OTTAWA – On Monday, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage continued its study of Bill C-10, which would amend the Broadcasting Act, and heard from representatives of the Canadian Media Production Association, Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO, Erin Haskett, chair of the board and Damon D’Oliveira, vice-chair.
CMPA began by endorsing the bill, but with needed changes. “(1) empowering the CRTC to ensure fair deals between streaming services or broadcasters with independent producers through codes of practice; and (2) ensuring that Canadians continue to own Canadian content,” Haskett said.
The CMPA has proposed codes of practices or terms of trade to…
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU — The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) are asking the CRTC for expedited and temporary relief from Rogers Communications’ recent move to phase out new activations of DOCSIS 3.0 modems used by third-party Internet access (TPIA) service providers leasing Rogers’ networks. Rogers wants its TPIA customers to transition to DOCSIS 3.1 modems.
In a Part 1 application filed February 16 and posted to the Commission’s website on February 22, CNOC asks the Commission to determine that competitors using Rogers’ TPIA service be allowed to continue to activate DOCSIS 3.0 modems, when ordering download speed tiers…
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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 – In the disagreement between the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française (FCCF) et la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA) and the CBC over the alleged lack of transparency of the CBC in filing its Mission Metrics survey, the CBC responded on February 17 and the FCCF/FCFA the following day.
“The survey on perception filed on January 18, 2020, is a fulsome and adequate response to the undertaking we agreed to at the (CRTC) hearing,” wrote Claude Galipeau, executive vice-president, corporate development of the CBC in French.
He goes on to explain that the polling firm Léger gathers…
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Third in a three-part series
By Len St-Aubin
FOR DECADES, CANADIAN broadcasting policy, grounded in the limitations of over-the-air radio and TV, has restricted consumer choice in the name of Canadian culture.
Quietly, Canadians have resisted: with set-top “rabbit ears”, roof-top antennas, pre-regulation cable-TV, and satellite dishes big and small, we asserted our freedom of choice, pulling in foreign signals. We took to online streaming like fish to water.
If passed, Bill C-10 would apply those increasingly out of touch (OOT) policies to online streaming. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are about to flourish.
It’s not that Canadians don’t like Canadian content. Our maple-leaf hearts…
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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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SEVERAL MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT for Southwestern Ontario are getting behind Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) and its 2.0 GigaProject, calling on the federal government to provide funding for the project which aims to bring 1 Gbps broadband services to 95% of the population in the region by 2026.
In a letter dated February 10, the 14 MPs who signed the letter ask Francois-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, and Maryam Monsef, minister of rural economic development, to ensure the SWIFT 2.0 GigaProject receives federal funding. The MPs point out the Southwestern Ontario region did not receive funding for…
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GATINEAU — Independent telecom provider Primus notified the CRTC earlier this month that it and Bell Canada have resolved a dispute over Bell’s rate increases for its unbundled local loops (ULLs) which was effective January 1, 2021.
The resolution of the issue was revealed in a Commission letter published February 15 on its website, which says Primus’ Part 1 application asking for relief related to the rate increases is now closed. Details of how the issue was resolved were not disclosed.
Cartt.ca told you about Primus’ complaint in December 2020, after its application was filed with the Commission.
Since that…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – During last month’s CRTC hearing on the renewal of the CBC’s broadcasting licences, Commission chairman Ian Scott and commissioner Claire Anderson asked numerous times for the CBC to file the “mission metrics” public opinion survey which the corporation uses to measure the fulfilment of its mandate.
“In terms of perception about the corporation’s programming, my understanding is that the corporation has been conducting the mission metrics public opinion survey for well over a decade, and it was designed to measure whether Canadians believe that CBC/SRC is fulfilling its mandate under the Broadcasting Act,” the Chairman asked…
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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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