Ottawa and Toronto — The federal broadcast regulator made one of its most controversial decisions in recent years when it approved the digital distribution this week of the Arabic-language TV news network Al-Jazeera, although it did so without any public hearings.
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission relied exclusively on written submissions, of which it received an unusually high number, 1,700.
CRTC officials said they weren't sure whether the pool of submissions was the most the commission had ever received for a distribution request, but that it certainly ranked near the top of the list. "It's certainly amongst the highest," spokesman Philippe Todusignant said.
Mr. Tousignant said about 1,200 of those submissions were in support of the application to distribute Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based network that is often called "the CNN of the Arab world," but is assailed by many Jewish groups and their supporters.
The CRTC reviewed the matter through written submissions only, Mr. Tousignant said, because the application was neither a request for a licence renewal nor an application for a new broadcast licence. In both of those cases, he said, there are questions about such matters as Canadian content and broadcasters' commitments to domestic programming which the public has a right to speak to the commission about.
In the case of an application for digital distribution, however, such matters are decided behind closed doors by the full nine-member commission.
"Usually there would be a hearing for a new station ..... but this would be a licence to distribute," said Mr. Tousignant. "There's an opportunity for everyone to write to us and make their views known."
The Al-Jazeera application was approved along with other so-called ethnic distribution requests, all of which required a sponsoring distributor. Five Spanish-language stations were approved, as were a German, a Romanian and another Arabic-language station. Six applications were refused, including a request to add Italy's popular RAI International to the distribution list.
All applications were dealt with by the full nine-member commission.
The decisions were announced Thursday, just one day after the CRTC announced that it had cancelled the broadcasting licence of CHOI-FM, a popular Quebec City radio station, because of a pattern of offensive comments by its morning-show hosts and because it did not clean up its act after several warnings.
Charles Dalfen, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, defended the CRTC's actions by saying that the right to freedom of expression is not absolute. "It's a matter of balancing it against equal and opposite rights."
The CRTC's week in the spotlight came amid calls for an overhaul of the federal regulator, or at least substantive changes.
During last month's federal election campaign, the Conservatives vowed to change the CRTC so that Canadian viewers and listeners would have greater access to U.S. programming, reducing the commission's role.
Many CRTC critics, and some broadcasters, say the commission, which was set up more than 35 years ago, isn't structured or equipped to deal with today's broadcasting issues.
Mr. Dalfen himself pointed to a flaw this week in saying that he'd like to see the CRTC have the ability to fine stations such as CHOI-FM. The commission has little flexibility beyond the two extreme measures of issuing a tepid warning or pulling a licence. "We think there ought to be a fining power in respect of the powers that we could exercise," he said in an interview.
But Mr. Dalfen wouldn't say if that power would have had any effect on the CHOI-FM case.
