OTTAWA REPORT

Page 2

Native broadcasters didn't get all they asked for out of a recent federal task force, but they shouldn't complain.

The task force on Canadian broadcasting, chaired by Gerald Caplan and Florian Sauvageau, gave a lot of moral support for Native programmers. However, there are a number of holes in the Native chapter of their report. But given the state of the federal economy these days, Native broadcasters shouldn't cry about the size of the hole in the Caplan-Sauvageau donut. Instead, they should be working like hell to hang onto the dough.

The most important recommendation in the report says federal legislation should be changed to give Native people the right to broadcasting services in their own language. Native languages should have the same status, guarantee and protection as English or French. Sound terrific, right?

Well, as you might have guessed, there's a catch. The report says Native people should be entitled to broadcasting services in their own language - but only on two conditions.

One is the phrase "where numbers warrant". In other words, only in those places where Native people form a significant portion of a population. That basically leaves out most of the Native people in southern and urban Canada.

The second condition on native language rights is the vague requirement that they be affordable. Since the government is interesting in cutting - not increasing - federal spending these days, the present inadequate funding levels for Native language broadcasting will, at best, stay the same.

The recommendation on Native language rights doesn't really amount to much, Gerald Caplan admits, because of what he calls the "weasel word" conditions. But legal recognition of Native broadcasting rights - no matter how watered down - would nevertheless be a significant but largely symbolic victory.

Another recommendation said Native people, other minorities and women should be appointed to the boards of the CBC and the CRTC, the federal body that regulates all broadcasters. Such a move is little more than tokenism, Gerald Caplan admits. But given the Conservative government's extremely poor record of appointing Native people to federal boards, agencies and commissions, even tokenism may be a longtime coming.

Both recommendations, though, have one big thing going for them and should make them very popular with the tight-fisted Tories - they don't cost anything. Since some of the meatier Native recommendations create more problems than they solve, the fact that they are also too expensive is probably just as well.

One of the two meaty recommendations has to do with the CBC. The task force says the CBC Northern Service should become, essentially, an independent Native language service. This recommendation was included just for looks, Gerald Caplan says, because the CBC doesn't have the money to expand its Native language services in the first place. The task force included it, he says, to protect the already small Native language budget at the CBC.

A related recommendation was the one that says funding levels for Native broadcasters should be protected from further cuts. In the last two years, Native broadcasting programs have been cut by $4.5 million. The task force, by the way, praises the work that Native societies have done in spite of the cuts. Independent audience surveys have been taken, the report says, and they're positive. The report says Native people are listening to and watching the Native media and are asking for more Native programming.

Almost all the tasks force's attention was spent on northern Native broadcasters. The task force recognizes that Native groups in southern and urban areas have been getting the short end of the stick when it come to federal funding and support. But when it came time to even things up, the task force just continued that tradition. The only thing that Native broadcasters in southern and urban areas get is a recommendation to study their problem. Even Gerald Capan admits that "sounds a little wishy-washy."

But on the whole, the report has received very favorable reaction from almost everyone involved in the broadcasting industry.

Native groups should therefore begin pressuring Ottawa to adopt the spirit of the report. It would be a mistake to focus on the long-term solutions proposed in the Native chapter. They are either impractical or much too expensive for the government's taste The important thing is to save the dough in the budgets and nail down the hope offered by the symbolic recommendations.

Despite its shortcomings, the Caplan-Sauvageau report does give struggling Native broadcasters a slim chance to improve the troubled situation. And God knows, they need the help.