Canadian Heritage committee  The reality is that, if we aren't enshrined in this act, we won't have the protections to keep doing what we're doing. Communities will be deprived of multilingual programming. Immigrant communities will not be able to see themselves reflected in the broadcasts. We're going to ha

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll just reference what Commissioner Scott mentioned. The reality is that tangible benefits are going down. Canadian content development dollars are really what fund community radio. As there are fewer transactions, there are fewer dollars. The reality is that if something isn'

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a critical role. Without the local voice, we've seen the void filled by Facebook and conspiracy theories. Nobody knows where that information is coming from. We provide on-the-ground journalists and hosts and broadcasters who see their constituents and see the people they sp

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Champoux. I'd say that the community stations in Quebec and outside Quebec constitute a major part of the distribution of original French-language music. I just want to add to what Mr. Payette said by pointing out that supporting our stations is a way of introduci

Canadian Heritage committee  Again, for the same reason. We need people at the CRTC who know what's going on with community radio and who have the expertise to speak about our interests. I understand that there isn't any public or private radio commissioner. It would be wonderful to have a commissioner who

Canadian Heritage committee  From our perspective, the most important thing is recognition within the act. Right now, when the conversation happens around the Broadcasting Act, there are three pillars: commercial, public and community broadcasting. Unfortunately, in that conversation, community broadcasting

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a definition of what we do. It's a recognition that we play a critical role in terms of promoting multilingualism and a variety of different aspects of the Broadcasting Act. There are a number of important goals set out in C-10 that we support wholeheartedly, such as the inc

Canadian Heritage committee  It's sponsorship and some level of advertising. There's no question that we support small and medium enterprise advertising in many ways. We offer to these local businesses the ability to communicate with their constituencies at a fraction of the cost of commercial broadcasters,

Canadian Heritage committee  I'd like to take an opportunity to highlight the local journalism initiative, which is the first federal program to recognize community-owned and -operated media. For an investment of just $1.6 million, our members have extended high-quality civic news coverage to almost 60 commu

Canadian Heritage committee  My name is Alex Freedman, and I am the executive director of the Community Radio Fund of Canada. We collaborate with all three community radio associations, and with us in CACTUS there are about 250 member radio and television stations. Together we're speaking with the same voice

Canadian Heritage committee  We also employ more than 1,000 staff members across the country; we provide media training to 20,000 volunteers; we broadcast in as many as 80 different languages, including 20 different indigenous languages; and we produce more than a million hours of local, Canadian-produced co