The Last Must-Carry: To OMNI, or not to OMNI

By Denis Carmel

GATINEAU – The oral reply phase of a CRTC hearing is the last opportunity for applicants to make their final pleas, respond to comments from competing applicants but also one more opportunity for the Commission to ask questions and, most importantly to raise an issue to ensure it is on the record of the hearing.Interestingly, in the last phase of this week’s hearing into a mandatory license for an ethnic, multi-language primarily news specialty service, the vice-chair-broadcasting, Caroline Simard, asked each applicant something new: “Could you tell us which are the main steps that you would be doing in order...