Montreal: The Canadian Television Fund elected a new board of directors at its June 12 annual general meeting convened at the Banff Television Festival.

A new CTF policy document on governance structure is in distribution after being passed by the boards of directors of both the CTF and Telefilm Canada.

Highlights of the governance reorganization include a streamlined CTF executive committee and the creation of an independent board committee charged with dealing with all conflict of interest issues.

Richard Stursberg is re-elected chair of the CTF, for a fourth term, and is joined on the executive committee by Janet Yale, vice-chair, Julia Keatley, secretary and Daniel Gourd, treasurer, in addition to a yet-to-be-named member of the Telefilm board, effectively a replacement for Telefilm chair Laurier LaPierre, who has resigned.

Stursberg points out CTF is ‘probably the largest cultural organization in the country aside from the CBC,’ with a projected (as of May 1) 2001/02 budget of $241 million, including approximately $91 million from cable, DTH and other BDUs, made up of a projected $68 million from cable and $23 million from DTH operators. The leading BDU contributors include Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Bell ExpressVu and Star Choice.

The extended CTF review process has resulted in a number of significant changes, including two requests by the Heritage Department to add two additional government-appointed members to the CTF’s board, increasing Heritage-named members from three to five. The other request was to name a permanent CEO for the fund, responsible for both the Licence Fee Program and the Equity Investment Program, the latter managed by Telefilm. Gary Toth was named CEO in April, with Montreal-based Louise Baillargeon as VP and head of the LFP. ‘I guess [the government] wanted to have a little bit more influence on the board since they’re putting in a lot of the dough,’ adds Stursberg.

Following the commissioning of two studies (Silcox and KPMG) on CTF’s governance and operations, and an extensive round of industry-wide stakeholder consultations under Heritage, Stursberg says both the CTF and Telefilm boards worked closely in agreeing to a new fund structure that ‘allows for much tighter policy-making at the board level and much tighter operational integration at the administrative level.’

The special committee of the board charged with ruling on conflict-of-interest issues will ensure the integrity of producer and broadcaster board members, who are also CTF funding beneficiaries.

‘And if there is such a situation they are obliged to recuse themselves from the discussion. And if anybody thinks they should and haven’t recused themselves then the committee will rule on it,’ says the chairman.

In a word, ‘board members are not allowed to vote on any item for which they may have a direct commercial interest. If such an item arises then what they are obliged to do is to say, ‘I can not participate in this vote.’ And if anybody is unhappy and says, ‘You should recuse yourself,’ and they say, ‘No. I don’t think I should’ then we have a committee that will rule on it, ‘ adds Stursberg.

The CTF governance document points to four fundamental ‘realities’:

* Telefilm’s board is responsible for approving the business plan, administrative budget and guidelines for the EIP.

* Telefilm is obligated under the EIP Contribution Agreement to co-operate with the CTF in the development of an integrated business plan, administrative budget and guidelines for the EIP and LFP collectively.

* The CTF is obligated under its own Contribution Agreement to mutually approve, along with the Telefilm board, the business plan, administrative budget and guidelines for the EIP.

* The Department of Heritage wishes the CTF to be proactive in developing a more integrated management approach to the operation of the two programs (EIP and LFP) without impacting on Telefilm’s legal and fiduciary responsibilities for the EIP.

New CTF Board

The 2001/02 CTF board members and their organizational affiliations are: Claire Samson, APFTQ; Rudy Buttignol, Association for Tele-Education; Phillippe Lapointe and Bill Mustos, Canadian Association of Broadcasters – TV Board; Judith Brosseau and Susan Ross, CAB – Specialty Service Board; Richard Paradis, CAFDE; Daniel Gourd, CBC/SRC; Robin Mirsky, Alex Park and Janet Yale, CCTA; Laszlo Barna and Julia Keatley, CFTPA; Michael Wernick from Canadian Heritage and three members-at-large named by the department – Cecile Chevrier from L’Alliance des Producteurs Francophones du Canada, independent producer Heather C. Martin and Stursberg. *