MONTREAL — “I’ve gotten such great press lately,” Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly joked to break the ice in a speech Friday to Montreal’s board of trade. But despite mounting pressure, especially in Quebec, to impose sales taxes on foreign over-the-top services like Netflix, Joly had no new announcements to make, sticking to repeating the promises made in the Creative Canada plan released in September.
“I hear you,” she told the crowd present, including board president Michel Leblanc, who said during his introduction that he expected Joly to explain the government’s position on this issue. She repeated several times that she’s…
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GATINEAU – Toronto-based lawyer Monique Lafontaine has been named the CRTC’s new Commissioner for Ontario.
Wednesday’s announcement by Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly says that Lafontaine (pictured) brings over 17 years' experience in entertainment and communications law to the role, and that her areas of specialization include television, radio, new media regulation, program licencing and affiliation agreements, stakeholder relations, and anti-spam and privacy legislation.
Lafontaine, who is fluently bilingual, will begin her five-year post on January 2nd, 2018. According to her LinkedIn profile, she held senior roles at ZoomerMedia, the Directors Guild of Canada and law firm McCarthy Tétrault before opening her own communications and entertainment…
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Reunites art and technology for a brighter future
SEPTEMBER 28 WAS ONE of the most important days in Canadian history and we missed it. On that day, Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly launched our new cultural policy, Creative Canada.
In Canada, artists need our support. We made the decision to support them in the middle of the last century when we realized our historical connection to England and France, and physical proximity to the United States, meant Canadian culture might get lost amid louder voices.
Now our artists need help transitioning to the digital world. More importantly, the digital world, our…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s move to take on the presidency of international French-language television network TV5 could prove to be a boon for Canadian content creators.
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly said Friday that Canada is taking over the presidency of TV5 from Switzerland and will hold it for the next two years, starting in January 2018. Canada will also host the conference of responsible ministers and the annual meeting of senior officials.
Managed by two television channel providers, TV5Monde and TV5 Québec Canada, TV5 is the largest French-language television network in the world. TV5Monde operates TV5 signals worldwide (with the exception…
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Former Google exec is accelerating weather company’s transition, expansion
WHEN PELMOREX FOUNDER Pierre Morrissette trolled the executive ranks for someone new to take his place atop the company which owns and operates The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, he cast a far longer line than into the pool of TV people.
This past summer, Pelmorex surprised many by hiring Sam Sebastian away from his gig as vice-president and managing director of Google’s Canadian operations. The official announcement of his hiring, however, wasn’t a simple “welcome aboard”, but instead made it clear he will be driving an aggressive company aimed towards international expansion…
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OTTAWA – New CRTC chair Ian Scott formally returned the welcome that he received last month from the two ministers who oversee the Commission, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains.
In his own letter on Tuesday, Scott said that he looked forward to “fostering an open and transparent relationship” with the duo, and reiterated the CRTC’s focus on ensuring that Canadians have fast, affordable and reliable Internet access and wireless services; high-quality and diverse content; the option to use applications and services on the networks and devices of their choice; and…
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OTTAWA – A letter signed by Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, ISED Minister Navdeep Bains and Finance Minister Bill Morneau confirms there will be no tax applied to Canadian ISPs in order to support Canadian content and journalism.
The October 16th letter – sent in response to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage report entitled “Disruption: Change and Churning in Canada's Media Landscape” – actually seems to kibosh a lot of the committee’s wish list.
(Ed note: The letter reads more like a detailed defense of the current Liberal policies , prior announcements [Creative Canada – within which echoes of…
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CANNES – Heritage minister Mélanie Joly in late September surprised the industry by unveiling a $500-million agreement with Netflix to make Canadian content that was light on deal-points, including how much the U.S. streaming giant currently spends north of the border.
To understand cash-rich Netflix's Canadian ambitions, just follow the money.
"They already spend at that level, maybe more," Michael Hirsh, CEO of WOW! Unlimited Media, said of Netflix's $100 million a-year pledge for Canadian content. He should know. Netflix was a major buyer of Hirsh's kids TV content when he helped run DHX Media, and WOW! recently sold Netflix the…
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OTTAWA – Bell Canada and Rogers Communications showed off some different philosophies when it came to the federal government’s NAFTA negotiations when they appeared recently in front of a recent meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade.
Rogers Cable vice-president, regulatory, Pam Dinsmore said in her opening remarks on September 20th that her company is concerned the trade talks will wander too far from its prior mandate and into copyright, which includes such issues as retransmitting U.S. over-the-air TV signals, Canada’s notice-and-notice regime for pirated online content, and our Copyright Modernization Act’s provisions for personal use and its…
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WHILE WE’VE MENTIONED it a couple of times during the 12 days (only 12!?) since Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced her Creative Canada vision, it seems the news that the federal government has decided to see if it can levy a tax on Internet service providers in order to help fund the production of Canadian content has been overlooked.
The initial proof of this came when the Governor-in-Council directed the CRTC to get cracking on a new report that will reveal: “a) the distribution model or models of programming that are likely…
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