Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, members. I'm Kevin Matthews, executive director of the National Campus and Community Radio Association, and this is Shelley Robinson, the membership coordinator.
The NCRA is a not-for-profit group of organizations and individuals committed to volunteer-based community-oriented radio broadcasting in Canada. The NCRA aims to increase the effectiveness of campus and community radio in Canada through public education about community media and by providing a forum for community broadcasters to share their work, develop their skills, and network. We also help represent community radio to government and other agencies.
Founded in 1981, we now have 76 members, four of which are situated in official language minority anglophone communities in Quebec. There are two other stations in Quebec based in OLMCs that are not currently NCRA members. We also have many English licensed stations in English majority communities that carry some French programming for their local minority francophone community and could use support to increase their services. But given the time limits of this presentation, we have focused mostly on the particular needs of stations serving OLMCs in Quebec.
We continue to work with l'Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada and l'Association des radiodiffuseurs communautaires du Québec to represent the sector and our 134 members who are divided about evenly between anglophone and francophone radio.
Our stations support official language minority communities in several ways. They provide local news and community announcements in the minority language. In many places, community radio is the only place people can hear about services, local cultural events, and government programs available in their official language.
In Sherbrooke, for example, CJMQ-FM is the only station in the area that does emergency broadcasts in English, and at CFTH-FM in Harrington Harbour, they receive most of their press releases from outside the community in French and translate them for the local listening audience.
They also support other minority language media. CIDI-FM in Missisquoi and CJMQ-FM in Sherbrooke both work closely with their local English newspapers, promoting them through ads and by contributing content.
They serve local businesses, particularly those targeting the OLMC, by providing advertising at a very low cost. For example, at CIDI-FM in Missisquoi, $10 buys you a 30-second ad in both English and French.
They provide support to official language minority artists and culture. All of the stations play a lot of local and regional music and make it a priority. They also have times when local musicians come in to play live on air and do interviews.
They allow a place for official language minority communities to tell their own stories. CIDI-FM in Missisquoi has just started a series of history programs about the area, looking back 60 to 80 years, produced in English by their volunteers.
They preserve a special place for the minority language. Even those stations that have a lot of French programming feel their English programming and their standing as an anglophone cultural organization are crucial to serving their official language minority community effectively.