Hubert Lacroix

But beyond this strat­egy, the con­ver­sa­tion about the Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion often turns to the bil­lion dol­lars it receives from Par­lia­ment and the value of the pub­lic broad­caster in a world where con­tent is mul­ti­plied and diver­si­fied. Lead­ing Hubert Lacroix to this sub­ject is like push­ing the right but­ton. He becomes pas­sion­ate, uncom­pro­mis­ing, but never defen­sive. “CBC-Radio-Canada receives a bil­lion dol­lars to broad­cast in French, in Eng­lish, to the North, on the radio, tele­vi­sion and the Web; we must be inno­v­a­tive, serve Cana­di­ans by enter­tain­ing and inform­ing. The bil­lion dol­lars that we receive actu­ally gen­er­ates $4 bil­lion in eco­nomic ben­e­fits, jobs and pro­duc­tion. The CBC alone is invest­ing $700 mil­lion in Cana­dian pro­gram­ming. And the other play­ers? – $500 mil­lion amongst all of them! Every month, 88% of Cana­di­ans visit, lis­ten to or watch one of our ser­vices at least once. CBC and Radio-Canada are the only ones to tell our sto­ries. In the pri­vate sec­tor, the only one to do excel­lent work in this area is TVA. We are the only ones pro­mot­ing arts and cul­ture across the coun­try. What I say to those peo­ple is: if you do not want local pro­gram­ming, if you do not want sig­nif­i­cant Cana­dian con­tent, if you do not want sup­port for arts and cul­ture, put an end to the CBC.” But do we really want to stop it? Not really. So, let’s dis­cuss the future.

The future of Radio-Canada, at least for the next few years, is in the hands of the Cana­dian Radio-television and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (CRTC). In real­ity, when the Com­mis­sion elim­i­nated the LPIF, when the Com­mis­sion refused to reg­u­late the Inter­net and mobil­ity, when the Com­mis­sion main­tained that it will not require Inter­net ser­vice providers to con­tribute to the broad­cast­ing sys­tem, it defined what the sys­tem of tomor­row will be. We know that the amount of tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits linked to trans­ac­tions will soon dry up – what is there left to sell? How will we finance our sys­tem then, how will we ensure a Cana­dian pres­ence on the over­all mar­ket? “If we want to save our ecosys­tem, each player has a role to play,” con­tends Hubert Lacroix.

But for the CBC, as for every­one, the future is spelled “c-h-a-n-g-e.” “Things will con­stantly change, and not always for the bet­ter. We must be cre­ative, not only in what we pro­duce, but in the way we finance our­selves. Employ­ees of the CBC know this, under­stand this and sup­port it. And when you think it’s fin­ished, we start again. Change is the new sta­tus quo,” con­cludes the pres­i­dent of the CBC.