Canadian Heritage committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for the invitation to appear before you today. As you know, I'm not representing any particular organization, but rather participating as an interested Canadian, as a father of three—and in spite of the hair, not a grandfather y

Canadian Heritage committee  It was interesting, because a lot of the parents were complaining about programs like The Simpsons and everything like that. The kids said that was their favourite show. They didn't see anything wrong with it. They knew the difference between right and wrong, what was real and w

Canadian Heritage committee  I was in broadcasting for more than 30 years.

Canadian Heritage committee  I was a journalist and then I was in management.

Canadian Heritage committee  It was for CTV. I was the station manager of CTV here in Ottawa in the 1980s and 1990s. As a parent, I was interested in the issue. There were not a lot of people stepping up to the plate to get involved on behalf of the industry. I thought it was important that whatever we do, w

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a black box that will appear at the top left-hand corner of your screen. It's square and there's a little bit of a maple leaf on one corner of the box, and the classification of the program will be in it. It's up for about 15 seconds at the beginning of any program that has

Canadian Heritage committee  There were a lot of questions in there. Let me just say, from the perspective of media literacy, that I was a founding director of the Media Awareness Network and a past chair. The approach of media literacy is that when your child is young, you teach them the rules of the stre

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, the CRTC would be the one that would best answer that, and you've already heard from them. I would just make an observation as a former broadcaster who spent the better part of 25 years at a local television station. When you're a local broadcaster, it's just not necessaril

Canadian Heritage committee  I would say that I don't have the ability to give you an informed opinion. It's the commission that has to make that decision, not me.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, the CRTC has been working on a complaint-based system ever since it got started. That was viewed as the regulatory approach that was going to be the most effective for the resources that were available.

Canadian Heritage committee  From my perspective, I would say yes. And perhaps just to talk a little bit more about what Shari mentioned earlier, back in the 1990s when we were dealing with the formation of the codes and the national hearings were being set up, the question arose of whether there should be

Canadian Heritage committee  I would say that the media awareness part of the puzzle is as successful as it has been able to be. The material the Media Awareness Network has been able to turn out on its website--and I urge all members of the committee to take a look at it--and the quality of the material tha

Canadian Heritage committee  I think sometimes parents just aren't aware of the effects of particular program elements on their kids. Parents today are very busy. The circumstance in most households is that both parents are working. They're harried, trying to keep up to speed with everything from homework to

Canadian Heritage committee  Broadcasters have been very good in their past support of the Media Awareness Network. There have been many instances, in terms of ownership changes and transfers and the benefits that flowed from those transactions, when the Media Awareness Network was listed as a beneficiary. I

Canadian Heritage committee  We haven't done any surveys in a long time, and I really can't give you a good answer. I would suspect, from the turnover in television sets, that probably between 75% and 80% of the sets today are V-chip equipped. How many parents are using it? We don't know. That would be res