OTTAWA – 5 August 2022 – The National Pensioners Federation (NPF) and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) today filed a Petition to Cabinet to set aside the decision of, or have the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission reconsider their recent approval of the licences for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Société Radio-Canada’s TV and radio services.
“The CRTC removed the requirement for CBC and Radio-Canada to actually exhibit Canadian content on their regular TV stations, in the hope that CBC/RC could go ‘whole hog’ on moving their TV productions online,” said John Lawford, counsel to PIAC and NPF. “We said no, you cannot allow CBC/RC to jump cut from regular TV to online without considering Canadians’, and in particular seniors’, reliance on CBC/RC’s traditional TV service, especially for local news,” he added.
The Petition underlines the importance of CBC/RC to Canadians for the delivery of Canadian content, including local and national news, programs of national interest, and kids programming, in both official languages and the CRTC’s rushed and ill-considered removal of requirements to ensure Canada’s national public service broadcaster continues to broadcast this programming to Canadians on TV services they know and use every day.
“You have to meet people where they are; that just shows respect for all Canadians, especially our seniors,” added Trish McAuliffe, President of NPF.
Petition here.
For more information:
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
John Lawford
Executive Director and General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
(613) 562-4002 ext. 125
jlawford@piac.ca
National Pensioners Federation
Trish McAuliffe
President
National Pensioners Federation
905-706-5806
Trish.mcauliffe@npfmail.ca