New media committee study sidelined; prorogation, politicking blamed

The prorogation of Parliament has put on hold a wide-ranging House of Commons committee study into digital media, but it’s likely to return to the priority list, say members of the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. The committee had launched a study titled “Canada and the New Medias” in October with a presentation from Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). It had developed witness lists with an eye towards collecting insight from a range of digital-media industry players. Gary Schellenberger, the committee chair and Conservative MP for Perth-Wellington, said the Conservatives’ list included Tom Jenkins, the executive chairman and chief strategy officer of Waterloo, Ont.-based software company Open Text Corp., and Ian Wilson, former chief librarian and archivist at Library and Archives Canada, now a strategic advisor on the Stratford Institute, where researchers investigate digital media. But that’s about as far as the study got. The committee shifted gears in November to consider Bill C-302, recognizing the injustice done to Italians through the “enemy alien” designation during the Second World War. Schellenberger said he requested an extension to further study digital media, but the committee voted instead to consider Bill C-302. The meetings were cancelled. But Charlie Angus, NDP MP and his party’s digital affairs critic, said work on the new media study was to resume the week of Jan. 25, but “prorogation killed it.” “We’ve lost a vital chunk of the spring session,” he said, adding that the “committee worked very well together.” But Schellenberger said partisan politics hampered committee business. “Our committee has been very political,” he said. “I feel that the committee wasn’t doing its job properly. I hope when we have a new throne speech and we come back in March, we can get down to this digital media study and do something positive.” Schellenberger emphasized the importance of resuming the committee meetings on digital media. “Everything that we don’t seem to understand in committee gets tagged with ‘new media’ or ‘digital media,’” Schellenberger said. “Both (NDP MP) Charlie Angus and I have been strong on this. We feel that ... we should know what digital media is, what new media is, and its importance to Canada ... whether it’s television or radio or writing. It’s impacting us very dearly.” Angus said Canada needs a better understanding of the relationship between digital media and national culture. “Canada is behind in this area,” he said, adding that the British and the United States governments have a better understanding of digital media and its impact on national culture. “I’ve been pushing for this for some time.” Several Liberal members of Parliament were contacted for this story, but none was available to comment. Mark Sandiford, a producer at software development house Telos Entertainment Inc. and president of the Interactive Media Alliance of PEI (IMAPEI), said that the committee would do well to pick up where it left off and get on with the study. He suggested it could study the intersection of culture, heritage and how digital media signifies new ways of interacting. “How do you get those things to be continually valued by a population that increasingly finds its cultural expression elsewhere, in digital forms?” Sandiford said. “Culture these days is very much a digital phenomenon. People relate to each other through social media and increasingly get their sense of cultural identity through digital forms.”

New media committee study sidelined; prorogation, politicking blamed

Broadcast | January 21, 2010

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