Source : Canadian Press

TORONTO (CP) - Declaring the Canadian broadcasting industry to be at "a critical juncture" in its history, the federal government Monday laid out a widespread plan designed to maintain a world-class system, effectively owned and controlled by Canadians and serving their needs first and foremost.

In Ottawa, Heritage Minister Lisa Frulla tabled in Parliament an official response to last year's committee report Our Cultural Sovereignty, an 872-page document that contained 98 recommendations following an intensive 18-month study.

Among the pledges in the response:

-Limits on foreign ownership of Canadian broadcasting operations, including cable and satellite carriers, will be held at the current level of 46.7 per cent.

"You can't separate the carriers from the content in broadcasting," said Frulla in an interview. "They did not make a case to make us change our minds."

-The CRTC will be directed to increase efforts to ensure Canadians in smaller communities have access to local and regional news and public affairs programs.

-The CRTC is to systematically review its regulatory policies and prepare annual reports to the government. The government will also consider whether monetary penalties should be added to the regulatory body's arsenal to ensure compliance with broadcast regulations.

-Further improvements are promised to the Canadian Television Fund, the mix of public and private monies that supports home-grown programming.

-The CBC will see a return of its protected special envelope within the Canadian Television Fund but the size of that envelope wasn't immediately clear.

-The removal of impediments to the migration to digital radio and television broadcasting, including inviting the CBC, which has lagged behind the private sector in the move to High Definition telecasting, to submit a fully costed transition plan. Private broadcasters are also to be encouraged to accelerate their migration plans.

"Canadians have every reason to be proud of a broadcasting system that has served them well for decades," Frulla said from Ottawa. "In this age of globalization and continuing technological change, our goal is to ensure that the system will continue to offer Canadians a wide choice of programming."

The minister emphasized that she was not allowed at this time to attach any dollar figures to her commitments.

"When you answer a committee you cannot put any financial objectives in it because this has to be discussed within a budget perspective," she said. "The response is a framework."

Ian Morrison, spokesman for the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, says this is the most substantive attention paid to broadcasting policy by any government since Brian Mulroney was prime minister.

"There are some gaps but I'd certainly give it a B," Morrison said. "The strength is they have dealt with a lot of issues."

The so-called Lincoln Report, named after heritage committee chairman, Liberal MP Clifford Lincoln, was tabled last June. While many of its key recommendations were addressed, others were not, including calls for an end to political patronage appointments to the CBC board and the CRTC, and a demand to help English-language TV drama by, among other things, overhauling the 1999 CRTC policy change that relaxed the definition of Canadian drama content.

So far, many in the industry are disappointed, especially at the lack of any action to redefine Canadian content.

"Canadian culture is the victim of the Martin government's policy of 'dithering,'" says Peter Murdoch, vice-president for media of the CEP, a union that represents thousands of industry workers. "The government has all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of Canadian TV drama."

Stephen Waddell, national executive director of ACTRA, the actors' union, was also upset at the lack of any moves to reverse the 1999 CRTC policy, known as the "trust us" policy because it allowed private broadcasters so much leeway in defining Canadian content.

"This government is dragging its feet on taking meaningful steps to address this critical issue."

Frulla, however, stressed that the CRTC was being asked to "systematically" review all of its policies, including that one. As for the patronage issue, she agreed that the boards should comprise the best and brightest.

"We're trying and what we're doing, we're consulting to make sure that those that are nominated are really accepted by the board of the CRTC and also by the general milieu to make sure that we have the best expertise possible."

Arthur Lewis of the watchdog group Our Public Airwaves said the statement was overly vague and full of platitudes.

"I can see nothing positive and a lot of negative for CBC," said Lewis. "Liza Frulla has nothing to be proud of today."

In the first sweeping look at Canada's broadcasting world since the 1970s, the Lincoln committee began its hearings in the fall of 2001. When the report was tabled last year, it joined several smaller ones on similar themes, including one prepared for the CRTC by broadcaster Trina McQueen, the Macerola report on Canadian content and yet another by the Coalition of Canadian Audio-Visual Unions (CCAU), the one that declared Canadian TV drama to be in a state of crisis.

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- "Clearly we cannot afford to sit by and watch passively. We must embrace new ways of doing things, new ways to push the boundaries of our past achievements." - The federal government response to the Lincoln Report.

- "Unfortunately, it seems as though the government isn't willing to take the leadership required to ensure a strong Canadian voice and presence on our television screens." - Pamela Brand of the Directors Guild of Canada.

- "Their refusal to act decisively and demand that broadcasters offer programs that reflect Canadian values, interests and humour, squanders an opportunity to unite us as a nation." - Maureen Parker of the Writers Guild of Canada.

- "Overall, it's a substantive document, it is a policy framework, and she's only been minister since the end of July, and in a minority government." - Ian Morrison of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

- "A lot of it's reading the tea leaves between the lines but the stuff on regional programming, certainly the way it's phrased, looks like a rejection of the CBC on that one." - Arthur Lewis of the watchdog group Our Public Airwaves.

© Canadian Press

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