CRTC Chair Wants Regulator Reformed

The agency most emblematic of bureaucratic invasiveness sees a limited role for itself in the digital world.

The head of the CRTC wants the government to implement sweeping changes to the broadcast regulator to better equip it for the 21st century. Konrad von Finckenstein told a crowd at the Banff World Media Festival that he would like to see the separate telecommunications and broadcast divisions of the CRTC merged into one entity, partly because the major telecom companies – Bell, Shaw, and Rogers – are all invested in broadcasting as well. A new communications act would also position the CRTC to deal with an industry that's rapidly moving all content online, and that no longer sees a distinction between “voice, video, or data.” Von Finckenstein said that a reformed CRTC would roll back its bureaucratic tendencies to help foster competition in a segment of the economy prone to concentration.