Alphonse Ouimet was one of a small, quixotic band of public broadcasters who dreamed that television could make a truly Canadian culture. He played a commanding role as engineer, manager, and eventually administrator in the formation and maintenance of a Canadian television system during the 1950s and 1960s. But his hopes were never realized, a lesson which demonstrates the limits of the cultural power of television.

Ouimet was first employed in 1932 by a Montreal firm then experimenting with television. He joined the engineering staff of Canada's public broadcaster, soon called the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1934. After the war, he became the CBC's television specialist: in 1946 he began work on a report on the technology of television; three years later he was appointed both coordinator of television and chief engineer, and in January 1953 he became general manager. Thus he was the chief operating officer of CBC-TV, which had commenced broadcasting in September 1952, during the years it spread across the country. In one forum after another Ouimet, the CBC chairman Davidson Dunton, and other managers sold the idea of public television, supported by both tax and ad revenues, as a tool of cultural nationalism that could counter the sway of New York and Hollywood. In the next six years the initial two stations expanded to thirty-six (as of 31 March 1995), eight owned and operated by the CBC and the rest private affiliates, reaching well over 80% of the population. On Dominion Day, 1 July 1958, the opening of a microwave relay system from Victoria on the west coast to Halifax on the east gave the CBC the longest television network in the world. It was a great triumph of engineering, and a source of national pride--though the most popular English-language shows carried on the network were nearly always American in origin.

Ouimet became president of the CBC in 1958, which made him one of few high ranked French Canadians in the service of the federal government. How ironic that his first crisis involved Radio-Canada, as the French-language service of the CBC was known. Early in 1959, a labor dispute involving French-language producers in Montreal and English-language managers in Ottawa eliminated most of the popular local programming in Quebec for over two months. The partial shutdown excited nationalist passions in Quebec and left behind a legacy of bitterness that Ouimet could never dispel.

The crisis strengthened the presumption that Ouimet's sympathies were on the side of authority, not creativity. Before long, he was portrayed as a distant ruler, more interested in "housekeeping" than "program content," to borrow the terminology of one government commission which severely criticized the CBC for waste, inefficiency, and bureaucracy. Finally in 1966 Ouimet ran afoul of the producers in Toronto, the center of English-language television. Ottawa management had tried to impose its authority over the extraordinarily successful public affairs show This Hour Has Seven Days (1964-66) whose bold opinion and sensational style had captured a mass audience. That upset Ouimet who adhered to a creed of public broadcasting in which the CBC was neutral, educational, but never partisan. When the Seven Days crew declared war on management, they won the support of Toronto producers, many journalists, and much of the public. Eventually, after three months of agitation, including a parliamentary inquiry, the appointment of a federal mediator, even an attempt to secure a new president, Ouimet had his way: Seven Days disappeared from the airwaves. It was a pyrrhic victory, however, since public affairs broadcasting in Canada would not recover a similar kind of significance until the appearance of The Journal in the 1980s.

Ultimately much more significant was what had happened to the television system in Canada. The 1958 Broadcasting Act led to the end of the CBC's network monopoly and a partial privatization of the system. The new independent stations, especially the affiliates of the Canadian Television Network (CTV) in English Canada, used cheap American programs to win audience share. Ouimet and his managers believed they had to compete by offering their own imports to retain viewers and boost advertising revenues. Indeed these revenues were necessary to support the production of less popular Canadian content. The annual parliamentary grant of funds was never sufficient.

Late in 1967, Ouimet retired from the presidency, though he would continue in public service as head of Telesat Canada (1969-80), a crown corporation in the field of telecommunications. He left broadcasting just before the onset of a new act that further reduced the stature of the CBC. His legacy was decidedly mixed. Public television still won the attention of nearly half the Canadian audience for its mix of popular and demanding programming. But the English-language service offered only a few Canadian examples of storytelling, the great staple of popular television, and specialized much more in sports coverage, news and public affairs, and minority programming. The promise of a cultural renaissance had never materialized. Direct American competition had secured nearly one-quarter of the Canadian audience outside of Quebec by 1967. Only in French Canada was the CBC able to create a continuing series of local dramas, known as téléromans, that proved enormously popular with audiences. Television merely built upon the fact that in English Canada tastes were emphatically American, whereas in French Canada there was a strong tradition of homegrown entertainment.

- Paul Rutherford

ALPHONSE OUIMET. Born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Educated at McGill University, Montreal, degree in electrical engineering, 1932. Built TV set and did broadcast experiments for Canadian Television Ltd., 1933-34; engineer, Canadian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, 1934 and assistant chief engineer at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when it replaced CRBC, 1946; coordinator of TV, chief engineer and advisor to the board of the CBC, 1949; general manager, CBC, 1953; named the Father of Canadian Television for building the world's biggest TV system when CBC pioneered Canadian TV, 1950s; president of CBC, 1958; retired, 1967; chair of Telesat Canada, 1969-80; in retirement worked with UNESCO, served on committees and task forces, wrote on communication technology and the erosion of Canadian sovereignty. Died in 1988.

PUBLICATIONS

"Television and Its Impact on Our Way of Life." (Address to Alumnae Society of McGill University). 16 February 1953, National Archives of Canada RG41 v.401 file 23?1?4 pt.1.

"The Future Role of CBC." CBC Times (Toronto), 30 January?3 February 1960.

FURTHER READING

Koch, Eric. Inside Seven Days. Scarborough, Canada: Prentice-Hall, 1986.

Peers, Frank. The Public Eye: Television and the Politics of Canadian Broadcasting 1952-1968. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.

Raboy, Marc, Missed Opportunities. The Story of Canada's Broadcasting Policy. Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queens University Press, 1990.

Rutherford, Paul. When Television Was Young: Primetime Canada 1952-1967. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

See also Canada; This Hour Has Seven Days