President says CBC 'could have done better' with songwriters gala
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 | 11:03 AM ET
CBC News
CBC president Hubert Lacroix was grilled by federal MPs on Tuesday over the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame broadcast this spring that did not include prominent francophone artists.
In a presentation to the House of Commons language committee, Lacroix admitted the public broadcaster "could have done a better job under the circumstances."
The 44-minute broadcast of the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala provoked anger in Quebec because it cut out Quebec singer Claude Dubois's performance and acceptance speech.
"This has raised awareness of what we should do to be more sensitive on this issue," Lacroix said.
Cutting of the francophone performer "doesn't help in promoting understanding between cultures," said New Democrat MP Yvon Godin.
He pressed Lacroix over remarks made by Richard Stursberg that the gala broadcast had been cut to appeal to anglophone viewers.
Speaking before the same committee earlier this year, Stursberg said the broadcast was created from an original ceremony lasting three and a half hours and it was cut to target an audience in English Canada.
"He was saying people in English Canada would turn off the channel if a francophone singer came on. This kind of thing hurts us as francophones," Godin said.
Lacroix denied there was any implication that anglophone viewers would turn off the show if a singer performed in French.
There are many other shows on CBC that highlight Canada's linguistic duality, he said, but that was not part of the mandate of the songwriters' gala broadcast.
"As Mr. Stursberg said, the purpose of the 44-minute broadcast was to target an English Canadian audience. That's why it focused on Oscar Peterson and Paul Anka," he said.
He pointed out that Radio Canada, the francophone network, did not air the gala, and that Radio 2 aired it in its entirety.
Lacroix said a cut-down version of the gala has been aired on CBC Television for the past three years. He said the public broadcaster would reconsider how it airs the gala in future.
"If we are going to be doing this type of event, broadcast, we will be more sensitive to issues of diversity," he said.
When pressed by Bloc Québécois MPs, Lacroix refused to speculate how the show would change.
"We've agreed to relinquish our exclusive broadcast rights," he said. "It will be up to the organizers."
MP Raymond Gravel said CBC was failing to fulfil its mandate.
"There were francohones of international calibre on the gala and they were cut," he said. "There's no point in francophones going to the gala next year."
Dubois, who was an inductee into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, called the CBC racist after he learned his performances were excluded from the television version of the Toronto awards.
Shortly after the awards, Stursberg issued a formal apology to all artists whose performances were edited out of the television broadcast.
