OTTAWA – It is possible to open the Canadian telecommunications market to greater foreign investment without sacrificing cultural sovereignty in the broadcasting world, Industry minister Tony Clement said last week.
Speaking to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Clement acknowledged that it won’t be easy, but it’s doable.
“Is that going to require some stick handling? There’s no question. We are in shades of grey,” he said in response to a question from fellow Conservative Peter Braid. “But I think that we can, with good public policy that is clear with its intent and its description, get to where we have to get to, to allow the ability for investment to occur in the sector that we want it to occur in.”
Clement agreed that convergence between the telecom and broadcasting sectors has increased, but maintained keeping them separate can be accomplished. “It certainly isn’t impossible to draw the distinction between telecommunications as a field of endeavor and activity and broadcasting and the content that goes into broadcasting,” he said.
Asked what specific plans the government has for ensuring current controls in the broadcasting sector remain in place while opening up telecommunications to more foreign investment, the Industry minister insisted no decisions have yet been made.
“At this point I’m not in a position to tell you exactly what is planned because, quite frankly, we think the first step that we have to do is consult, and, again, arrive at a series of options, and then decide on the best option for Canada,” he said in response to a question from Liberal MP Marc Garneau.
Opposition members of the committee also took the opportunity to pounce on the Globalive Wireless matter, questioning why the government felt it necessary to overturn the CRTC (the Commission had previously ruled that Globalive didn’t meet the Canadian control in fact test, while Industry Canada disagreed).
Clement told committee members that the CRTC got it wrong. Industry Canada studied the structure of the board of directors, the structure of the voting shares in the company, and the structure of the day-to-day management of the company and came to a different conclusion than the Commission.
“In each of those cases you could conclude responsibility and reasonably that it was not foreign controlled,” he said. “Based on the facts of the case, we came to a different conclusion, which we think is defensible and correct."
