The Federal Court of Appeal has overturned a previous decision made by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which penalized CBC Radio over a program that used the “N-word,” a racial slur. The decision issued by the Federal Court of Appeal on June 22 found that the CRTC, which regulates certain broadcasting content in…

Cabinet has reappointed Catherine Tait as president and CEO of CBC and Radio-Canada for just an 18-month term as Ottawa reassesses the public broadcaster’s mandate going forward in a shifting online “environment,” says Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Tait was appointed to a five-year term as CBC’s president in July 2018, but Rodriguez told reporters in Ottawa on…

In response to the federal government’s recently passed Online Streaming Act, Canada’s broadcast regulator is considering creating a public registry whereby certain online streaming services would need to be registered in order to operate in the country, according to a consultation document. The proposed public registry would allow the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to keep…

Canada’s broadcast regulator is considering implementing certain “requirements or incentives” that it says would help ensure streaming platforms promote Canadian and indigenous content both domestically and internationally, according to a consultation document. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced on May 12 that it was launching three consultations to receive public feedback on a number…

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has announced a policy that aims to increase cellphone competition for Canadian consumers. In a May 9 news release, the CRTV said it has “taken a major step forward” in advancing a policy to force large cellphone companies to share their networks with competitors. The policy was first…

Commentary The CRTC is best known as the Canadian content regulator. For the last half-century or so it has seen to it that Canadian productions, like “Anne of Green Gables,” and Canadian music artists were featured with sufficient regularity. (Those of us of a certain age would joke about having Anne Murray’s “Snowbird” seared into…

The fact that Canada’s broadcast regulator is holding public consultations on whether to ban Fox News, after receiving a complaint from an LGBTQ rights advocacy organization, is highly unusual, given that only one channel has been removed in recent years from the list of approved foreign broadcasters on Canadian cable television. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)…

A representative for the tech giant Meta said Monday that the company plans to block access to Canadian news content on its platforms if Parliament passes Bill C-18, which mandates that the company pay news publishers for hosting content. “Ultimately, this legislation puts Meta in an unfavourable situation. In order to comply, we have to…

Commentary Canada has become a country that  harbours a higher level of tolerance for Chinese communism than it does for American conservatism. That’s a conclusion that’s easy to draw from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) May 3 decision to act swiftly on a complaint from the LGBTQ2 advocacy group, Egale, which has asked…

Commentary The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) used to be a regulatory body established by the federal government. As of late, the CRTC has been acting as a state censorship body. That the CRTC is even considering banning the Fox News Network from Canadian distribution due to complaints from activist groups shows just how broad…