Excerpts from the April 24 meeting of the parliamentary committee reviewing the mandate of the CBC

Charlie Angus says that free television from rabbit ears is part of a social contract with Canadians.  Arthur Lewis regrets this trend that started in Kamloops but given the lack of funding for transmitters, it may be inevitable.  Given a choice, he would rather money went into programming rather than transmission towers.

Mr. Charlie Angus (MP for Timmins—James Bay, NDP):
This is where we have different opinions that are starting to bump into each other. There is a view out there in the analog world that rabbit ear service must be maintained, that every Canadian gets free television for CBC and that's part of our social contract.  If we're moving towards carriage fees and subscription fees, basically treating CBC as a specialty service, are we not then disenfranchising the people who watch the Montreal Canadiens back home on Saturday night with the rabbit ears?

Mr. Arthur Lewis (Executive Director, Our Public Airwaves) :
That's a difficult question, but as I'm sure you're aware, the CBC is already proposing 44 transmitters that would basically limit its over-the-air high-definition transmission to major cities, and everybody else would be experiencing what the people of Kamloops, British Columbia, are already experiencing: get it on cable or satellite or you don't get it. We think that's wrong, but that may be the only practical way in the future, given the, I would suggest, highly unlikely circumstance that the government is willing to put up hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate the existing CBC transmission system. In an ideal world, yes, let's do it, but I just don't see the money forthcoming. Certainly in a balance of lesser evils, I'd rather see the money go into programming than towers, and there's always a limit to how much is available.


Certainly, we have said to the CRTC, and I would say to you, that as the Kamloops situation spreads across the country and in small town, rural, remote Canada there are no longer TV transmitters for the CBC, and probably the private broadcasters as well, there should be a minimum cost, a basic service that everybody should be able to get. As to whether you waive the subscription fee on that service, probably yes, and only charge it. Most people, in reality, take additional services and pay Mr. Rogers and others a lot of extra money for movie channels, American channels, and so on, but I wouldn't feel any qualm of conscience about hitting them with another $2 to $4 for public broadcasting.