Institutional links

• Quick Links

  • Today's Releases
  • Decisions, Notices and Orders
  • Public Proceedings

• Resources

  • Glossary

Privacy and Security
Transparency

2.0 The CRTC, policies, and regulation

2.7 Current major CRTC initiatives

The following is a brief summary of some of the Commission's major initiatives currently underway.

Accessibility proceeding

In November 2008, the Commission held an oral hearing for the proceeding initiated by Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing 2008-8¹⁷² to address unresolved issues related to the accessibility of telecommunications and broadcasting services to persons with disabilities. The hearing featured a number of accessibility measures, such as closed captioning, appropriate signage, and American Sign Language (ASL) and Langue des signes qué'bé'coise (LSQ) interpretation. This proceeding is considering a variety of issues including relay services, access to emergency services, closed captioning, described video, customer service and support, and access to wireless services. A decision is expected to be released in the summer of 2009.

Licence renewal hearings for private conventional television stations

In Broadcasting Decision 2009-279,¹⁷³ the Commission announced that it will renew the broadcasting licences for the television stations of the broadcasters for which licence renewal applications were considered at the 27 April 2009 Gatineau public hearing. The licence renewal terms were a one-year licence renewal term, a two-year licence renewal term, a six-year licence renewal, and a full seven-year licence renewal term, depending on the applicant.

In that decision, the Commission indicated that it will hold a policy proceeding in the Fall of 2009 to address, but not necessarily be limited to, the following policy issues:

• determining the modalities and conditions for group-based licensing to be employed at the 2010 public hearing;
• providing revenue support for conventional broadcasters by
  • investigating alternative support mechanisms for local programming;
  • protecting the integrity of Canadian broadcaster signals; and
  • exploring a mechanism for establishing, through negotiation, fair market value for the signals of the conventional television stations distributed by BDUs;
• elaborating on further details regarding possible digital transition models; and
• establishing the appropriate minimum levels of spending on Canadian programming by English-language television broadcasters and the regulatory mechanism to ensure these levels.

Community and campus radio proceeding

The Commission has announced its intention to renew the policies governing campus and community radio programming undertakings, which were last reviewed in Public Notice 2000-12¹⁷⁴ and 2000-13,¹⁷⁵ respectively. Given the imminent revision of these policies, the Commission announced in Broadcasting Decision 2009-334¹⁷⁶ that it will renew the licences of a number of campus and community radio programming undertakings set to expire on 31 August 2009 for a period of two years.

Ownership

In early 2009, the Commission implemented Phase I of the Broadcasting Ownership Information Annual Filing (BOIAF), with the selected corporate groups identified in Appendix 1 of Broadcasting Circular 2008-7.¹⁷⁷ This process includes the collection and review of broadcasting ownership data with the objective of providing greater flexibility in the furnishing of ownership information and documents and to ease the administrative burden on both the broadcasters and the Commission as it relates to the filing and the management of such items through an application process. In the winter of 2010, the Commission will implement Phase II of this process, which will extend the filing requirement to other commercial broadcasters.

Internet traffic management

On 3 April 2008, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) filed an application requesting that the Commission issue an order directing Bell Canada to cease and desist from "throttling"¹⁷⁸ its wholesale Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) services and, in particular, the wholesale service known as Gateway Access Service (GAS). On 20 November 2008, the Commission issued Telecom Decision 2008-108¹⁷⁹ in response to this application.

In Telecom Decision 2008-108, the Commission denied CAIP's request, stating that its determinations were made solely with respect to Bell Canada's traffic shaping practices in relation to its wholesale GAS tariffs.

The Commission further noted that parties in that proceeding had raised concerns related to existing and emerging Internet traffic management practices that were beyond the scope of the CAIP application. In light of this, the Commission launched Telecom Public Notice 2008-19.¹⁸⁰

A broad range of issues related to technology, economics, access, and privacy were addressed in Telecom Public Notice 2008-19. In light of the questions posed in that public notice, the following main categories emerged:

i) information related to the growth and characteristics of the Internet;

ii) information about the various technical and economic solutions that are available now and in the future to manage Internet traffic;

iii) notification and disclosure requirements for Internet service providers (ISPs);

iv) privacy concerns;

v) interpreting and applying the Telecommunications Act to the traffic management practices employed by ISPs, specifically sections 27, 36, and 47 of the Telecommunications Act; and

vi) current initiatives and regulatory measures being examined in other jurisdictions.

The Commission expects to issue a decision related to the Telecom Public Notice 2008-19 proceeding by November 2009. At that time, the Commission intends to pronounce whether Internet traffic management practices are consistent with the Telecommunications Act, and whether any measures are required to ensure that such practices are in accordance with the Telecommunications Act.

Policy Direction

The Commission is required to apply the Policy Direction when exercising its powers and performing its duties under the Telecommunications Act.

The Policy Direction requires that the Commission rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible and when relying on regulation should use measures that satisfy the following criteria:

• specify the telecommunications policy objective that is advanced by those measures and demonstrate their compliance with the Policy Direction;
• if they are of an economic nature, they should neither deter economically efficient competitive entry into the market nor promote economically inefficient entry;
• if they are not of an economic nature, to the greatest extent possible, they are implemented in a symmetrical and competitively neutral manner; and
• if they relate to network interconnection arrangements or regimes for access to networks, buildings, in-building wiring, or support structures, they should ensure the technological and competitive neutrality of those arrangements or regimes, to the greatest extent possible, to enable competition from new technologies and not to artificially favour either Canadian carriers or resellers.

To enable the Commission to act in a more efficient, informed, and timely manner, the Policy Direction also requires the Commission, among other things, to use only tariff approval mechanisms that are as minimally intrusive and as minimally onerous as possible, and to continue to explore and implement new approaches for streamlining its processes.

Accordingly, in Telecom Decisions 2007-51¹⁸¹ and 2008-34,¹⁸² the Commission established action plans to review the existing economic, non-economic, and social regulatory measures, with a view to ensuring that such measures are implemented in a manner consistent with the Policy Direction.

More information about the Commission's action plans may be obtained from the CRTC's website.