Since 2019, the Taku River Tlingit First Nation lawyer has been the CRTC’s commissioner for B.C. and the Yukon; she is also vice-chair of the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals, a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting excellence in administrative justice, and serves as the chair of the council’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Anderson was in Victoria in February for the ninth annual BC Communications Forum, where we spoke about protecting Canadian content, modernizing the Broadcasting Act and making sure all Canadians have access to the internet.
Is part of your role to ensure Indigenous perspectives are reflected in CRTC decisions and consultations?
I do represent as Indigenous, but to answer your question, CRTC commissioners are tribunal decision-makers so we’re careful to not advocate from any one perspective. I think bringing my own lived experience as an Indigenous woman to discussions at the commission is valuable. We’re working on the Indigenous broadcast policy — asking questions about programming needs of Indigenous people and the vitalization of Indigenous languages and culture, definitions of Indigenous content and success and how the policy can recognize communities for self-determination.
It’s so important to support content that reflects all our diversity.
I’m especially excited by how residents in remote areas of Canada can see themselves now as owners of media and communications, versus consumers. It’s encouraging to see more opportunities created for Indigenous youth in their own communities.
What is the CRTC doing to address Canadian consumers affected by prolonged internet and cellular service outages?
You’re spot on about the need to have reliable, affordable and high-quality internet and cellphone services. Especially true living in Western Canada and coming from the north, we all know how important it is for communities to stay connected during forest fires, landslides and flooding. We’re working on a mandate to lessen the disruptive impact of service outages on Canadians. We want to reduce the outage in length and ensure essential services like 911 and emergency alerts are always available.
How is the CRTC standing up for Canadian content creators dealing with streaming platforms?
It’s challenging, but we’re required to modernize the Broadcasting Act and all this while change is happening every day. To move us forward we confirmed three goals: support high-quality Canadian and Indigenous content; ensure the broadcasting system is sustainable and able to adapt to future change; and provide clear and predictable rules. It’s so important to support content that reflects all our diversity. We must make sure the market system is sustainable, reflects the marketplace and delivers clarity about what the rules are.
We’ve already launched 14 public consultations about how to implement the new legislation. To answer your question, we’ve issued a decision on base contributions that requires online streaming services to provide approximately $200 million a year in new funding to Canadian media groups, so that’s exciting. This money is coming from entities like Netflix right now, though some of those online streaming services have appealed and it may be a while before all the funding is available.
Where can we find the work being done by CRTC? Can Canadians provide input?
Yes, people can stay up to date on the evolution of proceedings like the co-development of the Indigenous broadcasting policy, Online Streaming Act, modernizing the Broadcasting Act and many more by going to crtc.gc.ca/eng/consultation/.
