Pierre Juneau, former cbc president, crtc chair and National Film Board director of French production, has been appointed by Heritage Minister Michel Dupuy to head up a three-person review committee to evaluate the mandates and federal support of the National Film Board, Telefilm Canada and the cbc.

tvontario chair Peter Hernndorf, former vice-president of English cbc radio and tv networks, and subsequently Toronto Life publisher, also sits on the committee.

The committee’s greatest resource, says Hernndorf, is urgency. ‘These are important organizations and I think the country needs them to be vital and effective.’

The third member is Catherine Murray, professor and director of policy research on science and technology at Simon Fraser University who also sits on the Women’s Television Network board.

The committee’s priorities include looking at new technologies and fiscal restraints and includes a call for new relationships and strategies between these public institutions and the private production industry. There is also a decree to ensure the ‘production, availability of, and access to Canadian content.’

Regarding the four-month process, Juneau says the triumvirate will consult very closely with the nfb, cbc and Telefilm, in addition to working through some of the many government reports commissioned to investigate any part of the three institutions.

That includes the Secor report on the nfb and Telefilm, which recommended a merger between the two institutions. Juneau doesn’t want to get too deep into his views at this stage, but says ‘off-hand, it doesn’t seem to be a very realistic thing.’

Juneau warns the committee is ‘not going to start all over again meeting all the organizations.’ However, Hernndorf assures that key people in the field will be consulted.

The former cbc president admits he is more up to speed on the status of the cbc and he is interested in pursuing alternative sources of funding for the public broadcaster.

The report is due Sept. 1.