Outspoken Shaw Communications head Jim Shaw blasted the CRTC on Thursday for talking about ‘not only the same old rules and taxes, but even more new rules and taxes’ in its ongoing review of broadcast distribution in Canada.

Shaw’s comments were made on the same day the Canadian Association of Broadcasters argued before the CRTC for the status quo, and after the country’s producers recommended distributors be regulated to put more dollars into production.

CAB president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell said Canada’s system was ‘the very best broadcasting system in the world’ because the government has intervened to support Canadian content creation, access and distribution.

He called for all analog and Category 1 specialty and pay-TV channels to continue to be guaranteed access to ensure a diversity of voices, and for genre protection to be retained.

Not scheduled to appear until April 23 at the three-week-long CRTC hearing that began Monday, Shaw delivered an early message though the media.

‘When it was first announced, we were optimistic that this hearing was going to be about making the cable and satellite distribution rules more customer-friendly. We thought the CRTC had finally realized that it can no longer restrict customers’ choice,’ he said in a statement.

He added that the regulator ‘seems to think you can keep Canadians tuned into Canadian broadcasting by forcing them to do so.’

But O’Farrell told the commission that Canadian TV viewers already have twice as many programming choices as the U.K., three times as many as France, and more than 10 times as many as the U.S.

Both Shaw and cableco Rogers Communications are also advocating for changes that would allow them to sell advertising on their video-on-demand services, and for the ability to do target advertising.

But the private broadcasters want to retain control of the TV ad inventory, and argue that distributors should not have access to commercial dollars from on-demand services without negotiated arrangements with the broadcasters.

O’Farrell also warned that the BDUs could try to use subscription video-on-demand as a back-door way of bringing American programming and networks into Canada. CAB chief regulatory officer Pierre-Louis Smith cited an HBO video-on-demand service as an example of what could emerge.

Shaw also complained about the CRTC deciding to once again consider the fee-for-carriage proposals of CTV, Canwest and CBC at this hearing, after dismissing the same request a year ago. The CAB has no position on fee-for-carriage because it was unable to reach a consensus among its members.