By Connie Thiessen
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge has released a set of proposed changes aimed at modernizing the objectives, governance and funding of CBC/Radio-Canada, ranging from banishing advertising during news and current affairs programming to ensuring more citizen participation in determining the public broadcaster’s priorities.
The proposed amendments to the Broadcasting Act were released Thursday, with a goal “to reinforce the accountability and reactivity of the Corporation toward Canadians, to ensure its journalistic, creative and programming independence, to strengthen its role as public broadcaster, and to provide it with predictable and stable funding so that it can face future challenges.”
Stable…
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By Connie Thiessen
The office of Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge says a decision has yet to be finalized on who will succeed CBC/Radio-Canada President Catherine Tait.
Several Quebec media outlets, including Radio-Canada reported this week that TV5 Québec Canada CEO Marie-Philippe Bouchard, will replace Tait in January, citing unnamed sources.
In an email to Cartt’s sister publication Broadcast Dialogue, Canadian Heritage said a candidate has yet been confirmed for the position.
The department said formal steps that must take place before a candidate is selected have not yet been completed. For reasons of cabinet confidentiality, appointment decisions are not disclosed until formalized…
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By Connie Thiessen
Canadian Heritage has announced $58.8 million in funding to extend the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) through 2027.
Initially launched in 2019 as a five-year, $50 million program, the initiative provides annual funding for more than 400 journalist positions across the country, with a focus on creating original local journalism in underserved communities. Content produced under the LJI is made available to media organizations through a Creative Commons licence. Friday’s funding announcement brings total support for the initiative to $128.8 million over eight years.
In 2022-23 alone, LJI journalists covered issues and stories in nearly 1,500 communities, including 60 reporters…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA-The federal government will provide Telefilm Canada with $100 million in funding for two years, beginning in the upcoming fiscal year 2024-25, Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge announced on Parliament Hill on Wednesday.
Telefilm previously received $105 million over three years from the 2021 federal budget that St-Onge said resulted in such feature films as BlackBerry, about Research in Motion’s signature mobile device, and Bones of Crows, about Canada’s residential school system.
The new funding, she added, would support between 40 and 60 productions annually and “put food in our minds – in our thoughts and in our hearts…
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By Connie Thiessen
OTTAWA — Canadian Heritage has provided more clarity on which platforms will be subject to the Online News Act and what they will need to do to be exempted from the mandatory bargaining process.
Set to go into effect on Dec. 19, ahead of a public consultation process that will get underway this fall, the Act will only apply to digital platforms providing news content with total global revenue of more than $1 billion a year, with 20 million or more Canadian average monthly unique visitors or active users.
According to Canadian Heritage, the bargaining process with search engines…
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By Connie Thiessen
OTTAWA — Pascale St-Onge has been appointed the new Minister of Canadian Heritage as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an anticipated cabinet shuffle Wednesday morning.
The Member of Parliament for Brome-Missisquoi, St-Onge previously served as Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec.
Her background includes serving as Secretary General and later President of the Fédération nationale des communications et de la culture, where she worked to develop public policy to address the challenges facing media, newspapers, and the cultural sector and programs to help adapt to shifts brought…
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Heritage minister denies communications with CRTC on policy directive, “myths and facts” webpage
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A Conservative member of Parliament is requesting information related to any documents exchanged between the CRTC and Canadian Heritage about bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act.
Martin Shields, MP for Bow River, Alberta, tabled the request Monday for detailed communications between the regulator and the department, including the minister’s office, about the legislation which would require online streaming services to contribute to the Canadian ecosystem.
Shields is specifically asking for types of documents and titles, senders, recipients, subject matter and summary of contents.
The government has…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage announced yesterday the federal government is holding a National Culture Summit on the Future of the Arts, Culture and Heritage in Canada in a hybrid format May 2-4, 2022, to consider the recovery of the country’s cultural sectors from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The summit was initially announced in December, and postponed in January due to the ongoing pandemic.
The rescheduled event will explore four themes: the promotion of long-term competitiveness and growth, the return of visitors (as well as engaging new audiences), the role of digital platforms in Canada’s cultural sectors, and…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU — The Department of Canadian Heritage announced today it is postponing a national summit on arts, culture and heritage that was announced last month and was originally scheduled to take place in Ottawa on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
The focus of the two-day summit was to be on the arts and cultural sectors’ recovery from the pandemic.
“Due to recent developments in the Covid-19 pandemic, we have refocused our attention on the immediate challenges facing Canadian artists and cultural workers,” says Canadian Heritage minister Pablo Rodriguez in a statement released by the department.
“The Government of Canada will continue to support…
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OTTAWA — Today, the department of Canadian Heritage launched the new Canadian Artists and Content Creators Economic Survey, designed to help create an updated portrait of the artistic and creative community in Canada in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“All Canadian artists and content creators are invited to take part, to help shed light on their experiences working and earning a living in a pre- and post-Covid-19 world,” reads the press release from Canadian Heritage.
“The data gathered through this survey will inform current and future Canadian Heritage policies and programs, ensuring the department continues to be responsive to the realities…
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