A group of 11 organizations supporting community radio and television production in Canada has asked the CRTC to streamline its broadcasting consultation processes to enable participants to devote more time to the issues raised in those proceedings.
Three streamlining measures proposed by the group include: an e-mail subscription list enabling participants and parties interested in CRTC broadcasting proceedings to receive automatic notifications when the public record changes in a given proceeding; zip files collating interventions/comments and replies in proceedings when 10 or more comments or replies are filed; and earlier notification of invitations to appear at CRTC hearings, so that invited parties can better plan their time and keep their travel costs down.
Currently, the only way for parties to determine if proceeding deadlines have changed or new materials have been added to the public record is to check the CRTC’s “Open Part 1 Applications” and “Open Notices of Consultation” pages daily or more often, the group noted in a March 13 letter to the CRTC. Having the option to sign up and to receive e-mailed notifications of proceeding changes “will enable parties in CRTC broadcast proceedings to shift the time they now spend daily checking the status of various proceedings to the substance of the CRTC’s proceedings,” the letter said.
Similarly, the current requirement to download each intervention and reply to a proceeding one by one “is both time-consuming and inefficient when alternatives exist,” the letter stated. If the CRTC were to publish zip files containing all interventions and all replies when there are 10 or more such documents, “[t]his change will enable parties in CRTC broadcast proceedings to access these documents more efficiently and to shift the time they now spend downloading to review and analysis.”
Furthermore, “given the Commission’s announcements of several public hearings from March to June 2025, the undersigned also ask that the CRTC, at its earliest convenience, notify those it is inviting to attend the hearings so as to provide those parties with time to re-arrange their schedules and to make economical travel arrangements,” the group said in its letter.
Signatories to the letter include: Louis Béland, general director of Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada (ARC du Canada); Angelica Carrero, general director of Association des radiodiffuseurs communautaires du Québec (ARCQ) ; Cathy Edwards, executive director of Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS); Alex Freedman, executive director of Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC-FCRC); Amélie Hinse, general director of Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec; Monica Auer, executive director of Forum for Research and Policy in Communications (FRPC); Barry Rooke, executive director of National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA/ANREC); Matt Hatfield, executive director of OpenMedia; Kealy Wilkinson, executive director of Public Broadcasting for Canada in the 21st Century (PBC21); Kirwan Cox, executive director of Quebec English-language Production Council (QEPC); and Nathalie Blais, research advisor for Syndicat canadien de la function publique (SCFP).
