Canadian Heritage committee  I think we're looking at an act that was devised basically beginning in 1985, before the Internet had become more than a gleam in Al Gore's eye. At that time, the idea was that transmissions were coming from the United States, even from Mexico, and Parliament wanted to ensure tha

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, but....

Canadian Heritage committee  No, because it has decided to exempt online broadcasting from regulation. Having decided to exempt, it's asserted its jurisdiction. It does have jurisdiction over broadcasting online. That's not to say that it has jurisdiction over the entire Internet, just broadcasting.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not prepared to speak to each of those sections in detail. What I am prepared to say is that, from my perspective, Bill C-11 attempts to clearly regulate broadcasters, not individual users. There's a distinction. It is able to regulate broadcasters that carry content provided

Canadian Heritage committee  No, I don't think it would. First of all, I have a great deal of admiration for the legal minds at the commission. If it really wants to do something, it will find a way. The second point is that the commission has already, essentially, regulated users of the broadcasting system

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll try to be brief. I think it would be critical, first of all, for the commission to report annually on how it is actually implementing subsection 3(1), and also section 5. If we don't know how it is doing its job, we're unable to put pressure on the commission to actually ch

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Waugh. In terms of the CBC decision, it's bizarre that it's taking this long. I have no reason to explain it. I should tell you that, having worked at the commission, I admire so many of the commission staff working under difficult times, especial

Canadian Heritage committee  I think it's likely that you'll see continuing delays. The CRTC has had its resources increased over the last 10 years. That's true. On the other hand, delays have simply increased in the last 10 years in terms of licensing decisions. You're probably familiar with the CBC coming

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for inviting the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications to appear today. We undertake empirical and policy research in communications and participate in a range of CRTC proceedings. The forum strongly agrees that Canada needs a new st

Canadian Heritage committee  It's easy to look back on the 1980s and say, “Weren't those times wonderful?” Well, they weren't wonderful if you were a private radio broadcaster and you had to complete a detailed analysis of hundreds of program elements. That wasn't good. What was good is that if you look at t

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you again for inviting us.

Canadian Heritage committee  In fact, one of the great promises of concentrated ownership or consolidated ownership was precisely to save resources so that you could spend more on programming. That's the conundrum we're at. When concentration began in the early 1990s, it was always with the commitment to do

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the question came up in the idea of what we can do going forward. I mean, we're here now. I think if I were a major shareholder in Bell, I'd be really upset at the notion that the commission could come in arbitrarily and say that Bell couldn't have half of those licences

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not aware at this time of any research that would establish that there's any other country doing a particularly better job than Canada. On the other hand, Canada has always been uniquely positioned because of its proximity to the United States. That was the genesis of the ear

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm going to wrap up: it matters.