Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Cameron Dearlove laments the fact that Canada is failing to recognize and replicate other countries' successes in using the social determinants of health to shape public policy:

Today we know that social and financial inequities — particularly the experience of poverty — has a greater impact on our health than our healthcare system, genetics, even lifestyle choices. For a society facing spiking healthcare costs, the social determinants of health (things like housing, food security, social inclusion, early childhood development, employment, and working conditions) arguably present the greatest public policy opportunity since the creation of our social safety net, after the Second World War. While Canada is at the forefront of research in the social determinants of health, we are laggards in turning this research into healthy public policy — while Finnish babies benefit from sleeping in their care-filled boxes, Canadian children rest outside the box.

If the social determinants of health hold such promise, what are we doing locally, provincially, and nationally to apply these ideas? How do we rewrite conventional wisdom so that governments, institutions and communities are using the powerful social determinants framework to encourage longer, healthier, happier lives?

- Meanwhile, Donald Hirsch writes about the changing - and sadly spreading - shape of child poverty in the UK. And Barbara Howard offers a moment of perspective on how the disasters which some people can easily brush off cause far more problems for the working poor.

- Paul Krugman notes that the Republicans' tax policy continues to reflect little more than bare class warfare by other names in cutting taxes on the rich while raising them for everybody else.

- Heather Mallick traces the demise of Sun News to its constant bullying, while Christopher Waddell sees it as having been based largely on a failed attempt to game Canada's broadcasting system.

As an aside, others are asking how it is that a network seemingly set up to further the Cons' interests didn't actually get enough preferential treatment to survive despite its lack of merit. But I'll note that the government isn't the only force which could have kept the network afloat - and given the massive amount of money put into corporate communications, it's telling also that Canada's plutocrats didn't have any interest in footing the bill for a media outlet which seemed to fit their political interests.

- Finally, Craig Forcese and Kent Roach offer a detailed look at the contents of the Cons' terror bill. Thomas Walkom - who deserves plenty of blame as the media originator of the theory that no opposition party would oppose C-51 - is finally beginning to recognize that the NDP is in fact standing up for civil rights against the Cons' fearmongering. Stephen Maher talks to a former CSIS officer and finds even more reason for concern with what the Cons are trying to pull. And Don Lenihan writes that he sees the Cons primarily as having made Canadian politics more authoritarian rather than more conservative - though I'm not sure it's an either-or proposition.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading.

- James Greiff makes the case against the right's faith-based reliance on costly high-end tax cuts in place of attracting people through jobs and quality of life:

(T)he recent record suggests those U.S. states that cut taxes find themselves with bigger deficits and none of the economic revival that might stop the population loss plaguing the Rust and Farm belts.

Consider Ohio, where Republican Governor John Kasich is pushing to cut the top marginal tax rate to 5 per cent or less from the current 5.92 per cent. This might save the average taxpayer a few hundred dollars a year. It’s always nice to have a little more change in one’s pocket, though you should ask yourself: For this amount of money, would you pick up hearth and home and move to Ohio or cancel plans to move out of state?

But if people don’t relocate because of tax rates, why do they move? The answer is as basic as it gets. The biggest group of cross-border movers is people relocating for jobs or looking for work, according to a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Adding in people who move for cheaper housing and milder weather — mostly retirees leaving colder climates for the South and Florida — accounts for a majority of the people who leave.
...
There’s also evidence that cutting corporate taxes is of little use in stimulating business. First, many entrepreneurs aren’t that mobile; second, they tend to want to be in cities with large talent pools. Taxes don’t often figure among the reasons entrepreneurs cite for where to start a business. And once a company is up and running, marginal tax rates are rarely something that leads a company to move.

- Paul Krugman discusses the Financial Times' failed attack on Thomas Piketty's discussion of wealth inequality. And Travis Lupick reports on Oxfam Canada's effort to put inequality at the forefront of its international development work.

- Meanwhile, Guy Standing argues for a "precariat charter" to enshrine new rights of citizenship (most notably a guaranteed basic income). But I do have to wonder whether he's proposing the wrong means to the right end - as the case for greater control over time and income security seems more defensible and appealing as applying to all individuals, rather than mattering only to the subset of workers who see their current employment (or lack thereof) as including them within the precariat class.

- Jim Stanford eviscerates the Cons' attempt to keep a pool of disposable employees at business' fingertips based on the claim that they're particularly important to international service industries:

On average, TFWs on LMOs are more important in goods-producing industries than service-producing industries.  They accounted for almost 3% of all jobs in goods industries, but only 1.35% in services sectors.  (While these ratios may seem small, don’t forget that the rapid expansion of the TFW program under the Conservatives has meant that migrant workers accounted for a surprisingly large share of all net new jobs created in the economy; employers tapped migrants for one in five net new paid positions created in the whole economy from 2007 through 2012).

Moreover, within services industries, TFWs are clearly concentrated in non-tradeable services sectors.  60% of all service-sector LMOs were issued in the three biggest sub-sectors, each of which is overwhelmingly domestic in its outlook: hospitality (with 45,000 LMOs), “Other Services” (21,000 LMOs, most of whom work in personal care), and wholesale and retail trade (11,000 LMOs).  The proportional reliance on LMOs is highest, not surprisingly, in the hospitality and other services categories, where LMOs represented almost 4% of all employment — and where the expansion of the program has provided employers with attractive low-wage recruitment opportunities.

In contrast, a total of 23,000 LMOs were in effect in 2013 in the four major tradeable service industries listed on the table above: transportation, information, finance, and professional services.  That represents 0.9% of employment in those four sectors.  A more detailed disaggregation of employment within those tradeable services industries (were the data to allow for it) would likely confirm, I suggest, that the use of TFWs in the more specialized and innovative services jobs (those which are most oriented around exports to foreign purchasers) would likely be significantly lower.  Of course, there are some TFWs who have entered Canada to fill higher-skill jobs, including some in finance, professional services, and other tradeable services.  So we cannot say that TFWs play no role in services exports; they clearly do.  But we can certainly say that TFWs are used less intensively in tradeable services than non-tradeable services, and even less intensively again than in goods industries.  That makes it all the more curious for Mr. Kenney to highlight this part of the economy with his dramatic argument.
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Opponents of the TFW program have argued for its replacement with systems of permanent immigration, and adequate transition measures to allow those who are in the country to continue working here under alternative provisions.  (See for example the fine work of the Alberta Federation of Labour on this point.)  In that regard, with due notice to both employers of TFWs and the migrant workers themselves, the TFW program (and in particular its most troublesome aspect, the low-skill stream) could be cancelled with no impact on Canada’s services exports.  In fact, the impact on goods-producing industries and non-tradeable services would be greater (but still negligible, given appropriate notice and transition measures) than the impact on tradeable services.

In light of this evidence, Mr. Kenney’s claim that the TFW program is essential to Canada’s international trade in services should be seen as far-fetched and desperate.  And the extravagant hyperbole of this argument makes a mockery of his own appeal, in his earlier tweet that same day, for more “nuance in the discussion” of the TFW issue.

- Finally, Antony Lowenstein discusses how public broadcasters represent a much-needed counterweight to the wealthy and powerful - and why they're thus bound to come under attack.

The broader truth

Yes, it's utterly asinine for David Akin to complain that keeping the law on truth in broadcasting as it currently stands will result in the sudden emergence of "truth squads". But let's put that non sequitur aside and take a look at what's even more obviously wrong with Akin's take on the wider media picture.

To the extent one wants to assume that any standard requiring truth in broadcasting will inevitably lead to crackdowns on the media, the change Akin is defending doesn't help matters in the slightest. After all, a broadcaster is still subject to sanction if it broadcasts false news "that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public". But apparently Akin is entirely fine with "truth and safety squads", so long as the media can lie without consequence when nobody is arguing that lives are at stake.

But that presents even more serious problems. I don't see much room for doubt that Akin's example of a crackdown in Egypt is exactly the type of situation where a controlling government would waste no time in shutting down dissent based on the public safety excuse that the Cons have so readily abused in other contexts.

So the question isn't whether the CRTC should be policing truth to some extent, as Akin is defending a change which keeps that role in place. Instead, the question is whether the CRTC should try to hold broadcasters to a standard of reasonable correspondence with reality at all times, or whether it should step in only in exactly the situations where state power is most likely to be misused. And the answer from Akin and the rest of the Sun Media Party suggests not only that they plan to play fast and loose with the facts under normal circumstances, but also that they see no problem with suppressing any notion of free speech when it matters most.

On consolidation

Antonia Zerbisias and Charlie Angus are once again right on top of the latest from the CRTC. But while there's some silver lining in that there should some real public consultation on media consolidation later this year, it looks like several mergers will be rubber-stamped before the CRTC actually deals with that issue:

Yesterday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) either caved to public pressure or saw reason – or both – and decided to postpone its hearings on media concentration until next fall.

That gives the public more time to participate than the 35 calendar days the federal broadcast regulator had originally allowed when it announced hearings for April 29 just two weeks ago. What's more, the CRTC had originally set its hearings on "diversity of voices" to occur concomitant with its proceedings on the $1.365 billion mega takeover by CTVglobemedia of CHUM.

Which, for all intents and purposes, suggested that the merger was a mere rubber stamp away from regulatory approval.

So, the good news is, the CRTC has seen the error of its ways and recognized that the alarming rate of media concentration in Canada – arguably the most vigorous in the democratic world – merits full, fair and open public debate.

"The current wave of consolidation in the Canadian broadcasting industry, and the possibility of more major transactions in the future, raises important questions relating to the diversity of voices in Canada," Konrad von Finckenstein, the CRTC's newly appointed chair, said in a statement. "Holding a public hearing in the fall will allow us to give these issues the thorough and in-depth study they deserve. This exercise will result in clearly articulated policy guidelines that will further the evolution of the Canadian broadcasting system from that point forward."

All very noble but, deeper in the news release, comes this paragraph:

"Regarding the major ownership transactions that have been filed or publicly announced as of this date, the commission is of the view that procedural fairness demands that such applications be heard in a timely manner and pursuant to the rules in force when the transactions were announced."

Which means that, not only does the CTVglobemedia-CHUM deal slip in under the wire, so do the recently announced takeover of Alliance Atlantis by CanWest Global and New York investment bank Goldman Sachs, and Astral Media's acquisition of Standard Broadcasting.

"That's very convenient," said NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus yesterday in an interview, noting that these are among the largest media deals in Canadian history.

As Zerbisias points out, there's no apparent reason why any mergers should be allowed to proceed on the basis that there's no real problem with the current lack of media diversity - particularly when that position seems unlikely to survive the broader review. And while it's a plus that Canadians will rightfully receive at least some chance to be heard, it's all too clear that until that happens, the interests of corporate broadcasters will continue to be given precedence over the public interest.

Update: See also Angus' take here.

On minimizing input

Antonia Zerbisias is once again ahead of the curve on the latest developments surrounding the CRTC, noting that while the planned CTV/CHUM merger required nine months of analysis from the Competition Bureau, the public will only get three weeks to comment on both the merger and the larger role of the CRTC:

(C)an citizens be...assured that the public interest will be protected when the CRTC begins its hearings on the deal in Gatineau on April 30?

Don't bet on it.

That's because viewers, unions, artists' groups and other non-industry parties have only 24 working days to get their interventions to the CRTC before the April 5 deadline.

In fact, they may have entirely missed Thursday's notice of the hearings, which was published without fanfare...

(T)he notice raises other very significant issues that the CRTC "may also wish to discuss" at the hearings including "concentration of ownership, cross-media ownership (horizontal integration), vertical integration, licence trafficking and tangible benefits."

Tangible benefits being the industry term for what broadcasters give back to the system in return for using the public airwaves.

Now this could be good news, or it could be bad news. It's hard to read the bureaucratese.

But the fact that there was no news release, there's little time for public input and that this came in under the radar should, you should forgive the pun, make your antennae wiggle.

Making it even more suspicious is that, just last fall, the CRTC held extensive TV policy review hearings for over-the-air stations and has yet to issue its findings. The policy review for cable TV has yet to begin.

The public has no clue what the CRTC intends with its new policies.

So how can it make an intelligent contribution to the coming CTV hearings, not to mention the CanWest-Alliance Atlantis and Astral-Standard merger hearings that will soon follow?

Given the consistent direction of the Cons in power - both with respect to the CRTC and on other issues - it's hard to see any reason to think that the planned scope could possibly be good news. Instead, it appears glaringly clear that the Cons are seeking to minimize public input both into the merger and the CRTC's longer-term role. And as Zerbisias points out, the result of such exclusion is bound to be far less consideration of the public's interests when final decisions are made in both areas.

Shill games

Antonia Zerbisias writes that a new task force is being set up to review the Canadian Television Fund - and that the Cons don't appear to be letting either laws or basic fairness stand in the way of their efforts to cater to cable companies:

In a terse news release last Tuesday, the CRTC announced that its newly created CTF task force would "develop a consensus to resolve the concerns raised by stakeholders or, failing that, to set out possible options to resolve any remaining issues.

"The task force will make its final report public. If it is required or deemed advisable based on this report, the commission will then issue a public notice and hold a hearing."

The task force will consist of one commissioner, broadcast vice-chair Michel Arpin,plus three CRTC staffers. It will meet behind closed doors so as not to risk, in the words of newly appointed CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, "imperilling the commercial relations" of the interested parties.

In fact, there will be no input except from industry stakeholders – even though the public, which pays for this, is the biggest stakeholder group of all...

Just where does the CRTC have the authority under the law to hold a closed-door, one-member-only task force whose purpose is to achieve a resolution among a limited number of parties with commercial interests?

According to the Broadcasting Act, a panel must consist of no fewer than three full-time commissioners. This task force has only one, plus three bureaucrats.

When NDP MP Charlie Angus raised this last week during one of the Commons heritage committee meetings, von Finckenstein never really addressed the question...

Only after the task force report is delivered April 27 – and only if the issues aren't "resolved" – will the CRTC decide whether further input is necessary.

As von Finckenstein told the heritage committee last week, "If there is no consensus, the report will set out various options to resolve the concerns that have been expressed. At that point, based on the task force's findings, the commission will make a decision about whether it is necessary or desirable to issue a public notice and hold public hearings. If we were to go ahead with public hearings, we would expect to complete them by the end of August."

So why not cut the red tape and hold public hearings right away – unless the conclusion is foregone? Why the stall?

Zerbisias goes on to note that the new move to a closed-door process could set a dangerous precedent which could then be applied to future CRTC hearings, including ones involving planned media mergers. Which means that the absurdity of putting the decision solely in the hands of one extremely narrow set of interests could be just the beginning of a complete exclusion of the public from the CRTC's decision-marking process.

And sadly, that type of move only seems to fit all too well with the usual right-wing idea of a consultation process (as apparently applied in the negotiation of the TILMA among other issues):
(1) Ask the largest corporate interest involved in a policy area to draft the policy it would most like to see.
(2) Implement the policy developed in (1) without further discussion.

Needless to say, Canadians generally should expect better than to have their voices considered only if cable giants can't reach agreement on what they want done. And hopefully the apparent lack of legal authority underlying the task force will help to call into question the Cons' wider disinterest in input from anybody but corporate interests.

Update: Good news from the NDP, as Charlie Angus has managed to win committee approval for a recommendation that public hearings follow any CRTC report (among other more direct support for the CTF). Though it's of course anybody's guess whether the Cons will bother following the recommendations.

On summary executions

CBC reports on the latest developments surrounding the Canadian Television Fund, as the much-ballyhooed meeting between Bev Oda and the cable industry seems to have led to predictably one-sided results:

The heritage committee in the House of Commons approved hearings beginning next week into the future of the beleaguered Canadian Television Fund.

New Democrat heritage critic Charlie Angus made a motion in the House on Thursday calling for the hearings after reading a cable industry website that boasted the CTF is "dead, done, gone."

Heritage Minister Bev Oda met with Canada's five largest cable companies on Tuesday to talk about the CTF, which funds Canadian television programs such as DeGrassi Next Generation, Da Vinci's City Hall and Trailer Park Boys.

A cable industry website published an analysis of the meeting on Thursday that quotes Ken Stein, the senior vice-president of Shaw Communications in Calgary, saying: "The fund can't be fixed. It's dead, done, gone. The fund has failed."

The cable companies believe the minister supports their position that the CTF should be shut down, Angus said.

It should be noted that the CTF's current funding was received partly from the cable companies and partly from the federal government - which claimed last week that it planned on keeping up its part of the funding for another two years. So there's no apparent reason why even a complete capitulation to the cable companies' concerns would ever lead to the outright elimination of the Fund.

But then, reason seldom seems to win out over the Cons' hatred of effective government. And with Oda herself speaking only in vague platitudes in response to Angus' questions rather than even making reference to the supposed government commitment to the Television Fund, it looks all too certain that Canadian television production has joined so many other important priorities on the chopping block.

A strong appointment

The Globe and Mail reports that despite the Cons' best efforts, the CRTC has recruited a new chairman. And while it's still an open question whether the Cons will listen to him any more than his predecessors, it's hard to doubt Konrad von Finckenstein's qualifications:

Mr. von Finckenstein, a Federal Court judge who was commissioner of the Competition Bureau from 1997 to 2003, was named chairman of the CRTC on Thursday for a five-year term. He will take over from Charles Dalfen, whose tenure ended last month...

Mr. von Finckenstein's tenure at the helm of the federal Competition Bureau was marked by several high-profile interventions on major files. He also changed how the bureau operated, opening the watchdog to regular reviews of the legislation he administered.

Known as a no-nonsense administrator, he blocked the takeover of ICG Propane Inc. by Superior Propane Inc., and overruled the CRTC when it allowed Astral Media Inc. to buy several radio stations in Quebec from Telemedia Communications Inc.

Mr. von Finckenstein, 61, was unavailable to comment yesterday. He takes the job at a crucial time for the CRTC, which has just completed an extensive review of its telecom policy, including deregulation of the home phone and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone services. But several key broadcasting decisions are on the horizon. Two industry-changing takeovers -- the purchase of CHUM Ltd. by CTVglobmedia Inc. and the acquisition of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. by CanWest Global Communications Corp. -- loom large...

The CRTC is likely headed for a makeover as well, with several commissioners approaching the end of their terms. Since the chairman and commissioners each have one vote on regulatory matters, the makeup of the CRTC will have a different look under Mr. von Finckenstein.

While the article doesn't discuss specifics about von Finckenstein's tenure as a Federal Court judge, it's worth pointing out his most famous decision - which both refused to allow the recording industry to force ISPs to disclose customer identities, and helped to shape the current law on file-sharing by calling into doubt whether existing copyright law even covers the activity.

Needless to say, that background may bode all the better for his refusal to allow big businesses to trample on the interests of the public at large based solely on its own word. But since Maxime Bernier has shown he's entirely willing to overrule the CRTC when its concern about consumers gets in the way of an anti-government agenda, the question now is whether any move by von Finckenstein and the CRTC to protect consumers will be allowed to stand.

(Edit: typo.)

Another stacked process

If nothing else, the Cons clearly know how to bury the part of a story they don't want to put in the public eye. Take for example today's news surrounding the Canadian Television Fund, where plenty of attention is paid to the Cons' plan to continue funding from the government side for two years, but much less to Bev Oda's concurrent plan to give cable companies a chance to rewrite the rules for the Television Fund without including any other viewpoints in the discussion:

For its $250-million annual budget, the fund usually receives $100 million from the government, as well as contributions from Canadian cable and direct-to-home satellite providers, which are required by CRTC regulations to contribute a percentage of their revenues to support Canadian programming...

Oda also spoke about the current controversy surrounding the TV fund, reiterating her late Thursday announcement that she would be meeting with the CTF's principal contributors (BellExpress Vu, Shaw/Starchoice, Rogers, Vidéotron and Cogeco) in Ottawa early next week.

The meeting was prompted by the recent decision of cable giants Shaw and Vidéotron to suspend their CTF payments.

At a Parliament Hill news conference, Oda said she is interested in hearing any complaints, in particular about how the fund is governed.

"Obviously there's still some concerns and discomfort with the structure that was set up," she said. "I would like to hear what those discomforts are."...

"I'm confident that we can find a resolution," Oda said.

Now, it's odd enough that Oda's response to a threat to break the law is to try to change the law to appease the would-be violators, rather than at least starting from the position that the law should be followed (as recommended by the Television Fund's chair). Though of course that tends to fit all too nicely with the Cons' usual system of double standards - with the cable industry falling in the "Cons and friends" group which can do no wrong no matter what a pesky law may say.

But even that double standard aside, the composition of Oda's meeting should be setting off alarm bells. After all, Oda seems to plan to work out a "resolution" based on the "concerns and discomfort" of the cable companies without input from the figures on the receiving end of Television Fund money (i.e. the Canadian television production industry), or from other actors whose interests diverge in the least from the cable companies (notably broadcasters who aren't under a cable-company umbrella such as the CBC).

Needless to say, the end result of that process figures to be one which unduly favours the sole side represented. Which will all too likely mean a reduction in the cable companies' responsibility to maintain the Television Fund and resulting windfall to their shareholders, combined with either an immediate reduction in the Television Fund's role or a temporary increase in government support to kick the can down the road. And it wouldn't be the least bit surprising for any such increase to then be cut back by the Cons at the first available opportunity.

Of course, it could be worse if Oda had come out and stated an intention not to continue the Television Fund past this spring. But the continued government funding is only one of the necessary elements in ensuring that the Television Fund can continue to do its job - and judging from Oda's willingness to hear only from one side of the issue, it'll take some significant public pressure to keep the rest of the necessary conditions in place.

Update: Charlie Angus has more following Oda's announcement.

Can vs. Con

Earlier this week, Antonia Zerbisias noted that Shaw Cable seems to consider itself above the rules requiring Canadian broadcasters to contribute to the Canadian Television Fund. And it appears that Videotron plans to follow suit. But today, the NDP made clear that neither the broadcasters nor Bev Oda will be allowed to neglect the Television Fund without public justification:

NDP Heritage Critic Charlie Angus says he is not going to sit back while thousands of television production jobs are put on the line following the decision by Shaw Cable Systems and Videotron Ltd. to walk away on their obligations to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Cable and satellite companies are required by the CRTC to contribute 5% of their annual revenue to the fund. Angus says the cable giants are blackmailing the CTF and are getting away with it because Heritage Minister Bev Oda simply refuses to do her job.

“I’m sick and tired of how companies like Videotron and Shaw are pushing their weight around because Bev Oda is either unwilling or unable to put in a day’s work. These companies are pampered and protected from competition by the rules of the CRTC. They need to be held accountable for their side of the bargain.”

Angus points out that there was complete silence from Oda following the unilateral decision by Jim Shaw to walk away from the CTF. Its not surprising that Videotron has picked up on the silence from the Minister and pulled their funds as well...

Angus has already gone after Oda for her failure to renew the government portion of the CTF. He is challenging her to issue an immediate statement to explain what steps she will take to enforce the obligations of the cable giants to pay into the CTF.

It's worth noting a few points from Zerbisias' article which bring a bit more context to the issue:

(T)he CTF has its roots in a complex Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications (CRTC) decision of 1993, one that arose out of a lengthy structural hearing.

At the time, cable companies were spreading panic over the so-called "deathstars" – satellite TV to you and me – that would supposedly wipe them and Canadian TV off the map.

The CRTC, in its infinite wisdom, gave them a gift. In order for them to have the money they needed to upgrade their systems, basic cable fees were deregulated. The deal was that the cablecos had to plunge some of those increased revenues – 5 per cent – back into the production industry.

And so a precursor of the fund was born. In 1996, it was merged with the broadcast side of Telefilm as well as other federal monies in a public-private partnership known as the CTF...

Which means that, whether it's public or private, it's still coming out of your pocket if you're a taxpayer and you subscribe to any TV service.

Don't bet that, if the CTF collapses, you'll get a tax rebate or a cable rate decrease. This would be a bonus for Shaw shareholders.

But it gets worse, as the very question of whether the Television Fund will be continued this spring is in the hands of the same Heritage Minister who appears unwilling to enforce Shaw's obligations:

Shaw's timing is exquisitely awful. That's because the CTF is up for renewal this spring. The Harper government can continue it – or not.

The CRTC, which established the fund, is in no position to squawk. It is without a chairperson and has a number of commission positions up for grabs.

CBC, which schedules many of the documentaries that the CTF subsidizes, is also without a chairperson and has a lame duck president in Robert Rabinovitch.

Even Telefilm lacks a chairperson and is short of board members. The National Film Board has no commissioner.

All of these are federal appointments. But Heritage Minister Bev Oda is silent.

No wonder some feel that Shaw's bravado stems from the fact that he is an Albertan, and that he can sniff the scent of deregulation in the air ... waves.

In sum, the Television Fund itself exists as the broadcast industry's tradeoff for deregulation which they demanded not that long ago. Now, broadcasters are looking to get out of paying the relatively small amount which they seemed to have no problem with before (while of course continuing to reap the benefits of the other side of the deal). And in addition to refusing to enforce the rules as they exist now, Oda seems to be following the Cons' pattern of leaving one side of the issue without a voice in which should be a major public debate as to the role of the Television Fund going forward.

If anything, the only problem with Angus' stand today is that it's too narrow in light of the spring deadline. What's at stake is the very existence of the Television Fund, not only the enforcement of Shaw's and Videotron's current obligations - and indeed it would be a completely empty victory to get Shaw and Videotron to do what they're required to now while allowing the Televion Fund to be disbanded within months.

That said, the public and parliamentary debate called for by Angus is probably the best way to ensure that issue gets brought to the forefront as well. And hopefully the other opposition parties will heed Angus' call to ensure that Canada's television production industry isn't levelled by the Cons' disinterest.