Reporting by Hannah Daley, Phalen Tynes-MacDonald and Paul Park
Digital researchers and advocacy groups are expressing initial support for the newly created federal...
The United Steelworkers Union (USW), which represents Canadian workers at Telus Corp., is alleging that the telecom’s international division is trying to bust a union drive at its content review centre in Turkey. The company disputes the claims.
The story was first...
This article originally appeared on The Hill...
The Heritage Committee will be making the 2017 “Netflix deal” public after the NDP brought a motion to the committee compelling its disclosure. At Monday’s committee meeting -- the first...
The federal government last week announced that it would pour $14.6 million...
OTTAWA — Canadian companies that sell digital products which are subject...
OTTAWA — Quebec NDP MP François Choquette has filed a judicial review application with the Federal Court to contest the alleged premature closing of an investigation by the...
The federal government is organizing a working meeting next week in Ottawa...
CBC/Radio-Canada wants the federal government to grant the CRTC the ability...
As politicians file back into Parliament Hill’s Centre Block for the...
After this summer’s cabinet shuffle, the Heritage minister will gain two...
The federal NDP said it will enter the new parliamentary session with a focus on pressuring the government to right wrongs they say have been committed by allowing foreign internet companies to skirt...
Guylaine Roy, who was named associate deputy minister of Canadian Heritage last May, is leaving the department, according to a press release from the Prime Minister’s Office Friday.
Effective Monday, Roy will become the...
Former chief government whip Pablo Rodriguez is the new heritage minister,...
MONTREAL — Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly outlined Tuesday the...
Domestic and international content producers and over-the-top (OTT) services are continuing to partner on original programming at an increasing pace, according to new data from Ampere Analysis released last Thursday.
The Ampere study showed these original co-productions...
NDP Heritage critic Pierre Nantel took Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly to...
OTTAWA — A proposal to eliminate a tax exemption for advertising on foreign digital media received...
Former CRTC commissioner Raj Shoan filed an appeal on Tuesday of a May Federal Court decision which dismissed an application for a judicial review of his second firing from the communications regulator. Federal Court Judge...
OTTAWA — The expert panel appointed by the federal government to...
OTTAWA — Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains and Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly had slightly different messages in response to the issue of new recommendations from the CRTC potentially increasing telecom and media service costs for Canadian consumers.
The federal...
GATINEAU — The CRTC is recommending the government undertake a bevy of...
A new organization called the Centre for Digital Rights (CDR) that is...
In a decision on Monday, a Federal Court judge...
OTTAWA — Catherine Tait’s appointment as head of CBC/Radio-Canada is...
A decades-old organization that is pushing for a multilateral approach to decision-making on the future...
The 2018 federal budget, released Tuesday, confirmed the Canadian Media Fund (CMF) will receive top ups...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly faced questions this week about why a...
Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains has released a statement on a call by a coalition of broadcasters, telecoms and creative groups to begin blocking websites hosting pirated content, in which he...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. and Birch Hill Equity Partners ramped up their lobbying in December, with both submitting their first communications reports for the year in the last weeks of 2017. Birch Hill, an investment firm whose partners include Groupe Maskatel LP, which was acquired this month by BCE Inc., saw its first lobby activity in a year and a half, filing five communications reports with officials at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). Representatives reached out to with Parvinder Sachdeva, policy advisor at Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains’ office, as...
Alphabet Inc.’s Sidewalk Labs kicked off the new year by registering to...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly named five new members to the CBC/Radio-Canada board of directors for five-year terms, said a Tuesday press release. Harley Finkelstein, the chief of operations for Shopify Inc., René Légère,...
The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has announced a new export project to help Canadian content reach global...
OTTAWA — Policy makers in Canada have become more concerned about the...
TORONTO — The federal government and the CRTC must pick up the pace and do more on critical telecom issues in order to make a much-needed impact when it comes to pricing and...
OTTAWA — Opposition MPs continued their criticism of Heritage Minister...
Creative organizations stepped up and added to a surge in lobbying activity...
The federal government reiterated a previously held position that it will not implement taxes on internet service providers (ISP) in favour of Canadian content in a review of an earlier Heritage...
The CRTC is asking for comment as it puts together a report requested by Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly on future content distribution models. Last month, the federal government issued an...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly has announced plans to lead her first “creative industries trade mission” to Shanghai, China in April 2018. The mission will focus on film, gaming, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR),...
Various groups praised the promised investment in production and promotion...
Promoting Canadian content and supporting creators, service affordability and encouraging competition and investment by companies are among the priorities outlined in the federal government’s...
OTTAWA — While the response to the long-awaited results of Heritage...
If the federal government isn’t willing to impose taxes on foreign over-the-top (OTT) services, Quebec is willing to do so itself, Le Devoir quoted Quebec culture minister Luc Fortin as saying Thursday. He said Quebec would be willing to impose its provincial sales tax on subscriptions to Netflix Inc.’s service, the newspaper said in a report Friday. A coalition of more than 30 cultural groups praised Fortin’s comments in a press release the same day, writing that it “shares the Minister's position that nations must apply a consistent regulatory framework for all parties,...
The Bloc Québécois has accused Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly of favouritism toward the likes...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly will give a speech at the end of the month outlining her “vision for Canada’s cultural and creative industries in a digital world” following a year-and-a-half long consultation. Joly will...
Everything old is new again when it comes to telecom and media issues...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly met Friday with representatives from Canada’s creative industries to...
While online discussion forums are rife with debate — and more often, complaints — about why Canadians can’t access popular American television shows legally online, Canadian content producers are navigating how to ensure their work continues to be seen on digital platforms. “In a world where Canadians are increasingly in control of what they watch, how and when they want, there is increasing consumer pressure to have unrestricted access to any program, at any time, and on any...
Canada’s heritage and culture ministers are of one mind when it comes to...
The government’s move to order the CRTC to reconsider its May licence...
July lobbying activity was affected by the expected summer slowdown that comes with Parliament not...
Prospective members of the CBC/Radio-Canada board of directors have more time to get their resumes in front of the government’s new advisory panel, as the deadline for...
A controversial CRTC decision that creative groups said would negatively affect the production of Canadian content will be sent back to the CRTC for reconsideration by the federal cabinet, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly...
The country’s biggest media companies are publicly firing back against...
Wawatay Native Communications Society has submitted a formal petition to Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly seeking to overturn a June decision by the CRTC that handed out licences for Indigenous radio stations. In the June 29...
A group of American TV stations seems to be renewing its efforts to put compensation for signals...
At the end of this week, following the departure of its vice-chairman of telecom, the CRTC will be left operating with only four commissioners and an interim chairwoman with...
The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has made two new appointments to its board of directors.
Michael Schmalz...
More creative groups are stepping up formal efforts to get the CRTC to reverse its licence renewal decision, which they say will negatively affect the production of Canadian content. On Thursday,...
The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) has formalized its complaint against the CRTC’s recent TV licence...
American companies and organizations took aim at Canadian cultural...
Last month’s deluge of Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) members on Parliament Hill for the group’s third annual lobby day pushed the organization to the top of the telecom lobbying list for the second month this year, logging 49 communication reports in May....
OTTAWA — Wawatay Native Communications Society will ask for an appeal of...
OTTAWA — A nine-member panel has been charged with vetting potential appointees to the CBC/Radio-Canada...
OTTAWA — The next chair of the CRTC will have a more explicit focus on...
Alphabet Inc.’s Google Canada lobbied Leslie Church, its former...
OTTAWA — A House of Commons committee recommendation to expand the five-per-cent contribution broadcast...
The CRTC has approved five urban radio licences in markets across the country to serve Aboriginal peoples, a decision one Ontario Aboriginal radio station said will result in fewer hours, and less...
Canadians rely heaviest on CBC/Radio-Canada and the CRTC to protect...
A new office to support indigenous creators will open its doors, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced Monday at the Banff World Media Festival. The Indigenous Screen Office is a collaboration between the Aboriginal Peoples...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly acknowledged the “anxiety” members of the creative community are experiencing following the CRTC’s licence renewal decision, but didn’t...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly is facing more calls to order the CRTC to review its licence renewal decision, this time from the Bloc Québécois. On Monday, Bloc MP Xavier Barsalou-Duval noted...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly told a parliamentary...
The parliamentary secretary to the innovation minister was a popular target for lobbyists last month, as...
Pressure from Quebec could lead Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly to consider imposing taxes on foreign over-the-top (OTT) services, according to Desjardins Capital Markets analyst Maher Yaghi....
Raj Shoan, the CRTC’s regional commissioner for Ontario who was fired again just four days after a return to his post, said he will be heading back to court to challenge the second order-in-council removing him from the regulatory body. In a statement issued Friday, Shoan said he was informed late Thursday that his governor-in-council (GIC) appointment, which he regained after 10 months following an April 28 Federal Court decision, would again be terminated as of midnight Friday. Justice Cecily Strickland’s decision — stemming from...
NDP heritage critic Pierre Nantel is raising the alarm that cultural protection could be on the chopping block if a wholesale renegotiation of the country’s trade agreement with the United States and Mexico occurs, and is asking the heritage minister to take a stand. In an opinion piece published in French-language...
Raj Shoan was denied procedural fairness when he was fired from his job as the CRTC’s regional commissioner for Ontario last summer, three years into a five-year term, a Federal Court justice...
OTTAWA — Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly said she found a receptive audience for her message of cultural diversity on digital platforms among the executives of the digital media giants she...
The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) led the telecom field for lobbying the federal government in March, logging 15 communication reports for the month, according to the federal lobbyists’ registry. Those...
The federal government has signed an audiovisual coproduction treaty with Luxembourg. “This treaty will further position Canada as a partner of choice in audiovisual coproductions, and strengthen our cultural and...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly will travel to California later this month to meet with representatives from Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc., her office has confirmed....
Nearly two-dozen representatives from the screen-based media industry, such as the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), and...
Though virtual reality is still in its early days, it holds promise for Canada’s media industry — including for broadcasters as a new way to draw eyes to live events, such as sports, according to...
OTTAWA — With a focus on the digital economy, the federal government will start looking beyond geography to bridge the digital divide in Canada, adding new funding to encourage Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to offer affordable Internet packages, to improve digital literacy, and by announcing its intention to modernize the Telecom and Broadcasting Acts in Budget 2017. “Access to the Internet opens up a world of opportunities — from social connections with friends and family to new ways to learn and work. Most Canadians are already online, but many low-income families face...
Facebook Inc. is increasing its government relations presence in Ottawa, with three new registrations filed with the lobbying commissioner’s office last month. According to the federal lobbyists’...
As the federal government gears up to review the Copyright Act later this year, information about the rate of piracy in Canada remains elusive, two full years since the implementation of the...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly is meeting this week with digital platforms, telling a CBC morning radio show Friday that she was in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., region Thursday meeting...
According to a new survey commissioned by Internet advocacy group OpenMedia, while half of Canadians support creating a new revenue source for Canadian content, there is strong opposition to taxing Internet service and more...
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada is leading the charge in pushing for the presence of “cultural diversity,” or domestic content, on foreign digital platforms like the over-the-top (OTT) service provided by Netflix Inc. — despite other countries already having regulations and tax structures in place. “As a government, the most important thing we want to do is make sure we can continue to support and promote our national content and this is exactly what I’m saying at the international level and this is exactly the concern of other states. And that’s why we’ll be leading this conversation,” Joly told reporters Thursday afternoon, following an on-stage appearance answering questions from Canadian...
OTTAWA — If Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly was clear about anything during a Thursday afternoon appearance at the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) Prime Time in Ottawa conference, it was that the...
OTTAWA — CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais used his opening remarks at a panel discussion Thursday to criticize individuals who are calling for “political interference” in the...
The Ministers of Canadian Heritage and Innovation, Science and Economic Development have new understudies. In a Thursday press release, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a makeover to his roster of parliamentary...
Heritage Canada has issued a series of help-wanted ads for the CRTC — including for the not-yet vacant position of chair. Four new job openings are now on the government’s appointments website for the roles of chair,...
Telus Corp. led the telecom pack in December for government relations activity, according to the federal lobbyists’ registry, logging 14 monthly communication reports. In addition to...
Filling all 13 spots allotted to CRTC commissioners could go a long way in addressing what some are calling decades of ongoing disparity between the demographics of those who make decisions about the...
The union representing members of the television and media sectors is asking the CRTC to reverse or suspend its decision banning simultaneous substitution for the Super Bowl in order for its impact to be fully considered. In...
A former chairman of the CRTC is backing the concept of levying a new tax on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as the heritage minister mulls ways to rejig the country’s cultural institutions. In a memo...
Canada is violating its trade obligations by banning simultaneous substitution for the National Football League’s (NFL) Super Bowl, four United States politicians said in a letter to the Canadian government Thursday, which follows another letter by the NFL condemning the decision. The CRTC first said it would ban the practice in January 2015, and made the ban official in August. BCE Inc., which has the rights to the game, was backed by the NFL in opposing the move, in court and during the CRTC process. The court case is still ongoing. Congressmen from both the Republican and...
