Catherine Allman is President, Hawkestone Communications and Public Affairs, Toronto.

1986: Andre Bureau was crtc chair. Murray Chercover was president of ctv. Pierre Juneau was (the last) cbc chairman and ceo. Dr. David E. Bond led the cab and Michael Hind-Smith the ccta.

The sex-role portrayal code wasn’t yet a condition of licence. The Broadcast Standards Council was just a gleam in Jim Sward’s eye. The Caplan Sauvageau broadcasting report was freshly bound and the Broadcasting Act was nearly 20 years old.

1986: When the night before the tv regulations hearing flights from Toronto were rained out – troops of broadcast executives and pregnant Opposition mp Sheila Copps spent the night in the airport waiting for safe passage.

Just how have things changed two crtc chairs, three cbc, one ctv, one cab, two ccta presidents, and how many ministers later?

Bureau, more than anyone, could be said to have sketched the decade. A strong, business-oriented crtc chair, his policies were far enough ahead of the then-Department of Communications that his Journal Tower North counterparts put both power-of-direction and Cabinet appeal, as well as the ‘he-who-hears-decides’ rule, in the 1988 Act. No crtc chair following could have the same latitude or policy-setting power.

In 1987, at the summer specialty hearings, the concept of optional-to-basic cable for new Canadian specialty services was hotly debated and later approved, laying the way some years later for the consumer revolt of 1995 against negative optioning.

And, tsn, MuchMusic and the others were among the first successful set of specialties, cementing several trends in broadcasting: the fragmentation of both the ad market and audiences; as well as competition for programming, and an increasing demand for high-quality domestic fare to meet those Cancon requirements.

The creation of Telefilm’s Broadcast Fund a few years before made it possible for the independent production sector to take on new stature: including a special mention in the 1988 Broadcasting Act.

The Act set other precedents in addition to those affecting the crtc: it gave educational broadcasting a special place in the broadcasting system. But more importantly, it served as the foundation for the deregulation, or at the very least, the reregulation of broadcasting.

Exemptions from licensing? What a concept. Immediate enough for the provincial legislature channels. But it got the crtc in trouble a little later with video games andthat upstart dth.

During her brief stay in the pmo, Kim Campbell’s government took the credit for the 1993 wrenching of communications from culture and its rightful home in the new Department of Canadian Heritage, while handing telecommunications and copyright to Industry.

We were all woken up by the outcry of January 1995, when people said, ‘no new fees,’ when it came to the second raft of specialties. The echo of that roar was heard last month when Bill C-216 – the private member’s bill addressing negative optioning – met with opposition in the corridors of power.

And because the crtc didn’t quite get it right in 1994, we had dth’s three wise men open up the floor to new competitors for Canada’s gray market in 1995.

All the while, there was quiet vertical integration and independent licensees were being swallowed by the big guys with the requisite payout of ‘significant benefits.’

And a general – but not complete decline – in the prominence of the public sector: what with cbc cuts and the privatization of provincial educational services.

What about radio? More of the same: lower profits and less spoken word. But what’s this we hear about CBC Radio going live on the Internet? Maybe there’s hope yet.

Two crtc chairs, three cbc, one ctv, one cab, two ccta presidents, and how many ministers later Let’s see – Marcel, Flora, Marcel, Perrin, Monique, Michel, Lucienne, Sheiladid we forget anyone?