News Room Letters

Letter to Conservative Leader re: Policy Briefing Note for Candidates

June 14, 2004

The Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Leader of the Conservative Party
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Dear Mr. Harper:

We write to draw to your personal attention our profound concern with three elements in your Policy Briefing Note for Candidates, April 2nd, 2004:

foreign ownership of telecom and broadcast distribution;
the role of the CRTC; and
satellite broadcasting.

We believe that these measures would have the no-doubt unintended effect of placing in jeopardy Canada’s cultural and communications sovereignty and ultimately, our existence as an independent country.

In the June 5th Conservative Party platform document Demanding Better, you have pledged to “enhance our NAFTA relationship with the United States by moving towards harmonized tariffs, eliminating rules of origin, and moving beyond trade to pursue enhanced common labour, environmental and security standards.”

In view of the importance of this policy to your Party’s goals, we would like you to consider the results of a May 2004 public opinion poll. Ipsos-Reid asked a random sample of 1,100 Canadians to indicate agreement or disagreement with the following statement: “As Canada’s economic ties with the United States increase, it is becoming more important to strengthen Canadian culture and identity”:

59% percent of Canadians strongly agreed;
28% somewhat agreed;
8% somewhat disagreed; and
4% strongly disagreed.

Please consider the implications of this overwhelming public sentiment in favour of cultural sovereignty and a distinct Canadian identity. Specifically, we call on you to re-visit the following three policy positions outlined in the April 2nd Policy Briefing Note.

1. Foreign Ownership of Telecom and Broadcast Distribution

“The Conservative Party supports relaxing foreign ownership rules on Canadian industry in concert with our major trading partners in the telecommunications, broadcasting distribution, and airline industry. We will conduct an immediate review to determine whether to reduce or completely remove these rules.”

We believe that maintaining effective Canadian ownership and control of media and communications sustain our independence. This view is widely held in Canada. In its May 2004 poll, Ipsos-Reid asked Canadians: “As you may know, there has been some discussion about foreign ownership in the communications and broadcasting system in Canada. Generally speaking, what is your reaction to foreign ownership in (rotate) telephone companies, cable companies and media companies?” Two-thirds of Canadians responded somewhat or very unfavourably to foreign control.

2. CRTC

“The Conservative Party supports the restructuring of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, reducing its mandate to registration and/or marketing and bandwidth and to dealing with the international communications negotiations.”

Since the dawn of the audio-visual age, it has always been less expensive for Canadian broadcasters to rent American shows than to produce Canadian shows. In a market-driven broadcast environment, Canadian content can therefore never compete on a level playing field. Ending the CRTC’s mandate to ensure a minimum amount of Canadian content will inevitably lead to:

less shelf-space for Canada on our screens;
severe damage to Canada’s broadcasting industries; and
weakened protection of consumers and small and medium enterprises from abuse by dominant providers.

3. Satellite Broadcasting

“The Conservative Party believes a sound Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite policy represents an opportunity to support Canadians’ ability to develop an international market for their programs. Our approach would be to negotiate a reciprocity agreement with the United States to create an open market in the licensing of televisions satellite distribution. This agreement would make Canadian programming available in the United States and allow foreign programming to be available here in Canada for the free choice and benefit of all Canadians.”

As Canada’s market share in North America is only 9%, the effect of this policy would be to destroy the Canadian satellite distribution system and thereby diminish our capacity to tell Canadian stories.

Recommendation:

In view of these concerns, we respectfully call upon you to revisit these three policy positions. Canadians' willingness to embrace a closer economic relationship with the United States will increase if we balance that with strong measures to ensure our cultural and communications sovereignty.

Yours sincerely,

Pauline Couture
Daryl Duke
Noreen Golfman
Michael Ignatieff
Hon. Walter McLean
Ian Morrison
Gordon Pinsent
Veronica Tennant
R. H. Thomson

(on behalf of the FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting)