Politicians appear to be sidestepping communications and culture issues

Canada’s cultural organizations and unions are dissatisfied with the amount of attention campaigning politicians are spending on communications and cultural matters, and are gearing up to make a change. "It’s easy to focus on gang violence – which is important – by demanding more police or more social workers," says Peter Murdoch, VP of media at the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, of the hot-button issues that politicians from the three national parties have gravitated toward. "I think the difficult ones are dealing with industrial, economic and cultural policies. And in culture, we haven’t heard anything from them." Murdoch is attempting to get the issue of foreign ownership on the table by questioning politicians on a riding-by-riding basis, and penning letters to newspapers. It’s a similar approach to that taken by the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. "During the election, we’ve been encouraging our supporters spread all over Canada to deal with their candidates ," says Friends spokesman Ian Morrison. He notes that some of Friends’ concerns parallel those of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), which mounted a more visible bid for politicians’ attention on January 11. "We want to push the CRTC harder around Canadian TV drama – which is what ACTRA is doing – and fighting to maintain Canadian control of communications media," notes Morrison. A more organization-specific goal of Friends’ is governance reform at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. On Wednesday, ACTRA aimed to "put Canadian cultural on the federal election agenda" with a high-powered event featuring a slew of Canadian acting heavyweights, including Sonja Smits, Luba Goy, Wendy Crewson, Fiona Reid, Wayne Robson and Julie Stewart. ACTRA has been actively pushing the federal government to make the CRTC rewrite its 1999 TV policy, which ACTRA and other cultural groups blame for a decline in homegrown TV drama. ACTRA wants the CRTC and the TV policy changed, and wants the government to commit funding to Canadian productions (CCR, Nov. 29/04). Another concern of ACTRA and others is the possible loosening of foreign ownership restrictions on the broadcasting and telecommunications industries. "All these questions, particularly foreign ownership, that made the headlines during the last election haven’t even been asked of the politicians," notes Murdoch. "The media and politicians don’t seem to be paying any attention to the issues surrounding our culture…foreign ownership and other cultural issues haven’t been making the headlines so far this election campaign." Canada’s ICT industry is also putting pressure on the federal politicians. Bernard Courtois, president and CEO of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), is calling on the federal party leaders to deal with ICT issues, because the industry "is the driver of growth and prosperity in a modern economy," he says. "Canadians are well beyond being hewers of wood or drawers of water," said Courtois, "but if we don’t aggressively position ourselves to keep and grow high-value jobs in this country, these will go increasingly to those countries that are focusing intensely on capturing those jobs." He noted that it has been estimated that closing the productivity gap with the US would generate $90 billion per year for the federal and provincial governments. ITAC represents the Canadian information and communications technology industry, and has 1,300 companies as members, including from the telecommunications and Internet services sectors.

Politicians appear to be sidestepping communications and culture issues

Broadcast | January 12, 2006

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