GATINEAU – After just over four months of study, A two-person Broadcast Policy Review Panel filed its report with the CRTC last week and the Commission will release it today, Cartt.ca has learned.
Similar to the 2005 Telecom Policy Review Panel which caused a sea-change in telecom, this new broadcasting report has the potential to do the very same for broadcast.
Commissioning a report like this and simply assigning two lawyers (albeit two good ones in Fasken Martineau DuMoulin lawyers Laurence Dunbar of Toronto and Christian Leblanc of Montreal) is a bit of an unusual move for the CRTC.
“This study will ask three questions about each policy or regulation,” said CRTC chairman Conrad von Finckenstein, when he announced the initiative in May. “First, what was its original purpose?; Second, what is its relevance and effectiveness with respect to present and future needs?; And third, should it be retained, improved, streamlined or eliminated in order to serve the purposes of the Broadcasting Act most efficiently and economically
“In addition, the study will make recommendations to maximize the reliance on market forces, always keeping in mind the overriding twin objectives of Canadian content and access to the system,” he said then.
Watch Cartt.ca for more on this later today.
