Meeting of the CRTC-OLMC Discussion Group

March 28, 2019, 1 :30 p.m. (Eastern Time)

SRT Room, 7th floor, CRTC, 1 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau

1. Opening Remarks

Frédéric Janelle, National Coordinator for section 41 of the Official Languages Act (OLA) and Senior Analyst, French-Language Television, TV Policy and Applications (CRTC), welcomed all the participants and asked them to introduce themselves.

2. Roundtable: Introduction of participants

Each of the participants in the meeting room and those attending by teleconference introduced themselves in turn. The complete list of participants is attached.

3. Approval of the minutes of the November 16, 2018, meeting

The minutes of the November 16, 2018, meeting have been pre-approved (by email) by the discussion group and are posted on the Commission’s website.

4. CRTC proceedings of interest since the meeting last November

Sébastien Robillard,Senior Radio Analyst, reviewed the decision concerning the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications to serve the Timmins radio market (2019-84)

Frédéric Janelle said that the optional FNTSY Sports English-language service was being renewed and that he has applied for the 25/50% credit.

5. Upcoming CRTC proceedings

Sébastien Robillard said that number of radio licences would be renewed next year. Frédéric Janelle said that he would inform the discussion group by email to ensure they were aware of the deadlines for submitting their interventions.

Pierre-Louis Prégent, Senior Analyst, Distribution Regulatory Policy, told the group that there would soon be a proceeding on renewals of the broadcasting licences of different broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs). He added that the group would be informed at the time of publication.

Michel Murray, Director, Dispute Resolution and Regulatory Implementation, Telecommunications, informed the members of the latest news regarding the Broadband Fund. He reminded them of the publication of Telecom Regulatory Policy 2018-377, in which the Commission has determined that when selecting projects to be funded among the high-quality projects, it may be particularly sensitive to whether the communities targeted by the proposed projects are official-language minority communities. He said that the first call for projects under the new fund will be launched in the upcoming months.

Frédéric Janelle added that this was a very important initiative and if they have questions, they could contact him or Michel directly.

6. Ideas for the next meeting

Frédéric Janelle said that he would like the theme of the next meeting to be the discoverability of OLMC productions. Benoit Henry, Director General, Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale, asked how we propose to deal with this issue, how the CRTC could contribute to this issue for OLMCs.

Frédéric Janelle explained that the Canada Media Fund and the Alliance des producteurs francophones du Canada already have funds dedicated to the discoverabilityof OLMCs.

Simon Forgues, Development and Communications Officer, Alliance des radios communautaire (ARC), said that this is a concern of radio stations.

7. Other business and closing remarks

Simon Forgues said he has spoken with Johanne Mineault of Canadian Heritage regarding the 50th anniversary of the Official Languages Act. She thinks that a project involving print materials as well as audio capsules is a good idea.

Simon Forgues said that they would submit a consortium project with OLMC radio stations (Francophone and Anglophone) for the capsules and with the Association de la presse francophone, the Quebec Community Newspapers Association, the English-Language Arts Network and the MCRA for print materials.

Barry Rooke, Executive Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCCRA), spoke of the project launched by NCCRA. It involves 100 documentaries produced about bilingualism and the Francophonie to mark the Rendez-vous de la francophonie.

Guillaume Castonguay, Manager – French Television, said that at 11:00 a.m. today the Commission published a call for comments on a new annual digital media survey 2019-90 and a call for comments on the Commission’s policy on Canadian programming expenditures CRTC 2019-91.

Kirwan Cox, Executive Director, Quebec English-Language Production Council, asked if they would be notified of publication of the Corus decision.

Frédéric Janelle closed the session by thanking all the participants. He informed the members that Caroline Simard, Vice-President, Broadcasting, had told him that she wanted to participate at greater length in the next meeting in the fall to hear their views.

List of Participants

By teleconference

In person

 

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