MONTREAL – A group representing 8,000 anglophone artists in Quebec is hoping to convince the CRTC to require Videotron to include an English-language community TV channel in the Montreal-area as a condition of its license, which is up for renewal this summer.
The English Language Arts Network (ELAN) said Tuesday it is building an alliance with the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), a not-for-profit which represents 41 English-language community organizations across the province, to intervene at the upcoming CRTC public hearings concerning Vidéotron’s Montreal licence renewal.
ELAN says the Videotron licence affects the 600,000 English-speaking Quebecers living in the Greater Montreal region. Quebec’s English-speaking community was absent the last time Vidéotron’s licence was renewed seven years ago and the result has been a complete absence of community TV production in English, said ELAN president Peter MacGibbon.
“We have no shortage of television content available to us, but we rarely see our own stories on TV,” said MacGibbon in a release. “When it comes to television, members of Quebec’s English-speaking community are like vampires. When we stare at the screen, we do not see ourselves reflected.”
This past weekend QCGN members from across the province approved a resolution supporting the establishment of an English-language community TV channel in the Montreal area which is complementary to Vidéotron’s French-language community TV channel MATv, said QCGN president Dan Lamoureux.
“A new English-language channel would not take any funding or resources away from MATv,” ELAN board member Fortner Anderson said at a public meeting held by the association earlier this week.
Anderson, former manager of the Directors’ Guild of Canada-Quebec Council, told the meeting that under current CRTC broadcasting policy, Vidéotron can offer the minority-language community channel out of funding it is already required to contribute to Canadian production.
ELAN is also working with the Canadian Association of Community Television User Groups and Stations (CACTUS) to identify ways in which communities across Canada are using TV to increase access to local news, arts and culture, and community events.
ELAN and QCGN have set up a Facebook page to provide community groups and members of the public with information about the potential benefits of community TV and how to intervene in the CRTC's Vidéotron hearings.
