Speeches and Interviews

January 07, 2002

Shelagh Rogers Interviews Carole Taylor

Shelagh Rogers interviews Carole Taylor, CBC Board of Directors Chair, on This Morning, CBC Radio One

SHELAGH ROGERS (CBC-R): 
Remember just breathe. Just be calm. Just relax. Thanks Carole. Thanks Shawn. Thanks Willie. I think this will help because I am about to interview Carole Taylor, the Chair of CBC's Board of Directors. And I've been thinking about it all morning from the time I walked in here and saw the story board with her name and thinking I've been off for a week and the first day back I'm interviewing my boss. So I spoke to Jane Farrow, she who hosts Workology, and I said what shall I do? And she said mirror her body language. That's really hard to do because Carole Taylor's in our Vancouver studio this morning.

Carole, good morning.

CAROLE TAYLOR (CBC Chair): 
Good morning Shelagh.

ROGERS: 
How are you sitting?

TAYLOR: 
Well you see it's a little early so it's a bit shlumpy.

ROGERS: 
Shlumpy?

LAUGHTER

I'm shlumpy too. Okay so far so good. How's it going?

TAYLOR: 
It's going really well, Shelagh. I feel quite privileged actually to be in this position at this time in our history. I think that it's really, you know, quite a precious opportunity all of us have. You working on air and me behind the scenes, you know, in support of public broadcasting. I really am quite thrilled about this.

ROGERS: 
I love the fact that you're calling it a precious opportunity, Carole, when I don't think we've ever faced more competition from more places ever in our history. And I think even you've said that we're in no danger of becoming irrelevant. What are you facing as the Chair of the Board?

TAYLOR: 
I think what we have to get our heads around is the fact that life has changed. When CBC first started in radio, television so many years ago, the mandate was quite clear to provide service across our country to those areas that didn't have any other options, and it was a way again of showcasing Canada. But as you pointed out with all of the platforms out there now, I mean Internet, radio, television, digital and on and on, satellite, that is kind of taking away from us. So, unless we move forward and see ourselves with a new mission then we do become irrelevant. For me, it's quite clear what our mission is. And that is to celebrate Canadian ideas, Canadian talent, Canadian values. And I think, frankly, after September the 11th nothing has been clearer.

You know that was an American tragedy, an American event and I think many of us felt that people would tune into CNN just to see what was happening. But in fact our numbers in radio and television, but specifically in radio, French and English, set records, historical records, for numbers of people who tuned in. And what Canadians were saying en masse was we want to know how this international event fits with Canada, with our values, our immigrations, our politicians, our communities.

And more than ever before it became quite clear to me what our role is in the future. We have got to get our elbows out and fight for our space up there in that satellite in the sky just to make sure that, we're not lost in this deluge of hundreds of other options and channels.

ROGERS: 
Carole, reflecting Canada in the context of the world has been a big part of what CBC has been about?

TAYLOR: 
For sure it has. And I think that the threat right now is that people forget about that when they see all the other options. And they're thinking only about choice of entertainment and not really, understanding the basic mission which is this talking to each other across the country. I also have a different idea of regional programming from what many other people have.

ROGERS: 
Because of where you sit?

TAYLOR: 
Well yeah, I mean, obviously it's so important I think that we don't exist as a public broadcasting system unless we really, truly are hearing regional voices. But what I don't like is when people talk about regional being people in B.C. talking to people in B.C. or people in Newfoundland speaking to Newfoundlanders. I want to hear those stories out of St. John's and I want people in Halifax to hear the stories out of Saskatchewan.

I mean if we really want to strengthen our nationhood here… I mean I don't want to over blow this but I think that's what public broadcasting is all about. If we really want to strengthen our sense of nation in Canada, then we have to hear those voices, hear those stories, hear those values. Because they are different across the country. And for a loud diversity and complexity and controversy to happen, it's not going to happen on the privates. I've got nothing against the privates. Worked in privates for years. But they're a business; they have a different mandate. Theirs is to make sure that the bottom line works and they're running a good business. Our mandate, because we are subsidized by taxpayers, Canadians across the country, is quite different and quite special.

ROGERS: 
They're a bunch of things just out of what you've said that I want to ask you about. But first I want to make it very clear that you're the first Chair of the CBC Board of Directors that is not from Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa and you are firmly planted in Vancouver, I gather with a very visible office in the CBC Vancouver plant. Why did you not want to come and take the office at Head office or an office in this building here in Toronto?

TAYLOR: 
It really goes back to what I think the survival and future of public broadcasting is. And that is it cannot be just Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. If it is then you will find more and more regions across the country saying, well why are my taxpayer dollars going to hear more news out of Toronto? So you've got to break away from that. Part of it is in the way you do programming. But I think part of it is the way you do management. And the new President, he's not so new now but reasonably new, Robert Rabinovitch, he makes a point of not just sitting in Ottawa. In fact, he spends more time in Montreal and Toronto than Ottawa. So he started the break up of management. By positioning myself in the West, that's another voice. You compliment that by doing Disclosure out of Winnipeg, Country Canada out of St. John's, Canada Now out of Vancouver. And you're starting to get the texture of what this country's all about.

ROGERS: 
What about the eastern side of the country? What about Quebec? What about the North?

TAYLOR: 
Everywhere is important. And in fact people say to me you're on the road all the time, I guess you're going back and forth to Ottawa? And I say well in fact it took me about four months before I got to Ottawa even though I travel every week. It's because I was going to places like Montreal and St. John's and Calgary, trying to get out to all the other centres and really… First of all let people vent at me and say what they think is wrong or what we should do better. And having passed the venting stage, then start to be enthusiastic about going forward with this opportunity.

ROGERS: 
What are you hearing in the vent?

TAYLOR: 
It depends on where I am. In Ontario, in fact, the last time that I did a phone-in radio show, it was a lot about transmission services. I go to Calgary and it's a lot about content. And in fact when I was in Calgary it was right after September the 11th and there was a lot of concern about one of the shows we'd done. So I got an earful about that. St. John's, when I went there, I heard about, you know, cutting regional news and the effect that had on the Community.

And I'm coming in at a time that I think a lot of relationships have been damaged between CBC Radio Canada and the community and also between us and the political world. And what I would like to do is start to rebuild those relationships and reach out and try to reconnect again because, again, I don't think we survive as an entity unless we have our community working with us.

ROGERS:
Do you think you bring a West Coast sensibility to your job?

TAYLOR: 
For sure. I mean it's just part of me.

ROGERS: 
And what does that mean?

TAYLOR: 
Well it means that if I look at the list of Board meetings and I see out of six meetings in the year three are in Ottawa, I say, eh excuse me. In fact, we will go to St. John's with one of our Board meetings. And in fact, we will go to Edmonton or Vancouver. I mean it starts at some really basic levels but it also means that we're talking about regional programming every chance that I get. You know, I have really strong feelings about this. And so I make sure that at the Board and Senior Management levels they are expressed constantly.

ROGERS: 
You've lived and worked in Toronto as well, Carole. What do you see is the difference between say the Vancouver/West Coast sensibility and the way Toronto looks at the world?

TAYLOR: 
You know I made a big mistake when I was a reporter. When I was working in Toronto I really felt that I was a good reporter. I worked very hard. I tried to understand the issues. I tried to, you know, really have a sense that Canada was a big and complicated country. And so I would travel to Vancouver to do a story. I'd fly in. I would quickly line up some people. And of course the people you would line up to interview tended to be the ones who spoke the loudest and were actually heard of in Toronto, right? So you're perpetuating kind of the same system. I'd run in, do my interviews, fly off, edit and write it back in Toronto. It wasn't until I actually moved to Vancouver that I realized how wrong I had been about so much of my reporting once I left my base. And it was, you know, not ill-will, it was just a matter of not understanding the players. So I was interviewing the ones that were noisiest, and the community might have thought well that's just a ridiculous position, or we discarded that person or that point of view many years ago. You just don't know until you live in a community.

So the best thing that came out of that experience for me, was for me to realize I don't know the Atlantic regions. I mean I honestly don't. I will do my best to go and to visit and to listen and learn but it's only the people who really are part of the community, wherever it is in Canada, whether it's up North, Quebec, Saskatchewan, wherever, they are the ones that know their community. So my job as Chair, to the extent that I can influence these things, is to make sure that we've created an environment where those voices can be heard.

ROGERS: 
One of the reasons I wanted to talk to my coach this morning, Jane Farrow, is because I can't ask certain questions about CBC Radio without sounding like I've got a big dose of enlightened self interest but what would you say is the biggest challenge facing CBC Radio right now?

TAYLOR: 
CBC Radio, if we're speaking on the English side, has just had tremendous success. I suppose in a way that becomes an ironic kind of problem because it would be very easy to sit with this success. And as I said with the biggest numbers both in French and English radio that you've ever had in your history it would be easy to say well everything's just swell, let's just stay the way we are. But in fact I think we've got to be quick on our feet and I think we've really got to be able to change.

So how do you evolve in change and develop and become even better without losing what's so strong about radio in the first place? I think the big challenge that we have right now is how do we go forward? How do we adapt? How do we recognize the multi-cultural diversity of our great country and the regional differences, and the religious differences and the political differences? How do we bring all that onto the airwaves and not, you know, not threaten this strong base that we have and the way we've been doing things for years and years?

ROGERS: 
You know I was reading a document that was printed up and published and written about, I guess, ten years ago. It was written by Donna Logan who's now the head of the Sing Tao Journalism School in Vancouver in British Columbia, at UBC. And ten years ago she was talking about the digital invasion. The Internet was a fairly new idea that w as a threat to CBC Radio, representing diversity, the great diversity of this country. This is ten years ago. It must be a lot more urgent now. I don't think we've changed a lot in those ten years, Carole. How are we actually going to get off our duffs and do this?

TAYLOR: 
Part of it is by verbalizing the situation. I think that you're never moved towards solutions or change until you finally verbalize things. And I think that you're now hearing it from various levels within CBC. I think it's by bringing in young people. And that's always hard. We've been through this very, very tough decade or more of cuts. And there's not a person who would say that this has been a good time. I mean it's been very, very difficult. And it's always hard to say let's bring in new people, let's make opportunities for young people and changes when in fact you're cutting your work force.

So my hope is that we're past those bad days. That we're now at a turning point where we have this opportunity to go forward and start to bring in some different voices and some new opportunities.

I don't see the Internet for instance as a threat. I see it as part of what we do. I see it as one of the tools that we can use. Because all we're about, when it comes down to it, is content. We're only about content. And if we can use Internet, radio, television, digital, however we do it to get Canadian values again and Canadian talent out there, then we'll have done our job.

ROGERS: 
What about CBC Television?

TAYLOR: 
CBC Television has been through a big, traumatic transformation in the last few years and I don't think that the broad community yet realizes what's been going on. It always, you know what they say in advertising? By the time you are really sick of hearing yourself say something, the broad community's just beginning to hear it. And I think that's what's happening with television. Some dramatic changes have happened.

You look at our themed evenings. I don't know how many people have yet tuned in and really realized what we're doing. But we want to do a lot of what radio has done which is to have the sense of being different when someone turns the channel on and identifiably public broadcasting. And so if you are an arts fan then Thursday night on English Television you can turn in and watch perhaps a full ballet, a concert. If you're a sports fan, well Saturday night's for you. If it's, you know, public affairs then it's Tuesday/Wednesday. Comedy, Friday. Now I think that whole theming and streaming idea is a wonderful way to say to people it's a little bit different from all the channel hopping and five hundred options. If you like Canadian comedy, which so many people do, you think of all our wonderful successes there, just get organized on Friday night with the popcorn or whatever and pull up your chair and stay with us the whole evening because we're really going to entertain you.

So I think that there are a lot of things. We've cut back on commercials to the extent that we can within our budget and we've made big emphasis on children's programming in the morning because we would like parents to feel that they could, you know, very comfortably turn on CBC in the morning with their children and not have to worry that they have to monitor it or something bad or unpleasant will come on. It will be children's programming, commercial free. Sort of a safe zone for your children.

I think that there are lots of changes out there and over the next year or so I hope more people will give it a look and hopefully come away very pleased.

ROGERS: 
All right. You sound very optimistic about the future of CBC Television. Again in light of this, well challenging environment, I won't call it competition.

TAYLOR: 
Well I am just because I think it's so important. Even though nobody is going to hand us that space in the satellite that allows Canada to be a nation with our ideas out there unless we really fight for it. I am not anti anything. Unfortunately I think a lot of people, you know, find their own strength by being anti somebody else. I'm not anti-American. I think the American culture that has come through has been wonderful and rich for everybody. But that doesn't stop me from being very pro-Canadian. I love the fact that BBC did so much good work. I've got a meeting coming up with the Senator from Australia to learn about their public broadcasting system. I just want to be part of the action. I think our values here in Canada are so important we should share them with the world. And I think that public broadcasting is the way we do that.

ROGERS: 
Carole tell me what your role is as the Chair of the Board specifically.

TAYLOR: 
It really is first of all to run the Board well; to develop a good working relationship between Senior Management of CBC and the Board. The Board's job is not at the programming level. It's at the sort of context level, what is the overall strategy for public broadcasting in Canada. And once the Board sets that, then Senior Management works the schedules throughout the four media lines to make sure that it's complimentary to that notion.

But also, I see my role as building these bridges with community. You know, I've been such a community worker all my life and you just cannot go forward unless you are working with communities. And so I think that what happened during all of the cutbacks was a real isolation of CBC in many places across the country, where we pulled back because we had to. I mean we were into survival mode. And morale was really bad. And so we pulled back from a lot of our community involvement and I'd like to open that up again and get back out there. CBC Radio in Vancouver for instance has a wonderful program with the food bank. There are similar programs across the country with other initiatives where we're out there in the community supporting the arts and culture and really proud of it. And involving all of our community groups. So I think that's a big part of my role as well.

ROGERS: 
Let me ask you about the Board. It's still largely made up of people from central Canada and only one member of the Board is non-white. Can you make the CBC more relevant to all Canadians with a Board that is thusly comprised?

TAYLOR: 
I'm very interested in corporate governance and I've done it in the private sector and I've done it in Crown Corporations before CBC. And there's just been this change in what's going on on Boards across the country. And what you've identified is happening everywhere, it's not just CBC. But this idea that our Boards must be more representative of our community has taken hold. That doesn't mean it's happened yet, but again, you know, first of all you verbalize the problem and what has to be done. And the other issue is that we need to look around the table at skill sets. Because what we need, certainly we need regional representation, multicultural, gender. We need language representation. But we also need skill sets. We need to make sure that for the various committees that we have and responsibilities we have there's someone around the table that can take the lead on different issues. And so I would say to you that we're evolving in that direction as well. And I think that for Boards across the country, not just Crown Corporations, but you're just going to see some very important changes as we realize what we're actually looking for in a Board member.

Because I regard it as a profession now. It used to be, you know, if you were somebody's friend, certainly in the private world, then you'd go on a Board and you were never expected to challenge management. And when they had the opportunity, they'd go on your Board and they'd do the same service. Well the liabilities of being on Boards now and the responsibilities are so huge, no one can take it casually. So it's becoming a profession and Western University is certainly been doing a lot of work on Boards and the skill sets that are needed. So I think that you are going to see much better governance in the years to come.

ROGERS: 
I'm speaking with Carole Taylor who is the Chair of CBC's Board of Directors. And Carole Taylor's also the Chair of the Vancouver Board of Trade. And I can see how these two roles really mesh with each other, Carole. And you're very involved in the community. What do you hear from businesses about how CBC is funded? Do you hear the position that we shouldn't be receiving Government funding? That we should really go and do it on our own goods?

TAYLOR: 
It depends where I go in the country. There are certainly different attitudes but I do get told you know, why should my taxpayer dollars go to support, you know, a production of a ballet? Or you know, why do you need subsidies for television or radio these days when we've got so many choices? So I have to be able to make the argument back that there is an essential and important role for public broadcasting in this country so that you feel good about giving us your taxpayer dollars. And it's not easy. But in part I think it's been our fault too over the years.

I won't identify cities but I've been to cities where I've… What I do when I go in is I try to do an editorial board, I try to do a phone-in show, I try to speak with staff. I put together, if I can, a lunch or a dinner with some community leaders, some business leaders, political leaders because I think we need support from everybody. And I've been told time and time again, we have never had anything to do with CBC before. We've never been asked to be part of a session or a meeting or a chat. And so I think that, you know, business probably has felt quite left out but in part it's because they've never been invited in. And it's not that you want them in and running programs which is always everyone's fear, but it's so that as members of the community, they have some say. We hear what their opinion is as well as the arts community.

ROGERS: 
Carole, I've got about a minute left before we head into our break for local news and information. What in your mind or in you imagination, what do you think CBC Radio will sound like in four and a half years when you've completed your term?

TAYLOR: 
Oh that's tough, isn't it? And I think I mean context, not programming. I would expect, to be honest, it won't sound very different. I think that it might have a bit more texture and a bit more region but I don't think it will sound very different. I hope that much of the successes of radio we use in television, on that side as well. Some of the successes on the French side I hope we use on the English and vice versa.

It's the integration that I think will be the noticeable difference. Where you'll really have a sense that we're a family of public broadcasting. It's not just radio way over there and television way over there.

ROGERS: 
Five seconds.

TAYLOR: 
It's the integration Shelagh.

ROGERS: 
Carole, thanks so much. I actually didn't have to be briefed deeply during this chat. It's nice to talk to you.

TAYLOR: 
Nice to talk to you. Thank you.

ROGERS: 
Carole Taylor is the Chair of the CBC Board of Directors.