Too many English stations? Some Quebec politicians want control over radio and TV broadcasting

[Harold Schiffman]

Too many English stations?
Some Quebec politicians want control over radio and TV broadcasting

DON MACPHERSON
The Gazette


Tuesday, June 10, 2008


Does Quebec have too many radio and television stations? And if so,
which ones should be taken off the air? Those are some of the
questions raised by the growing support among political parties in
Quebec for provincial control over the licensing of broadcasters in
its territory. In February, the Quebec Liberal Party's policy
commission proposed that Quebec be given a veto over decisions of the
Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission affecting
the granting or renewal of radio licences in the province.
The proposal was submitted to the Liberal policy convention in March
but not considered there. It now is to be considered at a meeting of
the party's general council in September.

While the CRTC now is an independent authority, the proposal calls for
the Quebec government to appoint one-third of the CRTC commissioners
"who grant or renew radio licences for stations broadcasting on the
Quebec territory." These Quebec government representatives would "have
a veto right for all decisions exclusively pertaining to the Quebec
territory."  So the Quebec government could, say, prevent new
English-language radio stations from starting up or force existing
ones to shut down when their licences come up for renewal. Or it could
require English-language music stations to play the same proportion of
songs in French as their French-language competitors.

The Parti Québécois would go farther, giving the province control over
the licensing of television as well as radio stations while it is
still part of Canada. In fact, the PQ platform adopted in March, which
suspended the party's commitment to hold another sovereignty
referendum, calls for Ottawa to hand over to the province all "powers
and budgets" over communications, culture and language.
So the Quebec government would have control over not only the
licensing of English-language stations but also the funds allocated by
the CBC for its English-language network in the province.

And on the weekend, the PQ's federal ally, the Bloc Québécois,
reiterated its call for the CRTC to be replaced in Quebec by a new
provincial authority, the CQRT. In May, the Bloc introduced a bill in
the House of Commons to amend the Broadcasting Act to allow the
federal government to delegate regulatory power over broadcasting
within its boundaries to any province that requests it.
When it introduced its bill, the Bloc said in an explanatory statement
that its proposed CQRT "would be a body independent from the Quebec
government and would have its own regulation related to the interests
and concerns of the Québécois nation.

"With a CQRT, Quebec could by itself grant operating licences, modify
them and renew them, or not." But the provincial CQRT that would thus
be created would be different from the federal CRTC. It might not be
as independent from government. When the Bloc announced its bill, Bloc
MP Maria Mourani said that if Quebec controlled the licensing of
broadcasters, "the Quebec government would not hesitate to issue the
necessary instructions" to the French-language TQS network to maintain
its news service.

The prospective new owners of the money-losing network want to
eliminate the service. But the CRTC, which must approve their purchase
of TQS, has told them to come up with a proposal to maintain it. That
is, the CRTC has already done what the Bloc wants its Quebec
replacement to do. And for Quebec, the Bloc's bill would do away with
existing explicit protection for English-language broadcasting. The
Broadcasting Act now says the Canadian broadcasting system should
reflect the "linguistic duality" of Canadian society. The Bloc's bill
says that in Quebec, the system should reflect "the distinct character
of Quebec society, its values, history, culture and language."

So the questions remain, for the Bloc and the other parties calling
for Quebec control over the licensing of broadcasters: Should any
stations be closed? And if so, which ones?

dmacpher at thegazette.canwest.com
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=2f337eb7-6884-4948-ae02-3d297978f498

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