PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED

We, the undersigned residents and citizens of Canada, draw attention of the House to the following:

THAT the Canadian Broadcasting Act recognizes community as one of three elements of the Canadian broadcasting system alongside the private and public elements that are to complement each other to ensure that a range of local, regional and national information is available to Canadians;

THAT each element of the Canadian broadcasting system shall contribute in an appropriate manner to the creation and presentation of Canadian content including meaningful access to production, exhibition and distribution of locally produced, locally reflective community media;

THAT over $130 million annually is collected by cable companies to enable citizen participation in media creation to i) foster a diversity of voices at the local level by providing alternative points of view on matters of public concern and ii) to reflect Canadian culture and values; 

THAT it has been demonstrated via multiple audits of cable community channels over the last decade that the majority of cable companies are not enabling such citizen participation in media;

THAT the majority of production and training facilities once maintained by cable companies to enable such participation have been closed;

THEREFORE we call upon Parliament to i) re-affirm the role of community media and the need for regulatory and financial support to ensure a diversified and robust Canadian media system and ii) specifically to direct the $130 million collected by cable companies to a Community-Access Media Fund to enable not-for-profit community media organizations to deliver multi-platform digital media skills training and distribution of community-generated media.​