ARCHIVED - Broadcasting Procedural Letter Addressed to Various Parties
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Ottawa, 23 October 2015
VIA E-MAIL
Simon Van Vliet
President
Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec
info@ajiq.qc.ca
Dr. Kirsten Kozolanka
Principal Investigator
c/o Jessica Wind
Community Media Policy Working Group
Jessica@ComMediaConverge.ca
Ivan L. Traill
General Manager
NAC TV
nactv@wcgwave.ca
Alysia Lau
Legal Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
alau@piac.ca
Chantal Bédard
President / Director General
Csur la télé
info@csur.latele.ca
Re: Requests to extend intervention period – Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2015-421
The Commission is in receipt of five letters relating to the review of Local and Community Programming, as outlined in Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2015-421 (BNC 2015-421). These requests were filed by the Community Media Policy Group (on 29 September 2015), the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Neepawa Access Community TV, the Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec (all on 2 October 2015) and by CSUR la télé (on 6 October 2015). In each case, it was requested that interested parties be given until 11 December 2015 to file comments in response to the questions set out in BNC 2015-421. These requests are similar to those filed by the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomies du Québec and the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations, both of which were denied by the Commission on 2 October 2015.
The parties above noted submitted that, for various reasons, the current deadline for interventions is too short for them to prepare fulsome comments, and that a planned community media conference in November would help them and other participants draft their comments for the Commission.
The Commission announced its intention to examine community programming related issues in 2013. In particular, the Commission indicated in both its 2013-2016 and 2014-2017 three year plans that it would examine the effectiveness of its community television policy at some point in the 2015-2016 broadcast year. Moreover, on 29 January 2015, the Commission released Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2015-24 wherein it was specifically noted that the Commission’s review of community programming would be expanded to include an overall examination of locally relevant, locally reflective and community access programming. At that time, the Commission also indicated that it would release a notice of consultation on these matters “in the coming months”.
The Commission encourages all interested parties to participate. As indicated in BNC 2015-421-1, the intervention deadline has been extended to 5 November 2015 as a result of the addition of data placed on the public record. However, the Commission nevertheless anticipates that it will publish an additional document in advance of the hearing that will help to focus comments at the hearing. At that time, interested parties may formally request to add additional information to the public record. Moreover interested parties will be given in excess of two months to examine the record as filed by 5 November 2015 in advance of the hearing. Also, as stated in BNC 2015-421, the Commission may grant an additional reply period following the hearing which is expected to commence on 25 January 2015.
Therefore, given that potential interveners received ample public notice regarding the upcoming review, and the Commission’s indication that additional avenues for comment may be provided throughout the process, the Commission considers that the current 5 November 2015 deadline established for filing interventions should be maintained.
Sincerely,
John Traversy
Secretary General
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