The CRTC’s Performance, 1969-2025 looked at the commission’s role and performance based on three strategic objectives established by the Treasury Board in 2024 – transparency, accountability, and participation by the public in government decision-making.

Breaking down the CRTC’s own numbers, the FRPC report takes aim at the gradual reduction in hearings the public can actually attend – from dozens in the 1980s to a handful in the last decade, supplemented by private meetings with lobbyists (an average of 44 per year in the same period), which it says raises concerns about whose interests are being heard.

FRPC also reviewed CRTC resources, finding that from 1969-88, it issued nearly 31,000 decisions with an average staff of 380 people (some 80 decisions per staff person). From 2005-24, the commission issued just over 12,000 decisions, with an average staff of 460 full-time or equivalent persons, or roughly 27 decisions per staff person. Its 2025-26 Departmental Plan indicates a contingent of 717 full-time or equivalent staff, a 56% increase over the 2005-24 average.

“FRPC believes there are evidence-based grounds for serious concerns about the degree to which the CRTC is meeting TBS’ [Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat] 2024 principles of Transparency, Accountability and public Participation. The concerns centre around the fact that, in 2025, the CRTC is effectively unaccountable to Parliament and to Canadians due to: the non-transparency of the CRTC’s decision-making processes, the lack of any published objective evidence from the CRTC describing how it has implemented and is implementing Parliament’s broadcasting and telecommunications policies, its noncompliance with reporting requirements regarding CBC non-compliance which the Broadcasting Act mandates, its evasion of requirements for public hearings by redefining the term to mean both ‘appearing’ (public) and ‘non-appearing’ (non-public) processes, and its general lack of timeliness in its licensing, policy-making and alternative-dispute resolution processes,” the report states.

FRPC believes it’s time to undertake a review of the CRTC to determine “whether and how it has been and is implementing Parliament’s broadcasting and telecommunications policies, and whether it is meeting this responsibility in an efficient, effective and timely manner,” however the organization is emphatic that it is not suggesting the commission be replaced or dismantled.

“To the contrary, as the CRTC is empowered to change its own by-laws and its procedural rules, the CRTC can readily amend its processes to make them transparent and to facilitate its accountability – and can do so on its own motion and quickly,” it stated.

Recommendations

Among its recommendations, the Forum is suggesting the CRTC publish minutes of the meetings of the commission and its committees, including copies of any presentations made at meetings within one week; ensure that all of its decisions are signed by the commissioners who made the decisions (including those who dissented), and published, if necessary, by providing abbreviated summaries of the facts and outcomes; ensure decisions are published on matters resulting “in now-secret Letter Decisions”; and improve the timeliness of its decision-making by publishing decisions concerning broadcasting, telecom and online news applications within four months of receiving the applications, and policies within six months of initiating proceedings.

It is also asking the CRTC to publish annual – or more frequent – statistical updates on its implementation of Parliament’s broadcasting and telecom policies, convene an annual meeting of interested parties to respond to questions about data published by the CRTC, and invite comments every two years on the measures it uses to evaluate its performance.

Read an OP-ED from FRPC Executive Director Monica Auer on CARTT.ca, our sister web publication, here.

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The national association, representing 2,500 professional screenwriters working in English-language film, television, radio, and digital media production, says it has growing concerns around the rapid development of AI and the threat it represents to Canadian artists and creators.

“While AI has been in development for some time, the recent launch of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools represent a paradigm shift in the ability of this technology to create text, audio, visual, and audiovisual content that could compete with, or even replace, human content creators,” wrote Neal McDougall, Assistant Executive Director, WGC. “This in turn threatens the economic wellbeing of Canadian artists, as well as their role as social critics and commentators, and ultimately their fundamental human dignity as artists.”

McDougall says the impacts of AI on the creative sector with respect to public policy are far-reaching, from copyright and cultural funding to industrial relations. He says the organization is already concerned over the use of AI in children’s programming and that cultural policy should support “nourishment for the mind and soul” rather than “manufacturing junk.”

“Our industry should be supporting an environment that allows for the creation of the best that human beings can achieve, not mass-producing artificial content that fills up space but leaves us feeling bloated but empty,” wrote McDougall.

Among the WGC recommendations is that AI not be recognized as an “author” under the Copyright Act, nor should the Copyright Act be amended to diminish or derogate the rights of human creators for the benefit of AI or those who design, manage, use, or own AI. It also wants public funding for culture to remain for the benefit of human creators.

The WGC says it’s united with its French counterpart, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinema (SARTEC), in a “strong belief that AI must not undermine screenwriters’ economic wellbeing or human dignity as artists.”

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A reboot of the controversial Bill C-10, which died before clearing the Senate when a fall election was called, the Online Streaming Act makes good on a Liberal promise to reintroduce a bill to modernize the Broadcasting Act in the first 100 days of the government’s renewed mandate. 

“The Online Streaming Act will reinforce Canadian cultural sovereignty, requiring that foreign tech giants play by the same rules as Canadian companies,” said CMPA President and CEO, Reynolds Mastin, in a statement. “The people who work in Canadian film and television production were extremely pleased that during the last federal election campaign, all major federal parties endorsed modernizing the Broadcasting Act to include streaming services. We encourage MPs to work collaboratively across party lines to pass this important legislation.”

The CMPA, which represents hundreds of independent production companies across the country, says it will carry out a detailed analysis of the proposed legislation and consult with members.

CAB President Kevin Desjardins is also welcoming the reintroduction of the legislation “as a critical step towards recognizing and addressing the massive impact of unregulated foreign players in our broadcasting system.”

“A decade of exemptions from regulatory oversight has given an unfair advantage to foreign streaming services, allowing them to capitalize on the Canadian market while avoiding any of the obligations imposed on our domestic broadcasting sector,” said Desjardins. “It is vital that this legislation establish a fair and equitable framework in which regulatory obligations are rebalanced for all players in the Canadian broadcasting space.

Bill C-10 previously made its way through the House of Commons with the support of the Bloc Quebecois and NDP. Last week, the Conservatives sent a letter to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez asking the government to halt its plans to reintroduce the legislation due to questions around user content regulation, among other concerns. Bill C-11 clarifies some of the questions raised by the original legislation, by exempting non-commercial digital users and creators.

A separate bill is anticipated that would require digital platforms generating revenue from news content to compensate Canadian media outlets.

Among Bill C-10’s detractors in the Senate were Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee, Senator Pamela Wallin; and former Edmonton Journal columnist and CBC Radio producer, Senator Paula Simons, who questioned whether digital media can be accurately regulated using analog tools.

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