Among the many trial balloons left floating like the Macy’s parade at the Prime Time conference in Ottawa on Thursday was CMPA head Michael Hennessy suggesting he’d be okay with Canada’s foreign ownership restrictions on carriers being loosened, or even scrapped.

“Perhaps we would be better if there were fewer restrictions on foreign takeovers in return for such carriers and distributors committing to greater investment in and use of Canadian resources to create Canadian IP for sale around the world,” Hennessy said when opening the producers’ conference, with a qualifier at the beginning of his statement.

The CMPA president and CEO is piqued that the CRTC is allowing U.S. broadcasters and digital players to operate in Canada without contributing directly to homegrown production.

And in the future Hennessy sees the same U.S. players likely entering the Canadian market over-the-top via apps, bypassing the broadcast ecosystem entirely.

“If broadband TV and apps are going to be the primary way of distributing broadcast content, perhaps we need to rethink restrictions on foreign ownership, particularly when it comes to carriage,” Hennessy, a one-time regulatory exec at major Canadian carrier Telus, told Prime Time delegates.

He later told Playback Daily his open musing about leaving Canadian media open to foreign investment was aimed in part at spurring an industry dialogue on the issue.

Hennessy said restricting foreign ownership in the past aimed to ensure shelf space for Canadian content in the broadcast ecosystem.

“Yet it seems clear in the future broadcast milieu, public policy will be hands-off when it comes to how the largest online providers in the world operate in Canada,” he added, regarding the CRTC’s position that it isn’t keen to regulate the Internet.

“And if the largest content providers in the world can broadcast and distribute in Canada, without license or obligation, we need to ask why we are still concerned with protecting our carriers from foreign takeovers,” Hennessy said.

The federal government has, in recent years,  debated allowing foreign companies to purchase controlling stakes in telecommunications companies like Rogers Communications, Bell Canada and Telus Corp., but, with the public backlash over foreigners acquiring culturally-sensitive broadcast assets that could result from such a move, has not followed through with legislation.