Canadian Heritage committee  I haven't fleshed it out yet, but the idea of a Canadian Communication Corporation has a nice ring to it. It's this idea of using the postal system as a general purpose delivery network. That was the case with the United States post office from its inception in 1792 all the way

Canadian Heritage committee  I think we have quite a few tools in the tool box right now, so we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We need to use what we have more effectively. Look at the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act, for example. I think they're actually quite usable. There are sections

Canadian Heritage committee  To me the biggest problem now is trying to figure out how we extricate ourselves from the problems that have been created through excessive media consolidation and vertical integration. In the years ahead we need to adopt solutions that will allow us to minimize the structural pr

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm sorry, of...?

Canadian Heritage committee  I think I spent much of my presentation trying to lay that out, and so I'm not quite sure if I can do much more of a job. What I'm trying to suggest is that the levels of concentration have become significantly higher in a number of sectors across the media as a whole, relative

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not quite sure what more evidence you could want.

Canadian Heritage committee  I agree that we need to extend universal service with respect to high-speed Internet. I filed a significant submission with CRTC on its review of this issue. I'm going to say something right now that may sound a little bit out there. Going back to the post and the delivery of ne

Canadian Heritage committee  When I say that we should have a kind of general media and cultural content support fund, I see using it to take advantage of what some people call Hollywood North, the idea that we have a lot of skilled labour in this country from the film and television business who have been p

Canadian Heritage committee  There are three things. One is the general content fund, the amalgamation of all the disparate funds into one general content fund. Get it out of the hands of the existing industry. Raise the money for it through general taxation, as opposed to siphoning funds from one pocket t

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. The four that I lay out are, first, those who think that the sky is falling continuously, the Cassandras, who say that media concentration is bad, it's going from bad to worse, and democracy is on edge basically forever. That has been going on since I started studying, so

Canadian Heritage committee  I would agree with Mr. Demers on that point for sure. Whether the thing comes in a delivery van, by Uber, or by whatever means, people really don't care. They are quite willing to connect their laptop to a Wi-Fi connection as they lie in bed at night or to flip through their cell

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll start by saying I'm very, very sceptical of subsidies. The idea, to my mind, of putting any kind of a tax on Internet service providers or the pipes' owners to fund content is a non-starter, and should be a non-starter. It should be stillborn. Part of the problem with the C

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. In Internet access in Canada, 92% is controlled by either the cable company or the telephone companies in cities across this country. Internet advertising is very highly concentrated. Social networking sites are extremely concentrated. Mobile wireless is also extremely con

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for having me here today. It's a pleasure to come to talk to you about the state of the media landscape here in Canada, with some focus on the issue of media concentration. I have four ideas that I want to share with y