Dear Editor,
THE SIMMERING FEUD in correspondence to Prime Minister Harper seems a little juvenile and very disrespectful of due public process.
Messrs. Shaw, Asper and Fecan should know better. And now apparently, Bell has gotten the scribing urge! But at least Bell asks for some integrity re: the public hearing process – which is a very good thing.
Perhaps it is a tit-for-tat balancing act; but it is not consistent with the Broadcasting Act — and the latter trumps offside rhetorical flourish, we should hope.
Indeed, it is regrettable for all Canadians, and I believe ill-advised, for both…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage has announced that Yvon Belanger is joining the board of Telefilm Canada as a part-time member.
During his career, he worked for major accounting firms, including more than 25 years at the firm of Mallette. As certification partner, Belanger had very broad responsibilities that allowed him to gain substantial experience in the issues of standardization and presentation of financial statements. He is a member of the Ordre des comptables agrees du Quebec as well as the Chambre de commerce du Quebec. Now retired, Belanger is a chartered accountant.
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OTTAWA – Canada’s independent producers on Thursday called on a Senate committee to amend Bill C-10 so that the Criminal Code becomes the standard for determining what’s “contrary to public policy.”
Currently, the bill includes provisions that would allow the Canadian Heritage minister to develop guidelines for determining which productions would not be eligible for tax credits because they were "contrary to public policy.”
Representatives of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) and the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ) told the senators that employing the Criminal Code will “ensure the continuation…
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IT’S FUN TO PROGNOSTICATE. To try and read the tea leaves and make educated (or not) guesses about certain things. Sports (pro and amateur) is utterly built around such predicting, thanks to the billions of dollars bet on the games every year.
Similarly enormous amounts of money and the fate of our industry are collectively at stake beginning this week when the cable, satellite, telco and specialty broadcasting community take their turn in front of a panel of CRTC commissioners who will largely determine how the broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services industries will be run for perhaps the…
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OTTAWA – The creative community will be expressing their concerns about Bill C-10 to the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce on April 10. Controversial Bill C-10 that includes provisions allowing the Canadian Heritage minister to deny tax credits to film and TV productions if they are deemed “contrary to public policy” amounts to censorship, claim most in the creative community.
Due to appear before the Senate standing committee are the Association des producteurs de films et de television du Quebec, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, FilmOntario, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Alliance of…
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OTTAWA – Saying that “community radio stations will continue contributing to the visibility and vitality of Canada’s minority official-language communities,” the federal government today announced a number of grants totaling $539,471 for a number of French language community radio projects.
Pierre Lemieux, Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages and Member of Parliament (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell), on behalf Josee Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, made the announcement today, the International Day of La Francophonie, in Ottawa.
The funding will, among other things, be used to establish and manage community radio stations
"The Government of Canada knows that…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Television Fund said on Monday that it will provide $275 million to Canadian television producers for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
Through the Broadcaster Performance Envelope (BPE) system, the CTF will allocate $173 million to English-language broadcaster envelopes and $79 million to French-language broadcaster envelopes.
These funds will support English and French programming in the genres of Drama, Children’s and Youth, Variety & Performing Arts, and Documentaries. The 2008-2009 BPE allocations are listed on the CTF website, www.ctf-fct.ca.
Initiated in 2004, with English Drama being incorporated two years later, the Broadcaster Performance Envelope system “is a…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday launched a redesigned website featuring some of its past shows and programs at cbc.ca/archives.
Some 12,000 historic radio and television clips, including some that were never broadcast, can be viewed for free on the website.
For the first time, the new website includes full-length versions of some CBC radio and television shows, including This Hour Has Seven Days, Man Alive, Close Up, Howie Meeker Hockey School along with David Suzuki’s 1975 debut on Quirks and Quarks and Kate Aitken’s eclectic blend of homemaking and interviews with international leaders.
New interactive features…
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LET US BEGIN BY making our position utterly clear. We do not believe that Bill C-327 is either necessary or even moderately useful in dealing with the issue of violence on television.
We have filed a written presentation with the Committee Clerk that will hopefully provide a useful tour d’horizon of the issue. I will try to limit this oral presentation to the clarification of matters raised by witnesses and Hon. Members of this Committee.
First, the nature and extent of the problem, namely, the exposure of our children to violence in the media. Is problematic violent content increasing…
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OTTAWA – CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein has rejected the primary thrust of a private member’s bill to reduce violence on television, saying there is no need for the CRTC to have new powers to regulate the broadcasting of violent acts.
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Tuesday, von Finckenstein said the existing system, which relies on industry self-regulation backed up by the CRTC as the final arbiter, “does provide an effective means to achieve the desired purpose”.
“We therefore cannot support the provisions of Bill C-327 that call for prescriptive regulation in lieu of industry self-regulation…
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