By Ahmad Hathout
The Shaw Rocket Fund has filed for a court review of a CRTC decision last month that did not require Rogers to continue paying into the fund beyond August 2025 — and did not find a public hearing was warranted on the matter.
The Federal Court of Appeal application, dated May 21, seeks clarification about whether an administrative renewal of Rogers’s licence – which involved no public consultation – meant that the commission effectively extended for the rest of the term that funding mandate, which was a condition of approving the cable giant’s purchase of Shaw Communications’s broadcasting licences in 2022.
The Rocket Fund raises to the reviewing court a specific paragraph the CRTC wrote in its decision to administratively renew a raft of licences in 2023, including Rogers’s: “This decision does not dispose of any issue that may arise with respect to the renewal of these licences, including any non-compliance issues,” said the CRTC, which was giving itself time to implement the new Online Streaming Act. “The Commission will consider the substantive issues related to these licences, the various conditions of service and mandatory orders at a later date, and interested persons will have an opportunity to comment at the appropriate time.”
According to the Rocket Fund — which filed a Part 1 application requesting clarification on the matter last summer — that opportunity to comment never came. Last month, the CRTC, by majority decision, found that the funding mandate was “temporary in nature” and that the direction was to “continue to the end of the licence term in effect at the time the direction was given,” which was in August 2025. That decision upheld a CRTC staff determination earlier that year. The CRTC had said in the 2022 Rogers-Shaw decision that the funding would continue “for the remainder of the licence term.”
“Consistent with the Commission’s long-standing approach to administrative renewals, the Commission considers that administrative renewals do not extend a licence term but rather constitute a new licence term,” that decision read. “This interpretation is supported by previous versions of the Broadcasting Act (the Act), which limited the Commission’s authority to issue licences for a maximum period of seven years. As such, administrative renewals do not operate to extend an existing licence term since doing so would have, in many cases, extended a licence term beyond what the Commission was legally authorized to grant.”
The Rocket Fund argues to the court that, “Staff did not address the Commission’s statement in the Administrative Renewal, which stated that substantial issues related to the renewed licenses would be considered later, with an opportunity for interested persons to comment. Staff also did not address Rocket Fund’s position that allowing the Rocket Fund Direction to expire without that opportunity would raise issues of procedural fairness.”
The CRTC found that the funding matter did not trigger subsection 18 (2) of the Broadcasting Act – which lays out three reasons for why the regulator may find a public hearing is warranted, one being the amendment or renewal of a licence – because the expiry of the direction “did not constitute an amendment to the licences or the making of an order that would require a public hearing.”
The Rocket Fund is asking the court to find that subsection applied to the administrative renewal and send the decision back to the CRTC for reconsideration.
“Rocket Fund stated that treating the Rocket Fund Direction as having expired at the end of Rogers’ original licence term would determine that issue following an administrative renewal conducted without notice, a public hearing, or an opportunity for affected stakeholders to be heard,” the fund said in its judicial review application. “Rocket Fund stated that such an outcome would raise issues of procedural fairness and public accountability.”
Two dissenting commissioners argued that the issue was serious enough for the CRTC to at least contemplate whether a public hearing was warranted.
The Rocket Fund is the only certified independent production fund (CIPF) dedicated to exclusively supporting Canadian and indigenous children’s and youth programming, so its funding was and is a public interest matter, it has argued.
“We are deeply disappointed by the decision and the effect it will have on the Canadian children’s media sector,” the fund’s President and CEO Agnes Augustin told Cartt in a statement at the time of the CRTC’s decision last month. “While we acknowledge the Commission’s position, which differs from our own, this decision not only impacts an important additional year of funding for this essential sector, particularly critical at this time, but also affects the right to a public proceeding.
“We will continue to fight for the Canadian and Indigenous children’s and youth media sector.”
Augustin told Cartt that the fund cannot comment because the matter is before the court.
