Lincoln confident committee will have positive effect on broadcasting system

The chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage remains convinced that his group’s review of the Canadian broadcasting industry will result in improvements to the system, despite an extensive mandate and a lengthy process (CCR, Nov. 9/01). "There are two alternatives. Either you rush through something and you do a half-baked job or you take your time. And it’s not much time to do what we do," Clifford Lincoln told CCR following the completion of a morning of hearings on Nov. 20. He pointed out that the committee received about 75 written submissions from more than 100 organizations. "It takes a huge amount of time to meet with them all, to listen to them and to give them a chance to be heard," he said. "It looks like a lot of time, and sure there is going to be an evolution of broadcast technologies in between, but we’re still far better off than not doing it all. If you don’t do it at all, you’re back to 1991 and there’s a huge gap." Lincoln added that "the challenge is going to be to amass and understand all this information in a way that will eventually lead to a credible report…There is so much to analyze, to read, and absorb. I have very good hopes that this is going to be a worthwhile exercise." Appearing Nov. 20 before the committee, Canadian Heritage ADM Michael Wernick and Industry Canada’s Michael Helm tackled a wide range of issues from the satellite TV grey market (see story on pages 1-2) and the role of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), to their respective departments’ relationship with the CRTC and the powers of the commission. Wernick told the committee that a key to clarifying the relationship between the CBC and the CRTC was determining if it should be treated like a private broadcaster or a distinct case. He said achieving the proper "arm’s length" relationship between government and the CRTC was hard to judge, noting that any evaluation of whether the correct balance had been achieved would be "subjective." He added that the relationship between the CRTC and the government shouldn’t become too politicized, but at the same time, the CRTC risks being out-of-touch if it is too distant. Questioned about the CRTC’s powers, Wernick suggested that the committee recommend that the commission be given more options to impose sanctions on broadcast licensees not adhering to the Broadcasting Act or other policies. Several committee members noted that while the CRTC has the power to revoke broadcasting licences, it rarely if ever has, and that politically it would be near impossible to do. While falling short of revoking licences, the CRTC has often resorted to granting only short-term licence renewals for breaching conditions of licence or regulations, as it did recently with Vision TV (see story on pages 4-5). Noting that there’s a wide distance between revoking a licence and receiving a letter of rebuke from the CRTC, Wernick said it might be wise to give the CRTC a "scaleable" list of options for punishing digressions. Although he didn’t provide any specific recommendations on what the additional sanctions could be, he suggested that CRTC staff members might have some ideas. Committee members were unable to complete their questioning of Wernick and Helm, who were asked to appear again. CRTC acting chair David Colville, vice chair of broadcasting Andrée Wylie, and broadcasting executive director Jean-Pierre Blais were scheduled to appear before the committee Nov. 22. Slated to appear on Nov. 27 are Richard Stursberg, chair of the board of the Canadian Tele-vision Fund; Robin Jackson, executive director of the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund; Elizabeth McDonald, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association; Gary Neil, policy advisor for the Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA); as well as representatives from the Canadian Media Guild, the Newspaper Guild of Canada and the Canadian Independent Film Caucus.

Lincoln confident committee will have positive effect on broadcasting system

News | 11/22/2001 5:00 am EST

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