Cheryl Barker has time on her hands and kudos from the industry for her appointment to the Canada Media Fund board as one of Canadian Heritage’s two board nominations. Both might be crucial.

For starters, Barker is the retired president of Winnipeg-based Manitoba Telecom Service and is an experienced Canadian Television Fund board member (appointed in August 2008) who gets mega-support from industry reps west of Ontario.

‘The fact that Cheryl has been on the CTF board for the last year is great because it offers some consistency during this transition,’ points out Tara Walker, executive director of On Screen Manitoba, a membership-based organization representing the film and TV industry in the province.

Barker is also a chartered accountant who spent 19 years with the telecom before stepping down in 2006.

‘Coming from a telecommunications background she understands the regulatory framework of the industry and the intersection of content and the cable and telecommunications businesses,’ Walker says. ‘And she is an incredibly astute business woman.’

Prior to MTS, Barker worked as a financial policy analyst for the Manitoba Department of Finance. She currently serves as a director on the board of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, a Crown corporation that manages contributions to the federal Public Service, the Canadian Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police pension funds.

Barker also chaired the CTF’s finance/audit committee and was, presumably, appointed to the new CMF board by Heritage to keep her eye on the bottom line, amongst other duties.

In 1998, Barker was appointed to the board of the Manitoba Film and Sound Recording Development Corporation, the province’s film/TV/music funding organization and film commission, later taking over as chair. Her term ended in July 2007.

‘Cheryl has a good understanding of the TV industry and the challenges it faces from her many years on the Manitoba Film and Sound board,’ says the province’s film commissioner Carole Vivier. ‘She’s extremely smart, she’s a very good listener, and she’s a team player. She attended events and really got to know the film and TV community in Manitoba. She always had a real interest in the sector.’

But most importantly for the West, Barker is the lone CMF board member from outside Ontario and Quebec.

‘I think it’s very important that the CMF board includes someone that isn’t from the east,’ stresses Vivier. ‘It’s a national industry and it’s critical to have perspectives from across the country.’

Walker is just as adamant about regional representation.

‘I don’t think people in the big centers truly understand what it is like to not be able to be heard across town and meet with a decision-maker or pitch your idea, nor do they realize that it takes a lot to stay competitive in a smaller production center, and how entrepreneurial we have to be,’ she says. ‘Cheryl will have this viewpoint.’