By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Last week, Conservative Senator Claude Carignan introduced Bill S-225, an Act to amend the Copyright Act (remuneration for journalistic works) to deal with the issue of the web giants like Facebook and Google sharing news stories without compensation for the journalists.
This would be done by amending the Act to include journalistic works under the realm of works covered by the Act – meaning compensation would have to be paid to a collective to be created, like the music business has with SOCAN.
This comes on the heels of Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault saying the federal…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Bill C-10 passed second reading unanimously last Tuesday and was officially referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for study, which of course, has already begun.
The prior two meetings on the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act were, for all intents and purposes, labelled a pre-study of the legislation, in order to get a heard start hearing witnesses before the bill was approved in second reading.
So, officially, the meeting last Friday was the first meeting to officially look at the legislation.
However, the committee chair informed members and witnesses at the start of the meeting…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Federal government officials, most notably Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, have been saying since Bill C-10 was introduced, that it could deliver as much as $830 million in new dollars, per year, for the production of Canadian content, by 2023.
Cartt.ca has attempted to guesstimate how the federal government came up with that amount, which is being used as a keystone figure by those who like the bill which would amend the Broadcasting Act. The amount would, of course, be made up from contributions from streamers (or “online broadcasters”) to the Cancon production system.
Knowing our…
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OTTAWA and VICTORIAVILLE, Que. — As Bill C-10 wends its way through the legislative process, CACTUS (the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations), the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec and the Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC) issued a joint statement today asking for greater recognition of community media as a vital broadcasting sector within the context of the federal government’s proposed overhaul of the Broadcasting Act.
“Community media is the third pillar of Canadian broadcasting, alongside private and public broadcasting, yet there is no description of its role in the new Act that’s been tabled,”…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Netflix’s announcement last Thursday that it will open a Canadian office and, in the words Ted Sarandos (above), co-CEO and chief content officer, hire a “dedicated content executive to work directly with the Canadian creative community” is a “first good step,” federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told Cartt.ca in an interview on Friday.
His concern, though, is the “cozy relationship” the federal government appears to have with major digital platforms, including Netflix.
Singh referred to the “secret deal” between the California-based company and Ottawa in 2017 in which then-Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly provided little…
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By Doug Bingley
AS A RADIO BROADCASTER, I’ve seen governments and their policies to support Canadian culture come and go. The formation of the CRTC in 1968 ushered in an era where a key goal was to ensure Canadian artists and Canadian content creators receive the exposure they deserve.
Creating and supporting Canadian content remains an important part of the work I do today, through the three stations I own in Ontario. I am proud of the creative output of our talented staff; I see how important our stations have become to the communities we serve, and equally important, how we…
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But captures much of it anyway, and that’s a big problem
By Len St-Aubin
BILL C-10’s GOAL IS TO engage online streamers with Canadian creators in the production of Canadian stories for Canadian and global audiences. To do that, Bill C-10 proposes to modernize the Broadcasting Act by sweeping-in online (internet) audio and video.
The rationale is the impact of growing competition from unregulated internet audio and video on the regulated ‘broadcasting system’, as outlined in the report of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Policy Review (BTLR) Panel.
The first article in this series showed how Bill C-10 is problematic for Canadian broadcasting,…
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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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GATINEAU — Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault hosted a videoconference on Tuesday with his foreign counterparts from Australia, Finland, France and Germany to discuss their shared priorities concerning the diversity of content available online and its importance in ensuring strong democratic societies.
Taking part on the video call were Paul Fletcher, Australian minister of communications, urban infrastructure, cities and the arts, Annika Saarikko, Finnish minister of science and culture, Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, French minister of culture, and Dr. Günter Winands, German deputy minister of state for culture and the media.
“The ministers discussed the importance of promoting a healthy online information…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Bill C-10 and other forthcoming federal government legislation was top of mind for Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault on Monday when he participated in a question-and-answer session at the Canadian Media Producers Association’s (CMPA’s) first virtual Prime Time conference.
He explained that in promoting diversity under C-10, which received first reading in the House of Commons last November and would amend the Broadcasting Act, the government will among other things, in a policy directive to the CRTC, ask the regulatory body to “incentivize the role of racialized minorities and Indigenous people in key creative positions”…
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