Gareth Shearman, President
Telecommunities Canada
www.tc.ca

Mr. Robert Morin, Secretary General, CRTC
Date: Sept. 29, 2010

Re:  Broadcasting notice of consultation CRTC 210-623 -- Call for comments on contributions by broadcasting distribution undertakings to local expression 

4. iii. What is the most appropriate use for the resulting difference? Please provide details and a rationale in support of your proposal.   

Dear Mr. Morin:

Telecommunities Canada (www.tc.ca) is an alliance of individuals and associations which works to ensure that all Canadians are able to participate in community-based communications by promoting and supporting local community networking initiatives.  The network includes approximately 3000 community access (CAP) sites across the country.  These sites provide access to and training in both old and new technologies to support local expression.  

One particular example of the use of old and new technologies in such a center is in Sanikiluaq, in the south eastern corner of Hudson’s Bay, the most southerly community in Nunavut. In this community of 800 people, 98% are Inuit. The government is the main employer. Soapstone carving and other Inuit arts and crafts are a local economic mainstay but marketing them is a challenge.  In this small isolated community, homes are more likely to have Cable TV than telephones and, increasingly, more likely to have computers than Cable TV or telephones. Located in the school and the daycare center, the community access site (CAP) offers an interface by maintaining a local cable TV channel. In addition to local cultural and educational programming, it serves as a local shopping channel used to move needed items around inside a community where one can’t just drive down to the local Canadian Tire to replace a snowmobile part. Locals bring their wares to the site, have them photographed and put on power point slides which are then broadcast on the channel. In an unusual version of the “moccasin telegraph”, Channel 3 also serves as a way for the school to contact parents who don’t have a phone – a message is broadcast from the CAP site and, if the parents don’t see it, a friend or neighbour most certainly will.

Unfortunately, the majority of CAP sites have not exploited the option of reaching the community at large through conventional tv because they lack the additional capital that would be necessary to make this a reality. We believe that such creative community use of new and old technologies, particularly in rural and remote locations, should be supported through a Community-Access Media Fund to which independent community media centers could apply. There are many CAP sites who would be ready to serve as the nuclei of the new channels proposed by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations  (CACTUS) to fill the widening gaps in the cable community channel system. Telecommunities Canada is poised to provide the leadership to get these channels on the air.
 
Therefore, we support the renewed proposal by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) to use the 0.5% of cable gross revenues that would become available under the CRTC's proposal in 2010-623 for the establishment of a Community-Access Media Fund to which independent non-profit community-run access channels could apply.  

We do not seek to appear at an oral hearing on this matter, if there is one.

We appreciate the opportunity to comment in this matter.

Gareth Shearman
President
Telecommunities Canada
shearman@victoria.tc.ca