Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. When the CRTC initiates a public proceeding, it publishes a notice of that proceeding on its website and, in most cases, in the Canada Gazette. Then it calls for comments. It has rules of procedure around the time periods and the process by which it gets those comments.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question, Mr. Waugh. Those commercials you refer to are part of the licence renewal process. They are an obligation that the CRTC imposes on licencees to make public the notion that the licence is being renewed and that people can make comments on the conditions of licence.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. Thank you for the question, Mr. Rayes. The current wording in Bill C-10 would have allowed the CRTC to obtain ownership information related to corporations that hold licences, but there are some ownership structures out there that are not corporations, such as partnerships and trusts, so we are just trying to make sure this doesn't unintentionally limit the CRTC's ability to get ownership information from licensees that may not be corporations.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Waugh, for the question. Shaw operates many broadcasting distribution undertakings, or what we call cable systems. Most of those are operated under licences, unless they're small cable systems that have been exempted by the CRTC from being required to hold a licence.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's no. That was what I would have said. Thank you.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. In answer to Mr. Louis's question, you answered it. Indeed, amendments PV-19, BQ-17 and NPD-11 would all have the same impact of requiring the CRTC to review the conditions of service every seven years—that's every condition of service that it might put on every broadcasting undertaking.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Shields, for the question. The CRTC rarely revokes a licence. It would do it for reasons of non-compliance. The most recent case I remember was not that long ago. A radio station near Montreal. CJMS Saint-Constant had its licence revoked following a public hearing, and it was over repeated instances of non-compliance.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. Mr. Housefather, thank you for the question. Yes, there are indigenous broadcasters that have requirements to broadcast in indigenous languages and/or in other languages such as English or French. As I read it, this amendment would basically say those types of undertakings are not ones that are providing English language only.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Ripley. That is correct. That is my interpretation of the amendment as well. It would be “online undertakings that are not owned by or subsidiaries of undertakings licensed under this Act to provide English language only”. There are a number of those undertakings in Canada that are licensed to provide English-only content, so that is what I believe this amendment would do.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Normally when we discuss “authorized to broadcast”, it says it's both authorized currently under a licence or under an exemption order, and this amendment only talks about “licensed under this Act”. I think there's a slight difference in this. There are programming undertakings that are exempt from the requirement to hold a licence from the CRTC now.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Shields. Yes, that would be my interpretation. It would be up to the CRTC to determine what is “clearly” promoting and recommending.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chair, the logic here is that with the way it's worded, there's a concern that if the word “online” is left there.... It says “foreign online undertakings may also provide programming to Canadians”, but it doesn't say anything about traditional foreign undertakings that are already providing programming to Canadians, such as TV channels like CNN that are authorized for distribution in Canada by the CRTC.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm happy to do that. Ms. Dabrusin, thank you for the question. The first thing I see here is that there's a notion of including retransmission in this. Retransmission is cable companies retransmitting broadcast programs. For example, CTV broadcasts over the air, and then Rogers, Shaw or Videotron retransmits that to consumers, but they don't have any control over the programming that is in the CTV signal.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The reason we added “control” in paragraph 9.1(i) was just to make sure it was clear that the ownership and control transactions would be not just the control of the legal shares, but also any potential control in fact of the company by somebody else. When the CRTC processes ownership transactions it typically looks at this.