The CRTC will be asked to rethink its 1999 Television Policy in a forthcoming report from parliament’s committee on Canadian Heritage.

‘There is a very strong belief, shared by the committee, that the CRTC has to look very carefully at the TV policy,’ says MP Wendy Lill, one of the 104 committee members. ‘There has to be a change… There has to be a spending requirement on Canadian content.’

The two-year study is expected to be released at the Banff Television Festival and will make ‘very strong recommendations’ about foreign ownership and the controversial CRTC regs, which many blame for the slump in Canadian drama.

‘To create a strong industry there have to be regulations for private broadcasters to produce a certain number of hours of Canadian programming,’ says Lill (NDP – Dartmouth). ‘And it can’t be a bunch of infomercials stuck together.’

The recommendations contradict those of Trina McQueen’s recent study of TV drama, which calls for fewer rules based on airtime.

Lill adds that the committee found ‘nothing broken’ with Canada’s laws on foreign ownership, but would not discuss any specific recommendations. The Heritage report has been widely expected to endorse current policies, unlike a recent and similar study by the committee on Industry, Science and Technology, which called for looser ownership restrictions.

Ownership appears to have split the Heritage team, which divided along party lines over questions of economics and culture. Heritage critic and committee vice-chair Jim Abbott (CA – Kootenay-Columbia) will release a minority report, written with Alliance MPs Chuck Strahl and Betty Hinton, on those topics.

‘The report covers an unbelievable number of topics but on some we were on a different page. We had to spell out our differences,’ says Abbott. His report comes out with the committee report.

Committee chair Clifford Lincoln (L – Lac-Saint-Louis) is expected to speak about the study at Banff.

Also due within the month is a study of Canadian-content regulations, for the Ministry of Canadian Heritage, by a committee fronted by former Telefilm Canada head Francois Macerola. The report was submitted in early May and is expected to go public by the end of the month.