Minister raises, and tamps down, expectations
By Greg O’Brien
HERITAGE MINISTER STEVEN Guilbeault gave precious little away last Wednesday afternoon during a CMPA- and AQPM-sponsored town hall meeting.
As is well known by now in the TV and production communities, after five years of study and work through three different Heritage ministers, the federal government will finally have something concrete to announce sometime during the next session of Parliament this fall. It is expected Wednesday’s Throne Speech will have something to say about new broadcasting legislation.
While Minister Guilbeault was asked a few different ways during the interactive virtual session (he’s pictured in a screen cap) what might be contained in new legislation, especially in light of how the Covid-19 crisis has slammed the production industry, he demurred each time, telling viewers he could not yet announce what is in the draft legislation. “I know people would like me to go into specifics and I just can’t,” he said.
More than halfway through the town hall, however, Guilbeault said what the federal government has in mind for new legislation will be far less expansive than the 97 recommendations found in the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel report. This is due to one factor: Its minority government.
“One of the things we had to think long and hard about is do we go with this massive bill where we change just about everything under the sun, or do we try and slice it up into smaller pieces to try and ensure we can get as many of those pieces through Parliament, because the challenge in a minority Parliament, where you don’t control committees, where you don’t have control, necessarily, over the legislative agenda, let alone the Senate, our conclusion was ‘okay we can’t do everything at once’,” he told the approximately 600 people listening to the town hall.
“We felt the most pressing thing we needed to do was to basically get more oxygen into the system, which is money – and go and get it where the money is, which is with the web giants.” – Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault
“So we felt the most pressing thing we needed to do was to basically get more oxygen into the system, which is money – and go and get it where the money is, which is with the web giants.
“I’m not saying the bill we’ll table will only be about that, but this is the main focus of what we want to get through Parliament as quickly as possible so the necessary mechanics that would accompany something like that can be put in place as fast as possible,” he said.
He then added, in French, translated in real time, “the Act needs to be changed in order to give the CRTC the required tools so that the CRTC can step into the 21st century because that (Broadcasting) Act has not been touched in a very long time.
“That legislation must be modernized, otherwise the CRTC can only do little things – and our intent here is not to do little things, to have little impacts. On the contrary, we have to devote lots of energy to it and that is why we want to modernize the legislation as a whole.”
That says to us that a complete overhaul of the Broadcasting Act is not in the cards for the fall. For example, the role of the CBC and CRTC are a key portions of the Act and the NDP, Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois all have very different opinions of what the law of the land should say about how our national public broadcaster and Regulator should operate.
“The Covid crisis has modernized the Broadcasting Act for us.” Doug Murphy, Corus Entertainment
It’s hard to tell at this point whether or not the slices of change Guilbeault alluded to last week will be enough for Canadian broadcasters – all of whom have been slammed by the Covid-19 crisis and are actively appealing for immediate help. During last week’s BMO Media and Telecom annual conference, Corus Entertainment president and CEO Doug Murphy told investors he has high hopes for change which will benefit broadcasters.
“I understand there is a draft Broadcasting Act that is complete, and I would expect it to be referenced in the September 23rd speech from the throne. My understanding is it’s a pretty broad mechanism that will basically focus on the notion that if you benefit from the system, you must contribute to the system.”
That sounds essentially in line with what Minister Guilbeault said.
However, “the burden that was drafted in the 1991 Broadcasting Act requires us to spend 30% of prior years’ revenue on Canadian programming. It dictates what to spend it on, who to spend it with, where to air it,” said Murphy. Thanks to Covid-19 however, this year and next “it is not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen,” he said.
“The Covid crisis has modernized the Broadcasting Act for us.”
That means not only must foreign giants be made to contribute to the Canadian system, the requirements which remain as part of Canadian broadcasters’ conditions of licence must be relaxed, said the Corus CEO. Murphy continued, saying Corus and other broadcasters have met with the Department of Canadian Heritage and so “we also understand that the (new) Broadcasting Act seeks to achieve what has been described to me as symmetry, which means the traditional burdens on broadcasters will in some manner be reduced,” he said.
“We don’t know to what quantum (but) there’ll be more flexibility afforded us in how we spend the money we want to spend… I want to grow our content business. I want to make investments in Nelvana, and I want to make investments in lifestyle and reality… so it’s not that we’re not going to make investments in content. I just don’t want to be told how to spend the money. Ultimately, it’s not something for government to have their hands in.
“So, I believe we’re finally on the cusp of some changes that will be beneficial to Corus and the industry. And we’ll be seeing that in relatively short order.”
That goes a bit beyond what Minister Guilbeault said Thursday.
Once again, it’s hurry up and wait time for the industry.
