.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13337             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  If you look at the CBC model, which you brought up, Mr. Stursberg told us on Day 1, right in this room, that he needs to run hockey, which, granted, I suppose, is arguably a Canadian program.  It is questionable, in my view, but when one looks at the number ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13338             Mrs. "Cuchini", as she is now known, is looking at me with a rather librarian‑like stare.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13339             It is questionable whether it's a Canadian program or not, but we can leave that to others to decide.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13340             It has a Canadian history, unarguably.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13341             But Mr. Stursberg tells us that he needs hockey.  He needs money to make money ‑‑ quote/unquote.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13342             Apparently, they also need American movies to make money, because they show quite a few of those.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13343             Whether they are making money on their Canadian content, I don't know.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13344             Whether commercial conventional broadcasters are making money on their Canadian content, I tend to doubt.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13345             Whether they are making money at all is another question, because the second principle that they bring to us is that they are barely surviving in this world of fragmentation and whatever.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13346             MR. PINEAU:  Yes.  That's why you need this sort of table to work from.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13347             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  We can question their spending habits.  We can look at their real estate leases.  We can look at the cars they rent and drive.  That is an issue for auditors, not for regulators.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13348             But if they are barely surviving, if their audiences are fragmenting, if the cost of American programming is going up, and if they need American programming in order to fund Canadian programming, where do we go with that kind of reality?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13349             MR. PINEAU:  That is the kind of question, honestly, that we are asking ourselves, and if I had the wherewithal I would organize that sort of debate, because that is my mandate, quite frankly.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13350             I can only answer in fragments such a broad question, because it is fundamental.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13351             If I may say so, yes, it is a pity that this debate is not taking place.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13352             We have the odd debate ‑‑ due to political circumstances and Hansard, we have a debate in front of the parliamentary committee that lasts longer or shorter, that is, more or less, productive on a number of issues, but these fundamental questions that you are asking, I would say, are for this forum, with the appropriate information provided by you and by partners to these fundamental questions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13353             I cannot answer that intelligently just like that, today, but it is a very important question.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13354             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  At least we have a question.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13355             Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13356             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Just to follow up on that, I presume that your Recommendation 10 is exactly addressing that.  You want us to undertake research with an independent outfit into ownership and to quantify the advantage and disadvantage of increasing consolidated ownership.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13357             MR. PINEAU:  It is our recommendation that this would be very useful for public debate, yes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13358             THE CHAIRPERSON:  It is not in order to shame anybody into anything, but, rather, in order to have objective data on which to make policy decisions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13359             MR. PINEAU:  Yes.  Absolutely.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13360             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13361             MR. PINEAU:  You are most welcome.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13362             THE CHAIRPERSON:  We look forward to your written submissions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13363             MR. PINEAU:  Thank you very much.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13364             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Madam Boulet, who is next?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13365             THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13366             We will now proceed to the next intervenor, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.  I would ask them to come forward for their presentation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13367             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mr. Murdoch, we meet again.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13368             Last time I said, "I will see you at the Diversity of Voices Hearing," and, sure enough, here you are.

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

LISTNUM 1 \l 13369             THE SECRETARY:  Mr. Murdoch, when you are ready, you can introduce your colleague.  You will then have ten minutes for your presentation.

INTERVENTION

LISTNUM 1 \l 13370             MR. MURDOCH:  Thank you, Commissioners.  My name is Peter Murdoch.  I am Vice President of Media for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.  We are Canada's largest media union, representing about 25,000 members in all forms of the media, including broadcasting, newspapers and film and television production.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13371             Beside me is Monica Auer, our counsel for these hearings.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13372             I, too, would like to thank you for having these hearings.  As you know, we pressed very hard for you to do this, and we appreciate that we are here.  We might have liked it a little earlier, before some of the major acquisitions; however, we do appreciate being here.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13373             I also want to point out that we represent, literally, thousands of members who work for broadcasters, and certainly our members want to see large broadcasters succeed.  We want them to be healthy, profitable companies, and employ our members.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13374             The other thing I would like to point out is, as I have been following these hearings, I have noted that the reportage of these hearings is in the business section of the papers.  I think that is interesting, because it tells you that the media themselves see this issue as a business issue.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13375             Perhaps it is not surprising, but I notice that there aren't quite as many cameras around as there were at the beginning of the hearings, nor as many reporters as there were when the executives of these companies were here.  When the intervenors come, who have some questions about the concentration of ownership, the same kind of representation from the media is not here.  I think you might want to consider that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13376             I also found it very interesting that, when I was here on Monday, I listened to CTV executives, CanWest executives and the CAB ‑‑ and you can check the transcript on this ‑‑ and I did not hear the word "shareholder" used once.  Not once.  And yet it is clear that the key fiduciary responsibility of these executives is to shareholders and to reward shareholder investment.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13377             I think they preferred to keep that side of our equation outside these proceedings.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13378             Perhaps this is not surprising.  Clearly, this is where the rubber hits the road.  The rubber:  the need of large media companies to reward investors.  The road:  the obligations to reflect Canada to the public under the Broadcasting Act.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13379             The media companies are, of course, delighted with the status quo.  The pyramiding of ownership continues.  Media corporations which, at one time, were single platformed, are now in every area of the industry.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13380             While they complain about competition, this is a song that we have heard over the years from private broadcasters.  In the fifties and sixties it was competition from the CBC.  In the seventies it was from cable.  In the eighties it was from other private broadcasters.  And in the nineties it was from DTH.  Now, apparently, it is global competition from the internet.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13381             Of course, most broadcasters are online, repeating their programs over the net.  And if there are more foreign programming services than before, each one was requested by Canadian broadcasters that happen to be distributors.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13382             One way or another, Canadian broadcasters are making money even from this new competition for audiences from which they continue to seek protection.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13383             I am reminded of a few years ago when Hollywood was very concerned about VHS tapes coming onstream.  They thought it would be the death of Hollywood for about five years, until it finally dawned on them that, rather than the death of Hollywood, this, in fact, was an additional revenue stream from which they made a great deal of money.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13384             Commissioners, the empirical evidence that concentration is a problem is overwhelming.  We have summarized evidence of this in our brief, and I am sure you have noted that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13385             As the Chairman pointed out in his introductory remarks on Monday, national commissions and inquiries, dating well back into the last century, and as recently as a few years ago, have warned about the trend of concentration of ownership, and yet government has failed to act.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13386             The result ‑‑ we now have one of the most highly concentrated media industries in the world.  This is of grave concern globally, as the Chair pointed out on Monday.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13387             I was speaking with the President of the International Federation of Journalists about a month ago.  They held a conference in Moscow recently, dealing specifically with the question of media and democracy and the concerns of concentration of ownership.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13388             Today we keep hearing that technology has changed, is changing, and will change, but change offers benefits, too.  Broadcasters don't have to fly every video cartridge from Vancouver to Toronto to make the late evening news thanks to satellite.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13389             Digital compression has reduced distribution and transmission costs.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13390             Digital program resources are easier to store, reuse, recycle, reducing costs even more.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13391             Costs are even lower, because services owned by one broadcaster, whether programming, other operating costs, or capital expenses, can be shared.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13392             You, yourselves, have streamlined regulation, and may continue to streamline it, so that broadcasters' administrative costs are down.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13393             As for regulatory tools, broadcasters obviously support what you do now.  Why wouldn't they?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13394             The penalties that Parliament created decades ago in sections 32 and 33 of the Act, which were strengthened in 1991, exist but aren't used.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13395             For more than a year we have asked you to enforce Citytv's conditions of licence, but we apparently have to wait until 2008 for that problem to be resolved.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13396             If regulatory breaches aren't sanctioned, the rules will obviously be ineffective.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13397             What has the improvement to the bottom line for the Act been?  Just where is all that great local original news, all that new original content?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13398             We don't see it in the stations' logs.  We don't see it on air.  And our members certainly don't see it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13399             Instead of a healthy broadcasting system that is creating new jobs, jobs are being lost.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13400             The times are changing, but to the benefit of broadcasters and the corporate bottom line, and to the benefit of shareholders; not to the Canadian cultural sector, not to Canadian citizens, not to vital news and information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13401             The balance, which is up to you to find, is presently off kilter.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13402             Presently in Canadian television there is almost no local programming, no reflection of communities to themselves.  Why?  Because it costs money and does not deliver the profits that U.S. programming under simulcast protection does.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13403             The CAB argued that there was no evidence about reduction in local news.  But, as you will see, Appendix 8 of our brief shows, using figures from the public files of CTV and CanWest, that hours of local news have decreased over the last 15 years.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13404             Local news has been erased and eroded in many parts of the country.  Why?  Because it costs money and it doesn't deliver the profits to shareholders that things such as U.S. programming under simulcast protection do.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13405             I will speak briefly about radio news.  I share Commissioner Langford's comments.  I won't repeat them, but I do share them.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13406             I think the concern about radio news is that it is simply repetitive, with different stations, under shared ownership, running precisely the same news, in the same markets.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13407             The much‑vaunted all‑news/talk radio phenomenon is becoming in Canada what it is in the U.S., a medium for minimal news, but very aggressive opinion.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13408             Marketplace arguments make for great sound bytes, but the reality is that calling broadcasting a competitive marketplace is nothing more than a rope‑a‑dope.  Instead of welcoming new competition, the four largest Canadian broadcasters want to remain very large, protected oligopolies.  They have strengthened their protective positions by buying their competitors.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13409             If we want competition, if we want plurality, the simplest solution, with the least regulatory involvement, is to allow competition for existing licences.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13410             So we argue ‑‑ and we agree with you, Commissioners ‑‑ that what we need is competition.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13411             When broadcasters claim they are competitive, the reality is that they want all the protections granted by an uncompetitive renewal and transfer system, and none of the costs they agreed to accept under the Broadcasting Act.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13412             I just want to get back to news a bit here.  It is not enough, in terms of plurality, to have one or even two strong TV news stations.  What we want is to ensure that stations compete for different demographics, and perhaps different politics.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13413             Indeed, that is the very history of a democratic media.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13414             If we allow broadcasters to give up simply because they can't or don't want to attract the big tent crowd, then we are, by definition, allowing the system to give up on diversity and plurality.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13415             It is not just the big tent, it is the margins that create the debate and the discourse.  If we allow broadcasters to say, "We can't create a big tent here, so we are going to give up on the news.  We are not going to compete," then what we end up having are homogenized news services.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13416             The CRTC must use licence obligations to require broadcasters to deliver adequate news and local reflection.  Surely this is the trade‑off for rich benefits under various regulatory schemes and tax breaks.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13417             In Canada, cross‑media ownership has been devastating to news gathering and reportage.  At CanWest alone, what was once a competitive and diverse landscape between print ‑‑ the old Southam newspapers ‑‑ and Global Television has now become homogenized under CanWest news services.  Global stations are now sharing not only resources and sources, but news agendas and a distinct point of view with their print siblings.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13418             I will talk more about that during the question period.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13419             I want to point out to you, again, why it is important to have these distinct voices.  In one medium we may call them Palestinian terrorists; in another they might be Palestinian militants; and yet in another, Palestinian liberationists.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13420             Where does the truth lie?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13421             To make a decision I need all points of view.  To make an informed decision I need all points of view.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13422             The same is true for domestic and national politics, for concerns about health, for issues around climate change and the environment, and even for local school issues.  If I do not have a variety of information, a variety of points of view, then I am losing my democratic choice.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13423             I want to talk briefly about the code.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13424             In terms of the proposed code under the CBSC, the answer from the journalistic community is a resounding "no".  To have an employer‑based panel deciding issues of ethics and conduct is unheard of.  This would be akin to putting the medical conduct of doctors under the direction of a panel chosen by hospital administrators.  The College of Physicians and Surgeons is the more appropriate body.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13425             It is interesting to note that the CBSC annual report says that between 1998 and 2005 it received 16,057 complaints.  It adjudicated just 255, or 1.6 percent of the total received.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13426             Further, the code not only allows shared news‑gathering resources the very weapon of homogenized news, it enshrines it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13427             Journalists want a code, and they must get busy developing their own, with input from a variety of stakeholders, but certainly they do not want one run, even at a distance, by their employers.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13428             The proposed code also suggests jurisdiction over print and new media journalists.  If this is the direction in which media companies want to head, perhaps their employees in print should be looking at federal labour legislation and common employer applications between print, broadcast and new media visions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13429             By the way, even though it is outside your jurisdiction, you can be sure that this code will certainly ignite significant labour disputes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13430             I suspect that my friends from Quebec may be talking to you about that more, as there is quite a dispute going on at the Journal de Québec as a result of similar activities.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13431             Finally, a word about financials.  The problem with reporting financials by ownership group is that the groups can shuffle their financial cards pretty much any way they like, meaning that Canadians still won't have a good idea of what they are or are not doing, or how concentrated ownership affects us all.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13432             Broadcasters used to file station‑by‑station financials; they can do it again.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13433             Why should the public have this data?  If owners argue that buying another station will benefit Canadians, the public needs the tools to test that argument with the data the owners are using, their expenses and their revenues.  Without this kind of information we are left to operate in the dark.  Surely this is the opposite of transparency and accountability.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13434             Finally, I want to say that we share the concerns that were expressed by the CCA about the deadlines.  This has been a very, very busy summer, and for those of us with limited resources, you have taxed them considerably.  So any respite we can get we would appreciate.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13435             Those are my comments.  I would like an opportunity at some point to talk to you a bit more about the effects of concentration of ownership on the news.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13436             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Murdoch.  If there were a prize for writing the longest and most deeply researched submission, you would probably win it.  I applaud your submission and detail.  You have certainly covered the waterfront.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13437             Let me try to narrow it down to the issues that are before us.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13438             First of all, financial disclosure.  I hope you noticed that we heard you loud and clear, and we are asking everybody who appears what the disclosure of information on an aggregate basis for broadcasters would mean, i.e., applying the rules for specialty also to broadcasters.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13439             We will rule on that, and we have specifically written to all of them and asked them to comment on it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13440             My colleague, Vice‑Chairman Arpin, is asking everyone about that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13441             We appreciate the need for there to be information, so people can make intelligent and thoughtful comments on the basis of facts.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13442             In terms of plurality of voices, we have heard so far, basically, three different approaches.  The only working model that anyone can point to is Australia and, essentially, everyone says, "Look, it is very specific to Australia.  It may have unintended side effects.  You can't transfer it," et cetera.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13443             The second model is what the CBC put forward, which is, basically, three simple rules.  Number one, nobody should own in any market all three media, i.e., newspaper, television and radio.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13444             Number two, no BDU ‑‑ or no owner ‑‑  should own more than 33 percent of specialties.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13445             Number three, in no market should any owner have more than two BDUs.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13446             They say that is really all you need to do in terms of going forward, if there are further waves of consolidation, and there may very well be.  You have probably read in the paper today that somebody from Rogers has quoted that they are not adverse to looking at Shaw.  So we may not have seen the last of mergers.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13447             Lastly, there are the various broadcasters who have come forward, saying, "Actually, you have the tools.  It works fine.  Do it on a case‑by‑case basis.  Rules will have unnecessary consequences."

LISTNUM 1 \l 13448             Then, yesterday, Bell suggested that we use the same approach to media mergers as they do in competition.  In effect, look at it through policy and a framework, and try to analyze what will be the negative effects.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13449             The missing part is that, in merger analysis, you basically want to avoid somebody having pricing power, so they can raise the price by more than 5 percent and sustain it over two years.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13450             That is, roughly speaking, the basic test.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13451             When I pushed Bell and asked, "What is the test that you would apply here" ‑‑ SNIP, as it is called by its acronym ‑‑ Significant Non‑temporary Increase in Pricing Power ‑‑ he said, "We don't know.  We haven't got that.  I will get back to you in writing."

LISTNUM 1 \l 13452             Of course, the SNIP is the measurement.  You need a measurement if you want to do that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13453             Where do you stand on all of this?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13454             You have done an awful lot of thinking.  You have researched the area.  I can see from your brief that you have looked at all of these aspects.  I would be interested to see what approach you would recommend to us.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13455             MR. MURDOCH:  Let me get back to the beginning, why the question was raised in the first place.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13456             As I mentioned, the question has been raised for at least the past 50 years.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13457             Concerns about concentration of ownership are based not so much on pricing and shareholders, and not so much on whether or not we are going to leverage big, profitable, mega media corporations, but rather, on the other side of the Act, what does it mean in terms of cultural policy, what does it mean to have a democratic press and those sorts of things.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13458             Those questions that were raised 30 years ago are becoming even more in the spotlight today as a result of the concentration of ownership.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13459             When we look at this, we have to say:  What has been the effect of the current concentration of ownership, and what could we do about that now.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13460             I appreciate what you were saying in some of your comments the other day, Mr. Chair, about having clear, predictable rules and regulations, so that companies can know where they are headed.  But I think, right now, there are some questions that we can pose and answer, in terms of what has the behaviour been of these corporations, as they are now, rather than, what will the rules and regulations be going forward.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13461             In terms of the Australian model, I would like more time to think about that.  As my colleague from the CCA said, we have talked to some of the unions and guilds in Australia, and I can assure you that they are not delighted.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13462             But I would like to provide you, if I can ‑‑ and I am not sure I can do it by October 5th ‑‑ with the kind of information and data that we have provided in our report.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13463             The CBC proposals seem, at best, arbitrary.  It seemed like a nice idea, but I didn't see where that data came from.  What prompted this, other than somebody thinking:  Here is the possibility of an idea.  Why don't we do this?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13464             Surely we are not here to sort of guess as to what might be a good idea.  We need to have some hard data, some hard evidence as to what would be the outcomes of such schemes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13465             I think that there are some tools ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13466             First of all, our position is that the continued pyramiding of ownership in this country has to stop right now.  In some areas of this country it is clearly at dangerous levels.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13467             It was interesting, I think it was Ms Dore, when the question was asked, I think, by Mr. Langford about whether one ‑‑ was that all right ‑‑ and she said, "Maybe one is okay," because of the threats from foreign ownership.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13468             I thought:  If that one was state owned, they would be jumping up and down.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13469             There seems to be something in the very nature of broadcasting that we have to protect, which is the plurality of voices.  Right now we have enough big media companies, and I would venture to say that we could do with more through perhaps an open‑licensing process.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13470             Other than that, as I say, I don't know where the CBC came up with their scheme, and I didn't hear Mr. Stursberg provide any kind of data or hard evidence about it, other than it sounded good.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13471             And I should point out just one thing, just mentioning the CBC you have sort of lighted my mind a bit, is that the plea that the CBC would be the counterweight to a concentrated private sector media.  Indeed the CBC does play a counterweight or should play a counterweight.  But I would be more encouraged if the CBC relied more on its public service mandate and less a competitive mandate to the private sector, but it does play a counterweight.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13472             I know, Mr. Chair, I haven't really answered your question.  You gave me some alternatives and I have accepted none of them.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13473             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13474             MR. MURDOCH:  Ms Auer is going to.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13475             MS AUER:  Mr. Chairman, I guess the interesting thing about having any kind of a model is that, first of all, you are having a government regulatory authority establish either the ceiling or the floor.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13476             So if you are talking about a competitive marketplace we certainly saw yesterday from Stornoway Communications that Martha Fusca was very interested in competing head to head with current broadcasters and I think that might form the basis of having a competitive licence renewal system and then the transfer system.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13477             Secondly, with respect to the whole issue of, you know, if we are applying Competition Bureau type analysis using a snip approach can we measure plurality in content?  Surely that is the basic question.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13478             Now, the CRTC in 1984 undertook a series of extremely extensive industry‑accepted content analyses of radio and television programming, French and English, across the country.  Those tapes apparently are still available.  Maybe it would be interesting to do a content analysis of that old data, compare it with another similar content analysis of plurality as it exists as it exists now.  If we see a change in plurality that might be at least an empirical measure of plurality in ownership.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13479             And finally, again, if we are relying on a Competition Bureau type analysis it would be I think useful to have more empirical data as many parties seem to be suggesting, including the CEP.  That would enable us to assess things like the CR4, the CR5, whatever the CRN is going to be and, as well, things like the Herfindahl‑Hirschman Index.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13480             I mean, surely if the Department of Justice relies on that in some of its approaches to assessing the appropriate level of competition in a market, if we had the necessary financial data we could apply that kind of analysis as well to these markets.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13481             So I guess the bottom line is more data would be required, but I don't think it is that difficult to obtain.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13482             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  My second question is the whole issue of self‑censorship.  You are the only submission who actually mentions the whole issue of self‑censorship when you have a common owner, that there may be self‑censorship.  I asked several of the interveners about it, I did not get in effect a reply, mostly denial.  And not surprisingly, it was not all even canvassed, this subject.  You addressed it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13483             Do you have any evidence of self‑censorship or is it just your assumption that that it exists when there is a common owner?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13484             MR. MURDOCH:  Well, you know, I would turn you at some point to our media study, which I think we submitted, and I think you will see some of the answers that were evident of this from journalists that we surveyed.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13485             You know, self‑censorship of course is very difficult to measure, because there is nothing there.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13486             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Kind of the whole ‑‑

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

LISTNUM 1 \l 13487             MR. MURDOCH:  Yes, that is right. The whole idea of censorship is that it didn't get done.  And clearly and not surprisingly, Mr. Chair, as I think I mentioned in another proceeding, a variety of media companies, you know, do have points of view.  And, you know, just in newspapers we are clearly aware that the National Post has a different point of view than the Toronto Star.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13488             Is it a matter of self‑censorship that a story written for the National Post doesn't have the spin that a story based on the same issue that the Toronto Star has?  I guess it is self‑censorship, but it is probably writing for a politic, for a niche, a market niche if you will that decides that.  And everything from where you have evidentiary, which seems to be absolutely neutral data such as the budget, the spins on that budget can be from this end to that end and, yet, the data is, in some ways, clear.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13489             So, yes, there is self‑censorship, but that self‑censorship often derives from a politic.  And a concern of course is that if we become homogenized in terms of our news gathering and what we offer Canadians, then that spin becomes only one spin, we don't have the plurality of looking at the difference between left, right, centre, etc.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13490             THE CHAIRPERSON:  That takes me exactly into my next question, which is your concern with homogenization.  I mean, you say a way to deal with self‑censorship is have different ownership.  But then you also say I don't want to have broadcasters compete for the same demographics, I want them to compete for different demographics.  But surely, that is not something that we can do.  We can only make sure that there are enough players.  They will decide what demographics they appeal for, what niche they go forward.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13491             You are saying I want to see broadcasters compete for different demographics.  That may be a wish, but it is not something that is in our power nor should it be in our power to implement that.  All we can do is make sure there are enough players who then choose what demographics to appeal to.  I don't see how we can in any way influence their choice of what demographics they go after.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13492             MR. MURDOCH:  What you can do is ensure that they are in the marketplace.  And so let us take the question of the 6 o'clock news.  If indeed, and we will take Vancouver as a good example, B.C. TV has overwhelming audience in Vancouver that it becomes very difficult for another broadcaster to compete for that big tent demographic.  But if they are forced through licence requirements to actually compete in that marketplace I believe they will go after a different demographic or they will go after a different politic or they will go after a different style or they will chase different stories and will provide different information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13493             But if we don't put them into the marketplace, then you are absolutely right.  I suspect, as it is true of other areas of the economy, that they will find a market, by nature they will find a market and that market will be different probably than their competitors.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13494             THE CHAIRPERSON:  So if I understand you correctly, you are obviously referring to Rogers' takeover of CHUM where we had here in this room testimony to the effect that CHUM had tried to put on a news at 6 o'clock and was unsuccessful for over 12 years.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13495             So concretely, what you are suggesting we should put is a condition of licence, you shall provide a 6 o'clock news.  Since they have beaten their brains out for 12 years and not gotten any audience share going directly against Global they will by definition look for another niche or another demographic in order to make their news worthwhile and we are thereby, through the condition of licence, creating non‑homogenized news.  Is this what you are sort of contemplating?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13496             MR. MURDOCH:  Right.  I would ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13497             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Put it in your words please, I am trying to interpret what you are saying.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13498             MR. MURDOCH:  Absolutely.  And I think that we heard from Mr. Hawkins, by the way, that recently they haven't been exactly beating their brains out and at one point that station was number two in the market.  So there was an opportunity there somewhere and that they looked at the market somehow and found a place in it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13499             Now, whether or not by the way even being number two is necessarily profitable, that is an entirely different question.  But by saying to them we want you in that marketplace they will find a different voice and they will compete for news stories and the citizens of Vancouver will have a much wider source of information and a plurality of voice and opinion.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13500             And that, as we have said, is the trade‑off for the benefits received through other regulatory legislative benefits that they get.  I don't think it is too much to ask.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13501             THE CHAIRPERSON:  And your next suggestion, which at time of licence renewal we should allow parties to compete for existing licences at the same time and select the best proposal.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13502             You heard Commissioner Cugini say that doesn't exactly contribute to stability.  It is probably also a disincentive to investment.  I mean, if you know you have this licence for five years or seven years, whatever the term is, and after that you may lose everything, the natural tendency of owners, of course, is to invest in that licence to make it grow, to make it popular, etc.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13503             If however, you put it up for grabs automatically at the end of it aren't you encouraging to some short‑term investment maximizing profits because of the uncertainty that you are building into the system as to whether there will be renewal or not?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13504             MR. MURDOCH:  I guess with the, you know, possible exception of companies that might want to pay the world in order to have ownership of one station or another that is possible.  But other than that, surely investment in product is a reward and is rewarded down the line.  I mean, the alternative view is possible, isn't it?  Where you invest you are rewarded for your investment and you want to hold onto that investment because it has been so rewarding for you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13505             I mean, isn't investment supposed to be an incentive to business rather than a disincentive?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13506             THE CHAIRPERSON:  I know, but I just think there are two sides to everything.  I mean, you want people to explore new niches, to be adventurous, to try to service to as broad a Canadian segment as possible.  Some radio station does it, it happens to be unsuccessful, it didn't work.  Up comes licence renewal, under your formula we will give the licence to somebody else.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13507             Aren't you likely to produce unintended consequences here too by putting licences up for grabs every time the term is up?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13508             MR. MURDOCH:  I am going to ask Ms Auer to comment a bit.  But I guess the major concern would be for those folks who made an investment and things didn't turnout as well.  What we have seen is they just back away.  Under the present system they will just back away and they are allowed to just back away.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13509             Whereas, if they made an investment and they say, you know what, we are tired of this one, maybe there is somebody else out there with a better idea and a different way to go at it and, if there is and the want to invest in it, let us bring them on stream.  Because what we don't want is somebody to say we have invested $10 in this and we only got $8 back, we have had it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13510             MS AUGER:  I think Mr. Chairman, you have made a very good point about the need for predictability.  We all seek predictability, I am sure that is why people look at the astrological forecast in the newspapers each day.  But the thing is I think there are a variety of different mechanisms.  For instance, in broadcasting we do want to have certainty, but I think broadcasting includes more than just TV, radio and the specialities and cable.  For instance, we are looking for certainty on the CTF.  We all want certainty, we agree on that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13511             But I think if you are looking at the unintended consequences of lack of certainty, you know, there are mechanisms like trust to put holdings in trust while a competitive process occurs.  And what are we trading off here?  We are trading off a little bit of financing uncertainty in the capital markets against the really potentially serious concern of increased homogeneity in news and information.  I would suggest that many people believe that having more consolidated ownership and, therefore, either less local news or more of the same news is also a bad unintended consequence.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13512             I would also say that, you know, the Commission itself considered the competitive licence terms for process in the 1970s.  I don't know if it got the thorough venting of public comment that it merited at the time, but over the last 30 years times have changed, as the broadcasters have reminded us and perhaps it is time to revisit the idea that the CRTC itself first proposed, as I said, 30 years ago.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13513             As I understand it, the SEC was at times actually using a competitive licence renewal process and certainly it seems that the markets there were welcoming new investment, they were happy to support current broadcasters.  So it didn't necessarily fail on the SEC because of the capital money issue.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13514             And finally, with respect to licence trafficking, I think the Commission staff is highly qualified and well able to review these matters to determine whether or not a trafficking issue is occurring.  That is what perhaps the case by case analysis is best suited for.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13515             THE CHAIRPERSON:  What did you mean, Mr. Murdoch, by saying "backing off"?  You just said a licensee who had a licence and it is not prospering, he might back off.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13516             MR. MURDOCH:  Well, I am referring again to, you know, the most recent example of the CityTV and where they sort of say, you know, we tried it, we tried to invest in local news, it didn't pay, we are backing off that now.  And that is what I meant by that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13517             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  You certainly have given us food for thought.  I gather the journalistic independents quote your biggest issue is that it doesn't involve journalists.  It's not the substance of the code; it's not the CBSC and its impartiality, et cetera.  It's you feel that a code, in order to be acceptable to journalists, should have journalists in its creation and in its administration.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13518             MR. MURDOCH:  It certainly should have journalists in its creation and other stakeholders, by the way.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13519             As you will see by our study, I think it was 87 per cent of journalists want a code.  By the way, they are not also just sort of going to turn us over to their union.  They think it should be a whole bunch of stakeholders that devise the code.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13520             We are concerned about some of the content.  I mentioned the idea of kind of cross‑platform jurisdiction issues and enshrining that in the code.  That is a major concern for us.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13521             We think there should be a code.  I think journalists have got to get busy doing it.  Maybe this proposal will prompt us to get under that and get at it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13522             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Michel, you have a question?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13523             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  To get back to the discussion you just had with the Chairman regarding the possibility of having competitive licence renewal and competitive bids when there is a station that is up for sale, I want to just state that in the UK 20‑some years ago, that you had a competitive process for licence renewal.  So, they surely tried it.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13524             As you know, in the UK they were granting licence terms of ten years.  It shows that in the three to four last years there were no capital investments made because of uncertainty regarding the potential of non‑renewal.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13525             Yes, the programming was kept because obviously they were to bid to seek their renewal, but at least they were making strong savings in capital investment.  So, if new technology was to come up, they were not making the investment until they were assured they had been renewed or the new owner came.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13526             The story in the UK showed that there were some licence renewal bids where the incumbent didn't get renewed.  It upset the market for some time to the extent that the UK has moved out of that approach.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13527             MR. MURDOCH:  If you are suggesting, I think it is Hobb's choice, which is no choice at all, the competitive licences don't work, but we currently have a system now which isn't working in terms of encouraging the kind of investment that we would like to see in all areas of Canadian content.  That leaves it, I think, up to some very strong conditions of licence which you folks need to not only regulate, but enforce.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13528             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  Maybe, as others have suggested, we should have some powers that we don't have to force enforcement.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13529             Regarding financial statement obligation, I heard you being concerned that if we were to release, that there may be some shuffling around of that.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13530             You have to understand that currently on a yearly basis we are getting each station's not only aggregate numbers, but for each operation, we are getting the information on a yearly basis.  All the licensees are required to file with the Commission by the end of November of each year all the financial information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13531             What we don't do, what we have never done is to release publicly that information either on an aggregate basis or on an individual basis.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13532             Have you had an opportunity to listen to the proceedings of yesterday?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13533             MR. MURDOCH:  Yes.  I will just turn this over to Ms Auer as well, but it's interesting, we haven't touched on advertising much during this proceeding, and it is our concern that for a lot of local markets, local advertisers are essentially shut out.  It is very difficult.  You are not going to see Bob's Hardware advertised very much on stations, particularly medium‑ and large‑sized stations.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13534             Yet, broadcasters in aggregate will say that they have this much local advertising.  I can't remember what it is.  It might be 30 per cent, 35 per cent.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13535             We have no way of saying how it is that they derive at that because our evidence on the ground, when we talk to people in advertising sales, when we sort of look at the stations, we don't see evidence of that.  So, how are they counting?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13536             Unless we have station‑by‑station information, we don't see how these companies are doing the count.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13537             I might understand that there are some concerns and I heard them expressed on Monday, competitive concerns.  When we are looking at historical data, I don't think those competitive concerns are huge.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13538             Monica might want to say something.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13539             MS AUER:  I was going through some of my old files because, like Mr. Goldstein on Monday, I like to see what the Commission is putting out there.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13540             What I have come across in the CRTC's public examination files, for instance, is the annual return, not the annual financial report, but the actual annual return submitted to the CRTC by CIII TV.  This is for 1982, for 1983 and 1984.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13541             I have the annual return for CKPR TV for 1989‑90.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13542             I have the annual income statement for CHCH TV for 1995.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13543             This is just a limited survey of my own files.  In addition, we have total program expenses for CFTO from 1983 to 1987, Canadian expenditures by program category in 1985, 1988.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13544             For CHAN TV I have Canadian, non‑Canadian, total programming expenses.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13545             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  But those have been either filed voluntarily by the broadcaster or by the Commission at the time of a given renewal period.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13546             MS AUER:  The Commission asked for this information, and it was placed on the public examination file.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13547             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  Yes.  What I was saying earlier is that the Commission has not only that information, but all the other information that has not even been released.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13548             What we have been asking the broadcaster is if they were in agreement that we release that information.  We heard a variety of views from no to yes, and some qualifying their no, saying, but they may consider it again, if the CBC was to disclose their information at the same time that the private broadcasters are making available their financial information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13549             MS AUER:  Does the CRTC not publish each year in its television statistical financial summaries the CBC's statement?  The difficulty is I had understood with the CBC was that, of course, they have the March‑April reporting year; broadcasters have the September‑August year.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13550             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  There are some private broadcasters who have a different fiscal year than the August 31st deadline, and they are obliged to file financial information based on the broadcasting here.  That means that they have to make some financial computation only to meet the requirement of the regulation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13551             Anyhow ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13552             MS AUER:  I think the only point that we are replying to is the statement that we thought we had heard on Monday, which is that broadcasters are saying that they have never, ever, ever had these kinds of documents released publicly.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13553             In fact, at least for quite a few of them, yes, these data are available.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13554             COMMISSIONER ARPIN:  Surely broadcasters recognize that they had provided public versions of the documents at least at renewal period.  That was also stated.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13555             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Rita, you had a question.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13556             COMMISSION CUGINI:  Thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13557             Mr. Murdoch, in your discussion with the Chair regarding self‑censorship, you cited an example of the budget as being a neutral story and saying that the spin on the budget, you used the hand gesture, could go from left to right.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13558             Yet, earlier, you said that consolidation will lead to a decrease in the variety of points of view available.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13559             Don't those two statements contradict each other?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13560             MR. MURDOCH:  That consolidation would limit the points of view, yes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13561             COMMISSION CUGINI:  Yes, and then later in the discussion with the Chair, you cited the example of the budget being a neutral story, and yet the spin can go from left to right.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13562             Don't those two statements contradict each other?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13563             MR. MURDOCH:  No, I think they're complimentary.  Let me just explain how.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13564             Let me go back to an earlier time when there was Southam News and maybe let's take Global Television.  They might have very different points of view and perspectives based on what that budget means for the country, and you would get that in their reportage.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13565             My guess is that there would be some expectation certainly amongst their columnists and opinion makers that a view of their ownership or of the place that they find themselves in the market is reflected in their coverage.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13566             COMMISSION CUGINI:  Just on that point, then, are you not comforted or satisfied by the clause in the journalistic code that says that newspapers and television service also have separate editorial boards?  We heard CanWest on Monday say that the owner in no way influences who will be on that editorial board.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13567             MR. MURDOCH:  Right.  In CanWest right now, let me take Vancouver as an example, the Vancouver Sun and Province news editors are in daily conversation with those of BCTV.  They share resources; they share sources; they know what their news agendas are.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13568             I think that's a bit of myth making on the part of CanWest.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13569             I am not comforted at all by the idea of boards.  News is generated by news gathers, by reporters and by assignments.  That is how a character of news is defined and brought about.  The board might find a place in the marketplace for a certain style of product.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13570             But let me get back to CanWest.  So, now we have CanWest, the internet, which everybody is spending a lot of money on.  So now you have Global Television filing to this internet.  The old Southam papers, they are CanWest newspapers filing to the internet.  They are swapping their stories.  Their stories are appearing on their website, and what we have is the world according to CanWest.  We don't really have diversity in that sense.  We have the CanWest news services, which includes their newspapers, their television broadcasting outlets and now their internet, which is becoming, I think, more profitable as the days go by.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13571             That allows them to have one very, very strong point of view with a great deal of power in this country and which, by the way, they are not afraid to exercise.  That is our concern.  If there is in CanWest a point of view about the world, let's say the Middle East, I suspect that point of view will be carried in all of their outlets.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13572             COMMISSION CUGINI:  But don't you also have CTV Globemedia's point of view, Quebecor's, Tor Star's to balance that of CanWest in your example?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13573             MR. MURDOCH:  Yes, there are some differences, as I pointed out.  Let me just refer back to the newspapers for a minute.  There is a difference between the Toronto Star and the National Post, and that's a good thing.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13574             But you know what?  You're not going to find that kind of difference very much in Regina or Saskatoon or Winnipeg, where you have in the newspaper world a single outlet, and you are probably not going to find it very much in the broadcast where the resources for news gathering have been depleted abominably by the broadcasters.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13575             They have put resources into news gathering into some of their major markets, and for that we are grateful, but in some of these mid and small markets, no.  So, you are not going to have that voice, even where you have competitive stations; they are not there.  If they are not making money, apparently they are going to be allowed to just drop out and give up on the game all together.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13576             COMMISSION CUGINI:  Thank you.  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13577             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Stuart, you had a question?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13578             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  I will be brief because I think you have really covered the waterfront today, Mr. Murdoch.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13579             I am picking up on your last comment, which you made earlier as well in response to the Chair, that if they can't compete they are going to back off and get out all together.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13580             Partly that is our fault because though we demand a certain amount of local content, we haven't stipulated that it be news.  Isn't the less devastating solution, come to renewal time, come to sales time, if news is necessary, if news is falling away, that we reinstate a requirement for news?  Doesn't that at least give people a little more commercial certainty than saying your licence is up for grabs because we want to make sure you do the important things in the public good.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13581             MR. MURDOCH:  We would be delighted if you started to institute requirements at licence time for broadcasters to deliver the news to the citizens they purport to serve.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13582             By the way, that obligation is a reasonable expectation on the part of Canadians, it is a reasonable expectation given the Broadcasting Act, and it is a reasonable expectation given the healthy profits that these broadcasters are making because of other regulatory and legislative schemes and policies.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13583             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  Then we get to the next step.  We require them to do news, assuming we pick up this idea and we say it's not just enough to do local, you have to do news as well; it is not just enough to do local programming.  Some of that programming has to be news.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13584             When the screaming starts about regulation is when we get into micromanagement, as you know.  Then where does it stop?  That is where I have trouble.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13585             I agree with you that news is in too many places on shaky ground in this country, but who am I to say what sort of news you should have; who am I to say to CityTV that your morning show isn't appropriate, we want you to go back to News at Six; who am I then to say desert the big tent, as you call it, and get into the sort of fringe and try and make a commercial success out of news that is outside of the expression, as you say, the big tent, the big audience area?  Who am I to penalize somebody by saying you have to take that route?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13586             Then, how far is it from there to some sort of Aberhart approach, where basically we are saying, as Bible Bill did in the thirties, run your stories by us, we want to make sure ‑‑ now, I have gone to reductio ad absurdum here in order to give you a full sort of scope to respond, but how far is it from saying you must have news, you must have News at Six, you must have niche news to go the next step, to saying, and clear your news with us before you put it on TV?  Where do we stop on that road?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13587             MR. MURDOCH:  You are right, people would be jumping up and down if you tried to manage the content of the news in any significant way.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13588             I don't think, by the way, it would be up to you to demand a niche market.  I am just suggesting to you that if you tell folks they have to do the news and they can't find that big tent place in the marketplace, they will find some other place.  They will strive to find some other place, some other voice, some other way of doing it, being a little more radical or a little more right wing or a little more this, or a little more business oriented, or a little more soft.  What it is, they will find that place in the marketplace.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13589             In terms of analysis, I don't think it takes a lot, and you folks have done content analysis in other ways.  I think gender was one that you looked at a few years ago.  So, clearly there is a difference between covering City Hall and getting somebody in there to talk about pet horoscopes.  One is news and one is not news.  To define pet horoscopes as news is silly.  That is not the state coming in and saying that is not news.  I think we can ‑‑

LISTNUM 1 \l 13590             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  You obviously have never met a cat owner.  I wouldn't want to try that one, but anyway, I take your point.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13591             MR. MURDOCH:  The other thing is that under the Act, and as we have listed from the Kent Commission straight through to Senator Fraser's report, there have been concerns about this.  You folks are the stewards of Parliament's wishes and legislation, so I am sure you are quite capable of finding a way to exercise that stewardship.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13592             COMMISSIONER LANGFORD:  Thank you for your confidence.  Those are my questions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13593             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Stuart.  That finishes our questions for you, Mr. Murdoch.  Thank you very much.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13594             MR. MURDOCH:  Thank you.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13595             THE CHAIRPERSON:  As I said, you have until October 5 to make any written comments you wish to.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13596             Madam Boulet.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13597             THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13598             We will take a 15‑minute break.  We will come back at 10:20.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1005 / Suspension à 1005

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1023 / Reprise à 1023

LISTNUM 1 \l 13599             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Madame Boulet, who is next?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13600             LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci, Monsieur le Président.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13601             Nous inviterions maintenant les deux prochains intervenants à faire leur présentation un à la suite de l'autre.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13602             Alors, ce serait la Fédération nationale des communications qui débutera sa présentation, suivie du Conseil provincial du secteur des communications du Syndicat canadien de la Fonction publique.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13603             Suite aux deux présentations, le Conseil demandera des questions aux deux intervenants.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13604             Alors, vous avez chacun dix minutes, et je demanderais maintenant à la Fédération de débuter en présentant les gens qui vous accompagne, Madame Larouche. Et la même chose pour le Conseil, qui suivra.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13605             Alors, vous allez de l'avant.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13606             Merci.

INTERVENTION

LISTNUM 1 \l 13607             MME LAROUCHE : Bonjour, Monsieur le Président, Membres du Conseil. Merci de nous avoir accueillis à cette importante audience.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13608             Je vais d'abord vous présenter la personne qui m'accompagne. Il s'agit de Pierre Roger, qui est le secrétaire général de la Fédération nationale des communications.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13609             La Fédération, je crois que vous le savez, c'est déjà dans le mémoire, mais je pense qu'il est important de le rappeler, regroupe 7 000 membres dans une centaine de syndicats.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13610             Majoritairement, ce sont des gens qui oeuvrent dans les médias et, majoritairement également, des journalistes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13611             La Fédération représente près de 2 100 journalistes. Cela comprend des journalistes salariés dans les médias et des pigistes également.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13612             La FNC est membre de la Fédération internationale des journalistes. Donc, elle a pu développer aussi ses analyses en travaillant conjointement avec cette fédération.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13613             La FNC donc, et les membres de cette fédération, sont particulièrement préoccupés des enjeux de l'audience en cours et de la question de la diversité des voix au Canada.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13614             En 2001, la concentration des médias a suscité, vous le savez sans doute, plusieurs inquiétudes au Québec. Un mouvement d'opposition également.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13615             Il faut dire aussi que, dans ce mouvement, la propriété croisée de TVA et des journaux de Quebecor a suscité l'opposition de plusieurs intervenants, dont celle de la Fédération nationale des communications.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13616             Quebecor s'est ainsi retrouvé dans une situation de domination du marché québécois, et cela nous apparaissait indu à l'égard des autres médias

LISTNUM 1 \l 13617             L'impact de la concentration et de la convergence sur la qualité, la diversité et l'intégrité de l'information soulève des inquiétudes qui sont partagées non seulement par nous, mais aussi par plusieurs observateurs.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13618             Nous avons annexé à cette présentation, au mémoire, une étude de littérature, une analyse de littérature, qui a été effectuée par le professeur Marc‑François Bernier.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13619             Monsieur Bernier est coordonnateur du Département de communication de l'Université d'Ottawa, mais il est aussi reconnu comme étant un spécialiste en matière de déontologie dans les médias.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13620             Et, vous avez pu le constater, cette analyse démontre clairement que le mode de propriété des médias affecte les décisions relatives à la couverture journalistique et, par le fait même, l'intégrité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13621             L'étude, je pense que c'est important de le rappeler, a été réalisée à la fois auprès de médias au Québec, au Canada, mais aussi des États‑Unis.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13622             Les innovations technologiques ont facilité la convergence entre les médias, convergence qui, dans plusieurs cas, favorise l'uniformisation et menace l'intégrité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13623             Pour plusieurs médias, la convergence doit se faire à coût zéro, ce qui signifie qu'une ressource journalistique qui était habituellement chargée d'alimenter un média doit maintenant alimenter à la fois la radio, la télévision, l'Internet et le journal.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13624             Plusieurs médias entretiennent à tord l'impression qu'en multipliant les plateformes de diffusion on accroît les sources et la diversité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13625             Les efforts de promotion croisée s'intensifient aussi dans la plupart des médias, et ce, sans égard à la diversité de l'information et des points de vue.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13626             Cela se fait, bien sûr, au sein de grands groupes comme Quebecor au Québec, mais aussi entre différents groupes qui veulent concurrencer Quebecor. Et je pense ici à Radio‑Canada et au journal La Presse qui entretiennent de plus en plus des échanges et effectuent de la promotion croisée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13627             La centralisation de la couverture des nouvelles et de la programmation de la radio et de la télévision est une autre conséquence de la concentration des médias qui contribue à uniformiser l'information et la programmation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13628             L'absence d'exigences du CRTC en matière d'information locale et régionale n'a pas contribué à améliorer la situation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13629             Cet examen serait, à notre avis, davantage porteur d'avenir si le gouvernement canadien adoptait un cadre législatif et réglementaire pour favoriser la diversité, sans s'ingérer dans les nouvelles et le contenu rédactionnel des informations.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13630             Dans la mesure où le CRTC ne peut pas intervenir directement en ce qui a trait à la responsabilité des médias écrits, il nous apparaît nécessaire que tous les médias écrits et électroniques, de même que les nouveaux médias, soient liés par une obligation d'assurer la diversité et l'intégrité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13631             La Fédération estime qu'une piste de solution utile réside dans la recommandation du Comité sénatorial permanent des transports et des communications sur les médias d'information à l'effet que la Loi sur la protection de l'information soit modifiée afin d'y inclure, à l'article 4, l'intérêt public comme défense.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13632             Quant au CRTC, il doit veiller, comme le prévoit la Loi sur la radiodiffusion, à ce que le système canadien de radiodiffusion fournisse de l'information et de l'analyse concernant le Canada et l'étranger considérées d'un point de vue canadien et qu'il offre au public l'occasion de prendre connaissance d'opinions divergentes sur des sujets qui l'intéressent.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13633             La FNC estime que les pratiques passées et documentées des médias doivent guider le CRTC relativement à la diversité des voix, particulièrement en ce qui a trait à l'étanchéité et à l'indépendance des salles de nouvelles.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13634             Le CRTC devrait être investi du pouvoir d'imposer des sanctions économiques ‑ des amendes, en fait ‑ aux radiodiffuseurs qui ne respectent pas certaines parties de leurs conditions de licence.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13635             Le CRTC doit maintenir comme condition de licence des radiodiffuseurs de propriété mixte le maintien d'un code de déontologie qui exige la séparation structurelle des activités de collecte des nouvelles, de même qu'une séparation entre la gestion des nouvelles et les décisions en matière de contenu et de présentation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13636             A cet égard, la FNC n'endosse aucunement le projet de code soumis par le CCNR, qui suppose l'auto‑réglementation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13637             A notre avis, c'est vraiment le CRTC qui doit, à la lumière de ses codes, s'assurer que le média respecte la condition de licence qui est prévue normalement lorsque le radiodiffuseur s'engage à respecter ce code.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13638             Pour ce qui est de l'ajout de tout nouveau service de programmation, le CRTC devrait accorder la priorité aux entreprises de diffusion concurrentes du propriétaire qui contrôle à la fois une entreprise de distribution et une entreprise de programmation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13639             Des obligations relatives à un nombre défini d'émissions de nouvelles et d'affaires publiques doivent devenir une condition de licence.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13640             Le CRTC doit fixer des conditions de licence qui prévoient l'augmentation du nombre d'heures de programmation locale et régionale pour les stations de radio et de télévision propriétés de groupes de médias.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13641             Le positionnement sur les multiples supports de diffusion et la structure de propriété ne doivent pas affaiblir la programmation actuellement disponible et favoriser le contenu des services plus rémunérateurs.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13642             Bien que le CRTC n'ait pas juridiction sur les médias écrits et sur l'Internet, il devrait tout de même pouvoir intervenir dans tous les cas impliquant un média de propriété mixte.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13643             Une fusion d'organes de presse devrait conduire systématiquement à un mécanisme d'examen public qui implique le CRTC et aussi le Bureau de la concurrence.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13644             A notre avis, l'intérêt public devrait être le premier critère de décision.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13645             La Fédération nationale des communications estime que la propriété mixte des médias et les innovations technologiques justifient que le CRTC se préoccupe de la diversité des voix et renforce les exigences qui sont fixées aux radiodiffuseurs.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13646             La réglementation des nouvelles pourrait être aussi un moyen utile, pour le CRTC, d'améliorer la situation, de même que la fixation de niveaux de programmation et d'émissions de nouvelles et d'affaires publiques à respecter par les stations de radio et de télévision.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13647             Alors, ça complète, ça résume, je pense, le contenu du mémoire, mais évidemment nous demeurons disponibles pour plus de questions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13648             Merci.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13649             LA SECRÉTAIRE : Merci.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13650             Nous poursuivrons avec la présentation de monsieur Jean Chabot pour le Conseil provincial.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13651             Merci.

INTERVENTION

LISTNUM 1 \l 13652             M. CHABOT : Merci.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13653             Monsieur le Président, Mesdames et Messieurs les Conseillers, bonjour.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13654             Je m'appelle Jean Chabot et je suis président du Conseil provincial du secteur des communications ‑ le CPSC ‑ du Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique. Je suis aussi président du syndicat des employés du groupe TVA Montréal.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13655             Permettez‑moi de vous présenter les personnes qui m'accompagnent.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13656             A ma droite, Michel Bibeault, directeur adjoint du SCFP et coordonnateur du Secteur des communications, Lisa Djevahirdjan, du Service de recherche du SCFP et Denis Bolduc, président du syndicat de la rédaction du Journal de Québec et vice‑président au CPSC pour le secteur de la presse écrite.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13657             Nous sommes heureux de pouvoir discuter avec vous de cette question fort déterminante pour la qualité de notre vie démocratique : la diversité des voix.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13658             Un domaine dans lequel cette diversité est particulièrement à risque est celui de l'information, et notre intervention portera uniquement sur ce sujet.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13659             Comme beaucoup de Canadiens, nous tenons à exprimer notre vive inquiétude face au taux de concentration de la propriété des médias au pays.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13660             Plus précisément, la propriété mixte et la concentration des médias entre les mains de quelques entreprises privées enfreignent la diversité en information par la volonté affichée de ces entreprises d'accélérer la convergence des salles de nouvelles.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13661             Puisque la réelle diversité en information repose essentiellement sur des ressources rivales en matière de cueillette d'information, il faut agir rapidement afin de mettre un terme à ces pratiques, qui tendent vers l'uniformisation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13662             Ce mois‑ci, un article publié dans la revue Options politiques de l'Institut de recherche en politiques publiques présente le fruit de l'analyse d'une chercheure, Monica Auer, qui a colligé 25 500 données sur la propriété des radios et des télévisions privées au Canada entre 1922 et 2007.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13663             Ses données démontrent, entre autres, qu'en 1976, 215 individus ou groupes détenaient l'ensemble des postes de radio et de télévision privés au Canada.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13664             En août 2006, le nombre de propriétaires était passé à 112.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13665             A maintes reprises, les propriétaires de médias ont affirmé que la concentration entraîne un accroissement des dépenses consacrées à la programmation canadienne, argument que les conclusions de madame Auer tendent à réfuter.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13666             Certains des ces conglomérats ont en effet déclaré, dans le cadre de ces audiences, que la diversité des voix n'est pas menacée par la consolidation et la concentration des entreprises.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13667             Par exemple, Quebecor affirme :

* QMI est d'avis que seules les entreprises suffisamment puissantes peuvent composer avec l'ouverture des réseaux sur le monde.+. (Tel que lu)

LISTNUM 1 \l 13668             M. CHABOT : Mais, la démonstration de comment le citoyen canadien va profiter de cette ouverture sur le monde n'a pas été faite.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13669             Ces mêmes joueurs avancent que le cadre réglementaire du CRTC concernant la diversité des voix est dépassé et provient d'une autre ère.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13670             Nous sommes d'accord. Il faut adapter le cadre réglementaire.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13671             Il doit offrir plus de protection contre les conséquences de la concentration de la propriété.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13672             Comme vous l'avez noté, Monsieur le Président, dans vos observations préliminaires lundi, plusieurs études ont traité de la question de la diversité des voix : le Rapport Davey en 1970, la Commission Kent en 1981, la Rapport Lincoln en 2003 et le Rapport Fraser en 2006

LISTNUM 1 \l 13673             Et tous ont souligné que le régime de réglementation canadien fait peu pour prévenir une trop grande concentration.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13674             Les entreprises qui contrôlent les salles de nouvelles à travers le pays profitent financièrement de la nouvelle conjoncture technologique.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13675             Et ils le font aux dépens de la qualité de l'information et de l'accessibilité à l'information locale pour les citoyens vivant loin des grands centres.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13676             Au Québec, nous appelons cela la montréalisation de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13677             Ces entreprises ne peuvent se voir confier, sans encadrement suffisant, la tâche de servir à sauvegarder, enrichir et renforcer la structure culturelle, politique, sociale et économique du Canada, comme le stipule l'article 3 de la Loi sur la radiodiffusion.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13678             Il faut agir, car malheureusement le modèle actuel de propriété affecte les décisions relatives à la couverture journalistique et à l'intégrité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13679             Les nouveaux acteurs, de véritables empires, se livrent une guerre où l'on s'échange des services entre amis ou dans la famille. Et, dans ce combat de géants, c'est le citoyen qui est perdant.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13680             Considérez les exemples récents des effets de la convergence exercée par Quebecor.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13681             Le 11 septembre 2007, Vincent Marissal du journal La Presse commentait en ces termes le lancement du livre de Brian Mulroney ‑ qui, soit dit en passant, est au service de Quebecor World en tant que président du conseil d'administration ‑‑ :

* En un mot, Brian Mulroney est devenu un produit Quebecor et, comme La Presse fait partie de l'empire ennemi, eh bien, tant pis pour ses journalistes. Remarquez, Radio‑Canada ou TQS n'ont pas eu droit non plus à un grand avant‑goût des mémoires de Mulroney. Que Québécor lance des opérations de convergence pour vendre ses produits, c'est tout à fait légitime. Il faut d'ailleurs reconnaître que l'empire de PKP fait ça avec une redoutable efficacité en mettant à contribution ses journaux, ses chaînes de télévision, ses maisons d'édition, ses librairies et magasins de disques, sa compagnie de câble et autres produits dérivés. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13682             M. CHABOT : D'autres exemples inquiétants, cette fois chez MediaMatinQuébec, ce journal né d'un conflit de travail dans lequel il est notamment question d'échange de contenu entre entités de Quebecor et de convergence.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13683             A plusieurs reprises, les journalistes de MédiaMatinQuébec se sont vus refuser des entrevues avec des artistes dans le giron de Quebecor.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13684             Comme le signale Daniel Paquet, rédacteur en chef du nouveau quotidien de Québec :

* Peut‑être qu'un jour le mot d'ordre de Quebecor sera de ne pas permettre aux artistes de s'adresser à des médias non québécoriens'. Pas sûr que les Québécois en sortiront gagnants et que les artistes y trouveront leur intérêt. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13685             Le CRTC doit faire de l'information une priorité du système canadien de radiodiffusion.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13686             Il doit s'assurer que les radiodiffuseurs s'engagent à poursuivre la mission de leur service actuel.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13687             De plus, le nombre d'heures de productions locales devrait être augmenté pour les postes appartenant à des groupes médias mixtes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13688             Des conditions de licence devraient prévoir que les titulaires conservent des structures séparées pour la gestion, la présentation et surtout la cueillette des nouvelles, car si les plateformes se sont multipliées, la production de contenus a connu un processus inverse.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13689             Le CRTC a mis de l'avant l'idée d'un projet de code d'indépendance journalistique régi par le CCNR.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13690             Ce code prévoit notamment des procédures visant à garantir que les radiodiffuseurs conservent des structures de direction et de présentation des nouvelles distinctes de celles de leurs journaux affiliés.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13691             Ce code, dans sa forme actuelle, serait inefficace principalement parce qu'il ne prend pas en considération le caractère central de la cueillette originale de l'information par opposition à sa simple rediffusion ou impression sur diverses plateformes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13692             Avec moins de journalistes sur les routes pour analyser et poser des questions, le public est moins bien servi.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13693             De plus, la responsabilité d'assurer la diversité de voix en radiotélévision devrait être mise en ouvre par le biais du gouvernement et administré par le CRTC. Pas le CCNR.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13694             Faute d'agence gouvernementale indépendante qui surveille et réglemente la presse écrite ou électronique au pays, il serait souhaitable que soit mis en place un mécanisme régissant l'examen des demandes de licences pour juger les fusions de médias sous l'angle de l'intérêt public et de la diversité des voix.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13695             Nous croyons que poursuivre cette convergence à outrance met en péril la vie démocratique au Canada et la possibilité pour ses citoyens de faire des choix éclairés.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13696             Je vous remercie.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13697             LE PRÉSIDENT : Merci beaucoup pour vos représentations.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13698             J'espère que vous étiez ici quand la SRC a fait sa soumission. Ils nous ont proposé une règle qui dit qu'aucun propriétaire ne peut dans un marché être le propriétaire de radio, de journal et de télévision.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13699             Selon ce que vous avez dit, j'imagine que vous êtes d'accord avec cette règle proposée par la SRC.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13700             M. BIBEAULT : Oui, effectivement.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13701             Nous, en ce qui a trait au contrôle des propriétés croisées, on en fait pratiquement un cheval de bataille.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13702             Les problèmes de propriétés croisées font en sorte que, maintenant, on s'approvisionne à peu près à une source d'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13703             Pour donner un exemple ‑ je trouve ça drôle, ce matin, j'écoutais RDI et je voyais le commissaire Morin à la télévision, parce que dans le temps, dans son autres vie, le commissaire Morin, il était ‑ c'était un reporter spécialisé en économie.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13704             Bon, il faut vous dire que, pour avoir suivi un peu sa carrière, il y a beaucoup de changements législatifs qui sont arrivés suite à ses enquêtes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13705             Mais présentement, regardez le portrait qu'on a au Québec avec la propriété croisée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13706             Est‑ce que, dans l'empire Quebecor, il y a des reporters spécialisés en économie ?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13707             TVA a le plus gros bulletin de nouvelles, qui tire le plus. Y a‑t‑il un journaliste spécialisé en économie ?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13708             Je vous pose la question. Vous n'êtes pas capable de répondre parce qu'il n'y en a pas.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13709             Quand vient le temps d'avoir des reporters économiques, bien, on va aller chercher un correspondant qui est au Journal de Québec, au Journal de Québec ou au Journal de Montréal, et lui, va faire de quoi, et là, après ça, va être répété dans toutes les plateformes de l'empire Quebecor.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13710             Ça fait que c'est évident que ce genre de propriétés croisées là fait en sorte qu'on a seulement une source d'information et puis on n'a plus de reporter économique.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13711             MME LAROUCHE : Bien, pour nous, écoutez, la propriété croisée des médias, même télévision et journaux, ne devrait pas exister.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13712             On est conscient qu'on ne refera pas le passé, hein. Ça, on en est bien conscient.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13713             Mais c'est pourquoi on dit : La propriété croisée ou les propriétés croisées qui ont été autorisées doivent faire l'objet d'une surveillance accrue et doivent respecter certaines conditions.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13714             Donc, ce dont on parle, conditions de licence. Notamment, respect du code de déontologie. Et possibilité d'amende s'il y a délinquance. Parce qu'on sait que certains sont plus délinquants que d'autres.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13715             Mais, pour le futur, là, on dit : Il faut vraiment repenser cette possibilité d'autoriser la propriété croisée. D'autant plus qu'aux États‑Unis, qui a souvent servi de modèle ‑ en tous cas, le souvenir que j'ai des audiences auxquelles on a participé au fil des ans au CRTC, c'est que souvent les propriétaires de médias citaient l'exemple américain comme étant l'exemple devant favoriser la réglementation du CRTC.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13716             Or, aux États‑Unis, la propriété croisée est encore une mesure d'exception.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13717             Et, pour nous, ce doit être une mesure d'exception, comme on pouvait le penser dans le cas de TQS, notamment. Lorsque Quebecor a acheté TQS.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13718             Alors, pour nous, ça devrait encore être interdit, la propriété croisée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13719             LE PRÉSIDENT : L'autre chose. Dans vos deux présentations, on parle de l'intégrité de l'information. Nous sommes ici pour discuter la diversité, mais vous utilisez un mot très lourd ici. L'intégrité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13720             Est‑ce que vous êtes d'avis qu'il y a une question d'intégrité de l'information aujourd'hui à cause de la concentration ?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13721             J'ai compris. Beaucoup des préoccupations sur la diversité et la multiciplité. Mais l'intégrité de l'information, ça m'étonne. C'est la première fois que j'ai entendu que vous avez peur vis‑à‑vis de l'intégrité de l'intégrité de l'information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13722             Peut‑être que vous pouvez expliquer.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13723             MME LAROUCHE : Oui.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13724             En fait, l'analyse, je dirais, le relevé, de littérature qui a été fait par le professeur Bernier ‑ comme je vous disais, il est spécialisé en déontologie ‑ permet de conclure, en tous cas, en discutant avec les journalistes, au Canada comme aux États‑Unis, qu'inévitablement, ils deviennent ‑ l'information est parfois affectée par la manière dont la propriété est installée, à savoir qu'il y aura des choix en matière de couverture de presse, par exemple, qui pourront être fixés en fonction des intérêts du propriétaire.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13725             On est conscient, aussi, de plus en plus.  Et on le voit dans nos salles de nouvelles, que des journalistes qui sont plus vulnérables que d'autres, c'est‑à‑dire qui n'ont pas, notamment, de sécurité d'emploi, peuvent être tentés...  Bien, * tentés +...  Je dirais * ont tendance +, parfois, à subir l'influence et les dictat patronaux en matière de couverture pour se protéger et pour avoir un avenir.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13726             Et ça, vous avez, en annexe document notamment, une décision arbitrale qui témoigne directement qu'au Journal de Montréal, notamment, pour effectuer la couverture de Star Académie, on a confié à des journalistes temporaires qui n'avaient pas... qui n'étaient pas, je dirais, sous la protection de la convention collective, la couverture, donc, de Star Académie, de manière à pouvoir publier des textes qui, à notre avis, étaient complaisants à l'égard des produits de Quebecor.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13727             Mais il y a aussi cette tendance, au Quotidien, et vous en avez parlé un peu tout à l'heure, parfois, à l'autocensure.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13728             On n'osera pas nécessairement produire un écrit ou une nouvelle qui va nuire à l'image de l'entreprise pour laquelle on travaille, par crainte, parfois, de subir des mesures, mais aussi parce qu'on est bien conscients, quand on travaille dans les médias, qu'on n'a pas intérêt, nécessairement, à détruire l'image de celui qui nous emploie.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13729             Alors, il y a des risques et c'est documenté, ça.  En tout cas, quand on relit l'analyse de monsieur Bernier, du professeur Bernier, il y a des tendances qui conduisent à... qui influencent, finalement, la manière dont le journaliste peut se comporter au quotidien dans son travail.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13730             M. BIBEAULT:  Je suis d'accord avec tout ce qui est dit.  Je vais vous apporter des points très précis parce qu'effectivement, quand on attaque l'intégrité d'un journaliste...  Parce qu'un journaliste, la seule chose que ça a, c'est son intégrité.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13731             Mais là, en ce qui a trait à la salle des nouvelles, l'exemple que je peux vous donner...  On a fait un pointage, à TVA, ce printemps, sur les commentateurs.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13732             Quand vient le temps, les commentateurs politiques, pour décortiquer une situation...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13733             Maintenant, la politique de Quebecor depuis 2006, c'est :  uniquement des commentateurs qui viennent du giron de Quebecor.  Donc, quand vient le temps d'analyser une situation... une situation politique difficile à décortiquer, bien on a une liste et on ne peut prendre uniquement que les commentateurs directement de Quebecor.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13734             Plus facilement, on peut juste dire, Michel C. Auger, qui était un partenaire de TVA depuis plusieurs années, à partir du moment qu'il a écrit une chronique dans Le Soleil, il n'était plus bon pour TVA.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13735             Et ça, c'est pour l'ensemble des... l'ensemble...  De toute façon, je vous le dis... je veux dire, on a fait un pointage.  A deux exceptions près, ce n'est que ça.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13736             Dans un cas plus près d'ici, journalistique, à LCN.  LCN, donc, canal nouvelles, à toutes les demi‑heures il y a un nouveau bulletin de nouvelles.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13737             Bon, on sort une nouvelle anodine, au printemps.  Là, je ne me souviens plus laquelle, mais une nouvelle quelconque qui sort à deux heures et demie l'après‑midi.  Il y a eu une erreur de faite en ce qui a trait au nom de la personne, puis la date.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13738             Bon, à trois heures, c'est un autre bulletin de nouvelles.  On corrige la nouvelle.  Le lendemain matin, dans Le 24 heures, c'était le texte exactement du * ticker + (excusez le terme anglais)...  C'était le texte du * ticker + qui s'est réveillé dans Le 24 heures, parce que la concentration de La Presse, les conditions de licence de TVA s'appliquent... s'appliquent.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13739             Il ne peut pas y avoir de transfert de nouvelles entre le Journal de Montréal et TVA.  Mais par contre, dans les conditions de licence de voilà sept ans, Le 24 heures n'existait pas.  Ça fait que Le 24 heures est branché directement sur le serveur de TVA.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13740             On ne voit absolument pas ce qui se passe.  Eux autres, ils prennent les nouvelles puis ils les retranscrivent.  Il n'y a aucune enquête; ce n'est pas du journalisme, ça.  C'est un technicien qui prend ce qu'il y a sur le * ticker + puis il fait un article avec ça.  C'est ça l'intégrité, comme on dit.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13741             on dit présentement, il y a une multitude de plates‑formes de diffusion, mais il y a un contenu.  Puis si ça s'adonne que ce contenu‑là, au début de la chaîne, il y a une erreur, il n'y a personne d'autre pour le vérifier.  Puis c'est ça qu'on... qu'on perd l'intégrité.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13742             Mme LAROUCHE:  Si vous permettez, Monsieur le Président...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13743             LE PRÉSIDENT:  Oui.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13744             Mme LAROUCHE:  J'aimerais aussi ajouter un élément que j'ai oublié, par rapport à l'intégrité.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13745             C'est qu'effectivement, avec la multiplication des plates‑formes issues de la convergence, hein, à bien des égards, ça a un effet aussi sur la capacité du journaliste de prendre le recul et d'analyser ce qu'il produit et ce qu'il diffuse.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13746             Parce que dans les faits, un journaliste qui, auparavant, faisait de l'écrit uniquement (on le voit partout), va maintenant devoir faire des extraits vidéo.  Ça commence déjà, à La Presse.  Il va devoir faire des extraits vidéo, des reportages audio, pour alimenter le site internet.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13747             Bien, cette personne‑là, le temps qu'elle allouait pour faire une enquête ou une analyse journalistique en profondeur, bien, dorénavant, elle doit le faire pour alimenter plusieurs plates‑formes, ce qui fait qu'inévitablement, ce que les journalistes nous disent?  * Bien écoutez, comme on veut le faire à coût zéro, on est obligé de faire plus avec les même ressources et inévitablement, on peut aller beaucoup moins en profondeur au niveau de l'analyse et de la vérification aussi des informations qu'on publie. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13748             LE PRÉSIDENT:  Mais c'est plus une question de qualité que d'intégrité.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13749             Mme LAROUCHE:  Bien, je dirais que nous, on l'analysait de la même façon dans la mesure où...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13750             Bon, là...  On peut...  On ne l'aborde pas du côté de l'intégrité des journalistes, on parle de l'intégrité de l'information dans la mesure où l'information est véridique et vérifiée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13751             LE PRÉSIDENT:  Okay.  Merci.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13752             Michel, tu as des questions?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13753             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Merci, Monsieur le Président.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13754             Juste sur le point que vous soulevez...  La multiplicité des tâches, est‑ce que ça ne s'applique pas aussi à tout le monde dans la société?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13755             Si je remonte à il y a 100 ans, ça prenait une semaine pour recevoir une lettre, puis on avait trois semaines pour y penser, puis une autre semaine pour la retourner.  Puis aujourd'hui, avec le courriel, on s'attend à recevoir une réponse en dedans de 10 minutes et ça...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13756             Mme LAROUCHE:  Bien, ça, c'est un fait, je vous l'accorde.  Cependant, je vous dirais là‑dessus (puis je pense que c'est important que je le précise, à ce moment‑ci), nos membres et les journalistes sont conscients...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13757             Et d'abord, la technologie le facilite, hein?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13758             Ils sont conscients qu'ils peuvent alimenter plusieurs plates‑formes et que, dans certains cas, ils sont en mesure de le faire sans problème.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13759             Mais ce qu'on nous révèle, c'est qu'au Quotidien, plusieurs personnes qui auraient intérêt à avoir plus de temps pour approfondir l'information, la justesse des informations livrées, mettent maintenant davantage d'énergie à préparer, je dirais, ou à assumer les éléments techniques nouveau qui s'ajoutent à leurs tâches.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13760             Alors, ils nous disent :  * Il y a des cas où on peut le faire et bien le faire.  Mais il y a d'autres cas où ce n'est pas vrai qu'on peut être en mesure de bien assumer notre fonction de journaliste tout en desservant une multitude de plates‑formes. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13761             Et ils ont tendance, aussi, à dire parfois :  * Bien, écoutez.  On a l'impression de devenir des machines à mettre du contenu dans un contenant sans égard au fait que la pertinence mériterait d'être questionnée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13762             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Oui, monsieur Chabot?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13763             M. BIBEAULT:  Monsieur Bibeault.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13764             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Monsieur Bibeault.  Excusez‑moi.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13765             M. BIBEAULT:  Bien, je vous disais que j'écoutais la présentation de Quebecor, hier, où est‑ce qu'ils parlaient :  * Bien écoute.  On est dans une économie mondiale, puis c'est normal, justement, qu'il y ait des regroupements, et cetera. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13766             Bien, je vous dirais que ce que j'ai à répondre à ça, c'est qu'effectivement, une économie mondiale, il va y avoir des regroupements.  Mais pourquoi qu'on fait des regroupements?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13767             Puis après ça :  Où sont les limites de regroupements?  On fait des regroupements pour faire une économie d'échelle.  Mais là, quand on fait des regroupements à ce qui a trait à l'information, l'économie d'échelle ça veut dire qu'on veut recycler la même information partout.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13768             Tu sais, à Montréal, on a à peu près une dizaine de banques ou d'institutions financières.  Et il y a du monde, ici, qui se sont déjà questionnés sur les fusions des banques pour garder la même offre.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13769             Moi, je vous dirais que point de vue médias, on est rendu à trois, quatre médias francophones seulement, dans la région de Montréal.  Puis, les économie d'échelle font en sorte que c'est la même information qui est recyclée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13770             Je comprends qu'ici on n'est pas...  Vous n'avez pas de mandat, présentement, pour la presse écrite, mais j'aimerais ça, peut‑être, que mon collègue de Québec sur la presse écrite vous démontre c'est quoi qu'il se passe quand on recycle la même information.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13771             M. BOLDUC:  Alors, bien, c'est ça.  Les grandes entreprises comme Quebecor affirment qu'il y a... bon, il y a une multitude de plates‑formes, que ça se multiplie.  On est tous d'accord avec ça :  jamais eu... qu'il n'y a jamais eu autant de diversité, que l'information est plus accessible que jamais auparavant.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13772             Et, dans un contexte comme celui‑là, comment expliquer...?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13773             Au Journal de Québec, actuellement, on est * lock‑out +.  Alors, comment expliquer que le moyen de pression qu'on a choisi pour réagir à Quebecor (la publication d'un quotidien gratuit, 40,000 copies à chaque jour)...  Comment expliquer qu'on a eu un succès instantané avec ce journal‑là, que la population de Québec a pris deux journées à l'adopter?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13774             Pourquoi?  Parce qu'on y retrouve exclusivement des nouvelles de Québec.  Et les gens de Québec ont accès à internet, ont accès aux grands réseaux de télévision, ont accès à tout ça.  Et malgré ça, on a eu un succès instantané avec la publication du Média Matin Québec, qui est le moyen de pression.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13775             Alors, là, il y a une démonstration on ne peut plus claire qu'il y a un manque, il y a un besoin, dans une ville comme Québec, de 500 000 habitants environ, qui est déjà desservie par deux quotidiens majeurs, le Journal de Québec et Le Soleil, de deux groupes très importants, Quebecor et Gesca.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13776             Alors, dans ce contexte‑là, on comprend, nous, on décode ce qu'on disait depuis 10 ans, que la montréalisation de l'information c'était un danger.  La population de Québec est en train de nous dire :  * Vous aviez raison, les médias, les journalistes, les gens, les professionnels du milieu, de prétendre ça. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13777             Et j'ai apporté un exemple de * c'est quoi +, de ce que ça pourrait être de confier, par exemple, à Quebecor la responsabilité de s'autodiscipliner en matière de diversité d'information, de diversité de voix.  C'est...  Moi, à mon sens, c'est comme donner la clé de la bergerie au loup.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13778             On a ici deux pages d'une journée identique du Journal de Québec et du Journal de Montréal.  Exactement les mêmes nouvelles, la même majeure, les trois mêmes nouvelles secondaires.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13779             Et qu'est‑ce qu'on avait cette journée‑là dans La Presse?  On avait une nouvelle concernant l'usage des bonbonnes à usage unique.  On avait une nouvelle concernant la Commission sur les accommodements raisonnables.  A Québec, au Soleil, on avait une nouvelle sur Olymel, qui a fait la manchette, même, provinciale... Olymel.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13780             Et cette journée‑là, parce que...  Et on le sait, on l'affirme, on n'est pas gêné de le dire :  cette directive‑là vient de la haute direction de Quebecor.  Alors, cette journée‑là, Olymel n'était pas assez important pour au moins avoir une manchette secondaire dans le Journal de Québec.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13781             Alors, la diversité des voix, exemple Quebecor, c'est ce que ça pourrait donner.  Et c'est le danger qui guette les gens, la population au Québec.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13782             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Bon.  Bien, écoutez.  On va avoir l'occasion, probablement, d'y revenir.  Bon, on a vu les photos que vous nous avez présentées.  Mais pour commencer, je vais...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13783             Je m'étais fait un plan d'interrogatoire, puis je vais revenir à mon plan, parce qu'autrement, on risque d'y passer la journée.

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

LISTNUM 1 \l 13784             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Écoutez, je vais commencer par...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13785             Mes questions vont être générales.  Un et l'autre pourra y répondre, un peu, dans le forum qu'on est là.  Mais cependant, en premier lieu, je voulais quand même souligner que la récession que vous avez déposée, qui a été faite par monsieur Marc‑François Bernier est des plus intéressante et je suis...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13786             C'est une bonne initiative, certainement, de la part de la FNC de nous l'avoir rendue publique parce qu'on a peu d'outils de littérature universitaire qui nous ont été déposés.  Et puis là, au moins, c'est un document de récession que j'ai trouvé, moi, personnellement, très intéressant.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13787             Je n'ai pas de questions spécifiques sur l'étude, mais j'ai trouvé quand même, à sa lecture, que c'était un bon complément pour le propos de l'audience.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13788             Si je saisis bien vos mémoires, finalement, ce qui vous préoccupe, ce n'est pas tellement la pluralité des voix, mais c'est la diversité.  Et c'est la diversité quand on l'amène dans la dimension de l'information, de l'information locale.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13789             Et ça, je vois que ça se reflète à différents paliers :  la cueillette de l'information, tout comme la livraison de l'information.  Puis, effectivement, vous avez parlé tantôt...  Dans les deux cas, vous avez parlé des multiplates‑formes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13790             Est‑ce qu'il y a d'autres intérêts que des intérêts corporatifs, dans votre démarche, ou la protection des emplois dans les entreprises pour lesquelles vous avez des adhérents, qui fait que vous êtes présents devant nous aujourd'hui?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13791             Mme LAROUCHE:  Je vous dirais qu'en tout cas, à la Fédération, au cours de la dernière année particulièrement, mais aussi, dans tout le débat de la concentration :  oui, au départ, on s'est questionné beaucoup sur l'impact sur l'emploi.  Je mentirais de dire le contraire.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13792             Mais à ce jour, et depuis quelques années, le débat que nous faisons et les discussions que nous avons avec nos membres nous ramènent constamment à la mission des médias, au fait qu'on a l'impression que, de plus en plus, la responsabilité des médias glisse vers les intérêts des entreprises aux dépens de l'intérêt public.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13793             Et s'il y a une chose, je vous dirais...  Là où ça préoccupe peut‑être le plus nos membres, ce n'est peut‑être pas autant au niveau de l'emploi, parce qu'il y a des endroit où on embauche de plus en plus.  Je pense à La Presse, notamment.  Il y a quand même renouvellement de main‑d'ouvre dans bien des cas.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13794             Le problème est beaucoup plus au niveau de la frustration, je dirais qu'ont les gens qui ont le devoir d'informer et qui travaillent dans les médias et qui ont l'impression que, de moins en moins, les médias offrent au public ce à quoi il a droit en information, mais aussi en programmation.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13795             Alors, c'est davantage, je pense, ce qui nous amène ici aujourd'hui.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13796             M. BIBEAULT:  Alors, c'est évident qu'on a certains intérêts, parce que si on était sans intérêts, on n'aurait pas été invités, hein?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13797             Mais tu as...  Au‑delà de cela, ça reste que l'intérêt qu'on va avoir, si je prends les journalistes en Estrie...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13798             Les journalistes en Estrie, ils avaient leur émission, avant :  La vie en Estrie.  Puis pour eux, c'était important de faire ça, autant pour la population que les annonceurs locaux.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13799             Puis là, on est dans une situation où, avant cela, il y avait des bulletins de nouvelles dans chacune des régions du Québec.  Maintenant, le bulletin de nouvelles, c'est rendu une clip de cinq minutes.  Les conséquences de cela, c'est que les membres qu'on représente, eux autres, ils trouvent ça dommage pour la région.  Parce que la région n'est plus desservie en nouvelles.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13800             Puis deuxièmement, ce qui est dommage, aussi, c'est toute la notion des annonceurs locaux.  Avant ça, le restaurant à Sherbrooke était capable de s'annoncer dans le bulletin de nouvelles locales.  Maintenant, être capable de s'annoncer national c'est impossible.  Ou avoir un bulletin local...  Ou avoir une annonce locale dans une émission nationale, ça n'a plus la même portée.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13801             Donc, ça fait en sorte que c'est au détriment de l'économie locale puis c'est au détriment aussi de la vie politique et démocratique locale, le fait que tout devient national, là, que ça devient québécois.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13802             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Je vous ai entendu dire qu'effectivement, quand vous avez parlé de la vie en Estrie, que ça servait à la fois les annonceurs.  Donc, est‑ce que c'est bel et bien un rôle de journaliste que de servir les annonceurs?

LISTNUM 1 \l 13803             M. BIBEAULT:  Je ne suis pas ici pour parler des journalistes.  On est ici pour parler de la diversité des voix et des conséquences de la diversité des voix.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13804             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Mais c'est parce que c'est vous qui l'avez donné comme exemple.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13805             M. BIBEAULT:  Oui.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13806             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Puis, peut‑être qu'effectivement, de l'avoir resserrée à moins de temps, a fait que finalement, on est peut‑être moins porté sur les questions de nature commerciale et davantage sur les questions d'intérêt public.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13807             M. BIBEAULT:  Oui.  Mais dans le fond...  Nous, ce qu'on vous parle, dans le fond, c'est les conséquences de limiter le nombre de voix, le fait qu'il y ait moins de diversité de voix.  Il y a des conséquences à ça.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13808             Il y a des conséquences politiques, il y a des conséquences démocratiques, puis il y a des conséquences économiques, aussi.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13809             CONSEILLER ARPIN:  Parce qu'hier on a entendu Quebecor nous dire qu'effectivement, un des bénéfices de la consolidation :  ça leur avait permis d'avoir davantage de gens et aussi, d'avoir une plus grande présence.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13810             D'être présents à Washington avec un correspondant, d'avoir quelqu'un qui est présentement en Afghanistan pour suivre les événements là‑bas, d'avoir été capable d'envoyer rapidement quelqu'un à Virginia Tech et dans d'autres... et à l'occasion de d'autres événements ou d'autres forums internationaux.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13811             Alors qu'avant la consolidation, on s'en référait au fil de presse avec des photos fixes ou si on était capable de rejoindre quelqu'un qui demeurait dans ce milieu‑là qui parlait français, bien, on mettait son nom à l'écran pendant qu'on l'écoutait avec un clip de 30 ou 45 secondes.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13812             Alors qu'aujourd'hui, on utilise les moyens de communication de manière plus adéquate et plus... et de manière semblable aux grands réseaux internationaux qui arrivent ici au Canada et que des téléspectateurs peuvent aisément consommer.  Donc, on s'est mis...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13813             La concentration, c'est...  Ce que nous dit Quebecor, finalement, en d'autres mots, c'est que ça nous a permis de se mettre à niveau avec les autres sources d'information internationale qui arrivent ici au Canada par tous les circuits, pas juste par l'internet, mais aussi par le câble.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13814             M. BIBEAULT:  Bien, c'est ça...  Mais pour nous, l'un n'empêche pas l'autre.  Et je ne pense pas qu'on pourrait revenir à 1968 avec une personne en arrière... en arrière d'un tableau noir qui va refaire... qui va expliquer pour l'actualité.  C'est évident.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13815             Mais par contre, au même titre que ça serait impossible demain matin de partir un poste de télévision...  Je prends l'exemple de Sherbrooke, je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais...  Partir un poste de télévision à Sherbrooke sans qu'il soit un partenaire affilié.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13816             Donc, c'est évident qu'à tout le moins, il faut que tu sois affilié à un grand réseau de nouvelles parce que tu n'es pas capable de tout couvrir seul.  Mais l'idée d'être affilié ne veut pas dire qu'il faut que ça soit le réseau qui alimente tout.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13817             Le phénomène de la montréalisation des ondes, ça...  Est‑ce que c'est normal que la capitale nationale du Québec n'a pas de bulletin de nouvelles dans le temps des fêtes parce que c'est le bulletin de normal... c'est le bulletin de Montréal qui passe à Québec.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13818             Pour alimenter tout l'Est du Québec, dans le temps des fêtes, dans les deux semaines qu'il y a eu, c'est les nouvelles de Montréal qu'ils ont eues.  C'est dans ce sens‑là qu'on trouve que là, c'est trop.  C'est correct qu'à 22 heures, qu'il y ait un bulletin national, qu'on couvre ce qui se passe aux États‑Unis puis l'Afghanistan.  Puis s'il y a un tsunami...

LISTNUM 1 \l 13819             Bien, okay, qu'on met conjoint ensemble.  On n'est pas là pour critiquer ça.  Mais ce qu'on critique, c'est au détriment de la nouvelle locale.  Autrement dit, c'est que le fait de faire ça, on doit pouvoir dire :  * Bien écoute.  Maintenant, là... c'est plus payant. +

LISTNUM 1 \l 13820             Le choix que les diffuseurs font, c'est de dire :  * Bien, à 18 h 30, est‑ce je vais mettre un bulletin de nouvelles locales ou je vais passer à une émission... ou je vais passer Friends des États‑Unis ou je vais passer une série américaine traduite?  Ah!  Je vais faire plus d'argent avec la série américaine traduite et donc, je n'ai pas de nouvelles locales.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13821             C'est ça qu'on dénonce.  Puis c'est ça qui a des conséquences politiques et économiques.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13822             Mme LAROUCHE:  Bien, moi j'aimerais mentionner quand même...  Je pense qu'on l'a dit, également, dans le mémoire, que la consolidation des entreprises les amène, par exemple, à regrouper des ressources pour faire de la couverture canadienne d'événements étrangers.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13823             On se dit :  * Si seulement ça servait à ça :  permettre à des réseaux, cette consolidation, d'assumer les responsabilités prévues à la Loi sur la radiodiffusion en matière de couverture à l'étranger.  Ce serait fantastique.