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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, June 4, 2002

1530

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.))

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch (President and CEO, CBC/Radio-Canada)

1535

Ms. Michèle Fortin (Executive Vice-President of French television, CBC/Radio-Canada)

1540

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance (Vice-President of the French Radio and New Media, CBC/Radio-Canada)

1545

1550

Ms. Hélène Gendron (Senior Manager, Employment Equity and Official Languages; CBC/Radio-Canada)

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Reid

1555

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

1600

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ontario, Lib.)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

1605

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

1610

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

1615

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

1620

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Ms. Yolande Thibeault

1625

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Ms. Yolande Thibeault

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP)

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Yvon Godin

1630

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.)

1635

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Ms. Sarmite Bulte

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Gérald Beaudoin (Rigaud, PC)

1640

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Senator Gérald Beaudoin

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance

Senator Gérald Beaudoin

1645

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Ms. Michèle Fortin

1650

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Ms. Michèle Fortin

Mr. Guy St-Julien

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Raymond Setlakwe (Les Laurentides, Lib.)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

1655

Senator Raymond Setlakwe

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Senator Raymond Setlakwe

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Hon. Setlakwe

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Gérard Binet (Frontenac—Mégantic, Lib.)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Viola Léger (New Brunswick, Lib.)

1700

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ)

1705

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance

Ms. Christiane Gagnon

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

1710

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Ms. Michèle Fortin

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

1715

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair

Senator Gérald Beaudoin

The Joint Chair

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

1720

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Gérard Binet

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Gérard Binet

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

Mr. Gérard Binet

Ms. Michèle Fortin

1725

Mr. Gérard Binet

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Hélène Gendron

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Hélène Gendron

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Viola Léger

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

1730

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger)

CANADA

Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages

NUMBER 042

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, June 4, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1530)

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.)): Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

The committee is currently studying part VII of the Official Languages Act, particularly, but not exclusively, section 41. It is studying how a certain number of Government of Canada agencies and departments enforce or comply with this part of the act. With this in mind, we have invited CBC/Radio-Canada to appear.

On the other hand, Mr. Rabinovitch, I must be honest with you all and say that the issue of La Soirée du hockey also is of concern to members of the committee. We would invite you, if you wish, to discuss this in your presentation. But one way or another, following your presentation and that of your delegation, the members of the committee are likely to ask questions concerning all of part VII of the act as regards Radio-Canada, as well as on the issue of La Soirée du hockey, of course.

Without further ado, Mr. Rabinovitch, I give you the floor.

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch (President and CEO, CBC/Radio-Canada): Madam Joint Chair, Mr. Joint Chair, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for having invited us to appear today before the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages.

The following people have accompanied me here today to give you some details on our activities: Ms. Michèle Fortin, Executive Vice-President of French Television, Mr. Sylvain Lafrance, Vice-President of French Radio and New Media, and Ms. Hélène Gendron, Senior Manager, Official Languages. After our presentation, we would be pleased to answer your questions.

We are very pleased to be here today as we are celebrating 50 years of television on CBC/Radio-Canada. Special events will begin next week and will continue on until the fall of 2002.

Since our last appearance before the committee four years ago, Société Radio-Canada has made significant progress. We better reflect the reality of minority groups on the network, and we have improved the services offered to Canadians across the country. Through our regional and national programming on radio, television and now the Web, we offer linguistic minorities in this country a reflection of their reality, their dynamism and the distinctive features of each region. We therefore contribute to promoting the development of francophones living outside Quebec and anglophones in Quebec. Within the limits of our mandate, we are making every effort to respect the spirit and the letter of section 41.

Before giving the floor to those responsible for programming, I would like to give you a few examples of our achievements this last year: the extension of la Chaîne culturelle, that is through 18 new licences this year; the launching of ARTV, the first French-language specialty arts channel in the country; the launching of CBC Radio Two in Quebec, Sherbrooke and the Eastern Townships this week; the priority given to transcultural projects such as Canada: a People's History, Trudeau and The Last Chapter; the front line role that Radio-Canada is playing to ensure and maintain the existence of a francophone space on the Web, including bandeapart.fm; our partnerships for the development of francophone talent outside Quebec; the influence of a Canadian perspective in the francophone world, for example through the broadcast, last September 11, of our French television signal on TV5Monde and our French radio on Radio France.

Michèle will now speak to you about Radio-Canada's French television.

¹ (1535)

Ms. Michèle Fortin (Executive Vice-President of French television, CBC/Radio-Canada): Thank you.

French television reaches 98% of francophones in the country and plays a basic role, along with French radio, in ensuring there is a francophone cultural space in Canada. For those living in a minority situation, it is a bulwark against the threat of assimilation.

It is from this perspective and with the awareness of our responsibilities towards francophone Canadians that we have adopted the following objectives: first of all, to maximize the regional presence and regional reflection of the network in each and every region. Our plan for branding of the network is targeting a better identification of each of the regional stations and will result in the production and broadcasting of short programs in each of the stations. This will also result, amongst other things, in new investments in journalistic resources across Canada, particularly for coverage of the cultural scene and establishment of news bureaux from Caraquet, New Brunswick to Whitehorse, Yukon, including Hearst, Timmins, Welland and Kingston in Ontario.

We have added a noon time televised news program for Acadia, and a public affairs show in the west and regional cultural coverage that will be shown on the network, on RDI and on ARTV.

For example, French television has also created a regional panel comprised of 14 personalities influential in their fields, from every region of Canada, including representatives from the Quebec region, to ensure aboriginal representation. The panel has already met three times and its impact is being felt. Following discussions it held, a public affairs program was reactivated in the western provinces, and thanks to this collaborative effort, L'Accent francophone will be renewed and improved. The next meeting on the schedule should make suggestions to improve and properly target coverage of stories from outside Quebec appearing on Le téléjournal and Le point.

We also wish to maximize the impact of proximity television and the broadcast of regional programs on the network through production or co-production with independent producers living in a minority situation.

Apart from the stories broadcast on news and current affairs programs all day long, Saturday afternoons, during the regular season, are devoted to a tour of Canada from several perspectives: a quiz show on language in Ottawa with Des mots et des maux, a look at cultural and artistic life in Atlantic Canada and Ontario with Brio and Expresso, more in-depth news coverage in francophone communities outside Quebec with L'Accent francophone, discovery of surprising or little-known aspects of the Canadian reality with the young videojournalists of Culture choc.

French television's commitment has also translated into an increased investment in the regional independent production industry. The variety series Un air de famille and Pour l'amour du country and the youth drama series Science point com are all produced by independent companies operating outside Quebec.

Moreover, we also have a significant series from Acadia in production at the moment, as well as another product from Quebec, which has a Franco-Ontarian author. The current affairs shows La Semaine verte and Second regard, in addition to being produced in Quebec City, broadcast a very high proportion of stories filmed outside Montreal. The variety series recorded in Moncton, Pour l'amour du country is aired in prime time. Several special programs attest to the dynamic cultural life of the regions: the Franco-Ontarian Festival, Ontario Pop, the Fête nationale des Acadiens, and others.

French television also wants to maximize the opportunities for synergy with partners. We have already mentioned the multipartite agreement with FCCF and IPOLC. In addition, for the first time, French television was associated with the Coup de coeur francophone, an event featuring the upcoming new talent in French song, by producing and broadcasting promos on the regional stations to mark the 15th anniversary of the Coup de coeur shows and the 10th anniversary of their Canada-wide debut.

Les Rendez-vous de la Francophonie was an opportunity to organize a super contest, La Fureur de la Francophonie. In addition to producing and broadcasting a promo on regional stations to advertize the content, French television covered the costs of a dozen or so air fares for participants from regions that were too remote or not served by train.

¹ (1540)

We have also taken major steps to develop French television internationally within the francophonie through exchange programs with French-language public television and through the twinning of regional stations here, in Europe and in Africa.

So, what does that mean in concrete terms? Well, more than 300 hours of programming produced in the regions, for the regions, on an annual basis; regionally produced programming with over 5 hours broadcast time on the national network, through ongoing resolve to extend our services with ARTV, which launched a regional based-channel in September 2001; through an increase in live regional coverage on RDI; through the silence on court! broadcast on the web; through investment in regional-based French-language cinema and also through a policy to promote our cable-distributed stations in small communities, by providing set-up decoders to those cable distributors serving over 1,000 people and who currently do not provide Radio-Canada.

In conclusion, French television has an ongoing commitment to create programming which is more relevant, which reflects the regions, and which is also in sync with Radio-Canada's role as a multifaceted television station providing a wide range of programming in the areas of news, public affairs, drama, culture and youth.

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance (Vice-President of the French Radio and New Media, CBC/Radio-Canada): Good afternoon, my name is Sylvain Lafrance and I am Vice-President of the French Radio and New Media at Radio-Canada. I would like to talk to you today a bit about what has been going on at our network. I am proud to be here today to talk to you about the achievements that have been made by French radio in official language communities. This is an issue on which I have done an enormous amount of work over the past few years. Each year, I travel around Canada to consult with representatives of these official language communities. I can tell you that currently, we have good and constructive relations with all the official language communities. Quite naturally, there is always an element of criticism and I believe that this will always be the case. However, our relations with these communities have improved greatly over the past few years.

I think that the best way of describing our achievements would be perhaps to start with the three fundamental goals that French radio set itself two years ago. They were international development, regional action and talent development.

I would like to give you a couple of examples of how these goals have been translated into programming. Firstly, the development of Radio-Canada internationally, and more especially within the francophonie, is crucial. The image that we have of French speakers is one of a community that is very loyal to French-language media, and this, in itself, is excellent news.

However, the bad news is that French-language media does not have many resources to earmark for international development. In the long run, this means that French speakers who tune into French-language media could be deprived of, or at the very least, face a shortage of international news compared to other communities. Therefore, it was decided that public radio had to increase international news content.

How was that done? Firstly, the Service des actualités et des affaires publiques radio was set up to distribute national or international news throughout the night to all our stations, to be included in our 20 regional morning programs. We also set up offices abroad, one in Rio and one in Jerusalem. Previously, we did not have offices in these cities. French radio also entered into twinning initiatives with foreign public radio stations. There was also a twinning initiative on a regional level. I believe, for example, that our Ottawa station is twinned with a radio station in Brussels. Those cities that are twinned together often have similar situations. In the near future, Moncton is to be twinned with Bordeaux and Dakar. Both the regions and French-speaking communities are also in a position to develop internationally through exchange initiatives with other French speakers throughout the world.

For several months, we have been working on integrating Radio-Canada International into Radio-Canada in an attempt to maximize synergy and to ensure that Radio-Canada reflects the whole francophonie at an international level.

Our second goal, as I have already mentioned, was regional action. We felt that it was important to increase our presence throughout the country. This resulted in the setting up of several new offices in Quebec and in other provinces throughout Canada, and also the creation of new stations. A case in point is Prince Edward Island, where until recently French radio was unavailable. We also opened an office in Newfoundland, and one in areas of the province of Quebec, such as Mauricie. Therefore, as you can see, we have set up new stations.

We have increased the number of regionally-produced hours and the number of national hours produced in the regions. Fifty per cent of French radio network hours are produced outside Montreal. This is noteworthy, because this programming is produced in all the major centres of the country. Indeed, in my opinion, the network now reflects, more than ever, the whole nation.

We have also participated in new collaborative initiatives with the Association des radiodiffuseurs communautaires du Québec, ARCQ, on the topics of training and content. This process covered news and other aspects of community radio programming. This agreement is working very well. We have also reached an agreement with the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française.

As Mr. Rabinovitch said earlier, one of our major initiatives under the regional action program has been the extension of la Chaîne culturelle, for which 18 new licences have been granted. This means that la Chaîne culturelle will be available to 90 per cent of French speakers as a whole and to 50 per cent of French speakers on a province-by-province basis. This indeed, was our long-term goal. Thanks to everyone's hard work, French radio has been able to meet this goal more quickly than planned, and as a result, all the regions are now able to pick up la Chaîne culturelle. We got the green light from the CRTC for all the regions and we plan to have completed the installation of transmitters throughout all the provinces within 12 to 18 months.

Two new applications have been made for Vancouver Island and Victoria, where French radio has not been available. One application concerned la Première chaîne and the other la Chaîne culturelle.

I am very pleased to be able to tell you that making la Chaîne culturelle available from sea to sea, is a major public radio initiative. This is important, not only so that French speakers are able to keep in touch with their own communities, but also so that anglophones can access a new take on the francophone reality. I find that this is extremely important.

Our third goal was to develop talent. I think it is useful to remind you that French radio alone invests approximately $5 million annually to develop Canadian talent in various music genres. Throughout the country, French radio participates in approximately 15 song festivals, several regional music festivals and several multifaceted festivals. We are very committed to developing Canadian talent.

More recently, we extended our presence in terms of new musical trends, or, in other words, youth music, through our website bandeapart.fm. Bandeapart.fm is also a radio and television show, which is a Radio-Canada showcase for young artists.

¹ (1545)

All these initiatives were put in place against the backdrop of a drive to increase listenership. It is also important for us to increase the listenership of public radio. I'm happy to tell you today that approximately one million Canadians tune in to public radio. Even though ratings are not our highest priority, we are very pleased with the figures anyway. We think providing a meaningful service to one million Canadians is fairly good news.

Radio-Canada is also very involved in new media. The Official Languages Commissioner, Ms. Adam, recently published a report, in which she made reference to the importance of the French language and the francophonie as a whole on the Web. I think that this is a major issue of cultural diversity. Radio-Canada has a great deal of exposure on the Web. We have Radio-Canada.ca as our main site, then we have nouvelles, which is the site most widely visited by Canadians. Our jeunesse site is extremely popular with all Canadians. A French radio also has bandeapart.fm, which is a very popular music site. Then we have silence on court!, which is a cinema-oriented site.

Public radio has developed fairly unique and very distinct Web sites. These sites are visited by approximately one million French-speaking Canadians per month. That represents a lot of people, when you think of the current state of Web penetration.

Consequently, our new media activities are going well. Our regional sites are also doing very well. I think that French radio has one of the most significant networks of French-language sites in Canada. So that really is an overview of the situation of French radio.

I would just like to end by pointing out that, when I travel across the country and I meet people from official languages communities, there are sometimes areas of dispute, but on the whole, we agree on the majority of issues. I think that we would all agree that the French radio service has improved greatly. The support that we mustered for the extension of la Chaîne culturelle is proof of this. Approximately 400 lobby groups expressed their support for extending la Chaîne culturelle throughout Canada. This demonstrates, I believe, the commitment of Canadians to French radio.

Thank you.

I forgot to mention that Hélène Gendron, Senior Manager, Employment Equity in Official Languages at CBC-Radio-Canada, will now conclude our presentation.

¹ (1550)

[English]

Ms. Hélène Gendron (Senior Manager, Employment Equity and Official Languages; CBC/Radio-Canada): We felt this overview would not be complete without a brief mention of the impact of the regional programming of English regional television and radio in Quebec, which is the counterpart to section 41.

The English language minority community in Quebec, and especially those living outside the greater Montreal region, four years ago seriously feared that the regional afternoon drive-home radio program would go off the air completely. They also feared that the journalists covering the region would cease to be an on-air presence. We're referring to communities located in the Eastern Townships, the Châteauguay Valley, and western Quebec, but more particularly those spread along the north shore, for whom CBC radio is the only choice.

Not only did this dark scenario not occur, but the return-home program has been revamped. The journalists are still on air, and new initiatives have been and will be introduced. For example, listeners continue to hear the journalist on air in Gaspé, as well as various contributions for the north shore and the Ottawa Valley. Noontime coverage of events not reported in the morning programs has also been added. Exchanges with French radio make it possible to hear reports from Rouyn, Rimouski, and western Quebec.

As the president mentioned earlier, on June 8 and 9, CBC Radio Two will go on air in Sherbrooke and Quebec City. A major launch is scheduled for September, as national programs visit these regions to meet the public and celebrate these new additions.

There are numerous projects in the works. I will just mention two. They concern talent development and relations with the communities. CBC Radio has joined with McGill University, Concordia University, and numerous community groups to develop a series of programs under the title Montreal Matters on themes of concern to the community. This series, in addition to calling upon talent in the community and expertise from the universities, will be produced in cooperation with English radio in Quebec, and will include a website.

Preliminary discussions with the community and with English community radios in Quebec could soon lead to a collaboration, creating links in the Ottawa Valley or elsewhere between CBC Radio and the community radio stations.

CBC Radio One and CBC Radio Two obviously continue to produce many contributions for the networks, just as English regional television in Quebec maintains its production for the network and Newsworld.

Finally, the English regional television's central Canada region, which includes Quebec and Ontario, is adding in the next few days a manager of program development, some of whose responsibility will be to increase programming from Montreal and the Ottawa Valley.

These are just a few examples of what English radio and television are doing for Quebec communities.

Merci.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Mr. Rabinovitch, do you wish to add anything about La Soirée du hockey?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Not at present.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): I'm sure we'll get back to it.

[Translation]

When we called you to appear here today, we said that we intended to discuss this issue. That is why I am somewhat surprised to hear you say that you prefer not to talk about this issue. However, we'll come back to that later. I would just like to assure you of one thing however. We will not take four years to invite you back again to appear before this committee next time.

[English]

Mr. Reid, seven minutes.

Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Carleton, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for an informative presentation.

I see we have a very full house here today, which just shows what can happen when people get the chance to bellyache about hockey. But I have another hockey team in my riding, the Ottawa Senators, so there are local political reasons that I'll be focussing on issues other than whether or not the Canadiens are on air.

I wanted to ask you specifically about the question of viewership for TV and listenership for the various sites, particularly for francophones outside Quebec and anglophones inside Quebec, where you're providing service in the minority language. This information may be publicly available--the number of listeners or viewers you have in the various locations. I haven't been able to locate it, and I'm wondering if that is publicly available information.

¹ (1555)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: It's available for the larger cities, wherever the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement or Nielsens do studies. We can give it to you for Ottawa, for Montreal, and for cities of that nature. We can give you whatever is available; there's no problem with that.

Mr. Scott Reid: Do you know in the smaller areas... I can guess the north shore, for example, would be 100% penetration, given the fact that it's the only radio available there. But if you're talking about the Eastern Townships, for example, or listenership for French TV and radio in Saskatchewan or B.C., is that measured? Do you have a sense of your market?

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance: It is quite tough to evaluate because we don't have an exact survey for the regions. For example, in Saskatchewan, when you do BBM surveys, the number of francophones is not probably enough to do a special survey just on the listenership of French radio. So it's tough. For some other regions, like the north of Ontario or l'Acadie, for example, it's easier to have some figures. But it's clear that it's tougher to have real results for those regions.

I think as a principle we need to first offer a basic service in French, and second, a local service, which is very valuable in those regions. And probably the better means of evaluating that was the consultation meeting we organized there. We know we were very important to them. They really love public radio and TV. It's their link to la francophonie.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: If we talk about television in the news area, we have the BBM surveys that indicate that in New Brunswick, the Maritimes, and Ottawa the six o'clock news program reaches between 33% and 40% of share, which is remarkable, considering the population. If we go out west, there's no francophone sample, and since the population is not concentrated, it often happens that there's no way to answer whether they're listening or not because they are not asked.

So for the four western provinces, we have only témoignage--

A voice: Anecdotal information.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: --you know, people writing to us, the people we meet, all our activities with the community. But when we have those samples, they are quite high, especially in the news area or the special events that we broadcast for the artistic community.

Mr. Scott Reid: I guess what I'm thinking of here, given that you have a limited resource envelope that can be devoted to minority language broadcasts, is that if you don't have some form of scientific or quasi-scientific measure, how does one wind up making the decision and know that you're actually putting your resources--within that universe of francophones outside of the bilingual belt, and anglophones outside of Montreal--where the need is greatest or the demand is highest?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Our policy comes from the combination of the Broadcasting Act and the Official Languages Act. We are obligated, under those acts, to basically give a full comprehensive service in English and in French where numbers warrant, numbers being defined as 500 or more people, basically. That was the accelerated coverage plan in the 1970s and the 1980s to cover the entire country.

That is government policy that we are the instrument to implement. You can only then go by anecdotal evidence as to whether or not people are actually listening and watching when in fact the numbers are too low to do formal surveys. The anecdotal evidence is very strong that for these communities this is an indispensable service. When we meet with them or when MPs meet with them, the information we get back is that this is a service they want and they want more of.

There's sometimes a question of balance as to the type of programming that's put on, but that's inevitable. But as a service, it's like doing CBC in the north. Without CBC in the north, there would be no communication between the areas and between the groups. Yet on a numbers basis, it doesn't warrant it. But it is government policy, and in our opinion the correct policy.

º (1600)

[Translation]

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance: I would just like to add to that. It is important for us to maintain our resources throughout Canada, not only because it's important to reflect francophone communities, but also because we want our network to reflect Canada as a whole. In order to reflect this nation of ours, it is important for us to distribute our resources throughout the entire country. This is extremely important.

It is also important that French language channels... I talked about this in terms of la Chaîne culturelle. When we launched la Chaîne culturelle in Toronto, we were quite surprised by the results. Many English speakers tune in to la Chaîne culturelle, and this is very good news, because it really shows an interest of one culture for another. In my opinion, this is an extremely important role for public radio and television. Consequently, there are several factors that have to be taken into account in terms of the distribution of resources throughout the nation.

[English]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Merci.

Before we go to our next question, I want to highlight the presence of St. Theresa's School from Peterborough. Welcome to our committee.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator Gauthier.

[Translation]

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ontario, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rabinovitch, what would you say to those people who believe that taking La Soirée du hockey off the French CBC network constitutes discrimination against French speakers? This is what some people have said to me. What would you say to those people?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: My answer is going to be a long one and therefore, if you don't mind, I'd like to answer in English.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): I will allow you to give a long answer, Mr. Rabinovitch, despite the fact that I have asked you to do so twice already. However, I will allow Senator Gauthier more time. Consequently, your answer to the senator's initial question will not take up all his time.

Mr. Rabinovitch, you have the floor.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: There was no question that you would be asking about this, but I suspect you're talking to the wrong people. I think you should be talking to the people who actually own the rights, and the people who own the rights are the NHL and the Montreal Canadiens.

The NHL and the Montreal Canadiens, both basically controlled by non-Canadians now, made a decision as to how they were going to sell their rights. First, they came to us last fall to discuss the sale of Canadian English rights, and we made a deal with them. They looked to other broadcasters as well, and they were more than willing to sell it to somebody else if somebody else was willing to pay for it. We were willing to buy it, we wanted to buy it, and in fact we were able to. They solved their problem with respect to their NHL coverage for the next five years by making an arrangement with us.

At the same time, we began to have discussions with les Canadiens because the NHL chose not to do it through head office, as they were doing on the English side, but to say that this should be done by les Canadiens, which is what they did in the past.

Now, les Canadiens are right now an American-owned team, and that has to be borne in mind as you look at this. When we talked to them at first, we made an offer to them; we told them what our objectives were for hockey on le réseau français. As is traditional and as has been for several years now, we and they anticipated that the rights would be split and that they would sell it to three different operators. They would sell La Soirée du hockey to us, they would sell most of the playoffs to us, they would sell a group of games to a conventional broadcaster such as TQS as they had in the past, and they would sell another group of games to a specialty broadcaster, most probably RDS.

That was the way we started our negotiations with them. This went on through the winter. We made an offer, and they made a counter-offer. Finally, in April, we agreed to their last offer. The last offer they put on the table we accepted, subject to our board approval and subject to the final formulation. They said that subject to league approval, this was going to be the deal, and they were going to now proceed to sell the rights to TQS, RDS, or whoever else wanted it for the rest of the games they were willing to sell.

On May 16 Gary Bettman phoned me to tell me that the league and les Canadiens--and in particular, he said, les Canadiens--had changed their strategy. From now on they did not want to sell the rights to three different operators, they wanted to sell it to one operator. Since we had been with them for fifty years, he asked if we would be interested in buying, but we had to buy everything, and everything was 124 games.

This 124 games would have meant that hockey would be dominating our schedule every week for 25 weeks and that the generalist station we hoped to have to serve various communities would be very difficult to maintain. You'd have been looking at two, three, and sometimes even four games per week. I said to Mr. Bettman, “You've just made me an offer you know I have to refuse. We are a conventional broadcaster, we have other audiences we have to serve, and therefore we cannot accept becoming a hockey network for 124 games.”

Last week Mr. Bettman phoned me again to say that they had made a decision and had sold all the rights to RDS. I said “That's fine; you realize that you have now disenfranchised 25% to 30% of francophones, who now must pay for something that was free before.” He said “That's our decision; that's how we want to go.”

Now, I come back to you to say, number one, they own the product, and they can decide how they're going to do it as long as there's no government policy to the contrary. Number two, I suggest to you that the ownership structure creates a situation similar to what happened in baseball in Montreal: the ownership structure of les Canadiens de Montréal today is such that they are not interested in serving the whole country. They are not interested in les Canadiens being a national product. They are interested in maximizing their return in a small market, and within that model the public broadcaster has no role to play.

º (1605)

[Translation]

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: Can I ask a supplementary question?

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Yes, please do, senator. You have six minutes remaining.

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: You entered into talks with RDS and these talks foundered. From what I have been told, your negotiations on the Formula 1 Grand Prix were successful, however. This seems to me to be the same thing. RDS made you an offer, whereby both networks would broadcast simultaneously. You turned down that offer.

Could you tell us why?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We went back to RDS after they won the rights. We said if you are interested in serving the whole of Canada, we are interested in buying La Soirée du hockey from you for Saturday nights. We made them an offer of $2 million. It was more money than was paid for the same product to les Canadiens the year before. They refused.

They want us to become a rebroadcasting institute for them. They want us to use their signal. It is not of the same quality, in our opinion, as our programming. They want us to use their announcers. They want all of the advertising. We are only another cable distributor. For us, it's not what conventional broadcasting and CBC and Radio-Canada are about.

[Translation]

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: Fine.

I don't have much time left. I only have a couple of minutes left.

There are 3 million Canadians who are hard of hearing. They have hearing problems. In 1995, the CRTC required that major Canadian broadcasters—of which you are one—provide a video feed, along with an audio feed and real time closed captioning. I'd just like to stress “the real time” part of that. This is important, because there are examples of subtitling everywhere, in films, in videos for example. However, it's more difficult to find real time closed captioning. The lady beside me provides me with real time captioning. I have to read what you are saying, because I am deaf.

How is it, then, Mr. Rabinovitch, that seven years later, both the French and English CBC are unable to comply with the requirements of their licence? I could give you examples until the cows come home.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I think if you check where we are today, we are at more than 95% coverage. Michèle can help me on this. We are trying to increase the number. We have agreed with the organization pushing for this to move it up.

One of our only problems is with respect to advertising, because we don't own the advertising. We are putting pressure on advertisers to also increase the amount of subtitling they do.

º (1610)

[Translation]

Ms. Michèle Fortin: As you know, captioning is more difficult to provide in French than in English. We have experienced some difficulties in training and retaining the number of people required to provide comprehensive closed captioning, especially, at RDI. However, we have made enormous progress, and each year, we have been able to provide an increasing number of captioned hours, moving us towards our goal of being able to provide captioning for all programs.

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: I don't want to cut you off, but you are talking to someone who has lived with this on a daily basis. On the weekends, no local or regional news program in Ottawa or elsewhere in Canada provides closed captioning. Of course, we have the national news at 10 o'clock in the evening. Closed captioning is added to that program during the day, when it is being produced. This is after-the-fact closed captioning. We're not talking about real time captioning here.

Last Sunday, an event of some importance for a politician took place. I was unable to follow events on either English or French CBC, because there was no captioning. CTV is another disaster story. They have even less captioning. I don't think that they are competing with you in terms of captioning, in any way.

How is it then that, seven years later, we have not been able to persuade you to provide real time closed captioning for Canadian French and English language programming? It's a very simple request, I'd say.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: I think that we are convinced that we need to provide this. I think that perhaps from where you stand, we are moving forward quite slowly, but we are moving as fast as we can. Over the past few years, we have begun to train full-time staff in the regions in an attempt to provide real time closed captioning for regional news programs. This should come on line sometime next year. It takes time.

I would like to apologize and say that I really understand your frustration.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you, Ms. Fortin. Thank you, Senator. We'll come back to that issue.

Mr. Sauvageau.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Ladies, gentlemen, thank you.

Mr. Lafrance, I will perhaps not have time to put questions to you on the issue of the radio. However, I would just like to congratulate you on the very original French-language radio programs—especially those for young audiences—that French radio is currently airing. Indeed, we are not only here to criticize. I myself listen to these programs and they are of a very high quality. I have even recommended them to others.

Ms. Fortin, you wanted to comment on what Senator Gauthier said. I would like to pick up on his question and even add a bit of detail to it. Indeed, Radio-Canada does rebroadcast some programs produced by other networks, such as RDS. I was thinking specially about Formula 1 Grand Prix. I have seen articles in the newspapers, on the RDS and Radio-Canada presentation of the Formula 1 Grand Prix for example. You also rebroadcast events such as international tennis championships, soccer and golf.

Yesterday, we questioned the CRTC as to the possibility of the joint production of RDS programs with Radio-Canada. The CRTC informed us that the negotiation process was ongoing. Perhaps the CRTC representatives were mistaken, but nevertheless, that's what they said. Consequently, I would like to ask you, Mr. Rabinovitch, to comment on that issue. Has this negotiation process come to an end? Is it true that French Canadians and even English Canadians for that matter, who are Montreal Canadians fans—because the language barrier is not so important for televised sporting events—will indeed no longer be able to tune in to French language hockey games next season? Or, are the negotiations still ongoing and has there been any semblance of compromise from both sides?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Indeed, I wanted to give some specific details about the issue of the Grand Prix and joint broadcasts. Joint broadcasts are extremely rare at Radio-Canada. However, they do occur on occasion.

In terms of the negotiation of the Grand Prix, Normand Legault asked us to enter into a partnership with RDS. Only the Montreal Formula 1 Grand Prix is a joint broadcast, which we produce and which is broadcast on RDS. All the remaining events are broadcast on the other channel at a different time of day. Consequently, these programs are not joint broadcasts and are never put out at peak times; they are on on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon.

There are joint broadcasts, when, for example, all four networks get together to put on a major variety show for ice storm survivors, for example.

In terms of the other sporting events, what RDS was proposing was that Radio-Canada would be the co-broadcaster. That would mean that Radio-Canada would broadcast an RDS program every night of the week for 75 hours a year. These programs would be labelled RDS productions. If we were to agree to that, this would initiate a major change at Radio-Canada, whereby a private television network would be in a position to buy the rights to the Olympics for example. The private network would simply put forward the argument to the International Olympic Association that all the events would go out on Radio-Canada anyway.

The same thing could happen, for example, with Télé-Québec cinema and for major shows. Radio-Canada would no longer be a French-language producer of original programming but would become a mere rebroadcaster for all those events picked up by the private networks. The private networks would simply say that in terms of the political issue, there was no problem, because Radio-Canada would fill in the gaps.

To move to your second question, if RDS were to offer to give up the rights and if it showed itself willing to discuss the terms and conditions, I think that we would be prepared to discuss them with them. However, if RDS tells us the only offer is for us to pick up their programs, with their commentators, with their commercials, for them to use our commercial breaks, for us to have to pay for the privilege and for all that to come under the RDS banner, then, I don't think that would be the right decision for Radio-Canada.

º (1615)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Well I think that there is a certain amount of latitude for negotiation between those two options. I think that the visuals...

Ms. Michèle Fortin: That's quite right.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Yesterday, the CRTC told us that talks were ongoing. I just hope that what they said wasn't just a long-winded way of telling us that there will be no hockey on TV next season...

Ms. Michèle Fortin: I think that it would take RDS coming back to us with an acceptable proposal. If RDS fails to table an acceptable proposal, then, the answer is a categorical no.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Could or should the Department of Canadian Heritage or yourselves use the House of Commons motion, which was passed in 1994 or 1995, recognizing hockey as Canada's national sport? I would just like to point out to you that this motion also recognized lacrosse as Canada's national summer sport and that, the following year, the lacrosse budget was reduced to zero. I think that the fact that hockey has been recognized as Canada's national sport and that, at the same time, it has been cut from French public television, is quite significant.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We can't really comment on what is the best approach to take with respect to whether it be a motion in the House or something of that nature.

But I would not underestimate the problem. The problem is that by a business decision made by non-Canadians who owned the Montreal Canadiens, they have started down the route that destroyed the Montreal Expos, which I was very involved with and had to sell. It is only a matter of time, in my opinion, if we continue down this slippery slope, that the Montreal Canadiens will not be in Montreal. This would be a horrible thing to happen. I'm speaking as a Montrealer.

I am very concerned that the principle that certain products should not be paid for should be developed and should be looked at very carefully. Certain things should remain on conventional television. That doesn't mean it has to stay with CBC or Radio-Canada. Had we lost this to TVA, it would have been perfectly logical. Having it go to RDS, with what I call a stink bid of 124 games, is a step away from taking this from the Canadian public. It's a step to marginalizing the Montreal Canadiens.

I would give you another example from the Formula One business where exactly the opposite happened. When the owners of Formula One last year announced they wanted to do a deal with Kirsch and take Formula One off the air and put in on la télévision payante, it was the owners of the cars--Honda, Toyota, Ford--who said to Mr. Ecclestone and group, “You do that and we set up our own league. We won't let you leave conventional television.”

I don't know what the answer is here, but I do know that I share your concern and everybody's concern that this product will not be available except for those who are willing to pay.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: If hockey is replaced, I wonder what it will be replaced by. However, that's not important here. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that if RDS showed you a sign of some good faith in the negotiation process—I am well aware that quite naturally, you can't negotiate here today—that you would be open to the possibility of maintaining Saturday night hockey on French CBC.

º (1620)

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Up until May 16, we had every intention of maintaining Saturday night hockey on French TV. We put forward our sales pitch, which included Saturday night hockey. We intended to reduce the number of hockey playoffs we aired, however. We even sold commercial spots that we will have to replace if indeed we no longer carry hockey next season. I would be quite prepared to negotiate with you here today. I think that that might be an easier task for us, but I don't think that it would be useful, however.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you.

Ms. Thibeault.

Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.): Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Ms. Fortin, in your presentation, you started out by telling us that French CBC can be picked up by 98% of French speakers living outside Quebec. Am I wrong in that?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: We're talking about francophones as a whole.

Ms. Yolande Thibeault: Right. I was wondering whether you could give us any figures about RDS. Can RDS be picked up by many people in French-speaking communities outside Quebec? If indeed RDS is available to these people, what percentage would be prepared to pay to receive it?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Look, there is not just RDS; we could also talk about ARTV and all the other specialized channels. In areas where people are more interested in arts than in hockey, the same type of problem arises. In the case of ARTV, which is distributed on cable, the CRTC decided that in all mainly francophone communities, it would be provided by satellite, and the same applies to RDS.

Satellite use is increasing rapidly, but there is still only a small fraction of the population that has access to it, and once one has access, one has to choose between RDS or ARTV. So right now, being on a satellite broadcast system reduces access, of course, and for financial reasons, cable providers outside Quebec or some regions of New Brunswick are not interested in providing French channels because they do not appeal to enough subscribers. So it is a distribution problem that affects all francophone services and goes well beyond the question of hockey.

On the other hand, the CRTC has asked us to produce—and we do so willingly—regional news programs. But all of the citizens with access to Radio-Canada via satellite cannot, in some regions, have access to their regional news because the satellite distributes only a fraction of regional signals. For example, in the most remote areas, you can get shows from Moncton, Quebec City or Vancouver, but in the other western provinces, you can get regional news if you have Radio-Canada by antenna or with cable, but not via satellite. Not all of our affiliates in the regions of Quebec where we currently produce or will produce local news broadcast via satellite, but in outlying areas that is becoming increasingly common.

It is a real problem for small communities, especially for francophone minority communities because broadcasters have licensing conditions for production. But I would say that the CRTC, given the availability of frequencies and the economic model and perhaps because they are private companies, does not have as strict requirements for broadcasters as cable providers and satellites.

So the same problem will occur for hockey as it does for culture, and there is a similar problem for local news programs for all those with satellite television. That will probably lead to satellite deployment—at least I think that is what Bell hopes—and then it might become more attractive for culture buffs as well. But that will not solve the problem of local news broadcasts.

Ms. Yolande Thibeault: No, and it will not solve the hockey problem right away either. To get back to hockey, based on what you have told us, the people most affected will be mainly francophones outside Quebec.

º (1625)

Ms. Michèle Fortin: It will also affect a huge number of francophones in Quebec because in that province, people like the standard networks and do not need cable to get them and therefore the proportion of people with cable is much lower than in Ontario. It is 60 per cent in Quebec and 80 per cent in Ontario. That is because they can meet their needs with programs that are not on cable television. If those people want to watch hockey, they will also have to subscribe to cable.

Ms. Yolande Thibeault: Thank you very much, for the time being.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Mr. Godin.

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would also like to welcome our witnesses.

You said earlier that 98 per cent of francophones in Canada have access to Radio-Canada. You also said that 50 per cent of your programming was for Montreal and that the other 50 per cent was for the rest of the country. You earmarked 50 per cent for programming.

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance: It is I who mentioned that. Fifty per cent of national programs are produced outside Montreal.

Mr. Yvon Godin: What percentage is for television?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: It is much lower because television is a much more burdensome medium; it is not a local medium. The regional stations outside Montreal produce approximately 300 hours of regional programming, and 150 hours of network programming. The CRTC conditions are increasing and we follow them regularly. It is just that that proportion has increased over time, but it must keep pace with the area's ability to provide programs for the network.

I think regional networks provide nearly the greatest news coverage as well as all cultural programs that are important for those communities, but it is clearly not 50 per cent.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I still believe that Radio-Canada is not Radio-Montreal, despite the fact that I have already been corrected on that: I had mentioned Radio-Quebec, and the people from the Gaspé had corrected me by saying that it was Radio-Montreal because they had the same problem in the Gaspé. I have already raised that problem with Mr. Rabinovitch.

What is your policy now? For example, on RDI, we get the Atlantic news twice a day, I think. I do not know whether the times have changed, but it is at 10:30 here, in Ottawa, and 11:30 in New Brunswick. We could be watching Radio-Canada, RDI for example, and suddenly, in Montreal, the program is changed and we get local Montreal news. Have you changed your policy on that and do you respect regional interests by giving them the time that belongs to them rather than cutting their programs?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: In fact, the problem with L'Atlantique en direct is that most press conferences, regardless of the topic, occur around 11 o'clock in the morning just when L'Atlantique en direct is being broadcast. The solution we opted for—and I can understand that it is not a solution for an Ontarian but it is a solution for the people of Atlantic Canada—is that the main channel now broadcasts a regional Atlantic bulletin at noon which is broadcast not only to cable subscribers, but the entire population. So there are still some glitches to be ironed out at RDI, but the people in Atlantic Canada, just like in Ontario in fact, have a mid-day news bulletin and one at six in the evening that covers only regional news, and they are broadcast on the major channel.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Is it national? Can you get them everywhere in Canada?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: No, it is for the regional service.

Mr. Yvon Godin: With regard to the regional service, Radio-Canada does not usually cut our six o'clock news. I am talking about the national news. In New Brunswick, the national news is at 11 o'clock, and we do not have very much New Brunswick news at 11 o'clock; it is always Montreal, Montreal, Montreal.

We had the Francophone Summit in Moncton. On that occasion, during an interview with someone from the University of Moncton, when 52 countries from the entire world were there, the interview was cut, only to show Ms. Pagé and her pair of gloves. That is the type of service we get as francophone Canadians outside Quebec.

So here is my question: Have you changed your policy? Take those people's hands off the switch and let the news be broadcast as it should.

º (1630)

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Priority was given to regional news on RDI and RDI cannot have a dual regional-national signal: it must be one or the other. But there will always occasionally be—and some times there is poor judgment—news broadcasts that are cut. Some news broadcasts will be cut, just as there are events that will take precedence over all programs. For example, Paul Martin's resignation—I am not too sure what to call it—provided a special half-hour show for the network on the weekend, which cut the regular programs because people felt it was important.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Before closing, I just have one comment: I do not think I have often seen Montreal news cut off and a special New Brunswick news event shown instead. Radio-Canada is supposed to serve Canada. I will leave it at that. It is just a comment. I can tell you that the people from my area are not happy when their news is cut. And we are told that Radio-Canada belongs to Canadians.

The other question is on the broadcasting of hockey games. When the national hockey league or those who negotiated opted for RDS, did you contact the Minister of Canadian Heritage or Minister Stéphane Dion, since it is a national sport? Did you get help from those people to keep it at Radio-Canada? I find it discriminatory that CBC can do so for anglophones and the francophones are punished once again. If there are francophones somewhere who are not very numerous, they are punished and cannot watch the hockey, but CBC knows how to negotiate, has its own way of negotiating, whereas Radio-Canada is still taking a beating.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We had no discussions with the government, and that is the appropriate way for us to operate. We are at arm's length from the government. It is our responsibility to do the programming, and it would be irresponsible of us to have discussed this with government. We were in negotiations until we were told basically that they had changed our policy. The fact of the matter still remains, sir, that these rights belong to the Montreal Canadiens and they can sell them to whom they wish.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: All right, but I do not know whether I understood correctly or whether I misunderstood the answer to my question. Were there discussions with the government of Canada? There is section 41. It is a question of two languages, a program that has been in existence for 50 years and a sport recognized as being a national sport. Have you had or will there be discussions with the government? Can the government provide any assistance?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: As I said, we did not have any discussions with the government. It is not up to us to discuss with it. We really think that RDS, Bell Canada and the Canadians are making a mistake by going that route. That is why we are here today. We are very pleased to discuss the matter with the members of Parliament. It is up to the government to decide wether it can and wants to do something. Quite honestly, it is inappropriate for us to approach the government when we are involved in commercial negotiations. And it was a commercial negotiation until they decided to change their method of presenting the games. Frankly, it is up to them to decide. But I must say that I think that because of the owners' nationality, they are not fully aware of the underlying issues.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you, Mr. Godin. Thank you, Mr. Rabinovitch.

Ms. Bulte, you have the floor.

[English]

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much for appearing before the official languages committee. I know that you've appeared before the heritage committee a number of times, most recently in connection with our broadcasting study.

Mr. Lafrance, one of the things that caught my attention in your presentation was that you talked about budget cutbacks. The CBC received an additional $60 million in the last two budgets. It's not ongoing funding, but it was a beginning. When Mr. Rabinovitch was first appointed president he came before the heritage committee, and we asked him: do you need more money? So I'm going to ask you, Mr. Lafrance, because you brought it up: how much of that new money, if any, went into French language television or radio? Was it apportioned accordingly?

I listened to you say why you didn't accept the offer that was made to you by the rights holders of the Canadiens. Is it also a question of money? Is that something that can be addressed with money? Or is it more, as you stated, Mr. Rabinovitch, that it was clear that if you accepted their proposal, which you felt you were not in a position to accept, it would sacrifice other programming and the other mandate and objectives of your corporation under the Broadcasting Act?

º (1635)

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: With regard to the first question, all of the money we were given, the $60 million, has gone into programming, in particular to create new Canadian programming, because that is our mandate. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was approximately $25 million into English television, $18 million into French television, $5 million into each radio service, plus some money into new programming. I think that would make $60 million. It's pretty close. All of the money was allocated. Some of it, by the way, was kept for cross-cultural programming. I kept a fund to help fund programs such as the Trudeau program and others of that nature. All of the money went into programming.

Sports is a form of programming. I'll accept that. As you know, we have been asked over and over again by the CRTC to reduce the amount of professional sports we cover. Our intention is not to lose money on professional sports and not to use the public's money for professional sports. That's as a general rule. It doesn't work for French hockey. We lose money, and did lose money, on French hockey. We did not lose money on English hockey. As a general rule, that is the way in which we have operated.

I forget the second part of your question.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: It was with regard to more money.

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: With regard to the hockey discussions, money was not the issue. We had an agreement. We had a handshake. It was subject to them, I suspect, getting a similar agreement with other players for the rest of their inventory. We then were told: your choice is 124 games or nothing. So there never was a discussion of money. It was: is this what you want to do with the public broadcaster, convert it into a hockey network? And the answer for us was very obvious and very fast. Therefore, money was never the issue. The issue was 124 games.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator Beaudoin.

Senator Gérald Beaudoin (Rigaud, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to make a distinction from the outset, as I did the other day, because I think the distinction is still valid. There are two official languages in our country and both are on an equal footing. It is not a question of numbers, but a question of language. It is true that a French program might cost more than an English one: that is possible. I am not challenging that, because that is the way it is. But section 16 of the Constitution states very clearly that the two languages are official in parliamentary institutions, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canada Council. We all agree on that.

So on the linguistic front, it is equality that counts. If it is a question of culture, there are more than two cultures in Canada. The “where numbers warrant” rule then comes into play. However, that does not apply to languages; it applies to culture. That is the error. I think one must always make the distinction between language and culture. You will tell me they overlap. I do not deny that, but they are nonetheless different acts.

So perhaps the Americans do own many things, but on Canadian soil, they are subject to Canadian laws: that is an obvious fact. Radio-Canada is a state network, an institution. It is not a company like any other, but something very important in our country. The two networks were put on an equal footing. I think that linguistically speaking they are perfectly equal. Culturally, of course, there are more than two cultures in our country. I think one must always take that into account. You will tell me it is difficult. That is true, but we must apply basic principles in our country.

I think it might require a little creative imagination. That is exactly what we need and we must find it. If the two state networks, one being francophone and the other anglophone, are treated differently because of money issues, I would say that it may not be the best solution. It is more expensive? Well, it will be more expensive! That is the reality in this country and these are Canada's fundamental values.

º (1640)

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: There's another principle that is called property rights. The owners of the games have property rights and they are using their property rights to choose to whom they will sell and they've chosen not to sell to us. We're not happy. I think it's a big mistake by them in the long run for the team, and I think it's a big mistake for Canadians, francophones in particular, that this is not going to be available to everybody. But we don't control the rights. They chose who they would sell it to, and it wasn't a question of price.

Senator Gérald Beaudoin: Again, I come back to my first point.

[Translation]

Whether Canadians or Americans own a Canadian institution does not change anything in that regard: the institution is subject to Canadian laws. Of course there is copyright and all that in Canada, but they are subject to Canadian laws. It is not because someone is American that he will have more power. In fact, that is what is being claimed sometimes. In my view, and this applies to any company, and particularly a crown corporation—for which I have a great deal of admiration, let me tell you—but they must sometimes work to find the most acceptable solution. Everything must be done to achieve that goal.

The objective has been set and there is just one on the linguistic level, and that is equality. There is no objective other than that one. It may differ depending on whether it is a private or public matter, but it is always the same, and it must be achieved. It may be more difficult to solve the hockey problem in French than it is in English. I do not deny that, but the laws are there and they must be obeyed.

That is my theory and I think we will continue to have problems as long as this matter is not resolved. People say that francophones are scattered on the map. That may be true, but that is why there is an Official Languages Act: it is to make the two languages equal, one of which is spoken by seven or eight million people in North America and the other by 300 million. Obviously, it is a complicated situation, but that is the raison d'être of the Official Languages Act. We would not need it if there were no problems.

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance: To prove that we fully agree with you, I would say, if I may, that extending the cultural channel, for example, is not a matter of numbers; it is a question of principle. In Vancouver, during the CRTC hearings, they gave us the line about the number of francophones in Vancouver. We told them that was irrelevant.

A voice: Bravo!

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance: We are there to offer French-language service to all Canadians who want to have it. If anglophones in Vancouver want to watch the cultural channel, I will be very happy. I think they will also enjoy watching it. So Radio-Canada always works on that principle.

In this case, as the chairman pointed out, the problem is that the Montreal Canadians Hockey Team owns its rights and business cases. So it decides what it wants to do. If you are suggesting that the Canadians Hockey Team would have to sell us its rights because of the Official Languages Act, I would be quite surprised.

Senator Gérald Beaudoin: I would be surprised that a club that is owned by a foreign entity, but that is located in a country... We are a country: we have a Constitution, we have laws. Why would those owners, because they are Americans, not be subject to our laws? I find that rather strange.

º (1645)

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We don't disagree with you on the coverage we would like to do. As I said before, if it went to TVA we wouldn't have an argument, because there would be national coverage. But what you are suggesting goes beyond that. You're almost suggesting we are the only purchaser for their rights because we're the only ones willing to broadcast across the country. Whether it's an American or a Canadian, we don't have that in law. Property rights in this area are unmitigated. They have the right to sell or not, as they see fit.

I don't agree with their decision. I think it's the wrong decision politically. As a sports person, I don't agree with their decision. But they have chosen to split the market, and that's a business thing. They have split the market into anglophone and francophone. They've said “In the anglophone we'll negotiate one contract with you, and in the francophone we'll negotiate another contract with you.” It's their right to do so.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator Beaudoin, your time is up.

I would like to point out that Mr. St-Julien, Senator Setlakwe, Mr. Binet, Senator Léger, Ms. Gagnon and I would also like to ask questions. I think we will have to limit ourselves to one round of questioning today.

Mr. St-Julien, please.

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rabinovitch, we know that the Heritage Minister, the Honourable Sheila Copps, was very worried about hockey no longer being broadcast on Radio-Canada. I have also been receiving e-mails and phone calls at home. I have one in front of me that says that with regard to La Soirée du hockey in French, francophones in Abitibi-Témiscamingue now have the impression that they have been locked out, if not knocked out. This is all about broadcasting hockey games on television for those who do not subscribe to cable.

Mr. Denis Vaillancourt asked the following question:

If English language CBC decided tomorrow morning to cancel Hockey Night in Canada...

Can you cancel Hockey Night in Canada? What agreement do you have with Radio-Canada? If it is no longer on French Radio-Canada, can you also cancel that program on the English channel?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I do not know if I clearly understood your question. You want Hockey Night in Canada to be cancelled?

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Yes.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Why?

[Translation]

Mr. Guy St-Julien: The people on the French side have asked me to do so. What is the agreement that you have on the English side? What is the proposal?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We have a five-year contract. That is what we tried to get from the Canadians Hockey Team: a five-year contract.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: How many millions of dollars does that cost for five years?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: It costs a lot of money, but I do not know the exact figures.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Is it more than $10 million?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: It costs a lot of money.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Does it cost $12 million?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: It costs a lot of money.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Twenty-five million dollars?

All right.

Let me get back to the French side. Ms. Fortin spoke earlier about an acceptable proposal. In your view, what would be acceptable for the French side? After all, there is hope of getting something for Radio-Canada.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Let's talk about the agreement for the English side.

º (1650)

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Yes, that is what I want to know.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: There are two key elements and one on which we are ready to take a step back. First of all, it is important to note that on the English side, it is a joint agreement with TSN. They do not have all the games. They have a number of them, and TSN has 90, since there are far more games in the western clubs. It is a shared agreement and that was the goal from the outset.

The costs of those rights are higher on the English side than they are on the French side because hockey revenues are huge. On the English side, they negotiated an agreement for hockey that is cost-neutral; it is not profit-making, but they do not invest any money from the subsidy. We were willing to go beyond that, even if it meant being accused of unfair competition by the private networks for having used government money to maintain hockey on Saturday night. The markets are very different. So with regard to the English side, we agreed to share with RDS. In fact, we have always shared with RDS, TSN, etc., and we were willing to invest more money than we got in commercial revenues, given the fact that hockey is a 50-year-old tradition and is of interest to French Canadians. Basically, the forces of the small market came into play. That is exactly what you were saying.

We ended up with a partner who told us he wanted just one network for all games. That is something we could not do, as was the case for the Olympic Games, which we did not get at the time. Let me remind you that it was not CBC who got the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. It took very little at the last round of negotiations for CTV and TVA to get the Olympics. I will not expand on the topic, but the fact remains that at the next negotiation, Radio-Canada may not get the Olympic Games; it could be TSN and RDS. In all good faith, I must say that the International Olympic Committee could decide to sell the Olympic Games to a cable network or pay TV. I think that would be a pity since the Olympic Games are an event that fosters national pride. But we would be powerless.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Even if we are accused of unfair competition, let's do it; it is the taxpayers who will pay, and we will see how Radio-Canada...

Ms. Michèle Fortin: But there is a limit to going beyond what it costs; that is money taken from culture, from the regions, from film. There is a limit. Maybe you feel like telling us to invest $10 million more to keep your Saturday evenings, but those $10 million will be used to pay hockey players. We were told it was unfortunate, but Mr. Gillette needed money. Well, it is not up to the Canadian government to give money to Mr. Gillette beyond what is reasonable. I am sorry, but you also have to think that you...

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Ms. Fortin, that is exactly what I wanted to know. Do not get annoyed: you are entirely correct. Go ahead. Go on.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: I am finished.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): All right?

Raymond Setlakwe.

Senator Raymond Setlakwe (Les Laurentides, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rabinovitch, I listened to your comments with great interest, especially when you said that you had witnessed the demise of the Expos. You say that you fear that under the current agreement, the Canadians might also sooner or later cease to exist. You and Ms. Fortin said that francophones outside Quebec and those living in Quebec would be penalized if they did not subscribe to the cable. There is no legal way to intervene directly on behalf of the government. Here is my question: do you think that there might still be some hope for a direct government intervention if you do not reach an agreement with RDS?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I am very concerned that we're going to relive history, just like when the Quebec Nordiques went to Colorado, just like the Montreal Expos are about to leave town. When I sold the Montreal Expos, which was my job, unfortunately, it was not a job I enjoyed, because I am a baseball fan. But when Mr. Bronfman told me he wanted to sell the Expos, he gave me one condition: price was not important; the important thing was that they stayed in Montreal.

[Translation]

He was a great Montrealer. The person who did this afterwards did not impose this condition. No one was ready to take it on in Montreal, so an American took it. He began negotiating, and it was very obvious that this was something temporary for him, and that he would leave Montreal when he could.

[English]

That's exactly what he did. And what I'm worried about is that we're going to relive history and one more team may disappear from our map. To me, that is very, very serious.

As a public broadcaster, independent from the government, I cannot go to government and say “You must intervene. You must make sure that these products are available to all Canadians.” I can talk about it. I'm not afraid to say it in this room. I have more independence in this room than I do with the government, and correctly so. We must be at arm's length from the government. We must not become a state broadcaster. We are a public broadcaster and we must make the decisions about what goes on air and what doesn't and we must answer for it when it is wrong.

So I cannot ask the government, but I can tell you and share with you my concerns as the person who has been involved in sport rights for 15 years, in spite of myself. I was on the board of TSN and I was on the board of RDS and I know exactly what they did and why they did it. Probably, if I were on their board, I might have done the same thing in making the deal they did, and what Mr. Gillette did. But as Michèle said, it's not our job to financially support Mr. Gillette for the deal that he made. It is our job to hopefully bring these issues forward to you. That's why we are very concerned and why we're very happy to be here to talk about this, even though it's the official languages committee.

º (1655)

Senator Raymond Setlakwe: But the question I asked--

[Translation]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I'm sorry about speaking English, but when I'm very...

[English]

When you get emotionally involved, and we are emotionally involved--I'm always emotionally involved--when we get involved like this I guess we go back to notre langue maternelle.

Senator Raymond Setlakwe: I'm not sure you're able to give an answer, but the question I ask of you is, according to what you have said and what we have heard here today, does the government have a role to play?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: It's hard for me to answer that, but my counsel is that if you want to pursue this issue, you're talking to the wrong people. The people you should be talking to are the Montreal Canadiens as to what their plans are for the future, and the National Hockey League as to what their plans are for the future. Evidently they don't care whether francophones outside of Quebec get this signal and they don't care whether 30% or 25%, whichever number you use, of francophones in Quebec don't get the signal unless they're willing to pay.

Senator Raymond Setlakwe: At that point, I think it's a legitimate question for the government to ask of the owners.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you.

Mr. Binet.

Mr. Gérard Binet (Frontenac—Mégantic, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do not want to repeat what was already said this evening; the answers were very good. Certainly, I am a great fan of the Canadians, as is my son. I told my colleagues that we would be talking about Hockey Night in Canada with the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages.

Have you considered the possibility of broadcasting Ottawa Senators games?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We don't have the rights, do we?

[Translation]

Ms. Michèle Fortin: We found that out last week, and there are two major problems. We were ready because we had negotiated a reduction for the playoffs with the Canadians. All our spring programming is completely perturbed by hockey. We have a replacement season. But until last month, until May 16, we were convinced that we had hockey on Saturdays, and last week we officially found out that we no longer had it.

Thus, we must review our position in both amateur and professional sports. Should we do hockey? Should we do ballet? Should we broadcast concerts? We have not made any decision about this; people are looking into it. This might mean that we will not only have to review programming for Saturdays, but for the whole weekend or, probably, that we will have to completely rethink the programming for the whole week, in a different perspective.

We spent the week doing what we're doing today, we discussed with all kinds of people whether it would be possible to have the Canadians games on Saturdays.

Nothing has been decided yet, we are beginning to think about this. We receive the kind of letters that we heard about today, but we receive just as many from people who tell us not to fight too hard for this, because they are tired of hockey and would rather see something else. Those people are not here; they are not the same people, but they do count.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator Léger. And then, it will be Ms. Gagnon.

Senator Viola Léger (New Brunswick, Lib.): I too have already heard all the answers. However, I would just like to say that when dealing with statistics about minorities, it is impossible to apply the same criteria as for national statistics. You cannot put the same questions to the minority groups: it is impossible. I certainly agree on that point.

One of my questions—and you just answered it—was whether the CBC is also subject to the 124 games. No, an agreement was reached with TSN that the owners turned down, wasn't that the case?

Then, can we, as a committee, do something? You told me to raise this with the NHL as they are the owners.

So I think that you have answered all my questions. Thank you.

» (1700)

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Let me come back to La Soirée du hockey. One of my uncles, now deceased, played for the Canadians. I think that he even helped them win the Stanley Cup in 1939. His name was Johnny “Black Cat” Gagnon, but in spite of that, I am not an enthusiastic viewer of La Soirée du hockey.

I think that La Soirée du hockey was swept away by market forces, and I think that this is easy to understand. Nor does a public broadcaster's role consist in competing on the market in terms of costs. This is understandable. For many people this is unfortunate, but I do not think that discrimination is the issue, because the CBC did not negotiate with the same team, but with the Toronto Maple Leafs, I believe. Discrimination is not an issue here; this is simply reality.

So this is unfortunate, but I also think that there should be much more pressure on Bell, given the fact that it holds a monopoly, to respond to the National Hockey League's financial request. Understandably, this is unfortunate, but I think that Radio-Canada will have to review its programming, unless something opens up. I do not know, for instance with the regulations, as the senator said, how to save La Soirée du hockey. We could, for instance through the CRTC, require certain procedures so that companies that come here follow the rules and the francophone community could access the same services. Currently, the rules are entirely dictated by the private market, and public broadcasters like you have no role to play in that.

It was just a comment. As we are studying the Broadcasting Act, we know very well that francophone Radio-Canada is important for cultural minorities outside of Quebec and in Quebec. We have seen this everywhere. We went to all the provinces, and it is important. A small francophone market will not be served by the private sector because they are not profitable. As you can see: anything that does not bring in a profit will not be broadcast.

I think that we must get things moving. In this case, I think that we have learned a lesson. We saw, when private interests are too powerful, to what extent public broadcasters can be affected. This gives us food for thought and perhaps we should propose some solutions. The CRTC had already made some gains for broadcasting. The presence of Radio-Canada, the fact that it offers French-language services and that the CRTC might have had some clearer rules on this, could be taken into account.

Let me go on to another matter. I feel that Mr. Lafrance would like to have a question. He told us of his great generosity in granting funds both to radio and to television, for regional networks. You mentioned journalistic resources, especially in the cultural sector. We were a bit appalled when we saw that a cultural broadcast from Quebec with Catherine Lachaussée had been cut. You tell us that you put in more money, but what we hear from the people concerned is that they want local production. They do not want local broadcasting; they want local production. They want television programming in their image, they want to see people whom they recognize and a culture that resembles them. This is the case not only in Quebec, but everywhere. We heard this all across the country.

The day after the employees came back to work, we were told that it had been cut. Did you decide to replace it with regional Quebec production? You are sending out a strange signal.

» (1705)

Mr. Sylvain Lafrance: First, let me say that Quebec production has greatly increased over the past three years, but the grid is different each year, which is normal. Naturally, we always hear that when a program is brought to a city, if we have to guarantee that it will stay there for 25 years, then 3 years later, we will no longer be able to change anything at all. So the programming grid changes each year. This year, it is program from Quebec, but the grid also contains other large projects from Quebec City, as well as from several other cities.

Of course, there are always many viewers for local productions, and this is normal. Now our role is to strike a balance between the national and the regional mandates of the network, and it is not an easy thing. We must also reflect the various regions of this country, which is not easy either. To us it is clear that national production from Quebec has substantially increased. I could not give you an exact number of hours, given that the increase was shared by both networks, but I can say that next year, there will be more major productions from Quebec.

I do not want to talk about the content of the fall programming, because some people are not yet fully informed, given the fact that, for various reasons, we are preparing our programming rather late this year. But we can no doubt expect more large projects from Quebec.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Do not give me figures, because I know that we will meet you several more times as we review the Broadcasting Act. So there might be some contradictions.

Thank you.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Before the second round, with your permission, Mr. Rabinovitch, I would also like to ask a few questions.

First, Ms. Fortin, yesterday, in the presence of the CRTC, we heard about the issue of broadcasting local stations by satellite, and our committee is also interested in this matter. Let us hope that the CRTC will see to this; at least it has received the message.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Thank you very much; we need all the support we can get.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): You are welcome.

With regard to the percentage of programs produced outside of Quebec or outside of Montreal, we would appreciate it if you could send us the details in writing.

[English]

Mr. Rabinovitch, could you rapidly--I'm going to go to English so that I can keep my calm here--describe the deal you had with RDS or le club d'hockey or la ligue nationale? Who is it you had the deal with, first of all?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Yes, and Michèle can help me too.

The deal we had.... And when I say a deal, we had a handshake, we had an agreement subject to, which is always the out that can be used. We had the same out. My board could have said no, you're paying too much. But we had a deal and I was confident. I actually brought it to my board in general terms at the end of April, when it looked like it was coming together, and informed the board that this was happening. But RDS was not involved. There were no discussions with RDS whatsoever, except informally as to would they be willing to share games--

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Who was the deal with?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Our deal was with the National Hockey League. The league mandated Pierre Boivin,

[Translation]

the president of the Canadians Hockey Club, to represent the interests of the National League and of the Canadians. Pierre Boivin was on their side and Daniel Asselin on our side.

[English]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): And the deal was...

» (1710)

Ms. Michèle Fortin: And the deal was

[Translation]

on Saturday evenings and the finals, which amounts to 25 broadcasts on Saturday evenings, the all-star match, the playoffs and the finals. During the debate, we tried to find out what would happen if the Canadians were in the playoffs. We were told that if in order to sell all the playoffs you also had to sell the Canadians, that we would understand that, and that if they wanted to broadcast the Canadians in the series on a national network, we would accept it. We reached some kind of agreement according to which the playoffs would be divided. Thus, there were 25 games, plus the two I mentioned, as well as the big finals in June, in return for a sum of money and a commercial agreement. We also negotiated specific modalities for marketing with the company.

[English]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): And what “subject to” was used or invoked by those parties to renege on this agreement?

[Translation]

Ms. Michèle Fortin: As this was a counter-proposal from the Canadians, people came to tell me that it was more expensive than the mandate I had granted them. I told them that to reach a settlement at the time, this sum could be paid. So we accepted their counter-proposal and they told us that they would come back to us, because some things had to be worked out with the league and the other broadcasters.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Does Radio-Canada intend to take this contract or agreement to court? No?

Ms. Michèle Fortin: It is a verbal agreement.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: In law, we did not have a contract; we had an understanding.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Mr. Rabinovitch and Ms. Fortin, yesterday I read your application for licence renewal. Let me quote a part of paragraph 231 from your application to the CRTC to renew your licence:

French-language television has adopted a policy which gives priority to coverage of the Olympic Games and of national sporting events with social and cultural value, like the National Hockey League games.[Translation]

[English]

Are you planning to go to the CRTC, sir, to ask them to enforce this condition and therefore perhaps force the issue between the Société Radio-Canada and the other broadcasters involved in this?

[Translation]

Ms. Michèle Fortin: As opposed to English television, that made the commitment to reduce professional sports in favour of amateur sports, French television has nothing with regard to sports either in its licence conditions or in its expectations. That is what we said, and the CRTC did not set parameters for our sports broadcasting as it did for English television.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): But that is not the issue. Does Radio-Canada intend to ask the CRTC to intervene in this matter? The CRTC is also subject to the Official Languages Act.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We have no plans to go to the CRTC. The CRTC would rarely interfere in a commercial arrangement, and from their point of view and the point of view of the people involved, this is a commercial arrangement. The only way in which this will be reopened for discussion, in our opinion, Mr. Chair, is if in fact the public says it should be reopened. If the public says it should be reopened, I'm confident that RDS, which is owned by a major Canadian corporation, will see that it's in their interest to come to an arrangement with somebody--if not with us, with TVA--to make sure that

[Translation]

francophones outside of Quebec who are not cable subscribers can access hockey games.

[English]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): I have only a minute and 13 seconds left.

[Translation]

Ms. Michèle Fortin: May I say something?

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Go ahead.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: Let me tell you that when we received this letter, I called TQS, a conventional network that does not broadcast outside Quebec, and it had received the same letter as we did: 124 games or nothing.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Are Radio-Canada and CBC the same corporation?

A voice: Yes.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): If that is the case, how come you are not negotiating with the National Hockey League as one corporation?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Again, the reason is that the rights holder says this is the way they want to negotiate.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Mr. Rabinovitch, la Société Radio-Canada or the CBC is subject to the Official Languages Act. Perhaps the others are as well, but I think that you have a responsibility with regard to La Soirée du hockey and Hockey Night in Canada. This must be dealt with fairly. If Radio-Canada negotiated one agreement instead of two with the National Hockey League, there would no problem. Why is this not being done?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: For the very simple reason that the rights holder did not want to negotiate in that way. The rights holder could have chosen any way they wanted to negotiate and we would have had to agree or disagree. Historically, this has worked to both sides' benefit. Remember, on the French side we pay, we lose money on hockey, and on the English side we make money on hockey. It's a very different arrangement, and it was in the interest of the league--

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Has the corporation ever attempted to negotiate one contract so that both networks can be covered?

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We have talked among ourselves and we have talked with them to see if there was an interest. The message has been very clear: We don't understand the francophone market. We're Americans and we would rather that Pierre Boivin and the group from le club de hockey negotiate the francophone rights while we negotiate the English rights.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you. Would Radio-Canada be open to joint production for La Soirée du hockey?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We are open to discuss anything.

» (1715)

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you.

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We are not ruling out anything, but as Michèle said before, it takes two to tango.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator Beaudoin.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I would like some information. This would imply that the same person is responsible at the CBC and Radio-Canada. For the CBC, it was the Maple Leafs, whereas for Radio-Canada, it was...

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): But it is the same hockey league. That is what I wanted to point out.

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: May I answer that? Let us not forget that on the English side, there are six teams and there is much more hockey in English than in French. They have hockey in the evening and Hockey Day in Canada. This is the kind of thing they do. It is completely different, because the English programming and the French programming are not the same in size. In French programming, we did La Soirée du hockey and that was all.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator Beaudoin.

Senator Gérald Beaudoin: After hearing what was said here, I conclude that we will have to legislate if we really want to save hockey, our national sport. Otherwise, we will lose it.

You said that a commercial American company is selling its rights to whom it wants and in the way it wants. That is American law. Here, we will have to find a way not to lose our national sport. Of course, I am not saying that this is Radio-Canada's responsibility, but it concerns everyone.

A hockey club has already disappeared in Canada, and the second one should not disappear because this sport was created in Canada. There is a limit to letting our national sport get stolen, not stolen in the legal sense, but taken away from us.

You say that the legislation is like that and that contracts are made in that way. This is exactly why the state must intervene. I am beginning to feel that we might have to protect our national sports. Otherwise, with the laws of the market, we will end up losing them. This is what I wanted to say.

That being said, I think that we must do whatever we can. You are going in the right direction, which is good, but we must find a solution. As far as I am concerned, I never give up. With a bit of creative imagination, we can come up with solutions that seemed impossible to find, but this takes time, and discussion.

That is all I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman, but it had to be said.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Are there any comments?

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I don't think we can solve the problem at CBC/Radio-Canada,

[Translation]

except by showing that we are always ready to negotiate with RDS or anyone else to ensure that francophone Canadians do not lose hockey. We are always ready to negotiate or to do something. We wanted to do this, because this is a part of our mandate. A professional sport like hockey has great importance. But, as Ms. Fortin said, we must... [Editor's Note: Inaudible]—

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): You can always try, Mr. Rabinovitch. We encourage you to do so.

Senator Gauthier.

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: When I was a little boy, I used to listen to the Saturday night hockey game on a crystal radio. Let me tell you that in my opinion Radio-Canada's contribution to the French language and to sports in general has been very great.

That being said, I think that it would be a catastrophe if the French network lost the Saturday evening hockey game, but this is a personal opinion. Let me give you an example. On the English network, captions are provided for the hockey game, but not in the French network. An entire clientele has been forgotten. I do not know why, but it is impossible to have French captions at Radio-Canada, whereas we can have them with the CBC. If you wish, you can send me the answer in writing.

I know all about the training that Ms. Fortin mentioned earlier. Currently, there are no stenotypists being trained in Canada. There are no more schools. There are English schools in Vancouver and Edmonton. There is also a small school in Toronto, but it is small, by definition. In Vancouver, Langara College says it might close for a lack of clients. Nonetheless, they do exist. In 1995, the CRTC imposed captioning on big broadcasters, but it has not yet been done. Gaps still exist. I am asking you to take a look at this and to send me a brief report some time from now.

I have a final question. The committee is studying the application of section 41 of the Official Languages Act. You could accomplish a great deal if you organized conferences with your people at Radio-Canada to explain the Official Languages Act to them and to tell them why we want to do promotion and why, as a crown corporation, you must follow what the legislation requires. This should be a substantial contribution to radio and television, it would help.

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Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I agree that these things must be done, but let me tell you that at Radio-Canada, there is not much resistance to section 41 and to the fact that it is important for Radio-Canada to implement it. This is why we speeded up the system for the Chaîne culturelle this year. When the money arrived, we wanted to get this channel up and running as soon as possible. We made it a priority, and there was no resistance.

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: When I put to the question to your predecessor and to others at Radio-Canada, they told me that francophones in Canada only made up about 40 per cent of their clientele, whereas 60 per cent of the clientele came from the metropolitan Montreal area and from Quebec. Let me request that you make sure that your personnel is sensitive to community needs. I think that management is sensitive, but I think that among those who are working for you, some are indifferent. Thank you.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Now Mr. Binet has the floor, followed by Mr. Sauvageau and Senator Léger.

Mr. Binet.

Mr. Gérard Binet: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rabinovitch, you said that the decision might change, depending on public pressure. Radio-Canada has a good news network. In my opinion, the public should be informed about this and the RDS's position should be explained to the public so that it can also put pressure on RDS.

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: We are in the process of explaining our situation. If you read today's English and French newspapers, you will see that the public is beginning to understand what is going on. The SRC did not decide not to broadcast hockey. It was a business decision, and the results will be awful for francophones and for Canadians in general. If you read today's article, you will see that the public is beginning to understand. I hope that the RDS management will also understand. If they are ready to negotiate with us, as Ms. Fortin said, we are always ready to negotiate with them.

Mr. Gérard Binet: As you know, you are under pressure and we, as parliamentarians, are also under pressure. RDS must not remain insensitive. When those people feel the pressure, they will sit down and negotiate in an intelligent way.

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: But we have to deal with the owners of RDS.

Mr. Gérard Binet: Yes, but these are nonetheless negotiations.

Ms. Michèle Fortin: When this transpired, we informed the public about all the facts on the Téléjournal and in the newscasts, but you can understand that we cannot use our airwaves to run a national campaign to obtain rights for Radio-Canada. That would be somewhat self-serving and I think that we would be criticized for it.

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Mr. Gérard Binet: Yes, but everyone knows that you are a news network and that your news is accurate. You only have to tell the truth and the rest will follow. Thank you.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you.

Mr. Sauvageau.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Hockey is important, but there are other things in life.

We are currently reviewing part VII. Ms. Gendron, under part VII of the Official Languages Act, you have been required to table a yearly report on compliance with the Official Languages Act. Could you talk to us a little bit about the follow-up on this report? I have not seen it myself, but I am sure that it is comprehensive and well drafted, but if there were glaring errors in the report itself, what is the follow-up process? Is it merely put on some shelf somewhere to gather dust? Do you think that the committee could or indeed should enhance the follow-up process for this report under part VII of the Official Languages Act? Could you perhaps comment on the annual report on the Official Languages Act?

Ms. Hélène Gendron: Yes. Thank you for your question.

Indeed, our report on section 41 is developed in large part by the stakeholders themselves, by that, I mean those in charge of national programming, those in charge of national programming coverage, or regional programs put on the main network. However, a significant part of the report is developed by each of the regional stations, which are accountable to their own viewing area. The input from these stakeholders is compiled in appendices. Each of these appendices is distributed to cultural organizations, to lobby groups and to anyone else who might be interested. In addition, the heads of the radio and television networks as well as communications departments have developed meaningful relationships with those people who have a special interest in Radio-Canada or in culture outside the province of Quebec. We have estimated that on average, there are some 125 different types of consultations. We are not only talking here about telephone conversations, but also actual face-to-face meetings designed to discuss new projects and the follow-up process. For example, discussions might take place on whether a suggestion that was put forward during the year has been acted upon. Consequently, we are listening to Canadians.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That really was not the question that I asked. I am quite sure that your report is a very good one.

Once the report is received in Ottawa, what is the follow-up process?

Ms. Hélène Gendron: We submit it to Heritage Canada. I have to admit that once we have done that, we do not get much feedback. Our attempts to enhance the report are based largely on what we hear from people in the regions, or from stakeholders. I not sure whether the committee should suggest that there be a more active follow-up process... Our role is to table the report with the department, which is the government body responsible for ensuring coordination. The department then tables this report for all those institutions covered by section 41. However, rest assured, if any improvements can be made, we would be quite happy to hear about them and to act on them.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Perhaps you could forward a copy of the latest report to us. We would like to be able to hand it out to all the members of the committee.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: The report process involves input from 125 stakeholders. If it is then forwarded to Heritage Canada and this body merely puts it on a shelf somewhere to gather dust, I do not think that that is a source of great motivation for those people who worked on the report.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): No. We have to look at that issue.

Senator Léger.

Senator Viola Léger: I would like to pick up on what Mr. Sauvageau has just said.

Mr. Lafrance, you said in reference to French radio, that your priority is to enhance the international aspect through twinning. I would like to come back to the issue of hockey. Now that many hockey teams are in American hands and are governed by such issues as market trends, business decisions and property rights, do you not think that we could perhaps look at the possibility of establishing a twinning process with the Americans? Do you not think that that would allow us to look at hockey from an international aspect and also to look at the issue of hockey in French?

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): I think that you have seen that the members of this committee are keen to maintain the La Soirée du hockey tradition. English Canada wants to hold on to its Hockey Night in Canada tradition and in the same way French Canada is committed to retaining La Soirée du hockey. I think you have probably understood that this committee would like Radio-Canada to do even more and to take on the responsibility of attempting to move forward on this issue in an attempt to reach an agreement which would enable the Saturday night hockey game on French-language TV to be maintained.

If you think that the committee could contribute in any way, for example, by calling on other witnesses to testify here, I would be happy to entertain any such suggestions. If my colleagues believe that your suggestion is feasible, we will discuss it, because this is a tradition, which on the whole—and you recognize this fact in your own licensing application—is a social and cultural as well as a sporting issue.

We would like to thank you for appearing before this committee today, and as I said at the outset of the meeting, we will try not to wait another four years before we have you back before us.

Mr. Rabinovitch.

» (1730)

[English]

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: I hope we will be back in less than four years.

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Absolutely.

Mr. Robert Rabinovitch: Okay, it's a deal.

If I may just say one thing, we remain very disturbed about not carrying hockey, because we feel it's part of our responsibility to the community. The message can go out that we are more than willing to sit down and discuss this matter with any of the people involved. I am just very concerned at the lack of sensitivity to what is a Canadian problem.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Gauthier would like to raise a question of privilege. Before I give him the floor, I would like to remind you that this coming Monday, we are to meet in camera to study the two reports that we have drafted. I would also like to remind you that on Tuesday, we will be meeting with the Public Service Commission of Canada.

Senator Gauthier.

Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Chairman, during a televised meeting of this committee on May 28, 2002, Mr Reid of the Canadian Alliance stated—I did not hear exactly what he said, but I did read it later—that he supported a declaratory status for section 41. He then went on to read a document that he had with him, and said, for the information of those who are tuning in to us on their television sets, that he would only read the relevant sections. He stated that section 41 stipulated the following: “The federal government may be authorized...” This is where he became somewhat confused, or as we say back home: he tripped. What he should have said was: “The Government of Canada is committed to...”

The Joint Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger): Senator, I received your letter and I discussed it with Mr. Reid, who agreed that the official record of our meeting should reflect the exact wording of the Official Languages Act. Consequently, his error will be corrected. Therefore, your question of privilege is in order and indeed approved.

The meeting is adjourned.