Miss MacDonald:

It is a new policy. The NDP does not want it.

Mr. Orlikow:

What is clear at this time is that Canada and its cultural industry need vision and aggressive policies of expansion. This is particularly true because the Mulroney trade deal will make things even more difficult for both public and private broadcasters.

Let us just look at the kind of thing which has happened recently. An example of the Government's performance and attitude is found in the continuing effort of the Minister and her colleagues to sabotage the CBC's bid for an All-News network. After all, the CRTC-supposedly an independent agency which makes decisions-is to study these kinds of questions and make decisions which will be followed. The CRTC awarded this licence for an All-News network to the CBC.

Miss MacDonald:

As of September 1.

Mr. Orlikow:

It obviously had a vastly superior bid. What happened? The Government intervened and demanded that CBC find a private sector partner. In effect, she and the Government scuttled the plan. What is the result? Canadians now have an All-News monopoly,and that is the American monopoly held by Ted Turner and the CNN. The Government has achieved its end, namely an All-News network run out of

Broadcasting Act

Atlanta, which does not cover the Tories sell-out on trade nor the Prime Minister's scandals, et cetera. CNN does not even know what street Canada is on. I have said earlier that this Government has helped, in the way of deliberate policy, to harm the CBC.

Let us look at what has happened. We have had a series of vicious budget cuts which have systematically undermined the network. Let us look at what has happened to CBC funding in real dollar terms since the Tories took power. In 1984-85, the CBC got $905 million. In 1985-86, it got only $826 million. In 1986-87, the amount dropped to $806 million. In 1987-88, the CBC got $789 million, and for this coming year it will receive only $775 million. That is a reduction, according to my rough calculations, of about 25 per cent. That is the record of the Government and how it supports public broadcasting. That just is not good enough, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister has spoken proudly of the so-called new money for the CBC that she has found to help it reach 95 per cent Canadian content level. She is giving $15 million of new money to the CBC's French service and $20 million to the CBC's English service. This does not even come close to making up for the cuts which the Minister and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) have made in the last four years. The President of ACTRA, Dale Goldhawk, said some time ago:

And while the CBC is expected to fulfil a wide mandate, the money to go forward just isn't there. In short, this part of the announcement doesn't exactly make my socks roll up and down.

Ian Morrison of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting said:

The most significant test is whether the Government restores the CBC parliamentary allocation to at least the real level it was in 1984 when the Conservative Government took office. The 1988 parliamentary allocation to the CBC has been reduced in real terms by $140 million from its level in 1984. In this new policy context, funding of $35 million leaves CBC with a net annual shortfall of more than $100 million. The Government has therefore failed this test.

Jamie Portman, writing in the Vancouver Sun, pointed out:

The Government has ignored a recent call from an all-Party Commons committee that it show its commitment to better Canadian programming by increasing it support of broadcasting with up to $250 million fresh funding annually ... in real dollar terms, the CBC's budget has shrunk by more than $150 million since the Conservatives came to power.

What good was it to have a parliamentary committee headed by the then Member of this House, Mr. McGrath, who spent weeks and months proposing new rules and a new way of handling things in Canada, giving the parliamentary committees more staff, more time saying that parliamentary committees after they have done their work would be listened to, that they would play a major role in how things are done? Here we have a Government which has consistently ignored the parliamentary committee, on which a vast majority of the members are Conservatives. Yet the Government has almost completely ignored the recommendations of that committee.

July 25, 1988

Broadcasting Act

I want to point out to the Minister that the Canadian people do not share the Government's apparent intense dislike of public broadcasting. A 1986 Environics poll showed that over two-thirds of Canadians were in favour of increased spending on the CBC. Let me repeat that, Mr. Speaker. People want more funds for the CBC, not less, which is what has happened in the four years in which we have had a Conservative Government.

There ar few very minor good things in this Bill. We are pleased to find the Government and the Minister acknowledging in this Bill that "the CBC is the principal vehicle of cultural expression in Canada". Given the views of so many of the right-wing back-benchers of the Conservative Party, many of whom would like to see the CBC disappear altogether, to get this recognition out of the Tories seems like a great victory.

We need a CBC that is capable of having an appeal to a mass audience while at the same time producing such excellent programming of enlightenment as Ideas or Man Alive. To take off the CBC live drama, music as well as documentaries demonstrates a short-sighted vision. The Government is making commercial factors the litmus test for what should and should not be on the network.

As a Member of Parliament from Winnipeg, I have to join with other Members, including I think some Members on the government side, who are not only dismayed but horrified at the real abandonment by the CBC in the area of regional programming. The standing committee detailed the problems of regional programming in its report. It pointed out that the CBC has been forced to cut 28 per cent of its resources for regional programming in order to maintain regional programming in recent years. The regional managers of CBC operations in every province have noted that in recent years they are "less able to develop new talent, present variety programming, and work with independent producers". We have heard from Winnipeg, Halifax, Hamilton, Windsor and I suppose from Vancouver about the situation.

The 1968 Broadcasting Act established that the CBC must serve the needs of the regions. This current legislation suggests that the network need only reflect the regions to its audience. This is a significant difference from what we came to expect, and it can only lead to the centralization of the CBC, which we in the regions reject completely. The role of enlightenment as well as that of regional and multicultural programming is given over to the alternative programming network. The Minister, however, was not able to secure the funds for this network from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) at this time. She promises instead another two years of studying and delay for a proposal that has already been the subject of intense analysis both by the parliamentary committee and by the Caplan-Sauvageau report. The Government has apparently ruled out a CBC role in this new service and has left it to the CRTC to work out a structure, which I believe is the responsibility of Government.

When we look at private television, Mr. Speaker, we see some very sad facts. The task force pointed out that the private sector has simply not been doing its job, as I indicated at the beginning of my speech. We should remember that the standing committee established that private television broadcasters average a 50 per cent annual return on investment. Surely they should be forced to do more than what they do. Broadcasting licences should be more than a licence to print money. Private networks have to be more than transmission belts bringing in American programs to Canadian viewers with Canadian commercials. What has the Minister done about this in her new legislation? She has watered down, it would appear, the requirement in the current Act that private broadcasters be predominantly Canadian. Instead, she has put in place a form of performance incentives. Fees will be collected in secret by Treasury Board from those private broadcasters who do not meet their requirements for Canadian programming. The money will be distributed to those who do. Rather than getting tough with private broadcasters who consistently fail to meet their conditions of licence, the Minister is offering a shoddy scheme which is fraught with difficulties.

Let me take a moment to illustrate what I have been saying with an example from Manitoba. In Manitoba we have a number of private and public television stations. Most of them are located in Winnipeg because more than half the population of Manitoba is in Winnipeg. What has happened in the last couple of years? The CRTC, for reasons which I cannot understand, gave a licence to a group to set up a television broadcasting station in Portage La Prairie, 50 miles from Winnipeg. So we have Channel 13. But what do we see from Channel 13? It is almost entirely American programming, the game shows and movies. There are some very good movies, but almost no Canadian content at all.

Why did the CRTC issue that licence? I do not know, but part of the reason that they were able to do so is that the message they get from the Government is that it is not very concerned about Canadian content. The Canadian people are concerned about Canadian content. Sure, they want to be able to watch American programs. Sure, they want to watch American baseball games or American football games or drama or Dallas and all the others when they are on. However, they should have the ability to choose what they want to see.

Canadians who really believe that Canada is a separate country and needs its own culture if it is to survive and not become the fifty-first state, also believe that we need a broadcasting system, both public and private, which provides Canadian content. That is what they have seen less and less of since the Conservative Government was elected in 1984.

What we have here are a Bill and a Minister who says some of the right things, but their desire and determination to do the right thing is, in my view, to say the least, sadly lacking.

July 25, 1988

Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say something about Bill C-136, the Broadcasting Act, which the Government brought forward for debate in these last days of July. I think it is appropriate to say that it is a real shame to be debating this matter now. Broadcasting is one of the most important issues that could possibly be put before the country as it relates to culture and society and understanding ourselves. Broadcasting is absolutely central to culture in our time. To have a Bill, which will play such an important part in determining how the broadcasting system evolves over the next decade or two, brought forward for debate in July when there is not as much readiness to debate carefully and critically, seems to me fits in with the Government's agenda of moving things along with not as much critical attention as should be given in order to gloss over the shortcomings of legislation.

I am therefore pleased this morning that there is critical attention being given to these matters and I hope others will come into the debate and continue the exploration necessary at second reading to determine whether the Government has met the challenge or to clarify the extent to which it has fallen short.

I listened with great interest to the comments of my friend, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow), as he debated a variety of shortcomings in the Government's practices and in Bill C-136. I ask those who are listening to take those as a given for my own sense of the situation. I want to expand particularly on one area which, of necessity, has had limited attention in much of the debate, and that is the question of how adequately this Bill recognizes the multicultural policy of the country stated in this Parliament almost 17 years ago, and to which we have in this Parliament given legislative expression.

I refer, of course, to this House passing Bill C-93 and sending it to the other place. In doing so we declared that multiculturalism is a view of the country and describes a policy of the Government of Canada which is to characterize every federal institution. That Bill was available to us when the Broadcasting Act was reaching its final stages, and I think it is eminently fair to ask ourselves to what extent Bill C-136 has been developed and put before us in the context of Bill C-93.

I do not think it is going to be difficult to say that this Bill falls far short of what we would expect in the context of multiculturalism. It only underscores the extent to which our supposed commitment to multiculturalism is a matter of slogans, specific events and days, but is not acceptance of a reality that should be reflected in all the institutions the federal Government directs and controls. It is certainly not going to be adequately expressed in Canadian broadcasting if this Bill passes the House unchanged.

In order to justify those comments I want to take a look at Clause 3 of the Bill in particular. That clause sets forth at some length a broadcasting policy for Canada. To do so I shall have to cite a number of paragraphs indicating how much the

Broadcasting Act

Bill reflects the context of the 1960s, lives within the world of official bilingualism, and only in occasional references suggests that larger view that should have been basic in elaborating a broadcasting policy.

We are told, first, that the Canadian broadcasting system will operate primarily in the English and French languages. Then, of course, there are other references. We are told further on that it is designed "through its operations and programming to reflect the circumstances and aspirations of Canadian men and women, including the linguistic duality and multicultural nature of Canadian society, and the special place of aboriginal peoples within that society." That describes an aspect of the entire broadcasting system.

When we turn to those sections that describe the programming provided by the CBC, we find no such broad vision at all. The programming provided by the CBC should, it says, "be in English and French, reflecting the different needs and circumstances of each official language community, including the particular needs and circumstances of English and French linguistic minorities." Nothing better spells out our view, based on the experience of the 1960s, inadequately developed beyond our view of the country as officially bilingual, of the constraints within which the CBC and Radio Canada have carried on their functions.

Certainly the Bill continues to provide a requirement for enlightenment, the point the Minister was debating earlier. However, the very point that she and I were briefly discussing earlier this morning, the widespread ignorance about our citizens of various cultures, seems to me here, in the most important area where the CBC carries out the federal Government's mandate for informing and enlightening Canadians about other citizens, to lack any explicit declaration that the CBC is to ensure that the multicultural nature of the country is recognized.

Certainly it is part of the general broadcasting policy, yet we know how far short our broadcasters have fallen in achieving that. To leave the CBC without an obligation to do that is just an indication of how limited the vision of the Government is, and to how limited an extent the multicultural policy of 1971, legislated now in Bill C-93, has been put before the directors of the CBC and Radio Canada in ensuring that they will respect the reality of the country.

There is in this area a fundamental point to be made. The federal Government will operate in English and French. The federal Government will speak to all Canadians in those two languages with some very limited recognition that there are Canadians who need to be addressed, presumably through the ethnic press or multilingual broadcasting, in other languages as well. Immigrants come to this country, persons of diverse cultures from all the continents of the earth and live in this country and work in public life in those two languages. To assume that the cultures that they reflect, which continue to

July 25, 1988

Broadcasting Act

underlie their public lives in English, should not be reflected in broadcasting, that this is not an obligation explicitly laid on the CBC and Radio-Canada, is to recognize one of the most fundamental shortcomings of broadcasting.

I make this point because we spend a certain amount of money in the Department of Secretary of State, the multicul-turalism directorate or sector, whatever one wants to call it, especially in the new context of which the Conservatives make so much. It has a bit more money and some new initiatives and is trying desperately, as an election draws near, to catch up on the past. However, whatever happens over there, precious little happens in the broadcasting area, and the Department of Communications quite clearly carries on along the old lines. Certainly there is some stirring of recognition of more needing to be done. I want, in a moment, to get to the matter of alternative broadcasting services.

In Clause 3.(l)(n)(iii) we have the declaration that the broadcasting will:

-be in English and French, reflecting the different needs and circumstances of each official language community-

That is, it seems to me, a refusal to recognize, to lay explicity on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada, the obligation to reflect the multicultural reality of the country in various ways, even if it does that in English and French broadcasting.

The changes that need to be made in these areas might well be recognized if we look at one other clause which is an important addition to the Bill. The recognition of the need for broadcasting in aboriginal languages and to the aboriginal peoples is provided for in subclause (k) which states:

-programming that reflects the aboriginal cultures of Canada should be

provided within the Canadian broadcasting system as resources become

available for the purpose-

There is that fatal last clause, of course, always the limited resources. What has been made available in the various regions of Canada, and I think particularly of northwestern Ontario where I have some sense of it, including the hour of broadcasting in Oji-Cree which occurs on CBQ radio in Thunder Bay every Friday afternoon from two o'clock to three o'clock is an example, a perfectly appropriate, absolutely essential recognition within the Canadian broadcasting system, within the CBC English language service on this station of another language group.

If it is recognition of the aboriginal peoples, let that provide an instance of compensation for those enormous crimes of the past carried out by agents of English and French Christian civilization in this country, the missionaries particularly and the schools which sought to stamp out the use of the various languages as pagan excrescences for which there was no place in today's Canada. Let us make that good.

There in the Bill, in a paragraph which says all the right things-although I regret the last clause about the constraints of finances-is an instance in a Canada of which my view of multiculturalism is a view which recognizes that we begin with

official bilingualism and recognize the fact of aboriginal peoples. Having done both of those things there is no way that we can stop with biculturalism and the aboriginal peoples. We must recognize that the country is multicultural.

In recognizing the fact of a diversity of culture there may still be that old attitude, a mix of white man's burden of Christian missions, completely secularized of course, that these cultures will disappear, that you do not have to do very much except give people some vague sense of what these people do, of the peculiar ways of these ethnic communities, and if you have enlightened them to that extent you have done your job.

That sort of attitude which is in the legislation has permeated communications policy throughout the history of this Department back to the 1960s. Those attitudes fall completely short of providing for the reality that we have in a multicultural Canada.

What are we given in the Bill as the prime means of making up for the great vacuum which exists in CBC, Radio-Canada and obviously in far too much of the private broadcasting which is a matter of some information? The broadcasters say proudly that news comes first. Well, that is about the only local thing that they do, so inevitably it comes first. There is very often nothing after it except perhaps a bit of community broadcasting shoved into some of the lowest listening hours on Sunday morning. For the rest we get American shows, the travesty in the Canadian broadcasting system which CTV has provided over the years with a bunch of stations which exist simply to print money, not to do anything for the Canadian people. That system quite obviously is not going to meet the need which I am addressing.

What are we given in the Bill to respond to recommendation 24 from the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture which declared that the programming carried by the system should provide a balanced representation of Canadian society reflecting its multicultural and bilingual realities, its aboriginal peoples, and the composition of its population with respect to sex, age, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, and mental or physical handicaps? There, in language from the Charter, we have the points of diversity in the Canadian population cited.

What does Bill C-136 do in addressing that particular recommendation? Well, be it noted that we are given some provisions for alternative television broadcasting services in English and French. I went over to chat with the Minister for a few moments to be quite clear about this because I was looking for some kind of provision in the Broadcasting Act for multilingual radio and television. I thought this was where the Minister of Communications was providing a gap for it.

In fact, although this particular term is not defined in Clause 2 of the Bill where the definitions are provided, alternative television programming services are not an attempt to provide for all those stop gaps, if you will. I do not mean to disparage any one of them which provide broadcasting in various languages and try, in the metropolitan markets of our

July 25, 1988

cities, to find commercial support, the means to carry on this response to the desire of people to hear broadcasting in their own languages, languages other than English and French. Subclauses (i) and (j) of Clause 3 contain the Government's response to the realities I have just sketched and the attempt to provide for them.

What will the programming provided by alternative television programming services be like? One short line says that it shall reflect Canada's regions and multicultural nature. There, of course, is the vital adjective. It shall, as far as possible, be acquired rather than produced by those services.

This third network is only a concept within the legislation. The resources have not been provided and study is to continue. It is a service that will be loaded with responsibility not just for multiculturalism but the regional realities and other diversities in Canada. It is feared that as a result of this third network, CBC and Radio Canada will pay less attention to the regional nature of the country.

We are told that this third network will provide for the multicultural nature of Canada and that the programming will be acquired rather than produced by those services. I can only conclude that this will be a very limited service. It is still only a concept because the Government has not provided the resources. We shall see what the next Government will do, but can only hope that it will move quickly to provide those resources.

This service could broadcast excellent NFB productions to Canadians. This service will hardly be able to develop a philosophy and view of Canada which needs to be reflected in broadcasting, or carry primarily the production of programming designed to reflect that reality.

There is no provision for broadcasting in languages other than French and English. Will there be a channel in the predominantly English speaking parts of the country to broadcast this kind of acquired programming in English while the areas that are predominantly French speaking will broadcast on another channel? Obviously, minorities will be neglected. What will the effect of such terribly limited resources in our metropolitan markets be on those producing such programming?

While there is some vision, there is not much evidence of that concept being developed. As long as this remains broadcasting primarily in English and French, it may serve to enlighten Canadians who know the official languages well but will do nothing to fill the gap in order to recognize multiculturalism as also being multilingual and that the diversity of languages spoken by Canadians needs some reflection in broadcasting policy.

I regret that we are likely to see just this one round of debate on this Bill, without amendments in order to continue the discussion that is so badly needed if the multiculturalism

Broadcasting Act

policy we have enunciated is to become more than just a motto but a reality of federal institutions in the broadcast area.

Mr. Orlikow:

Mr. Speaker, the Member talked about the need for programming in languages other than English or French. Not only is there very little broadcasting on radio or television in languages other than English or French, there is almost no programming which explains the life and problems of our native people and people who come from countries whose knowledge and comfort in English or French is limited.

The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) is here. There are elementary schools in his constituency and part of my constituency, where 95 per cent of the students come from either native families or new immigrant families whose language is neither English nor French.

Does he not agree that it is time that both public and private television and radio began to face up to the reality of what is happening in cities like Winnipeg, which is a small example of what is taking place in other areas like Toronto and Vancouver? Should they not deal with these problems? Is it not time for the Government to instruct them to do so? It has not called upon them to do the kind of job that is so essential if these people are to be integrated into the mainstream of Canadian life.

Mr. Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question because it gives me an opportunity to expand on this important matter. He is right about the need and the limited response.

I alluded to CBQ's broadcasting of an hour of Oji-Cree in Thunder Bay every Friday afternoon. It is a rare exception to this generalization that the need is not being met. It is a very limited response in an area of enormous importance. The population in northwestern Ontario that speaks Ojibway and Cree often live in isolated communities. They live in sufficient numbers for the languages to have their own vitality. Nothing in the age of electronic information does more to strengthen the use of language and the belief in a future of it than to be able to hear it on the radio or television.

There is a diversity of population in cities from coast to coast. Aboriginal people and others from all over the world deserve to have broadcasting in their language so they may have an opportunity to live something of the strength of their own culture through the existence of their language.

The culture we see at folklore festivals is often reduced to food and dance partly because we do not know the languages. When the languages are reduced to the level that one communicates in a family, a great deal of the beauty and strength of a culture is lost.

If Barbara Ward's observation years ago about Canada being the first international nation is to be a reality, then our broadcasting must operate in more than just English and French. There must be a recognition of the need in our cities and wherever people live with a diversity of languages, to

July 25, 1988

Business of the House

develop those languages and hear them spoken on radio and television.

Canada can play a role in the development of language, as I understand it is doing in French. The French spoken in Canada responds to technological development more imaginatively than is sometimes the case in France. That is an example of a Canadian cultural contribution out of our richness of language.

The Member for Winnipeg North might particularly appreciate my referring to Dr. J.B. Rudnyckyj, the former commissioner on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. That commission played an important part in the limited linguistic development to where we have achieved recognition for the equality of status in English and French in federal institutions.

Occasionally I correspond with Dr. Rudnyckyj because he remains a powerful proponent of a larger recognition of language in this country, including the recognition of regional languages. He wants to move beyond the provisions in the Official Languages Act that legislate against the destruction of language, or "linguicide" as he terms it. We need actively to find those means that could strengthen language. There I think is where the broadcasting policy of the Canadian Government has failed ever since 1968. Of course, in 1968, the official languages policy of Canada was only being elaborated. It had not been legislated when the Broadcast Act of 1968 passed.

Unfortunately, in this Bill there is not that further recognition of the necessity of making the Canadian broadcasting system multilingual, with care, of course. I know that this arouses fear in many Canadians, English-speaking and French-speaking both, who are anxious enough about maintaining official bilingualism and who think that federal responsibility for additional languages and for broadcasting in them would only arouse opposition to our policies.

This is country that is drowned in American culture. The CBC particularly, and Radio Canada obviously less so, fight for listeners and viewers by re-broadcasting American shows. These broadcasters have given little thought to the possibility of reflecting the diversity of the Canadian population in radio and television. If they were to do so, they would attract viewers who now simply do not bother to watch. These viewers might be attracted if they saw themselves and their ways on the television screen or heard them on the airwaves. That is the challenge that faces us. This Government has obviously failed in that challenge.

We are so aware of the fact that these days, the Conservative Party is doubtful about CBC and Radio Canada, even though back in the early 1930s, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission was a product of the Bennett Conservative Government. These days we are grateful for small mercies, for the good words that exist in Bill C-136. We probably could not have expected a Government that discovers multiculturalism

just at election times to have done very much about the needs that I am expounding on. It is a challenge to the three Parties to elaborate policies and to develop the means to ensure that the multicultural reality of Canada is really reflected in our broadcasting.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Is the House ready for the question?

Question.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Agreed.

No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

All those in favour of the motion will

please say yea.

Yea.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

All those opposed will please say nay.

Nay.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five Members having risen:

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Pursuant to Order made Thursday, July 21, 1988, the recorded division stands deferred until six o'clock today.

I have received written notice from the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap), informing me that he is unable to present his motion during Private Members' Hour on Tuesday, July 26, 1988.

It has not been possible to arrange an exchange of positions in the order of precedence pursuant to Standing Order 39. Accordingly, I am directing the Table Officers to drop that item of business to the bottom of the order of precedence. Since notice will be removed, the hour for Private Members' Business will be cancelled and, pursuant to Standing Order 39, the House will continue with the business before it prior to that hour.

It being one o'clock p.m., I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m. this day.

At 12.54, the House took recess.