Speech
Notes for an address
by Charles Dalfen
Chairman, Canadian Radio-television
and Telecommunications Commission
to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage
Ottawa, Ontario
December 12th, 2002
(CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY)
Introduction
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good morning, members of the Committee, staff. My
name is Charles Dalfen, and I am Chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission.
I'm pleased to be here today to make my first parliamentary committee
appearance as CRTC Chairman, to speak with you on a number of the important
subjects you have been considering for the past year.
With me from the CRTC are Jacques Langlois, Director General, Broadcasting
Policy and William Howard, Senior Legal Counsel.
You have asked me to focus on issues dealing with foreign ownership and
cross-media ownership.
With your permission, I will give you a brief overview of the Commission's
position on these two topics, and then answer any questions you might have.
Foreign ownership
Let me begin with the issue of foreign ownership.
The Commission is instructed under the Broadcasting Act to give effect
to certain directions of the Governor-in-Council. One of the most important of
these is the direction dealing with the ineligibility of non-Canadians to hold
broadcasting licences, which was originally issued in 1969, and was last amended
in 1998.
Under this direction, the Commission can neither issue broadcasting licences
nor grant amendments or renewals to applicants that are non-Canadian.
The direction spells out the criteria that applicants must satisfy in order to
qualify as Canadian. In the case of a corporation, these include the following:
- a minimum of 80% of the issued and outstanding voting shares of a licensee
corporation and 80% of its voting rights must be owned and controlled by
Canadians;
- the chief executive officer and a minimum of 80% of the corporation's
directors must be Canadians who normally reside in Canada; and
- where the licensee is a subsidiary, 66 2/3% of the parent corporation's
issued and outstanding voting shares and voting rights must be owned by
Canadians.
- where the foreign ownership of a parent corporation is over 20%, the parent
corporation or its directors cannot influence the programming decisions of the
licensee.
Finally, and very importantly, the applicant must not be controlled by a
non-Canadian.
When the Commission examines licence applications where Canadian control is in
question, it reviews a number of factors.
For instance, it examines the degree of influence that a non-Canadian
shareholder or other person could exercise over the licensee and its broadcasting
undertaking via any relevant agreements, such as shareholder agreements, program
supply agreements, intellectual property licensing agreements or others.
To ensure that control rests with Canadians at all times, the Commission may
require amendments to be made to such agreements in order to limit the influence
of non-Canadians.
The Commission may also oblige licensees to seek Commission approval before
non-Canadians may exercise certain rights under these agreements.
I should add that in addition to determining the eligibility of an applicant
under the direction, the Commission does, in its decisions, consider Canadian
foreign ownership from time to time under paragraph 3(1)(a) of the
Broadcasting Act, which declares that the Canadian broadcasting system shall
be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians.
Cross media ownership
I will move along now to cross media ownership.
The CRTC's mandate in this area stems from a number of sections of the
broadcasting policy for Canada, set out in the Broadcasting Act. That
policy declares that the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system
should provide a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the
expression of differing views on matters of public concern.
It also provides that the Canadian broadcasting system should encourage the
development of Canadian expression by providing information and analysis
concerning Canada and other countries from a Canadian point of view.
And it declares that the Canadian broadcasting system should serve to
safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic
fabric of Canada.
The Commission has applied these provisions to cases before it dealing with
cross-media ownership by seeking to balance a number of sets of factors.
One of the most important is the need to ensure that the Canadian public is
well-served with a wide variety of diverse voices, while allowing an opportunity
for Canadian media companies to grow and prosper in an increasingly competitive
domestic and international environment.
Another is the need to allow Canadian broadcasters to explore the potential
synergies in news-gathering that newspaper affiliation might allow while
maintaining the broadcasters' editorial independence.
The Commission addressed the issue of cross-media ownership in a number of
decisions in the summer of 2001, concerning TVA, CTV and Global, the largest
media ownership groups in French and English Canada.
In each of these cases, the Commission held public hearings on the renewal of
the television licences of these groups, which had, or had recently acquired,
ownership interests in large daily newspapers.
While the CRTC does not regulate newspapers, it did need to examine the
potential impact of this cross-ownership on the television stations involved.
In the CTV and Global decisions, the Commission acknowledged that some degree
of co-operation and sharing between commonly-owned newspapers and TV newsrooms
could increase the amount of original journalism available to Canadians and
enhance the quality of news coverage.
The Commission stated, however, that it must also be concerned about the
possible loss of diversity voices and the potential reduction in the number of
distinct editorial voices available to the public in the system as a result of
cross-media ownership and convergence.
The Commission, therefore, imposed a number of safeguards by condition of
licence, including the following:
- Management of broadcast newsrooms must be kept separate from newspaper
newsrooms.
- An independent neutral monitoring committee must be created to receive and
handle complaints pertaining to the Statement.
- This committee must report annually to the Commission on all complaints
received and how they are dealt with.
Similar safeguards were also imposed by condition of licence in the TVA
decision.
The Commission has recently received reports from two of these monitoring
committees.
In both cases, no complaints were received regarding the Commission's
safeguards during the first year they were in effect.
Conclusion
Despite some increase in cross-media ownership, over the past decade, the
Commission has licensed numerous new TV and radio services across Canada.
Canadians have many new media outlets available to them, and an increased
number of distinct voices.
There are also numerous foreign sources of news and information available by
cable and satellite. And many more such sources are available to the almost 70%
of Canadians with access to the Internet.
At the same time, we must always be vigilant as citizens of a democracy, to
ensure that we continue to have access to a diverse range of viewpoints, so that
we can be fully informed on issues of public concern that affect us, and so that
we can have an effect on how those issues are dealt with and resolved.
I hope these brief remarks have been helpful. I know that I, along with many
others in the broadcasting sector are looking forward to your forthcoming report.
Thank you, I would now be pleased to answer any questions you might have.
- 30 -
Contact: Denis Carmel,
Tel.:
(819) 997-9403, TDD: (819) 994-0423, Fax: (819) 997-4245
e-Mail: denis.carmel@crtc.gc.ca
Toll-free # 1-877-249-CRTC (2782)
TDD -
Toll-free # 1-877-909-2782
This document is available in alternative format upon request.
Date Modified: 2002-12-12 |
