Will hear from Lametti, Guilbeault, expert panel on amended bill
By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Following some back-and-forth from members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on a motion introduced last Friday regarding the Bill C-10 review, consensus was reached on Monday to invite Justice Minister David Lametti and Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault to appear before the group as early as Friday, with Members of Parliament on the committee to hear from an expert panel as soon as Monday.
Saskatchewan Conservative MP Kevin Waugh proposed amending Quebec Liberal MP Anthony Housefather’s motion seeking a revised Charter statement…
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OTTAWA – Isabelle Mondou, who on Friday was associate deputy minister of Canadian Heritage and on assignment to the Privy Council office as deputy minister for the Covid-19 response (communications), becomes deputy minister of Canadian Heritage on Monday.
Mondou has worked in government for a long time, mostly in the PCO, and she replaces Hélène Laurendeau, who retired from the job last month.
Photo borrowed from her LinkedIn page.
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – We criticize our politicians a lot and for various reasons – and often for good reasons – but after watching the hours of often tedious discussion on the myriad amendments to Bill C-10 which members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage painstakingly went through on Friday and Monday, we probably owe them thanks this time.
Friday, April 16th was the first day where the committee studying the bill which will amend our Broadcasting Act went through it clause-by-clause and examined amendments brought forward. This stage was supposed to have started on the previous Monday, but…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – “There’s a desire to have Facebook reappear in front of the committee, for a number of reasons. One was the recent news that we had out of Australia and, of course, the important implications that has for Canada and for the work of this committee. Also, there is some reason to believe that, intentionally or not, Mr. Chan may have misled the committee in some of the testimony he provided in his first visit to us this sitting” in January said Heather McPherson, the NDP critic.
In Australia, Facebook and Google agreed in February to…
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By Jay Thomson
THE CCSA WAS FORMED in the early 1990s, around the same time as the current Broadcasting Act came into force. Like the Act back then, our members at the time did not contemplate the growth in size and influence of the “foreign digital giants”.
But also like the Act back then, our members did not contemplate the massive consolidation that would take place in the Canadian broadcasting industry.
Neither the Act nor our members contemplated that just three domestic companies – Bell, Rogers and Quebecor – would come to dominate Canada’s communications marketplace; that, through ownership of most of…
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By Steve Faguy
AS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT argues big tech giants are threatening traditional media, its annual report on advertising shows it’s buying more than four times as much in advertising from Facebook and Google alone than from the entire Canadian radio industry. And that’s despite a boost given during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the fiscal year 2019-20, which ended as the pandemic was only two weeks old, the government spent $24.7 million on digital advertising, representing 55% of its advertising total for the year. Of that, $5.85 million went to Facebook (including ads on Instagram), $4.3…
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By Greg O’Brien
THE PRIOR ITERATIONS OF our Broadcasting Act are carefully written, specific, documents.
The first, passed in 1968, was an Act meant to, among other things, “safeguard, enrich and strengthen the nation of Canada from sea to sea,” as quoted in the History of Canadian Broadcasting. That version of the Act also established the CRTC, empowering it with the responsibility to make sure the system stays under Canadian ownership and control.
American companies who had ownership positions in our broadcasters and then-nascent cable companies were forced to divest (down to a maximum of 20% ownership, but many left completely)….
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Two top bureaucrats retiring at Canadian Heritage
By Denis Carmel
NO, BILL C-10 WON’T lead to the sale of Canadian broadcasters to foreign interests, Department of Canadian Heritage officials told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Monday morning.
The bill, as proposed, contemplates the removal of the portion of the Broadcasting Act which says companies in the system must be majority Canadian-owned and -controlled, which has raised opposition from some quarters. When asked Monday during the committee meeting into C-10, the bill which would amend the Act, by Edmonton-Strathcona MP Heather McPherson if this means Canadian broadcasters could be sold off to…
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By Len St-Aubin
IN THE GUISE OF “broadcasting policy”, Bill C-10, An Act to Amend the Broadcasting Act, is really about promoting Canadian content in online media. To do that, it would expand the Broadcasting Act to capture virtually all online (internet) audio and video.
My previous articles discussed how Bill C-10 and Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s forecast Cancon contributions risk highly problematic outcomes for Canadian broadcasting, for the internet in Canada and for Canadians. A third proposed an alternative approach.
This article returns to the impact on private sector television and revisits potential outcomes in light of market…
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OTTAWA and MONTREAL — Canadian Heritage minister Steven Guilbeault announced in a tweet today the Short-Term Compensation Fund (STCF) for Canadian audiovisual productions has been extended until March 31, 2022 and it will now make up to $100 million in coverage available to the film and TV production industry.
This is a $50 million increase and the full release can be found here.
The STCF was launched in October 2020 as a temporary measure to minimize the consequences of the void created by the lack of insurance coverage for interruptions in filming and the shutdown of productions caused…
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