GATINEAU — Giving a Quebec ethnic radio station one last chance, the CRTC announced Thursday it is renewing CJWI Montreal’s broadcast licence for just two years and issuing several mandatory orders forcing the station to comply with its regulatory obligations or have its licence suspended or revoked.
Operated by CPAM Radio Union, AM station CJWI Montreal serves the large Haitian community in Montreal. For several years (and several consecutive licence terms) CJWI Montreal has been non-compliant in a number of ways: failing to file annual returns; not maintaining program logs, audio recordings and accurate music lists; and not meeting its Canadian content development (CCD) contribution obligations.
(Its sister station, CJMS Saint-Constant, recently had its licence revoked for similar reasons of non-compliance, which we reported on here.)
On August 27, the Commission announced it was renewing CJWI Montreal’s licence for two years, from September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2022.
CJWI Montreal’s current licence (expiring August 31, 2020) had already been a short-term renewal, and when that two-year licence was approved in May 2018, the Commission also issued mandatory orders at that time in an attempt to force the station to comply with its regulatory obligations.
Despite finding CJWI Montreal continued to be non-compliant and was in breach of the mandatory orders issued in 2018, the Commission has renewed the station’s licence once again on a short-term basis, and included the following warning in its decision:
“Should the licensee again breach regulatory requirements, including the mandatory orders, the Commission will have no choice but to consider the non-renewal, suspension or revocation of the broadcasting licence under sections 9 and 24 of the Act,” reads the Commission’s licence renewal decision.
As part of its new conditions of licence, CJWI Montreal is required to broadcast an announcement regarding its non-compliance three times a day for five consecutive business days within the 14-day period following September 1 (the beginning of its new licence term), and must provide audio recordings of the announcement to the Commission within 14 days of the final broadcast of the announcement. In addition, CJWI Montreal is required to make an over-and-above CCD contribution of $2,836 by September 30, 2020, as a compensatory measure for its previous non-compliance.
