Canadian Heritage committee  I think that any service extended to people in rural areas and remote areas or cultural communities has to be encouraged. The issue that we would have is when CBC goes into an area or serves a community, and I think as a different example of Radio 3, which is broadcasting primarily independent Canadian artists.

Canadian Heritage committee  I remember when you went through Halifax back in the early eighties, and I remember the posters being up. So I was involved at that point. What drew me to CKDU in Halifax was that I couldn't get jazz anywhere. I couldn't even get rock music anywhere. That's a role that community radio has played since the 1970s.

Canadian Heritage committee  On the request to meet with the minister, it's quite straightforward. In the time that I've been involved in community radio in Canada--about 20 years--no meetings have taken place between community radio representatives and the minister. Our sector has gone through a number of transformations, and we're going through another one.

Canadian Heritage committee  Looking at community radio policy from a global perspective, Canada is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to how it approaches non-commercial radio. The countries that appear on the slide, and several other industrialized countries, have a more consistent approach to non-commercial media.

Canadian Heritage committee  We sometimes think of Canada's media landscape as having really two monoliths that are sometimes in opposition to each other, one being commercial radio and the other being CBC/Radio-Canada. But the legislation that defines a broadcasting system in Canada actually defines three components: public, private, and community.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm John Harris Stevenson. I'm on the advisory board of the National Campus and Community Radio Association. I'm also president of CHUO--FM, here at the University of Ottawa.