Two cabinet ministers, CRTC chairman, headline event
OTTAWA – After a year interrupted and a year off, the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference is back in November with a fascinating-looking conference agenda.
The headline speakers for the conference being held November 16 and 17 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa will be CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, who opens the conference Wednesday afternoon, Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, who will speak at breakfast on the Thursday, and Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains, who will speak at lunch the same day.
The not-for-profit, volunteer run organization decided not to run a Canadian conference last year when the global IIC gathering was being held in Washington in the fall. The year prior, in October 2014, the conference was cancelled mid-way through because of the havoc just around the corner from the Shaw Centre when Corporal Nathan Cirillo was killed by a crazed gunman who then attacked Parliament Hill. The conference was brought to a halt when delegates were shepherded onto a safer floor as Ottawa security forces were erring on the side of caution during the confusion.
This year’s conference looks pretty enticing, even if the two politicians don’t offer up anything earth-shattering. For example, after the “Communications and the Innovation Agenda” session Wednesday will come just before one on “the media and elections” with insiders from both the Democrat and Republican sides in the States (just eight days after their tumultuous election campaign ends) as well as Tom Pitfield, the chief digital strategist for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal election campaign and Marcella Munro, who manages Alberta premier Rachel Notley’s communications.
“They will help us see how political parties see the media, both traditional and social media,” said IIC Canada president Hank Intven of McCarthy Tétrault, in an interview.
The overall goal of the IIC conferences has always been “to get senior players in the room and create a constructive dialogue in a non-confrontational, non-commercial way… where they listen to each other’s points of view,” added Intven.
Day two of the event will see an interesting panel on cyber security and the communications business, where one of the speakers will be Yves Bigot, managing director of TV5Monde, the France-based international TV channel which was almost destroyed by Russian hackers last year.
The conference will wrap up with sessions on big data and innovation in Canadian content (that last one featuring some companies on the bleeding edge of digital media and international distribution – and none of the usual content suspects).
To register, please click here.
