OTTAWA-GATINEAU – On Thursday morning, the CRTC will release its new report into the future distribution models for content in Canada, which it was asked to do by the Governor-in-Council in September 2017.
The report, called “Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada,” is meant to aid an overhaul of the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts by answering the three main questions which were posed by the Order-in-Council from Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly:
- the distribution model or models of programming that are likely to exist in the future
- how and through whom Canadians will access that programming
- the extent to which these models will ensure a vibrant domestic market that is capable of supporting the continued creation, production and distribution of Canadian programming, in both official languages, including original entertainment and information programming.
We look forward to reading the report and Cartt.ca will have a reporter in the CRTC’s media lockup that morning.
However, late Monday, sources with knowledge of the minister's plans but who asked not to be named told Cartt.ca that Minister Joly will use that report not to take direct action on new legislation, as was hoped, but as fuel for a new panel of experts which she will soon appoint who will then have up to a year to make specific recommendations on what a new Broadcasting Act should say. The federal government of course said in the 2017 Federal budget it would be overhauling both the Telecom and Broadcasting Acts.
We haven’t heard much about Telecom Act alterations, which falls outside Minister Joly’s port folio, but perhaps Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, whose ministry does oversee that Act, will have something to say about it when he speaks to the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto on June 6th.
(Ed note: To be quite frank, we hope our sources are dead wrong on this new consultation. Minister Joly spent two years of her time at Heritage in lengthy, cross-Canada discussions where, as she often said, “everything was on the table” and where she heard from dozens upon dozens of industry participants and Canadians on what the Canadian content and distribution industry needs from her and her Ministry.
The 2016 Discoverability Summit, which Minister Joly co-hosted with then CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais, also should have helped provide data on what the industry needs since it brought together not only industry folks, but regular Canadians and even high school students.
All of this informed her 38-page “Creative Canada” vision, which, as the press release touting it said, was “the Government of Canada’s vision for Canada’s cultural and creative industries in a digital world.” Helping that whole process along was a group of 15 distinguished Canadians who facilitate its crafting.
That vision was released last fall along with the demand the CRTC produce this week’s upcoming report and the much-talked about $500 million deal with Netflix.
So are we alone in thinking: “Enough already? What else could there possibly be to talk about or file a report on? Can’t the politicians let the smart folks at Heritage take ALL that we already now know and just make decisions on Broadcasting Act changes?”
Or should we just indulge our skeptical side, which says yet another consultation will be a good way for the politicians to kick the whole can down the road again because by May 2019, the next federal election will be just a few months away, it will be too late to change the Acts because Parliament will be on the brink of being prorogued, and all this will have been a colossal waste of everyone’s precious time.)
Illustration by Paul Lachine, Chatham, Ont.
