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The letter to the editor I sent to the Hill times was too long, so Kate Malloy (Editor) did her magic and published: We need to move ‘broadcasting’ and ‘copyright’ from Canadian Heritage, to Innovation, Science and Economic Development: McOrmond   The following is the unedited version with hyperlinks added. I've been active in related areas of policy since the 1990's, so have watched the damage caused by the Department of Canadian Heritage (created in 1993 and given royal assent in 1995). This is a department whose Minister was granted jurisdiction over "Canadian identity and values, cultural development, heritage and areas of natural or historical significance to the nation" (from 4(1) of An Act to establish the Department of Canadian Heritage). Department of Canadian Heritage Act (S.C. 1995, c. 11) The departmental mandate includes Official Colonial Languages. Given what I have finally learned since the start of 2020 about what the Governments of Canada continue to...

The text of Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts , didn't surprise me. It is only the latest example of a Heritage Minister and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage misunderstanding their mandate and the purpose of various laws.  The problem isn't specific to any political party, as Heritage Ministers from the Liberals or Conservatives, and Heritage Committee members from all parties, have all exhibited the same problems. I'm just going to use the term "Heritage" to refer to this group. The Conflict of Interest A big part of what the Department of Canadian Heritage does is provide funding to creative Canadians -- arts funding, entertainment funding, and funding for heritage projects (including libraries and archives).  The Heritage Minister and Committee are intended to direct that department, so will also have a focus on that funding. But, for a variety of reasons, the cabinet doesn...

I watched a video which CPAC put up of the new Green Party leader Annamie Paul speaking with reporters.     I became increasingly annoyed at the number of times reporters asked the same form of question. In their corporate minds, Annamie Paul was just placed as the CEO of the corporation called the Green Party of Canada. They wanted to know the many different ways that she would dictate commands to those the media insisted were subordinate to her, whether that be staff at the party, elected members of parliament, or candidates.  She had to constantly remind them of what a "healthy democracy" looks like. Many of the biases of these reporters were obvious, even though these reporters would likely falsely claim they weren't biased. As I have watched Canada's democracy decline over my lifetime, I have noticed that rather than the corporate media holding politicians to account that they are only making things worse.  Rather than recognize that democracy is more healthy t...

This afternoon, on unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory currently the subject of treaty negotiation, a British colonial ceremony was held. With parliament only retaining British tradition, we were reminded by a "speech from the throne" that to this day the settler-state doesn't fully recognize the two groups who make up Canada: European colonialists/settlers and the peoples who had already been here for thousands of years. As I read the text of the Speech from the Throne I noticed a few themes. I could easily put them under an overall headline of the continuation of narrowly harnessing European world views to attempt to further public policy goals. A  romanticization of over 150 years of the members of our European settler-state parliament dealing with challenges, with no recognition or harnessing of the experiences of the peoples who were already here for thousands of years. The continuation of the European entitlements vs responsibility world view around rights, whic...

Whether it is SNC-Lavalin , CGI Inc ,  BCE Inc.  (which owns Bell Canada) , or CBC , there is always a lot of flag-waving from lobbiests and defenders when these corporation are doing or saying things that corporations with different addresses of their headquarters would never get away with. CBC President Catherine Tait's attempt to flag-wave recently went as far as to claim digital native companies  were imperalists . The problem with her analogy is that when it comes to post-convergence digital communications policy, it is representatives of analog-era companies like the CBC that are the foreign entities. Protecting the interests of Canadians from this imperalism is why I have called for a shift of funding away from the CBC to Canadian creators. We need to put the policies which the CBC and Bell promote in a proper context. Taxing Internet connectivity, or digital media distribution companies, to subsidize analog-era broadcasting  is about as legitimate as ...

I checked Federal Budget 2018 for new support of Canadian content creators.  What I found under the title of "INVESTING IN CANADIAN CONTENT" ( Chapter 4 ) is disappointing, as it is media creation that continues the conflict of interest tie with the broadcast sector. The CMF receives funding contributions from the Government of Canada, but it advertises as also receiving "contributions" from Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors (Broadcast Distribution Undertakings, or BDUs).  CMF contributions are mandated by the CRTC, shouldn't be thought of as donations, and BDUs shouldn't be "thanked" for actually paying what they owe. CMF contributions should be thought of as a highly justifiable tax on BDUs as compensation to the public for the right-of-way and other privileges which BDUs have been granted by multiple levels of governments.  The CMF contributions page should only list the Government of Canada, with special taxes collected from BDU...

CBC runs InCanada , an "online" Canadian Media Panel. I put "online" in quotations because while the panel is online, the CBC's broadcaster bias is always visible in how they ask questions. The latest survey is no exception. The survey was essentially about Alias Grace , a Canadian-American miniseries that will air on CBC on September 25, 2017, and on Netflix on November 3, 2017. The survey typically conflates Netflix with broadcasters, when Netflix is not a broadcaster . This is about as nonsensical as confusing a radio station with a record store when discussing music, and yet the legacy broadcasters continue to try to push this nonsense. I sometimes make the comparison to the difference between an outhouse and indoor plumbing: Like broadcasting, people made use of outhouses before modern conveniences like indoor plumbing came along. And like indoor plumbing, people aren't likely to want to go backwards once they get used to online streaming. While outhous...

In response to articles discussing an advertisement free CBC , I had the following to say: #DigiCanCon @howardalaw I would rather that money went to distribution mechanism neutral content creation: #CBC via #Netflix #GooglePlay etc — Russell McOrmond (@russellmcormond) November 29, 2016 When I was asked to elaborate, I realized I need to give context as most people in the content industry do not think the same way as I do as a system administrators with decades of experience in the technology industry. The layered approach to communications technology 4134   COMMISSIONER DENTON: Mr. McOrmond, interesting brief. I see it is informed by an internet idea of the world. 4135   So in your preferred solution then there would be essentially some kind of bandwidth to the house, whether wired or wireless, it would be part of a municipal infrastructure such as sewage or water, and applications would float on top of that or through it. 4136   ...

A few people have posted a similar message with the #DigiCanCon hashtag. If we want CDN shows on *all* our screens *all* broadcasters must contribute#Netflix #DigiCanCon Content providers raise our voices Nov 7. — Barbara Worthy (@1babs) November 6, 2016 If we want CDN shows on *all* our screens then *all* broadcasters have to contribute. #Netflix #DigiCanCon — Heather Knox (@the_heatherknox) October 28, 2016 (Barbara Worthy is a writer, performer and producer primarily for CBC. Heather Knox is a Toronto based actor.) While their intention might have been to add some money to a funding source, ideas within this tweet threaten funding for Canadian creators as well as threaten their creativity in other ways. Funding issues I discussed a number of the funding issues in an earlier article on  making sense of the Netflix, ISP, ICT DigiCanCon tax . That was a summary of some of the most visible proposals, and a suggestion that funding through general revenue is the least risky to the i...

The radio was on this morning with CBC's The Current . The topic was municipalities and the licensing of massage parlours that range up to places that offer body rubs. In the wake of some narrow aspects of prostitution laws being struck down by an Ontario court, it is now in vogue to have talk shows where people express their views on this topic. There was the ludicrous suggestion by some social conservatives that if a municipality made any money from licensing activities of a sexual nature that they are essentially pimps. CBC's The Current decided to expand on and do a show promoting this ludicrous suggestion. Normally a journalist will find a variety of people with a variety of views, and allow them to have a discussion. Unfortunately in this case Anna Maria Tremonti decided to impose her own morality onto every question, essentially having her and her social conservative guest from out east gang up on a Guelph city councillor. I didn't even hear the Guelph council...