The federal government has chosen to not endorse the Heritage Committee’s report on CBC/Radio-Canada.

The CBC, needless to say, isn’t thrilled. “We are disappointed that the Government has not endorsed the Committee’s unanimous recommendations, said Hubert T. Lacroix, President of CBC/Radio-Canada. “The report is a blueprint for developing the future goals of public broadcasting in Canada.”

“The MOU would provide Canadians with a clear understanding of the future course of their public broadcaster and the resources necessary to provide the services they require.” Lacroix said. “In addition, the MOU improves the Corporation’s governance by enabling us to plan our activities and services over more than 12 months and thereby make more efficient use of our resources.”

Governments around the world have recognized the importance of developing clear strategic directions for their national public broadcasters in multi-year agreements. The Heritage Committee’s proposal for a seven-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) offers the same accountability.

The CBC noted that, given its current resources, the Corporation is facing some “critical choices” about its future directions.

	5 Comments »	See also: Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 9:24 am (20 Jun 2008)

The CBC should reconsider the closure of the CBC Radio Orchestra, according to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

The 32-page report is worded gently, as the Committee acknowledges that the CBC has journalistic, creative, and programming independence. In other words, the government can’t tell the CBC what to do, only “suggest” it.

The report contains 9 recommendation/conclusions:”The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage…”

• reaffirms its recommendation that the Government of Canada commit to stable, multi-year funding for CBC/Radio-Canada, indexed to the cost of living. Funding should be for a period of not less than seven years and be established by means of a proposed memorandum of understanding.
• recognizes that under the Broadcasting Act, 1991, CBC/Radio-Canada enjoys journalistic, creative, and programming independence.
• is encouraged that CBC/Radio-Canada has reaffirmed its commitment that classical music will continue to have a central place in CBC Radio 2 programming.
• is encouraged that CBC/Radio-Canada has reaffirmed the development of other genres of music in order to reflect the diversity of Canada.
• concludes that CBC/Radio Canada should explore creative ways to acquire a third over-the-air CBC/Radio-Canada network to allow greater opportunities to better focus the broadcast of all genres of Canadian music, including classical, jazz, folk, world, and roots music.
• is convinced that CBC/Radio-Canada’s stated commitment to the continuation of classical music as a central part of CBC radio programming is intricately linked with the continuation of the CBC Radio Orchestra as a vehicle for emerging Canadian talent.
• recognizes with appreciation the long and illustrious history of the CBC Radio Orchestra and its role in the promotion of Canadian classical music and the development of Canadian composers, musicians and conductors. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage further recognizes the specific contribution of the CBC Radio Orchestra to the cultural life of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia where it has been based.
• notes the particular role of a radio orchestra and, while not directing any specific outcome or action, concludes that the board of directors of CBC/Radio-Canada and CBC/Radio-Canada management should review the decision to disband the CBC Radio Orchestra.
• is convinced that meaningful consultation with Canadians, musicians, music organizations, and communities representing various musical genres would improve CBC’s decision making with regard to changes in radio programming.
• concludes that the cancellation of the young composers and young performers competitions has negatively impacted the ability of young emerging Canadian classical musicians and composers from showcasing their music to the public.

	6 Comments »	See also: Changes to CBC Radio Two, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 11:29 am (19 Jun 2008)

The House of Commons standing committee on Canadian heritage will be holding hearings on proposed changes to CBC Radio 2.

Beginning Labour Day, Radio 2 will offer what the CBC describes as “a broader, richer spectrum of music,” with less classical and more diverse music.

CBC also has decided to disband the CBC Radio Orchestra, the last radio orchestra in existence in North America, to free up the funding for projects.

Committee member and NDP heritage critic Bill Siksay brought forward the motion to hold hearings.

“I’m concerned that the commitment to classical music in Canada is a key part of the Canadian culture. CBC Radio 2 has been a key player in classical music,” Siksay told CBC News.

More at CBCnews.ca

	8 Comments »	See also: Changes to CBC Radio Two, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 9:26 pm (10 May 2008)

CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix spoke to Parliament’s Heritage Committee Thursday afternoon. I was recording the speech on my computer as it streamed but, uh, I ran out of hard disk space. <sigh>

Never mind. The federal government probably would have asked me to take down video of the committee hearing.

(UPDATE: As Mike mentioned in his comment, the Heritage Committee has now posted the video online.)

After the jump, the text of his speech.

Relax, enjoy, and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

[Read more →]

	6 Comments »	See also: Executives, Our Mandate, Parliament, Programming
	Email this	Posted at 8:15 pm (01 May 2008)

Today at 3:30 p.m. ET, CBC President Hubert T. Lacroix will be appearing before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, his first appearance since starting as President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada in January.

Lacroix, who will be accompanied by Richard Stursberg and Sylvain Lafrance, will address the Committee’s recent review of the CBC/Radio-Canada mandate, highlight some of his priorities for the Corporation, and reiterate the call for a seven-year Memorandum of Understanding with Canadians that would define CBC/Radio-Canada’s role in the evolving media landscape. His address will be followed by a question and answer period.

The proceedings will be webcast here.

	Add Comment »	See also: Board of Directors, Executives, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 10:07 am (01 May 2008)

Officials with the federal Conservative party banned the CBC from attending a government media briefing to discuss the recent charge by Elections Canada that the Conservative party overspent their campaign spending limit by more than $1 million.

Both CBC News and the Canadian Press obtained a copy of the documents before they were released Monday by an Ontario court.

Other media, including the Toronto Star and CTVglobemedia, received the documents in a private briefing from the Conservatives last week in Ottawa, the CBC’s Keith Boag reported.

When other media organizations, including the CBC, learned of the meeting, party officials scrambled to avoid them, switching hotels, slamming doors and scampering down fire exits to escape pointed questions from journalists who weren’t invited.

Boag said CBC News asked to attend the briefings, but was rejected and told by party spokesman Ryan Sparrow that it was a “private meeting.”

Reporters from the Canadian Press, Maclean’s magazine and Canwest Global Communications Corp., along with others, were also excluded.

Giving some reporters a briefing before Monday’s court release of the warrant gives the party a chance to shape the story, but it also creates the impression that the Conservatives need to spin it, Boag said.

– story and photo from CBCnews.ca

	8 Comments »	See also: Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 1:58 pm (26 Apr 2008)

Late last week, the federal government appointed three new members to the CBC Board of Directors. Two of the three have strong ties to the Conservative party:

• Mary McNeil is a fundraiser and charity executive by profession. Earlier this year, she was hand-picked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to compete for the candidacy in a wealthy Vancouver riding. (She said she’d never favoured any party, but acknowledged her whole family were Conservative party supporters.) She lost the bid to a business professor.
• Brian Mitchell, lawyer #1, sits on a number of other boards in Montreal. He is a former member of the Conservative National Council. He once ran against Joe Clark for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party, then ran unsuccessfully in for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Until the CBC appointment, he has served on the Conservative Party’s national council.
• Linda Black, lawyer #2, has been a senior executive in a variety of government roles — most recently in a provincial Labour Relations ministry. She’s currently a lawyer with a legal review board.

Opposition MPs claimed the appointments to the CBC Board were part of a larger strategy to fill vacancies on federal Boards in advance of a possible federal election. (Along with 15 judicial appointments, people were appointed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the CRTC, the Bank of Canada, the National Welfare Council, the Canada Race Relations Foundation and others.)

The appointments were made without the supervision of the federal appointments commission that Prime Minister Harper had promised during the last election campaign.

Also related to broadcasting, CTV reporter Marc Patrone, a former Conservative candidate, was named as a CRTC commissioner. The Globe and Mail says the job pays $126,200 to $148,500 a year.

However, respected Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor did a study in 2005 and discovered that 85% of political contributions from CBC board members went to the Liberal party.

	14 Comments »	See also: Board of Directors, Parliament, The CRTC
	Email this	Posted at 12:17 pm (26 Feb 2008)

Well, it’s begun.

Federal politicians started meeting this morning to develop a report for the Heritage committee on the future role and mandate of the CBC.

The CBC is currently operating under the mandate approved by Parliament sixteen years ago. That Act tells the CBC it should provide programming that:

• Is predominantly and distinctively Canadian.
• Reflects Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions.
• Actively contributes to the flow and exchange of cultural expression.
• Is in English and French, reflecting the different needs and circumstances of each official language community.
• Strives to be of equivalent quality in English and French.
• Contributes to shared national consciousness and identity.
• Is available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose.
• Reflects the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada.

Why does it need changing? Partly because of the large-scale changes in media technology, the Internet, media concentration, and so on. The world is pretty different today than it was in 1991, when the Broadcasting Act was passed.

The Toronto Star says it believes several major questions are on the minds of politicians through this process:

First, should CBC television focus all its energy on trying to win large audiences as Richard Stursberg, the current executive director of English programming, believes? Last year, he cancelled a raft of Canadian drama shows because he didn’t believe their ratings were high enough and veered away from public broadcasting with a series of reality shows and lusty dramas such as The Tudors, a co-production with Ireland about the life of Henry VIII. Such shows draw bigger audiences and ad dollars but tell Canadians little, if anything, about themselves.

Second, should it stick with part of its mandate by running programs like the Royal Winnipeg Ballet even though they are ratings disasters?

Third, how much money should Ottawa give to the CBC? Now, the broadcaster gets $950 million a year from the government. Another $550 million comes from advertising and other revenues. The amount of tax money is substantial, but Ottawa’s grant has fallen by 20 per cent in the past 15 years when inflation is taken into account. Indeed, only the United States and New Zealand give less government money per person to their national public broadcasters.

Fourth, is a public television broadcaster needed any longer now that private broadcasters, although dominated by foreign content, produce some popular Canadian shows such as CTV’s Corner Gas?

The Star noted that the Commons committee will likely study a 2006 Senate report that recommended “CBC Television should be more like CBC Radio, focusing on high-quality news and information programming, services not available on other stations and better regional programming.”

What do you think about the current mandate? Would you like to see changes?

NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS: This post/thread is about changes to the mandate. Not about how the CBC should be shut down, etc. The usual “I hate the CBC” comments will not be approved.

	12 Comments »	See also: Our Mandate, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 11:50 am (20 Nov 2007)

Montreal media lawyer Hubert Lacroix will replace Robert Rabinovitch as president and chief executive officer of CBC/Radio-Canada.

Lacroix does have a bit of broadcast experience, having worked for Radio-Canada as a commentator for basketball during the Olympic Games in 1984, 1988 and 1996. He was also a contributor to the Saturday evening sports show Hebdo-Sports on Radio-Canada, where he reported mainly on amateur sports.

The appointment was made by the Prime Minister’s office.

	8 Comments »	See also: Executives, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 2:45 pm (05 Nov 2007)

On September 1, CBC/Radio-Canada will be subject to federal legislation that provides a right of access to all records held by the Corporation.

Lots of staffers have asked how this affects their day-to-day work and two PDF documents were distributed today with tips on how to operate within the legislation. In case your workstation has trouble with PDF files, here’s the information.

.

The information we work with every day falls primarily into the following two categories of records: “business records” and “transitory records.”

Business Records
If you’re wondering whether a particular record is a business record, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the record document the delivery of a program or service?
• Is this a record of why or how a decision or action was taken?
• Does the record involve financial and/or legal matters?
• Does the record have policy, program and/or procedure implications?
• Could this record have historical value?

If you answered, “yes” to any of the above questions, then you should consider your record a business one and maintain it according to the corporate records retention schedule.

Examples of business records:

• All final briefings, reports, studies, surveys, and similarly received or collected material.
• All letters and memoranda that meet the criteria described above, including electronic messages and /or documents for which no paper copies have been produced.
• All substantive versions of a document, when they clearly demonstrate the document’s evolution, the decision-making process, or the development of policy and legislation.
• Copies of documents that have already been sent to the official departmental file, if the documents contain substantive annotations.

Managing Your Records

1. Be informed: identify business records.

A record means “…any documentary material, regardless of medium or form.” The term is interpreted very broadly and includes paper files, electronic files, e-mail messages. It can also refer to notes, plans, maps, drawings, diagrams, pictorials or graphic work, photographs, film, microform, sound recordings, videotapes, machine-readable record, and any other documentary material.

For more information on the difference between business records and transitory records, see the Tip Sheet on Business and transitory records.

2. Be aware: identify transitory records, non-business and personal information.

Transitory records are usually made up of working copies of documents, handwritten notes, FYI emails, telephone messages, etc. Much of this information does not need to be retained after it has served its usefulness to you. If you decide to keep transitory information, including non-business and personal records saved on the Corporation’s servers, remember that it must be submitted to the ATIP Office if it is relevant to an access request.

3. Be proactive: create records with the expectation that they may be disclosed.

Stick to the facts; leave out unnecessary information. Record only the information that is needed to accomplish a task or meet a business requirement. Don’t assume that, just because an exemption or exclusion could apply, that one will be applied to your record.

Keep in mind that most email messages on CBC/Radio-Canada servers are corporate records; keep them brief and maintain a business tone. Email messages that contain actions or decisions should be retained with ATI in mind; they should be easily accessible if required.

4. Be objective: keep your records factual and objective.

Keep minutes and other formal records of proceedings factual. Record the decisions taken and tasks resulting from deliberations. Avoid unnecessary detail. State your views, comments and opinions as objectively as possible. Keep in mind that an individual can make a request to access their personal information, which can include the views or opinions of another person about the individual.

	4 Comments »	See also: Legal, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 11:42 am (23 Aug 2007)

Moments ago, Josée Verner was sworn in as minister of Canadian heritage. She replaces Bev Oda. The Heritage ministry has strong influence over the CBC.

A member of the provincial Action démocratique du Québec and the federal Conservative Party of Canada, Verner also once worked as a political staffer in Quebec City in the Robert Bourassa government. Verner has spent almost 20 years in the communications and public service fields.

She was a candidate for the Conservatives in the 2004 federal election and finished second with 31% of the vote, the party’s best Quebec showing, in a three-way race that was won by the Bloc Québécois’s Bernard Cleary. This was contrasted with her victory in a two-way race in 2006.

Looking to boost the party’s profile in Quebec, and hoping to make Verner a viable candidate in future elections, Conservative leader Stephen Harper took the unusual step of naming Verner to the opposition shadow cabinet even though she was not a Member of Parliament. She served as critic for the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec and the Minister responsible for La Francophonie, both posts then held by fellow Quebecker Jacques Saada. She was also appointed chair of the Quebec Conservative caucus which at the time was made up of herself and Conservative senators.

She is also one of the most socially liberal members of the Conservative caucus. For example, she supports same-sex marriage.

Verner, 48, was first elected as a Member of Parliament in January 2006, from the riding of Louis-St-Laurent. Last year, she was appointed as the Minister of International Co-operation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages in Prime Minister Harper’s cabinet.

In addition to being the chair of the Québec Caucus for the Conservative Party of Canada, in June 2004, she was named the spokesperson for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Québec in Mr. Harper’s shadow cabinet. This was widened to also include the Official Languages portfolio in September 2005.

She is married with three children.

Bev Oda assumes Verner’s former portfolio of “International Cooperation.”

Sources:

• Wikipedia entry
• Government bio
• Verner’s official web site

	24 Comments »	See also: Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 3:02 pm (14 Aug 2007)

The NDP’s culture critic Charlie Angus has called on CBC Chairman Timothy Casgrain to remove Tom Long from any involvement in the search for a new CBC President and head of news.

“Mr. Long is a Conservative insider with ties that go all the way to PMO communications director, Sandra Buckler,” said Angus. “This is just another way for Harper to control media content. We are hoping that Mr. Casgrain will recognize this clear conflict of interest and remove Tom Long from participating in any way in the process.”

A CBC spokesperson last week told reporters that the CBC is not involved in the hiring process, as it falls within the responsibility of Parliament.

Angus raised the issue of Long’s involvement last week, after an internal memo went out to CBC staff advising them to send their application for the open position to him. The NDP MP sent a letter to Casgrain on Thursday asking him to “do everything in his power as chair of the institution to remove any doubt in Canadians’ minds that the search is above reproach,” according to a NDP release.

“The CBC is a public institution whose newsroom cannot afford to be tainted with the perception of political interference,” said Angus. “And Long’s involvement is akin to sugar in a gas tank.”

	18 Comments »	See also: Board of Directors, Parliament
	Email this	Posted at 11:36 am (10 Aug 2007)