An area not getting enough recognition in the debates concerning Bill C-11, Canada’s proposed new Broadcasting Act, is how the new Act entrenches the place of indigenous communities in the Canadian communications system.
The changes are a marked improvement over the previous incarnation. These are the only brief references to indigenous people in the current 1991 Broadcasting Act and both appear in section 3, the Broadcasting Policy for Canada (my italics):
3.d.(iii) through its programming and the employment opportunities arising out of its operations, serve the needs and interests, and reflect the circumstances and aspirations, of Canadian men, women and children, including equal rights, the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of aboriginal peoples within that society,
3.(o) programming that reflects the aboriginal cultures of Canada should be provided within the Canadian broadcasting system as resources become available for the purpose;
Bill C-11 offers a far more concrete inclusion of indigenous Canadians in the policy for Canada. One that should be preserved and recognized in any future revisions to the bill. Under Bill C-11 Canadian broadcasting would:
(iii.1) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons to produce programming in Indigenous languages, English or French, or in any combination of them, and to carry on broadcasting undertakings,
and section 3(1)(o) of C-11 states that Canadian broadcasting must provide :
(o) programming that reflects the Indigenous cultures of Canada and programming that is in Indigenous languages should be provided — including through broadcasting undertakings that are carried on by Indigenous persons — within community elements and other elements of the Canadian broadcasting system
These are more than cosmetic changes to Canadian communication policy and I have seen little reference to this in the debates around Bill C-11.
Gregory Taylor 