Dear Senators: Since you asked... by Antonia Zerbisias

Our department boss, Peter Scowen, lord of arts and entertainment and other diversions, is quitting us for greener climes in this paper. I write this on Friday, before I work at acquiring the certain hangover I will have by yesterday morning after marking his farewell the night before.

What I have liked best about his tenure is that he is usually a hands-off guy, at least in the metaphysical sense. I'd explicate this further but the sense of humour possessed by his lovely wife Lee-Anne, although she's a pal, does have its bounds.

Anyway ...

I sometimes seek Peter's wisdom in matters related to the production of this column. Which is why, when I was invited to appear before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications when it holds its hearings on the Canadian news media tomorrow and Tuesday in Toronto, I asked Peter if he agreed that it would be a conflict of interest for me to do so since I will likely comment on its findings one day, if it ever finds anything.

He agreed. Phew. No hours in some airless meeting room.

But wait: Why don't you "set up" — journo-speak for doing an advance story — the hearings by answering the questions the committee wants to ask you in a column, "suggested" Peter.

Uh, thanks.

So here we are then.

Now I could have launched right in with a whole lot of blahddy-blah-blah about how the committee is headed by Senator Joan Fraser, a former editor in chief of the Montreal Gazette who departed during Conrad Black's reign. How it was inspired by media mergers in Canada, and especially by goings-on at CanWest Global which, in addition to its TV empire, also owns Canada's most powerful newspaper chain. How the hearings began in the spring of 2003, made a few headlines, and then kind of faded from public notice. How this week it's on the road to Toronto and Montreal, perhaps to revive public notice. How a bunch of media types will show up to pronounce on media diversity, the role of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the Internet's importance, and whether kids should be taught media literacy.

(My answers: There's never enough diversity, we need a regulator, very and yes.)

But you would have gone to sleep, or turned the page, or clicked on something else.

And I wouldn't blame you.

That's because it seems that, in Canada, we study and study media matters — CBC, or concentration, or Canadian TV drama, etc. etc. — and then we study them some more. And then, after we've felled forests producing the reports, and to report on the reports while jawing about them on CBC, we send the studies off to where studies go to die, a bookshelf in my third-floor home office where they threaten to topple over and kill me. And even if they don't fall on me, they still kill me because I actually read them and write about them only to see the whole process begin anew with yet another committee and yet another study while you, dear reader, get bored and ask, who do you think is gonna win Survivor: Vanuatu tonight and I say who knows? I am too busy reading studies and studies of studies.

But I need beer money. Hence I do what the boss "suggests."

So what I would say to the Senate committee is this: Government should, with a few exceptions, stay out of our business. Meanwhile, our job is to stay in government's face, and to ensure it serves the people. That said, we should not be government watchdogs while acting like corporate lapdogs — and that includes our own media ownership laps.

The only places for government in media are:

Foreign Ownership: Our media landscape is already dominated by foreign — mostly U.S. — publications, programming and films. Canadians value their sovereignty, cultural and political. If we allow foreigners to control our newspapers and networks, how much longer will we be able to see ourselves?

CRTC: The airwaves are public. They belong to all of us, not just a few hugely wealthy families.

Yeah, I can get 8 gabillion channels on my TV. But most are owned, controlled and/or distributed by the same hugely wealthy families. Unplug the cable (or satellite), and you're left with the airwaves, which, by the way, are a limited resource.

We don't let business rule our waterways or forests. We shouldn't let them run roughshod over our airwaves.

Oh, and yes, Senators, the CRTC should make networks invest in news. That's the least they can do for reaping in all that cash running U.S. shows and selling Canadian ads.

Public Broadcasting: Despite the best efforts of CBC and TVO, our public broadcasters are severely under-funded compared with those in other countries — and those in other countries don't have to broadcast in two official languages over such vast geography.

Most people learn about the world outside their homes and 'hoods via TV. That's why we need networks that are not about delivering eyeballs to advertisers but about opening eyes and minds, without commercial constraints and considerations.

Public broadcasting is especially essential to those Canadians not as richly served by their local media as we are in Toronto.

So Senators, take your act to Regina or Vancouver where the media pool is stagnant. In Toronto, we're looking pretty fluid.

Strange thing though: Everybody I now report to used to be at CanWest.

I think they'll need that drink.

© Toronto Star