By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A group of six public interest groups is asking the CRTC to expedite the payment of money owed to the Broadcasting Participation Fund from the commission’s approval of Rogers’s acquisition of Shaw’s broadcasting assets.
The group, which includes the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, filed a Part 1 application Monday urging the commission to amend a stipulation requiring Rogers pay the fund – which bankrolls public interest group participation in broadcast hearings – $725,439 in equal amounts over three years.
The application asks that the commission force Rogers to pay the full amount on or before September 1, 2023, citing a dire lack of funding remaining with the BPF. The application notes a lack of a starting year for the disbursement to the fund. (When the commission approved the broadcasting side of the deal, there was still uncertainty surrounding when the deal would close. It closed earlier this month after the federal government approved it.)
“Reimbursing the costs of civil-society organizations…to participate in CRTC broadcasting matters has meant that its proceedings include a greater range of arguments, evidence such as surveys and recommendations that reflect Canadians’ interests and concerns,” the group said in a press release.
The board of the BPF said last week that the fund, which was ordered created by the CRTC in 2011, had only $330,000 to its name at the beginning of the year – a fraction of the more than $700,000 it said is required to operate in a busy year.
The fund said it has had to previously defer payments by 25 per cent because of shortfalls, the most recent reduction coming this month. It said if the shortfall is not addressed, it may have to cease operations either temporarily or permanently this year.
The fund noted that the roughly $240,000 expected for this year from the Rogers-Shaw deal will be insufficient to support requests of the fund, with the remaining funds not being enough for the two years after that. The impending expansion of the CRTC’s mandate to require foreign streamers and platforms to contribute to Canadian content and news with the passing of two bills will further engage the public interest, the board noted.
The Part 1 application is also backed by Option Consommateurs, the Consumers’ Association of Canada (Manitoba), the Union des Consommateurs, and the Consumers Council of Canada.
Two years ago, the CRTC declined an application by PIAC and the FRPC asking it to launch a proceeding into the sustainability of the fund.
