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ARCHIVED - Broadcasting Commission Letter addressed to Jamie Hill (Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc.)

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Ottawa, 13 April 2015

Jamie Hill, President
Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc.
426 Fourth Line Rd.
Ohsweken, Ontario
N0A 1M0

By email: avrjamie@gmail.com, sarah@henselbarristers.com

Licence renewal applications: 

2014-0960-8 for CKAV-FM Toronto, ON
2014-0959-0 for CKAV-FM-2 Vancouver, BC
2014-0957-4 for CKAV-FM-3 Calgary, AB
2014-0955-8 for CKAV-FM-4 Edmonton, AB
2014-0956-6 for CKAV-FM-9 Ottawa, ON

Dear Mr. Hill,

This is in response to the financial statements and related documents filed with the Commission on 2 April 2015 by Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc. (AVR) in the context of the above-noted licence renewal applications. The present letter addresses certain procedural matters relating to these filings in order to determine the confidentiality and public disclosure of information in these filings.

Section 30 of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure (the Rules of Procedure) states in part, “that the Commission must make available for public inspection any information submitted to the Commission in the course of proceedings before it to the extent that the information is not designated as confidential.”  The Rules of Procedure further require, at s. 32, that when a party makes a designation of confidentiality, it must also provide an explanation why disclosure of the information would not be in the public interest.  When a party designates information as confidential, it must provide an abridged version of the confidential document for the public record or explain why an abridged version cannot be filed.

AVR financial statements and related documents filed 2 April 2015

On 2 April 2015, the Commission received the following six (6) documents from AVR:

  1. audited financial statements from AVR, in the aggregate for all five of its stations, for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2014;
  2. an “Independent Auditor’s Report” concerning these audited financial statements;
  3. a document containing notes to these audited financial statements;
  4. unaudited financial statements from AVR, in the aggregate for all five of its stations, covering the period from 31 March 2014 to 31 August 2014;
  5.  a “Review Engagement Report” concerning these unaudited financial statements; and
  6. a document containing notes to these unaudited financial statements.

Commission staff recognizes that these documents contain information of a sensitive, financial nature; however, in staff’s view, documents 3 and 6, above, also contain information the disclosure of which would serve the public interest.

Specifically, Commission staff considers that the information contained at heading 6, entitled “Subsequent Event”, of documents 3 and 6 should be disclosed prior to the oral public hearing scheduled to begin 13 May 2015 at which AVR’s licence renewal applications will be considered.Footnote 1

Commission staff recognizes that, since the majority of the information contained in these documents is sensitive, financial information, it would be impractical for AVR to file an abridged version of the documents in order to disclose the relevant information. Staff further notes that the information contained at heading 6 of documents 3 and 6 is identical.

In view of the above, AVR is to take the following action by no later than 11:59 p.m. Gatineau time on 14 April 2015:

A copy of this letter and all related correspondence will be added to the public record of the proceeding.

The Commission requires that your response and/or other documents be submitted electronically by using the secured service “My CRTC Account” (Partner Log In or GCKey) and filling in the “Broadcasting and Telecom Cover page” or the “Broadcasting Online Form and Cover Page” located on this web page. Also on this web page you will find information on the submission of applications to the Commission “Submitting applications and other documents to the CRTC using My CRTC Account.” 

Should you need further information concerning your applications, please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone at 819-997-4724 or by fax at 819-994-0218.

Yours truly,

André Joly

Senior Radio Analyst
Radio Policy and Applications
andre.joly@crtc.gc.ca

Footnotes

Footnote 1

For greater clarity, staff is referring to the final paragraph of page 4 of the document entitled “ABORIGINAL VOICES RADIO INC. Notes to Financial Statements March 31, 2014” and the first paragraph of page 5 of the document entitled “ABORIGINAL VOICES RADIO INC. Notes to Financial Statements August 31, 2014”.

Return to footnote 1

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