OTTAWA – Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame has announced that Omer Girard, a founding father of Canadian cable television, is the 2012 recipient of the coveted Neotelis Canadian Telecom Career Service Award for material contributions to the promotion of telecommunications in Canada. Girard, soon to celebrate his 92nd birthday, was selected to receive the Canadian Telecom Career Service Award for industry leadership and vision, innovation in service and dedication and sacrifice in advancing the interests of the Canadian cable television industry.
Omer Girard's outstanding career in the Canadian telecom industry began 55 years ago in 1957 when he established one of Quebec's early and most storied cable systems, Transvision Magog.
Girard will receive his career service award today in his hometown of Magog, Quebec from Hall of Fame founder Lorne Abugov and director Michel Bruyere at a reception that will be attended by local, national and international dignitaries and industry representatives.
"For true entrepreneurial vision and drive, and for unselfish dedication and willingness to battle for the common good of his sector and his customers, there is no equal in our industry to Omer Girard," said Michel Bruyere, CEO of Neotelis, the Hall of Fame sponsor of the annual Telecom Career Service Awards. "Anyone who knows the history of cable television's struggle to assert itself in this country recognizes that it was Mr. Girard who blazed the trail for cable operators throughout the country and paved the way for today's innovative cable services."
Among his many contributions to Canadian cable television, Girard was a pioneer in open access broadcasting through one of Canada's first and best community channels, and was also a founder of the now-defunct Canadian Cable Television Association. However, it was Girard's lonely four-year battle in the 1970s for open access to telephone transport infrastructure without the cable operator having to give up title to his own network infrastructure – known as the "Pole Wars" – that forever defined his career and labeled him as "the Hero of Magog."
Lorne Abugov, founder and director of the Hall of Fame, considers Girard's heroic struggle to save his company and his industry in the face of unrelenting monopoly telephone roadblocks to be "…one of the greatest personal achievements in Canadian telecommunications. It is hard to identify more of a David and Goliath epic battle in our sector than the one that Omer Girard spearheaded," said Abugov. “Successful cable operators today who are enjoying the fruits of an autonomous and independent industry owe a great vote of thanks to this gentleman."
In the early years of cable television, system operators were compelled to enter into onerous long-term contracts with monopoly telephone companies if they wished to offer services to their customers using telco poles. Under these arrangements, the nascent cable companies paid high rates for telephone pole access and had to agree to surrender legal title to their aerial network architecture to the telephone companies. Girard's unwillingness to acquiesce to Bell Canada's contract demands triggered a chain of events beginning in 1972 that vaulted him and Transvision Magog into the national headlines.
In December 1972, Bell Canada disconnected part of the Transvision Magog cable system, triggering a four-year court battle which came to be called the "Pole Wars," and earned Omer Girard the nickname "Hero of Magog." Bell's efforts to physically remove the Transvision Magog cable facilities from the Bell telephone poles resulted in an injunction obtained by Girard in the Quebec courts forcing a re-connection. Over the next four years, Transvision Magog and Bell fought an aggressive and highly-public court battle, with Girard's company eventually prevailing.
That triumph, backed by thousands of Canadians who sent telegrams and letters of support to the CRTC, helped to shape the development and evolution of the cable industry across Canada, and Girard's efforts are still credited today with allowing cable providers to offer standalone internet service to their customers using telco poles. For his pioneering and leadership role in the Pole Wars, Girard was recognized by the industry for his determined battle on behalf of the cable providers as key to the emergence of a standalone cable industry in Canada.
The Hall of Fame's Telecom Career Service Awards were initiated in 2006 to acknowledge the exemplary work, accomplishments and leadership of those Canadians who have made tangible contributions to the betterment of the domestic and international telecom industry for the better part of their careers. The Neotelis Canadian Telecom Career Service Award pays homage to individuals whose distinguished careers have unfolded on the domestic stage. The passion of Career Service Award winners for excellence and their dedication to the advancement of Canadians through innovation and hard work in telecommunications serves to inspire young Canadians beginning their career in this critical industry sector.
A Brief Bio of Omer Girard
Omer Girard spent the early part of his career as a sales representative for electronics equipment firms and travelled throughout Quebec before establishing Transvision Magog in 1957. That same year, he co-founded the Canadian Cable Television Association, which he later presided over in 1968. A trailblazer for the industry in his home province, Girard went on to launch five more cable systems in Quebec between 1960 and 1967. A leading businessman of his day, he is also credited with founding the Magog Chamber of Commerce in 1961, now in its 51st year of operation as a business leader in the region.
Throughout the 60s and early 70s, while battling Bell Canada and serving as President of the CCTA, Girard worked closely with operators across Canada, the CRTC and Government to ensure stable and long term development of the Canadian cable industry. In 1973, he merged his own cable networks with Cablestrie Inc., which was eventually purchased by Groupe Cogeco in 1988. During part of that time, Girard was also a dominant figure in l'Association des Cablodistributeurs du Quebec as both Founder and President from 1973 to 1977.
Born in 1920 and married in 1945 after four war-time years in the RCAF, Omer Girard and his wife, Olive Griffiths raised five children, three of whom themselves have pursued careers in the Canadian telecom industry, along with one grandchild. Girard continues today to advise on telecom matters and has been active in exciting new family initiatives, including a planned venture in and around Magog to create Canada's first community open access telecom network, thus continuing his tradition of breaking new ground in the industry and affording local residents with state-of-the-art communications.
Girard, in addition to his 2012 Career Service Award, has also been nominated this year for future consideration as a possible inductee into Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame.
