Igniting Debate
Council joins the Campaign for Media Democracy
Walking through the
markets of Old Quito,
Ecuador last summer, my
partner and I often found
ourselves in the midst of
heated public debates.
One night we even witnessed a local
Member of Parliament share a proposal
for parliamentary reform with a very
animated crowd in the middle of a town
square. German philosopher Jürgen
Habermas often speaks of “the public
sphere,” where opinions are formed
through open debates and public discussions.
This sentiment was certainly alive
and well in Quito.
In Canada, our vast landscape and cold
climate often leave people feeling disconnected.
And in an increasingly commercialized
society, there are fewer community
spaces in which people can gather to
engage in public discussions. This makes
the role of the media all the more important,
as it is one of the few venues where
people can become exposed to diverse
perspectives and informed about the
issues that affect their day-to-day lives.
Unfortunately, private media ownership
in Canada is now more highly concentrated
than almost anywhere else in the
industrialized world. As governments and
policy makers promote the unfettered
expansion of commercial media to the
detriment of public broadcasting and
community media, Canadians are losing
crucial access to a wide range of information
and analysis about our communities,
our country and the world.
Media democracy
Without adequate funding and regulatory
support, both our public broadcasting
and our community media sectors
are struggling to survive and maintain
quality programming.
That’s why the Council of Canadians has
joined the newly-formed Campaign for
Democratic Media (CDM), comprised
of 45 organizations, including unions,
alternative media outlets and NGOs.
Within its first few months of existMarch 7, 2008 campaign encouraging people to write
the Canadian Radio-Television and
Telecommunications Commission
(CRTC) in advance of the hearings on
media diversity in September 2007.
Despite the short notice, over 1,900
Canadians swamped the CRTC with
letters demanding a less concentrated,
more representative media.
Mesage delivered
While the CRTC’s final decision ultimately
favoured the private sector and
showed little willingness to effectively
address the problem of media concentration
in Canada, the regulatory body
could not ignore the hundreds of letters
it had received from the general public.
Collectively, we sent a strong message
that Canadians are concerned about
media reform.
In November 2007, the Council of
Canadians joined other CDM members
at a protest urging the CRTC
to reject the application by CanWest
MediaWorks to acquire Alliance Atlantis
Communications in partnership with an
affiliate of the U.S. investment banking
giant Goldman Sachs and Company.
At the hearings, Council of Canadians
Executive Director John Urquhart and
board member Garry Neil told the
CRTC that if the deal went through, it
would effectively allow a U.S. corporation
to own and control two of Canada’s
largest media companies.
The Council argued that if foreign corporations
were allowed to take control
of Canadian broadcasters, cable companies
and other firms involved in the
Canadian broadcasting system, they
would eventually be able to challenge
government policies that affect their
rights as investors through the North
American Free Trade Agreement’s
chapter 11.
Unfortunately, the CRTC once again
ended up siding with the corporations
and allowed the deal to go through.
But as our collective voice for media
reform is steadily getting stronger, changing
the media landscape through the
CRTC is only one of our targets. Over
the next few months the Campaign for
Democratic Media is raising funds to
launch a number of important projects,
including a campaign to ensure open,
interconnected, non-discriminatory and
affordable access to the Internet
for everyone.
Tiping the balance
Social justice activists often complain
that the media distorts their viewpoints
and represents issues only from the perspective
of the corporate elite. Through
our involvement in this important new
network, the Council of Canadians
and a growing number of our allies are
taking action to correct the imbalance
and ensure that a diversity of voices and
opinions get a chance to be heard.
Meera Karunananthan is the Council of
Canadians’ Media Officer.
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Photo: Meera Karunananthan, being interviewed by the media during a street protest in Montebello, August 2007. Credit: Christina Riley
