Unions, cultural groups plan awareness campaign to fight foreign ownership

Acoalition of unions and cultural organizations is holding regional meetings and has set up a communications committee to plan a national advertising campaign aimed at bringing the issue of foreign ownership to the public’s attention. The goal is to put pressure on Prime Minister Paul Martin to retreat from moves to loosen up foreign ownership restrictions on the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. "There was a strong commitment on the part of everybody (the members of the coalition) in that room to work together to get a commitment out of the Martin government that foreign ownership will no longer be on the table," says Peter Murdoch, VP of media at the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP). "Now, how are we going to do that? We’re going to do that through advertising campaigns. We’re going to start lobbying on the Hill to find out where MPs stand on the issue and that will start almost immediately. We are holding regional meetings to build up an infrastructure so we will have people throughout communities and cities right across Canada who are involved in the campaign." Murdoch wants the Martin government to unequivocally state that it will retain current foreign ownership rules. If not, the coalition has vowed to ensure that it becomes an issue during the upcoming election that Martin is expected to call soon. The coalition refers to itself as the Coalition for Communication and Cultural Sovereignty. The CEP, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, the Canadian Conference of the Arts, Union des Artistes, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the Telecommunications Workers Union, the Directors Guild of Canada, the Council of Canadians, and provincial telco SaskTel are among the members of the coalition (CCR Update, Jan. 21/04). The coalition first announced its plans to make foreign ownership an election issue at a media conference on January 15. That day the coalition had organized an all-day meeting on the Hill where it hoped to meet with members of Parliament. However, no Liberals showed as Murdoch said the Prime Minister’s Office forbade it. "We invited literally every MP to come here, and there is not one member from the (ruling) government. There is clearly a chill," said Murdoch at the media conference. Only Christiane Gagnon of the Bloc Québécois and New Democrat Wendy Lill showed up. One of the indications that Martin plans to loosen foreign ownership rules, said Murdoch, was the fact that the issue had moved from Industry Canada’s domain to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. While it was unsuccessful in reaching the ears of Liberal MPs on this occasion, Murdoch states that the will of Canadians is behind the coalition as revealed in a public opinion poll it released. Two-thirds of Canadians oppose letting foreign companies own more of Canada’s telephone and broadcasting industries, according to the poll of 2,002 Canadians that was conducted in December by Vector Research on behalf of the CEP. The poll is considered accurate within 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The results of the survey mirror findings of Decima Research Inc. surveys conducted for Decima Publishing in 2002 and 2001 (CCR, Jan. 16/03). "I think what we are saying is that there hasn’t been much shift. Canadians aren’t shifting on it in terms of opinion. The only people who are shifting on it are a handful of people close to the prime minister," Murdoch tells Canadian Communications Reports. "But Canadians have been solid right through. That is in a sense what this poll reveals." With the no-show by the Liberal MPs at the January 15 session, the coalition instead spent the afternoon working on strategies to bring the issue to the forefront. Those include an advertising campaign aimed at MPs and the public, as well as building up a regional infrastructure to get the word out. "We don’t have any kind of financial budget set at this point (for the initiatives). But there are unions with some reasonably deep pockets and some organizations with a lot of talent and expertise," Murdoch tells CCR. "But clearly we don’t have the kind of money to fund television ads during Hockey Night in Canada." Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director, says this coalition grew out of an audio-visual coalition that includes the CEP formed to deal with the drama crisis and was expanded to include groups in the telecommunications industry. "We are here with our brothers and sisters at CEP and others to say to Mr. Martin very directly that Canada is not for sale. We are not interested in participating in part of a country that is prepared to sell off its cultural sovereignty," says Waddell. "The professional performers that we represent - 1,000 members right across this country - will be very active in opposing (Martin’s) commitment to sell off our cultural industries. We’re not prepared to do that." Megan Williams, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, echoed Waddell’s comments. "We are very firm on supporting foreign ownership restrictions in the cultural industries and we plan to work hard to raise this issue in the coming elections," she said. "We think there is a certain irony to the fact that Canada has taken a leadership role to nationally promote cultural diversity and the right of sovereign countries to have cultural policies that protect their cultural industries. Meanwhile, back at home the political will to support our foreign ownership restrictions is seriously eroded." The implementation of an International Instrument on Cultural Diversity was championed by Sheila Copps, minister of Canadian Heritage before the Martin government took power (CCR, July 31/03). Copps established an international network of cultural ministers in June 1998 to lay the groundwork for the implementation of the international instrument. The issue of foreign ownership of communications companies has widely divided the Canadian broadcasting industry over the past year. Two different standing committees of the federal government came out with widely opposed recommendations on the matter. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology backed a complete liberalization of the rules while the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage opted for the status quo. Under current regulations, foreign investment is limited to 20% direct investment and 33% indirect investment for a total possible ownership of 46.7% in the voting equity of Canadian cablecos and broadcasters. Within the broadcasting industry, CanWest Global Communications Corp. is pushing for a liberalization of foreign ownership restrictions, while private broadcasters CHUM Ltd., Astral Media and Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. want the status quo. Murdoch expresses reservations about attempting to get the word out through the media, given that CanWest owns many of the major dailies across the country. "Certainly one of our concerns is that the campaign targets the very people who are responsible for putting the message out," he says. "The degree to which we have access to the media on issues related to them, I think, is a real test of media democracy in Canada."

Unions, cultural groups plan awareness campaign to fight foreign ownership

Broadcast | January 30, 2004

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