Finance committee urged to keep funding flowing, and foreign ownership at bay

Industry executives have begun lobbying the House Finance Committee to ensure their priorities are not forgotten when Finance minister Paul Martin delivers his next budget, either this November or in February.Michael MacMillan, chair and CEO of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc, used the opportunity to remind the committee of the importance of government support for the broadcasting and production industries, and the risks of allowing cable operators to be foreign owned. An excerpt from his May 30 presentation appears below. We consider our industry to be part of what we would call the knowledge-based economy. And that’s obviously part of the economy where information is a key asset that has important intrinsic value. Over the past 20 years or so, Canada has seen tremendous growth in our broadcasting and motion picture industries. ...In the Canadian TV and film production and distribution sector today, there are over 115,000 direct and indirect jobs. That does not even take into account the jobs that exist in the broadcasting sector. In fact, Statistics Canada showed recently that the information and cultural industries combined accounted for 620,000 jobs in 1999... Ours is a sunrise industry, not a sunset industry. It’s an industry that will continue to create excellent jobs and contribute significantly to our international balance of payments. And these are good jobs. I call them above-the-neck jobs. They require advanced skills and are generally available to young Canadians. New technologies, including high-speed broadband, will continue to propel this business and the growth of this business, and it will be a winner for years to come. It’s our belief, therefore, that this industry is a logical and fertile place for our government to focus its attention. In our view, it makes great sense for government to invest in industries that will pay back big-time in jobs and growth. Our industry provides this. Consider that every time a new technology is invented, like VCRs, satellite television, or the Internet, it increases the market for our products and makes it easier for people to watch the movies and TV shows we make. This is good. It expands our industry. We expect that the Internet, in general, and wireless technology, in particular, will continue to fuel huge growth opportunities... We in Canada have the possibility now to build on success. The continued support of federal programs and institutions like the Canadian Television Fund, Telefilm Canada broadcast program development fund, and tax credits for film and TV programs are essential... Canada has often said recently that we’re going to lay the claim to be the most connected nation on earth. This is a very important goal. However, we must do far more than simply building the hardware and the infrastructure. There’s no point in building a terrific highway unless there are vehicles to drive on it... I’d like to briefly comment on the issue of foreign ownership in our telecom industry, because much has been said about this in recent weeks. We understand very well that convergence has caused the lines between telecom, cable, and traditional broadcasting channels to become blurred. That presents a challenge for governments that regulate it. However, we believe that any relaxation of foreign ownership rules with respect to telecom in Canada needs to be handled with great caution and careful understanding of the domino implications of such a move. Changes to the telecom ownership rules would immediately lead to the perfectly reasonable request by the cable industry for a similar change in its foreign ownership rules. Telecom and cable companies increasingly own broadcast assets – by that I mean TV channels – and it’s important that ownership of these broadcast assets remain under Canadian control. Otherwise, we’d need to rewrite our Broadcasting Act, because one of its basic tenets would be ripped out, which is Canadian control of our broadcasting system. This would be a terrible mistake from a public policy point of view. So I urge this committee and all in Ottawa to be very cautious in any review undertaken of foreign ownership rules.

Finance committee urged to keep funding flowing, and foreign ownership at bay

News | 07/04/2001 4:00 am EDT

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