Cabinet has reappointed Catherine Tait as president and CEO of CBC and Radio-Canada for just an 18-month term as Ottawa reassesses the public broadcaster’s mandate going forward in a shifting online “environment,” says Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez.
Tait was appointed to a five-year term as CBC’s president in July 2018, but Rodriguez told reporters in Ottawa on June 1 that Canada’s online information landscape will be “so different” in a year and a half due to the recent passage of the Online Streaming Act and the expected passing of Bill C-18 that he’s decided to reappoint Tait to only an 18-month term.
Due to this and other pieces of legislation, Rodriguez said cabinet will be updating the CBC’s mandate to ensure it appoints the “right person” to be the public broadcaster’s president at that point.
“We’re in a transition period,” he said in French. “There will be a very different environment in a year and half.”
“So we came to an agreement on this period where [Tait] will help us during the process,” he added. “The context will be so different with C-11, C-18, and the modernization of CBC that we need to reflect on who we'll need for this.”
During her second term, Tait said she wants to focus on projects CBC has undertaken with other media organizations and stakeholders to “address the urgent issues of polarization and distrust, which are undermining democratic and open societies.”
New Regulations
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is currently developing a regulatory framework to implement changes to Canada’s Broadcasting Act as legislated in the Online Streaming Act.Although the Online Streaming Act’s wording leaves open the possibility that the CRTC could use its new authority to regulate user-generated content, the broadcast regulator has stated several times that it will not do so.
“Content and digital creators will not be regulated, just as creators, artists and producers are not regulated today,” the rgulator writes on a webpage titled “Myths and Facts about Bill C-11.”