Brief Presented to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications For the Study of Bill C-11,

An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts RCI Action Committee September 20, 2022

1 - INTRODUCTION This brief will focus on

Article 46 (2) of the Broadcasting Act and the RCI Action Committee’s request that this

article be amended to give effective protection to the international role and mandate of Radio Canada International. We feel it is crucial that the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications support this amendment since this

article is the only text in federal legislation that defines and protects the existence of our world service. The RCI Action Committee was formed to protect the mandate, programming, autonomy and funding of Canada’s world service, Radio Canada International (RCI). The committee is supported by the union that represents RCI employees. Our Committee, and its predecessor the Coalition to Restore Full RCI Funding, have been active since 1991. We testified before your committee in 1994 during the Committee’s inquiry into Radio Canada International. 2 -

ARTICLE 46 (2) Our proposal: 46(2)(

a) The Corporation shall provide a service known as Radio Canada International whose objects shall be to create, produce, and distribute programming specially prepared and intended for audiences outside Canada that reflects Canadian society and its values and that offers news, information and analysis concerning Canada and its social, economic, political, cultural activities, at home and abroad, and world news, from a Canadian point of view (

b) The programs and services provided by Radio Canada International shall be offered in each of Canada’s official languages and in such other languages as are deemed appropriate to the objectives of the service (

c) The Corporation shall maximize the access to the programming of Radio Canada International to international audiences by using distribution means that include but are not limited to the Internet, shortwave, satellite, mobile applications and such other applicable distribution systems that may evolve (

d) The Corporation shall appoint an Executive Director of Radio Canada International (

i) to oversee the financial, editorial and administrative performance of the service

(ii) to manage relations with the Corporation, the Department of Foreign Affairs, other international broadcasters, and other organizations important to the maintenance of the service (iii) to establish annual objectives for the international service (iv) and to report annually the results with respect to those objectives to the Board of Directors of CBC/Radio-Canada 3 - HISTORY –

ARTICLE 46(2) In 1991, following an attempt by CBC/Radio-Canada to shut down Radio Canada International,

Article 46(2) of the Broadcasting Act was amended as follows: “The Corporation may, within the conditions of any licence…provide an international service…” was changed to: “The Corporation shall, within the conditions of any licence or licences issued to it… provide an international service.” Making it a service imperative rather than an option. In Bill C-11, the government amended the article, and removed the international service as a condition of any licence. In June, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage amended

Article 46(2) as follows (changes in bold): 46(2) The Corporation shall, subject to any applicable orders and regulations of the Commission, provide an international service that includes the creation, production and presentation of programming intended for audiences outside of Canada and provided in English, French and any other language deemed appropriate, in accordance with any directions that the Governor in Council may issue.

Given the Heritage Committee had no time to discuss the RCI situation, we very much appreciate the Committee’s attempt to improve the definition of the role of RCI and the necessity to produce programming for audiences outside Canada, as well as adding the obligation to have such programming in Canada’s official languages. This amendment at least partially countered the disastrous policy change of RCI’s mandate by CBC/Radio-Canada in December of 2020.

We hope that as the chamber of sober second thought, you will take the time, to build on the Heritage Committee’s amendment, and perhaps also be inspired by your own Committee’s recommendations in 1994 when your Committee set up an inquiry into Radio Canada International.

4 - WHY IT’S CRUCIAL TO PROTECT RADIO CANADA INTERNATIONAL At a critical time when trusted sources of news and information are needed, RCI resources should be restored. We know that Canada’s reputation has opened many doors for us, and audiences outside of Canada have turned to RCI for unbiased news since we started broadcasting in 1945. What needs to be emphasized here is that RCI news and information has to be tailored and specially prepared so that audiences around the world who know little or nothing about Canada will understand our programming.

An outside audience would not understand many of the details we would take for granted in domestic Canadian programming. For instance, if we say “Today, in Regina…” What is “Regina”? Is it a province, a state, a city or a department store? At RCI, we would probably say “in the prairie city of Regina”. Common Canadian acronyms would need explanations. As would, some inkling of the place of a political party on the political spectrum.

Unfortunately, this crucial aspect of RCI’s identity and role has not been understood by CBC/Radio-Canada, and often ignored. 5 - LACK OF CLEAR LEGISLATION JEOPARDIZES RCI’S ROLE/EXISTENCE Radio Canada International is unique, in Canada and in the world, because its sole purpose is to explain Canada to the world. No other institution does that. Despite this obvious fact, CBC/Radio-Canada has repeatedly tried to change the role of RCI, and do that without Parliament’s permission, and sometimes in outright violation of both the Broadcasting Act and Orders in Council.

In 1990, 1995 and 1996, CBC/Radio-Canada tried to shut down the service completely, only stopped by an avalanche of audience reaction, condemnations by MPs and Senators, and the federal government stepping in. Having failed to shut down the service, from the late 90s onward CBC/Radio-Canada wrested control of the financing and administration of RCI away from the Executive Director of RCI, and began to methodically cut budgets, resources, and services of Radio Canada International.

Perhaps the best way to understand CBC/Radio-Canada’s attitude towards Radio Canada International over the last three decades is to focus on the events of 2012.

In 2012, the government of the day informed CBC/Radio-Canada that it would have to cut 10 per cent of its budget. CBC/Radio-Canada decided not to cut 10 per cent across all its services, but rather by priorities. RCI’s budget was cut by 80 per cent. In addition, CBC/Radio-Canada decided to stop RCI from being a radio station broadcasting on shortwave. It made the decision in violation of Order in Council 2003-0358 which specifically obligated RCI to use shortwave for its programming.

For two months the RCI Action Committee called on the government to force CBC/Radio-Canada to respect its obligation to broadcast on shortwave, then the government changed the Order in Council, and took away that obligation, as well as the obligation for RCI to consult with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Development. The immediate impact of this decision was the loss of RCI’s Chinese audience. Our shortwave radio broadcasts were not blocked by the Chinese authorities, but our website was. A crucial link to our Chinese audience, and the flow of uncensored Canadian news was stopped.

This also impacted other closed societies who depended on outside sources for news. At the time CBC/Radio-Canada insisted declining radio listening and the increased use of the Internet justified this decision, but in fact the elimination of RCI’s shortwave transmitters in Sackville, New Brunswick had already been considered as early as the first attempt to shut down RCI in 1990. (The transmitters were demolished by CBC/Radio-Canada in 2014.) The 80 per cent cut obliterated RCI’s resources and services. Crucially, it eliminated RCI’s English and French newsrooms, and all its journalists.

The number one source for unbiased daily news from Canada was no more. The 2012 RCI experience also underlined the vulnerability of Radio Canada International to changes to Orders in Council, which are so much easier to achieve, then changes to the Broadcasting Act. In December of 2020, CBC/Radio-Canada violated its obligations under the Broadcasting Act and Order in Council 2012-0775 “to produce and distribute programming targeted at international audiences” by announcing a new policy that RCI foreign language programming would now be translations and adaptations of texts on CBC and Radio-Canada websites.

The English and French Sections were eliminated, replaced by copy pasted texts from the domestic networks. Despite appeals both to the government and to the CRTC, the violations of Order in Council 2012-0775 have not been dealt with.

6 - UNIQUE CANADIAN INSTITUTION WITH WORLDWIDE IMPACT Last year in an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and several ministers, 32 notable Canadians including former Prime Minister Joe Clark, and former Canadian Ambassador to the UN Stephen Lewis, called on the government to protect the international mandate of RCI and overturn the new CBC/Radio-Canada policy for RCI. Then in a second open letter, 45 former Canadian ambassadors echoed the need for RCI to be restored to its role of creating and producing programming for audiences outside Canada.

This crucial support for restoring RCI’s role comes from people very aware of the importance of Canada’s image on the world stage, and of the soft power impact of our world service. How important is a world service for a nation? The United Kingdom’s population is not even twice that of Canada, yet on its world service alone, the UK spends almost 200 times more than Canada. 7 - CORPORATE PLAN Given the history of relations between RCI and CBC/Radio-Canada, we would ask the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications to also amend

Article 54 of the Broadcasting Act dealing with the CBC Corporate Plan as follows (changes in bold): 54

(1) The Corporation shall annually submit a corporate plan to the Minister. Scope of corporate plan

(2) The corporate plan of the Corporation shall encompass all the businesses and activities, including investments, of the Corporation, Radio Canada International and the Corporation’s wholly-owned subsidiaries, if any. Contents of corporate plan

(3) The corporate plan of the Corporation shall include (

a) a statement of

(

i) the objects for which the Corporation is incorporated, as set out in this Act, including the objects of Radio Canada International as outlined in

article 46(2); (ii) the Corporation’s objectives for the next five years and for each year in that period and the strategy the Corporation intends to employ to achieve them, and (iii) the Corporation’s expected performance for the year in which the plan is submitted as compared to its objectives for that year, as set out in the last corporate plan; (

b) the capital budget of the Corporation for the next following financial year of the Corporation; (

c) an operating budget for the next following financial year of the Corporation and of Radio Canada International that will define a sufficient annual budget to cover the personnel, technical and administrative requirements of the service as outlined in

article 46(2); and (

d) where the Corporation intends to borrow money in the next financial year, a general indication of the borrowing plans and strategies of the Corporation for that year. 8 - CONCLUSION Over and over since 1990, independent reports by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, by KPMG and others, and by your own Committee have underlined the important role of Radio Canada International, its impact, and the need to protect the service. Many recommendations were made, but almost none were implemented.

Central to the future of Radio Canada International is the return of control of making administration and journalistic decisions back to RCI and its Executive Director. Until the 1990s, the relationship between RCI and the CBC/Radio-Canada was essentially that of a landlord-tenant relationship. CBC/Radio-Canada provided studios, facilities, and services that were paid for by RCI (from a budget earmarked for RCI within the CBC/Radio-Canada budget), but the decision-making of running the service was left to the administrators of RCI. This autonomy must be restored.

RCI cannot continue to find itself in a situation in which CBC/Radio-Canada priorities, or budget constraints, impact RCI’s capacity to serve international audiences.

Throughout its history, Radio Canada International has shown that with limited resources, it consistently reached audiences, innovated technologically, and gained the respect and trust of people around the world. You now have an opportunity, not only to recommend, but also to actually put into the Broadcasting Act effective directives that will enshrine the role and mandate of Radio Canada International. RECOMMENDATIONS: • Amend

Article 46(2) in Broadcasting Act, see text in heading 2 • Amend

Article 54 in Broadcasting Act, see text in heading 7