OTTAWA – The CRTC should amend the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations to stipulate distributors must make monthly, rather than just annual, contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), the all-party Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage recommended in a report released this week.
That was one of six recommendations contained in the report, entitled The Future of the Canadian Television Fund. It includes dissenting opinions from the Bloc Quebecois and Conservative Party members. The report was tabled on March 21.
The Standing Committee under recommendation number one strongly condemns the actions of Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Media – both of whom for a while suspended their monthly payments to the fund – and urged the Canadian Heritage minister to follow suit.
“The actions of these two companies put the industry in a panic. International deals were put in jeopardy, the CRTC has been scrambling to find a solution, and the government and this committee have been pulled away from other pressing business (like the CBC review) to put out this unnecessary fire,” reads the report.
The committee threw its full support behind the CTF and suggested certain operating principles of the CTF be retained, including that the equivalent of 37% of its total revenues be set aside for programs destined for the CBC.
Another recommendation was that the government move the annual public contributions to the CTF to A-base, which would mean the funding would be permanent.
The study also found fault with the CRTC’s decision to create a task force to examine the CTF. Thus, it recommended that any CRTC findings be brought back for public hearings mandated through Canadian Heritage.
“The fund is structured such that it is accountable to the Department of Heritage, not the CRTC, and as such, any hearings on the CTF’s structure, governance or procedures should be conducted by the department,” reads the report.
The dissent by the Conservative Party members notes that when the Liberals were in power they were never willing to move CTF public funding to A-base. The Conservatives view this recommendation as an “attempt by the opposition parties to ‘tie the hands’ of the [Heritage] minister.”
The Conservatives also take issue with the first recommendation, noting that Shaw and Quebecor stayed completely within the law. They also oppose the praise given to the CTF in recommendation two – which backs the fund – because it implies that with minor exceptions all is well. The Conservatives don’t even view the support spelled out in the report as a recommendation.
The Bloc Quebecois also note that Shaw and Quebecor’s refusal to pay is not the problem, but rather a symptom of a problem and points to the need for a more in-depth study of CTF.
“In limiting itself to studying the crisis due to the delayed payments…the Bloc Quebecois believes the committee has sidestepped a larger issue..,” states the Bloc’s supplementary opinion. “The issue of convergence, which means that some cable distributors are now also broadcasters, the issue of the multiplication of platforms and the role of the CBC should have received greater attention in the present study.”
The committee has asked the government to formally response to the report.
