For two years Clifford Lincoln lived and breathed the woes of Canadian broadcasting. As chair of Parliament’s standing committee on heritage, the veteran MP authored Our Cultural Sovereignty: The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting, an 872-page study that makes 97 recommendations on how to revamp Canada’s broadcast industry.

‘We had the benefit of a lot of expertise and managed to listen to a huge cross-section of people,’ says Lincoln. ‘We traveled across the country. It was tiring and tough. We used to sit for days on end listening to people and mulling over recommendations.’

But all that effort seemed to have gone to waste, as the report appeared to languish in Ottawa since its introduction a year and a half ago.

Or did it?

While the public at large has barely heard a peep about the mammoth report, in Ottawa circles, Our Cultural Sovereignty has become a kind of bible for industry change.

Indeed, for much of the last year, citations from the report have peppered all manner of policy discussion when issues regarding Canada’s broadcast system come up in the nation’s capital. Groups as diverse as members of Parliament, broadcasters, producers and talent are extremely well versed in its recommendations and regularly cite the Lincoln Report when making a case to forward their particular agendas.

And it’s not only MPs and industry lobby groups who are quoting the report. According to Lincoln, the report has also surfaced in universities, where it is being used as a core text and reference tool.

Now, the report appears to be getting a second wind as a blueprint for true broadcast system reform following its retabling in the House of Commons last month.

When initially tabled in June 2003, the timing could not have been worse, says Lincoln. That fall, then-prime minister Jean Chretien announced he was stepping down to make way for Paul Martin and much of the following year was spent preparing for an election call.

In November 2003, former heritage minister Sheila Copps issued what Lincoln says was ‘a cautious and very nondescript response, couched in very generalized and broad language.’

‘It was a real disappointment because the news then was all about the change of government and leadership, and the report just got buried. It was surprising because it was a considered and serious study, which is sort of rare in our system,’ he says.

More than a year has passed and now it looks like his report may finally get the attention it deserves.

It may even find its way into policy by March. The report was retabled in November, leaving Heritage Minister Liza Frulla 150 days to issue the government’s response, and many in the industry are hopeful that this time around, real action will be taken.

If it was a victim of bad timing the first time around, its sophomore appearance before Parliament couldn’t have been timed better.

First of all, the report has been tabled to a heritage minister who not only sat on the committee that authored and signed it, but who also came up with the title Our Cultural Sovereignty.

In addition, Frulla has a professional history in the industry and political experience with a culture portfolio. She served as Quebec’s minister of culture from 1990 to 1994. Her broadcast career included hosting a TV show for Radio-Canada.

Add to this, wide multi-partisan and industry support, and chances of parts of the report being implemented look even better. For example, Lincoln says, almost all of the 97 recommendations were accepted unanimously by the bipartisan committee, a considerable achievement considering the size and scope of the report.

Ian Morrison, spokesperson for lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, agrees, saying, ‘The power of the report was that most people agreed with most of its 97 recommendations.’

Among its recommendations, the Lincoln Report calls on the government to create a single communications act to replace the Telecommunications Act and the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission Act. It recommends that the CRTC review its 1999 Television Policy on priority programming, which many blame for the decline of Canadian drama. It also calls for a more stable and efficient Canadian Television Fund, maintaining current foreign ownership restrictions and stable, multi-year funding for CBC.

However, with close to 100 recommendations on the table, the challenge will be determining which recommendations to act on and when.

‘Even when we were writing [the report] we knew certain recommendations were more complex than others,’ says Frulla. ‘The objective of the report is to put a long-term plan on the table, so we want to analyze the recommendations and prioritize them into short-term, medium-term and long-term work.’

While Frulla identifies copyright issues, rethinking CRTC regulations and maintaining current CTF funding levels as the most important recommendations in the report, the government’s current minority status could mean more conciliation than usual to opposition parties.

‘We need alliances, but in this sector we always need alliances, so it’s not new for us,’ says Frulla. ‘I would say the [Bloc Québecois] and the NDP are on board. I have to admit, it’s harder with the Conservatives because they’re more money-driven than culturally driven.’

However, Durham MP and official opposition heritage critic Bev Oda says that while the Conservatives take issue with several recommendations (her party has a slightly different take on definitions of Cancon, for example), they support the majority of them. Oda has criticized the Liberals for a lack of action on the cultural portfolio and for causing uncertainty among Canada’s cultural industries.

‘The current minister was almost a co-author of the Lincoln Report and we have been asking her when she’s going to start acting on the recommendations made,’ says Oda, a former broadcaster who was also once a CRTC commissioner.

According to Oda, the key recommendation for her party is a review of the Broadcasting Act.

‘We have to start with the Broadcasting Act, because everything else flows from that,’ she says.

Not surprisingly, every interest group with a stake in the report has its own interpretation of how the recommendations should be prioritized.

While the Broadcasting Act is first on the Conservative agenda, the crucial recommendations for producers, according to the CFPTA, include simplifying the process of obtaining funds for producers and ensuring that the federal tax credit is effective and improvements are made to how it is managed and delivered.

The most important items for performers, according to ACRTA, are reviewing the 1999 Television Policy, maintaining foreign ownership limitations and creating stable multi-year funding for both the CTF and CBC.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, as of December, was in the process of reviewing the implications of retabling the report, but maintains that the government’s original response was insufficient. When the report was initially tabled, points supported by CAB included a call to study the rationale and fairness of part-two licence fees, the development of a comprehensive and integrated Canadian programming strategy, and long-term, stable CTF funding.

Meanwhile, from Lincoln’s perspective, the key recommendations include local and regional broadcasting, steadier funding for the CBC combined with making the pubcaster more accountable to Parliament, as well as Canadian content and a reevaluation of CRTC regulations.

‘There’s no doubt we need the CRTC, but do we need the CRTC exactly the way it is today? That’s another question,’ he says.

While there may be different opinions on what recommendations to tackle first, at this point most agree that action is long overdue.

ACTRA, for example, voiced its support when the report was first tabled and lobbied for the recommendations to be implemented immediately.

‘Here we are, a year and a half later, and nothing’s been done,’ says ACTRA national president Thor Bishopric. ‘We are hopeful, now that there is a little more solidity in Ottawa, that the government will take up this important report and begin implementing the recommendations. Clifford Lincoln is a very good man who worked awfully hard to produce an exhaustive study and we really think it should be taken seriously.’

With files from Sean Davidson

-www.canadianheritage.gc.ca