A spokeswoman for the Heritage minister says James Moore did not get the impression that Quebec producers were frustrated with the proposed Canada Media Fund, or with the cancellation of a proposed meeting, when he attended their conference on Monday night.

Responding to criticisms voiced by the head of the APFTQ, spokeswoman Deirdra McCracken stated that, ‘at no time did Claire Samson or anyone else’ approach Moore, adding that it was ‘unfortunate’ that the minister got tied up with a vote in the House of Commons and was unable to meet with the Quebec producers association as planned.

Further, McCracken says she found it ‘a little odd’ that producers expressed disappointment after Moore did not address their concerns about the CMF. ‘The minister thought all seemed to be fine,’ she tells Playback Daily.

McCracken says the CMF has been well received by stakeholders: ‘We offered a technical briefing on CMF immediately after it was announced on March 9 and there has been follow-up to those briefings.’

While organizations including ACTRA, the Writers Guild of Canada, Union des artistes, APFTQ and CPFTA are pleased that the government renewed the former CTF, most have also publicly expressed concern about the new board, which will include five people nominated by the cable industry and two independents named by Canadian Heritage.

‘Make no mistake, those people will be independent,’ says McCracken, who disputes the accusation that Moore made the changes to the fund to appease cable providers. Two years ago both Shaw Communcations and Videotron withdrew their payments to the CTF to protest how it was governed.

‘The changes were made in response to the auditor general’s concerns as to how CTF was run. We made changes in order to restore efficiency,’ she says.