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ARCHIVED - Broadcasting Procedural Letter Addressed to Various Parties

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Ottawa, 15 June 2016

By email

Howard Law
Director, Media Sector
UNIFOR
Howard.Law@unifor.org

Angelo Contarin
Vice President
UNIFOR Local 723m
angeloc@unifor723m.org

Gretchen King
Secretary
Community Media Advocacy Centre
cmac@riseup.net

Catherine Edwards
Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS)
cedwards@timescape.ca

Nathalie Blais
Research advisor
Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique
nblais@scfp.qc.ca

John Savage
Information Consultant
Ontario Library Association
john.pg.savage@gmail.com

Re: Procedural requests taken under advisement in relation to Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2015-421

As part of Broadcasting Notice of Consultation 2015-421, including the public hearing commencing 25 January 2016, the Commission took under advisement several procedural requests. The procedural requests were received from the following parties:

UNIFOR and UNIFOR Local 723m

In their letters, UNIFOR and UNIFOR Local 723m requested that the Commission re-open the proceeding to give the opportunity to file evidence, make written representations and appear before the Commission regarding the questions of ethnic broadcasting and of local programming in the context of local ethnic television broadcasters.

The Commission published today a general policy framework relating to local and community programming that it will implement as part of the upcoming licence renewals. The Commission has also published today Notice of Consultation CRTC 2016-225 where it announces the process for the renewal of the licences of the ethnic over-the-air television stations affiliated with the OMNI network. Parties have until 2 August 2016 to file interventions. A public hearing will take place in Gatineau from 28 November to 2 December 2016 where parties will have an opportunity to appear before the Commission.

The Commission remains of the view expressed in its 21 January 2016 letter that parties will have sufficient opportunities to comment on the specific questions of local programming on OMNI stations at that time. Therefore, the Commission denies the request to re-open the proceeding.

CPSC-SCFP

During its appearance at the public hearing, CPSC-SCFP requested the Commission’s authorization to add a report commissioned by the CPSC-SCFP and authored by Influence Communication regarding the situation of news-gathering in regions of Quebec. The CPSC-SCFP argued that it could not file the report earlier due to it not being completed.

The Commission approves CPSC-SCFP’s request. The study has been available on the public file and has been considered as evidence by the Commission as part of the proceeding.

Ontario Library Association

During its appearance at the public hearing, the Ontario Library Association requested the Commission’s authorization to add an endorsement letter signed by the Chief Librarian of the Vancouver Public Library in support of its intervention.

The Commission considers that the Vancouver Public Library was offered sufficient alternative means to place its endorsement letter on the public record, such as submitting its letter through the online consultation, and chose not to avail itself of those means. As a consequence, the Commission denies the Ontario Library Association’s request.

CMAC and CACTUS

In their letters, CMAC and CACTUS requested that the Commission require certain parties to provide the following information:

  1. Financial statements for individual community TV channels which demonstrate how funds are being collected and allocated and enable participants to comment on the accountability and effectiveness of the current funding mechanism for community access TV;

  2. Details on the accounting practices of community TV channels setting out the assets (and their value) which are owned by the community channel and those which are rented (and at what cost) from the BDU; and

  3. Additional details on the number of volunteers participating and hours of volunteer training achieved in community TV channels.

CMAC and CACTUS argued that this data was essential to give all parties the opportunity to fairly assess the financial and accounting practices of BDUs and the effectiveness of the current policy.

CMAC and CACTUS also requested that the Commission extend the deadline for final comments until 1 March 2016 so that all parties in the proceeding would be afforded adequate time to review the above-noted additional information and respond to it in their final comments.

The Commission considers that the information provided by different parties as part of this proceeding was sufficient to make an informed policy decision and does not consider the additional information sought by CMAC and CACTUS to have been necessary.

For this reason, the Commission denies the requests for further information and the extension of time to comment.

Yours sincerely,

Danielle May-Cuconato
Secretary General

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