Copps promises action on broadcasting report; calls for cultural instrument

Canadian Heritage minister Sheila Copps staunchly defended the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage’s report on the broadcasting sector in a brief conversation with Canadian Communications Reports, after she unveiled her Liberal Party of Canada leadership campaign platform on July 28. She told CCR that if she wins the party’s top post this November, she’ll institute measures including fixed budgets to enhance the role of parliamentary committees. "If you look at the work that we’ve done with Canadian Heritage with the broadcasting report, I think that it’s very important that parliamentary committees be given the freedom to modify legislation in an open and transparent way," she said. Others in the broadcasting industry have long questioned the powers of parliamentary committees, claiming that the Heritage committee’s report, Our Cultural Sovereignty: The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting, will end up collecting dust (CCR, Jan. 31/02). At least one broadcaster laments the fact that there has been little debate around the report since its release. Vision TV president and CEO Bill Roberts asks, "Is the Heritage Committee report destined to vanish into bureaucratic void?" (See Newsmakers). But Copps defends the study that took two years to produce, and says that action will be taken on it. "It took a year and a half (to put together) because it’s a very fulsome report and certainly is not just sitting there," she said. "We’re going to be responding very directly (to the report) with some specific ideas. I’m very positive on the report." The government has 90 days from the report’s June 11 release date to respond to it (CCR, June 20/03; CCR Update, June 11/03). Copps’ platform, spelled out in a brochure called Foundations: An Action Plan for Canadians, states: "Parliamentary committees are given very few resources to conduct their work. We need to provide the resources for all parliamentary committees to do the job they are expected to do. We need to establish several special (and possibly joint) parliamentary committees to examine new and emerging issues of crucial importance." Last year, the Heritage committee was refused funding by the Subcommittee on Committee Budgets of the Liaison Committee to travel to England to examine that country’s new Communications Bill, and to Washington D.C. to investigate the U.S. broadcast system. Further, it was denied resources to take a three-day retreat at Meech Lake to draft its report (CCR, Jan. 30/03). Copps has also made it a campaign plank to push "for an international agreement for the protection and promotion of cultural diversity." Since she laid the groundwork for the establishment of an international network of cultural ministers in June 1998, Copps has been pushing for an International Instrument on Cultural Diversity to protect distinct and diverse cultures (CCR Update, June 25/03; CCR, Sept. 13/01, June 21/01). Her vision statement further calls for the implementation of a national broadband initiative (CCR, June 21/01). "We need to make connecting Canadians a national priority. This is nothing less than the trans-Canada railway of the 21st century," states Copps’ campaign document. Copps spent most of the media conference at which she unveiled her platform talking about the need for day care spaces and help for impoverished children and youth, as well as her desire for the inclusion of Canada’s minorities in society, the bureaucracy and elsewhere. Asked in a question and answer session following the unveiling of her platform why it contained little reference to support for domestic cultural institutions or broadcasting, she responded, "My whole raison d’être for the last eight years has been trying to invest in Canadian stories. I am suggesting today…that this is a vision of the broad directions for Canada… But obviously over the course of the campaign, I’ll be speaking on the different sectors. But this is not a sectorial document. It is a vision for the whole country."

Copps promises action on broadcasting report; calls for cultural instrument

News | 07/31/2003 4:00 am EDT

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