By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – The new year brings many challenges for Steven Guilbeault less than two months after he was sworn in as minister of Canadian Heritage, which was just a month following his debut as a federal politician, bringing the Liberals a win in Laurier-Sainte-Marie when he was elected MP for the downtown Montreal riding previously held by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
Co-founder of Quebec’s largest environmental organization, Équiterre, and a former campaign manager for Greenpeace, Guilbeault is tasked with managing a new ecosystem that calls on him to create new regulations for both social media platforms…
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OTTAWA – Heritage Canada has kicked off a national search for two individuals to be nominated by Minister Mélanie Joly to the TV5 Québec Canada Board of Directors.
According to the appointment notice, the two part-time directors will serve for a four year period, renewable at the Minister’s discretion. The current structure of the TV5 Québec Canada Board consists of 11 directors, two of whom are designated by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
TV5 Québec Canada reaches more than 10 million Canadian homes and operates two French-language channels, TV5 and Unis TV, which are included in the basic digital television services…
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TORONTO – The popularity of TV content and applications funded by the Canada Media Fund (CMF) is just one indication of how the Fund is meeting the needs of Canadians, according to an evaluation report by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The report, released last month but made public Monday, covers the first four years of the CMF, from 2010-2011 to 2013-2014. Its objective was to provide Canadian Heritage with comprehensive and reliable evidence to support its decision-making.
Based on an array of evaluation methods, including a literature review, key informant reviews, case studies and an expert panel, the report covers a wide…
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OTTAWA – It may not have all the drama of the Obama vs Romney debate, but new CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais’ faceoff Thursday afternoon before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage promises to be far more informative. The committee is charged with examining the role and future mandate of the CRTC.
It will be a reversal of fortune for Chairman Blais who will be answering, not asking, the questions when he meets with MPs for the first time since he took over as head of the CRTC this past June. The meeting gets under way tomorrow afternoon…
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HE HAS A PAIR OF BlackBerrys on his desk, but his iPhone is what’s tucked in his jacket pocket. It goes with him always and everywhere.
He was first elected as MP in 2000, at the age of 24, in his Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, B.C. riding, but his official bio lists the former radio and TV reporter/commentator’s occupation as “broadcaster.”
He’s mentioned every now and then as a candidate for much higher office that the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
And while his cabinet colleagues struggle with the multi-billion dollar requests from the likes of car companies…
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OTTAWA – The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) is calling on the Canadian Heritage minister to force the CRTC to re-examine its decision to allow TQS to cut its local news.
The decision illustrates the regulator is not serving the public interest and something must be done, the media union said in a statement.
The CEP is asking the Canadian Heritage minister to send the decision back to the CRTC for reconsideration.
“Having laid off more than half the staff of the TQS network in April, the network’s new owners have told the CRTC they…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC should amend the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations to stipulate distributors must make monthly, rather than just annual, contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), the all-party Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage recommended in a report released this week.
That was one of six recommendations contained in the report, entitled The Future of the Canadian Television Fund. It includes dissenting opinions from the Bloc Quebecois and Conservative Party members. The report was tabled on March 21.
The Standing Committee under recommendation number one strongly condemns the actions of Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Media – both of…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge expects that a “growing sector” will emerge from the regulatory broadcasting framework the CRTC plans to release later this year in implementing the federal Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11.
“The reason why we created the CRTC and legislation around the Broadcasting Act was to make sure that Canadian content was easily found and accessible to Canadians, so could tell and watch their own stories,” she said Thursday at the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) annual conference in Ottawa.
“The other part was making sure that…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – The head of Google’s Canadian operation was repeatedly pilloried on Friday by members from all parties of the House of Commons standing committee on Canadian Heritage frustrated by her failure to provide the information they sought on the company’s test limiting news for some Canadian users.
While Sabrina Geremia, vice president and country managing director for Google Canada, said the test in response to bill C-18 would end on March 16, she was pressed by Montreal Liberal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather on whether the company relied on individual user data to block under four per…
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OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage passed a motion at an in-camera (i.e.: not public) meeting late Wednesday afternoon to study the impact of the economic crisis on Canadian television, with a focus on local programming.
The first witnesses the committee plans to call before it – on March 25 – are CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, CRTC vice-chair of broadcasting Michel Arpin, and CRTC director general of television policy and applications Peter Foster.
A committee clerk told Cartt.ca they have not yet been told if the briefing will be open to the public, but that further…
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