Last week, an article in the Toronto Star suggested that the CRTC was biased in discouraging the participation of public interest groups in its over-the-top fact-finding exercise (B&TNC 2011-344). The author based this charge on the CRTC’s refusal to consider this consultation to be a proceeding for the purposes of applications for reimbursement of costs.
Konrad von Finckenstein, the chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, was asked at an industry conference about the role of consumer groups in telecom regulation. He responded that consumer groups generally do not have a problem ensuring their views are heard, but that their effectiveness depended upon getting organized and developing the necessary knowledge and expertise to fully participate in regulatory proceedings.
Yet just as von Finckenstein was providing assurances to the consumer community, the CRTC was erecting barriers to their participation in a consultation on online video services such as Netflix and AppleTV. In fact, the consultation (labeled a “fact-finding exercise”) has been marred by charges of CRTC bias that has led at least one consumer group to pull out altogether.
Of course, the author should have recalled that there was a $3M fund established in March for precisely this kind of purpose, when the CRTC approved the CTV change in control (Decision 2011-163).
Canadian Broadcasting Participation Fund ($3 million)
- Independently administered fund that will focus its activities on the representation of the interests of non-commercial consumers of broadcasting services regulated by the Commission across Canada and in both official languages
- The fund will provide assistance with the representation, research and advocacy of those interests.
As described in that decision, the fund was PIAC’s idea!
47. PIAC submitted a proposal for an independent fund to represent non-commercial consumer interests before the Commission in its broadcasting proceedings.
Why wouldn’t PIAC draw from this fund in order to fully participate in proceedings such as this?