CMF BOARD ’09/10

Department of Canadian Heritage appointments:
• Cheryl Barker
• Eileen Sarkar

CCCE nominees:
• Alison Clayton
• Guy Fournier
• Ronald W. Osborne
• Louis L. Roquet (Chair of the Board)
Note: The seventh director will be named at a later date

There’s extremely careful optimism across the nation regarding the Canada Media Fund board of directors – keepers of the $300 million till – anointed by the Department of Canadian Heritage in June.

‘I think people are in a wait-and-see mode as to how the Canada Media Fund will evolve,’ says a media insider, acknowledging that many potential fund recipients will only speak anonymously because, ‘I sense they don’t want to piss off the carriers as they name people to the new fund. And there’s also the issue of cable and sat TV dominance. Carriers are closer to the customers, with pipes into homes. So broadcasters and producers already have to negotiate with a weak hand to get programming and channels onto cable and sat TV schedules.’

Furthermore, content providers and industry associations or unions apparently have no recourse if they disapprove of board nominations as the paradigm is structured so that there is officially no body ‘appointing’ or ‘approving’ them, although it was Heritage that announced the creation of the new CMF last winter.

And in a virtual version of digging one’s own grave, it was the outgoing keepers of the till – the Canadian Television Fund toppers – who officially announced their own replacements.

The CTF news release says the ‘seven independent directors include five nominated by the Canadian Coalition for Cultural Expression,’ a completely unknown entity. CTF spokespersons are not allowed to disclose the names of the members of this spin-off, albeit powerful, communications group, which ‘includes cable and direct-to-home satellite companies.’

The five controlling Canadian media conglomerates in question are: Calgary-based Shaw Communications, Montreal-based Quebecor (both of which withheld mandatory payments to the CTF as leverage to gain more control of any fund’s spending) and Cogeco, as well as the two Toronto-headquartered telephone, cable and satellite carriers: Rogers Communications and Bell TV. None of them officially has a seat on the ‘independent’ CMF board, hence the intermediate name, CCCE. [Editor’s note: I hope Terry Gilliam is reading this; he could apply for funding for a sequel to Brazil called Canada.]

Two other directors are nominated by Heritage. But it is worth noting that Canada’s two Crown corporations with ‘arm’s length’ protection from direct government intervention – the CBC and Telefilm Canada – are not mentioned in the release, even though Telefilm actively administers the current New Media Fund, which will be absorbed into the new CMF in April 2010. And it appears that Canada’s public broadcaster – the voice of Canadians – has no say in the slicing of this new multi-platform pie.

Nonetheless, ACTRA national executive director Stephen Waddell says most of the earlier concerns over boardroom representation at the CMF eased after the recent appointments.

‘Due diligence appears to have been done,’ says Waddell. ‘The appointments seem to satisfy concerns respecting any potential conflicts.’

Heritage has appointed Manitoba-based Cheryl Barker (see story, p. 21) and Ottawa mandarin Eileen Sarkar (see p. 23), both of whom have excellent track records negotiating Parliament Hill under either the Liberal or Conservative regimes over the years.

The controlling cablers and satellite companies also nominated two well-known and well-respected Ontarians – Alison Clayton and Ronald W. Osborne – both of whom have been heralded for their achievements (see p. 21 and 22, respectively).

The CCCE also nominated two Quebecers – Louis L. Roquet as chair (see p. 23), and Guy Fournier (see p. 22), the latter of whom raised red flags for the APFTQ.

The French-speaking producers association and some of Quebec’s industry unions are up in arms because Fournier writes for the province’s biggest daily newspaper, Le Journal de Montreal, owned by Quebecor Media, which is likely a CCCE member.

‘It’s a conflict of interest,’ said the APFTQ’s Claire Samson. ‘He’s not independent. He works for Quebecor.’

Ian Morrison, a spokesman for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, also questioned the legitimacy of the governance process behind the newly created CMF.

‘The people who deliver video signals to our homes and the people who make the programming are well represented there, but what is absent is the users, the citizens and the subscribers. The system is loaded in one direction,’ Morrison says in reference to cable, satellite and Internet interests that may overshadow the fund’s boardroom.

Meanwhile, Tara Walker, executive director of On Screen Manitoba, also thinks it’s a bit slanted towards the east, saying: ‘In making the appointments, they don’t seem to have looked at representing the regions, although there was likely a lot of rigid requirements about conflict of interest, so finding board members who are both knowledgeable and not in any conflict of interest may have been difficult.’

With files from Patricia Bailey, Cheryl Binning and Etan Vlessing