Increase indigenous representation at CRTC, conference hears

OTTAWA — All of the country’s cultural institutions need a rethink when it comes to reflecting the reality of aboriginal people in Canada, an indigenous broadcasting conference heard Saturday, with ideas ranging from creating a dedicated office at the CRTC, to appointing an indigenous CRTC commissioner, to deregulating broadcasters that operate on treaty lands. On the final day of the three-day Future of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Broadcasting national conference at the University of Ottawa, Community Media Advocacy Centre president Kristiana Clemens gave an overview of Canadian broadcasting policies since 1968 that “shifted from a complete erasure and assimilation of indigenous peoples, towards one expressing respect for indigenous identity typified in the Broadcast Act.” However, she added, “the effectiveness and impacts of the resulting policies, most of which are still are in effect, have not been reviewed by the government across more than two decades of technological and social change,” and “in many cases, the government’s most progressive policies were implemented as means of undoing or controlling damage previously done by the government itself.” Clemens cited “the northern broadcasting policies were developed in the aftermath of the destructive impacts that rapid propagation of U.S. TV had had on northern languages, cultures and community ties,” as well as the Native Broadcasting Policy, which “emerged out of years of cuts to the access program as well as the dramatic inequities faced by indigenous broadcasters south of the Hamelin line” — a border along the 55th parallel that defined the Canadian North for policy purposes, based on work published in the mid-1970s by Quebec scholar Louis-Edmond Hamelin. Section 3 of the Broadcasting Act, last updated in 1991, states that the country’s broadcasting system should “through its programming and the employment opportunities arising out of its operations, serve the needs and interests, and reflect the circumstances and aspirations, of Canadian men, women and children, including equal rights, the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of aboriginal peoples within that society.” But it also declares as part of broadcasting policy that “programming that reflects the aboriginal cultures of Canada should be provided within the Canadian broadcasting system as resources become available for the purpose.” As Forum for Research and Policy in Communications (FRPC) executive director Monica Auer previously told The Wire Report, the wording is ambiguous enough to justify inaction. “What it essentially says is, as resources become available, we should have some indigenous broadcasting. What does that mean?” Auer said in a January phone interview. “Does that mean that someone should make the resources available or should we wait until they become available? Who should make the resources available?” Indigenous-created and reflective programming should be everywhere in the media, said Claudine VanEvery-Albert, a member of SONICS Inc., a non-profit organization that runs a Type B Native Community radio station in southern Ontario. “Oftentimes we ask for native this or native that or native other thing. Well, we are the first people of this country. We should not be sitting over here having our own little thing. We should be pervasive in the media,” VanEvery-Albert said. “Sure it’s important to stick together and to try to support each other, but also the people of this country know nothing about us. Nothing. … So we need to educate them on the whole.” And while there is some good content coming out of CBC/Radio-Canada, those running aboriginal stations need widespread partnerships with each other, national broadcasters and international broadcasters, she said. Radio, especially, as a medium is important, given that it’s more local, VanEvery-Albert said, and can be a stronger conduit to help maintain indigenous languages. John Gagnon, CEO of the Wawatay Native Communications Society, shared how he became connected to radio at a young age, after receiving his first one at the age of seven or eight years old, and how it assisted in his own decolonization journey as he got older, listening to programming that talked about concepts and ideas that weren’t a part of his every day life. “It wasn’t until I started working on the residential school file that I realized where these problems came from and understood that we didn’t start the fire but we’re certainly feeding it with unknown behaviour,” Gagnon said. “And this is something that awareness has. And that’s what communication did for me, and it was particularly through radio.” Affecting positive change in broadcasting policy requires “yet further deregulation of grassroots broadcasters operating in treaty lands, giving communities greater control over their airwaves, as well as expanding sustainable and accountable funding to support community-based, non-profit, indigenous controlled media initiatives” across the entire country, Clemens said, adding that “training, networking, language resurgence and content sharing need to be key components in these kinds of projects.” Heather Hudson, a public policy professor who has worked in Alaska and the Canadian North, noted in an earlier session Saturday that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has an Office of Native Affairs and Policy, which she said should be replicated in Canada. “It seemed to me the CRTC definitely should have a little office and some staffers who are really dedicated and knowledgeable on indigenous issues,” Hudson said, adding now would be a good time to push for its creation, given the attention and focus on reconciliation from the federal government, as outlined by Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly earlier in the conference. During the same panel, Rob McMahon, co-ordinator of the First Mile Connectivity Consortium (FMCC), noted gaps in research by staff that lead to misunderstandings of northern and remote communities, such as those served by FMCC members. “The reports they’re doing, the research they’re doing, has some embedded assumptions that are very much in that southern, metropolitan framework. You see this all the time,” McMahon said. “ have made some steps to reach out. Recently they did ask for a phone call with FMCC members to talk about some of their challenges.” Conference participants also pointed to the makeup of the CRTC itself, noting that there has only been one aboriginal commissioner appointed to the regulator — Ron Williams, who is Métis, was appointed in 1999. “With more than half a century of indigenous broadcast production and activism behind us there are countless indigenous people with expertise and interest to provide leadership in this capacity,” Clemens said. “There is no legitimate reason why the desire for indigenous representation on the commission should remain unfulfilled.” — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Increase indigenous representation at CRTC, conference hears

Broadcast | June 19, 2017

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Increase indigenous representation at CRTC, conference hears

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