The Forum’s Board of Directors
FRPC’s Directors, elected annually by the organization’s members, meet regularly to discuss its work. Currently the Board consists of:
Al MacKay, Chairman
Al MacKay is a forty-five year veteran of the broadcast industry. He has been a radio and television broadcast journalist, and was a vice-president and station manager during a 25 year career at CJOH Television in Ottawa. He also ran CPAC, the cable public affairs channel, for three years before joining Judith Maxwell’s think tank – Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN) – as vice-president, Operations. Mr. MacKay was the primary consultant in developing, on behalf of the industry, its Code for Violence in Television Programming, its Program Rating System, and the on-screen icons and viewer advisories used by all programming services to inform viewers about the content of the program about to be aired. Al became Chairperson of the Forum in November 2019.
John Harris Stevenson, Vice-Chairperson
John is a long-time community broadcaster and public interest technologist. He was instrumental in the development of CKDU-FM Halifax in the 1980s and managed CFRU-FM Guelph in the early-1990s. As president of the National Campus and Community Radio Association he successfully lobbied to have community broadcasting enshrined in the 1992 Broadcasting Act and established the association’s first national office. A long time policy advisor and operational consultant to community broadcasting, in the 2000s John worked with community media, regulators, and industry stakeholders to establish the Community Radio Fund of Canada.
John has worked in strategic technology planning for international development and has managed the digital presences of government agencies and non-profit associations. He is a founder of the Wellington County FreeSpace, one of southern Ontario’s first community networks.
John holds a PhD in Information from the University of Toronto with research centred on user interface design, Internet governance, and digital media. He also holds and MA in Media Studies from Concordia University and a BA in Theatre Directing from Dalhousie University.
David Balcon
David has worked in the independent production sector since the late 1990s through Solstice Entertainment & Riverview Film Productions, as a consultant to the Canadian Museums Association in the 2010s, and in research from the early 1990s to 2005.
David earned a BA Honours in Sociology & Anthropology from Carleton University, and received certifications in production from Humber College and the University of Nebraska.
Sjef Frenken
Sjef (pronounced, ‘chef’) Frenken worked in private radio in Ottawa and Toronto after graduating from Ryerson. He was a member of the CRTC’s staff from 1971 to 1995, and held several management positions, including director of broadcasting policy, while working on a wide range of broadcasting policy files. Since retiring from the Commission he has taught at the University of Ottawa, and worked as a consultant. Sjef’s role as Chairperson of the Forum from its inception in 2013 to late 2019 guided FRPC through its start-up and subsequent six years of deepening engagement with the CRTC and Parliament.
Bernie Lucht
Bernie Lucht is one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) most accomplished radio producers. For over five decades, Lucht has brought radio documentaries and current affairs into the homes of Canadians as executive producer of some of CBC Radio One’s most popular programs, including Writers & Company, Tapestry and Ideas. He has also been instrumental in the annual production of The CBC Massey Lectures in partnership with Massey College in the University of Toronto, House of Anansi Press and universities from across Canada.
Lucht is a graduate of Concordia University. In 1998, he was awarded The John Drainie Award for Distinguished Contribution to Broadcasting by the Alliance of Canadian Cinema Television and Radio Arts and in 2011, was the recipient of the CBC/Radio-Canada President’s Award. In 2013, Lucht was invested as a member of the Order of Canada and received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2014, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from York University.
Joan Pennefather
Joan Pennefather has had a wide and extensive knowledge and experience in the cultural and telecommunications sectors. Over her career, she has headed two federal cultural agencies – the National Film Board and National Arts Centre – and sat as a CRTC commissioner for two terms.
Joan’s first job was in broadcasting, as an audience coordinator and on-air ad writer for CFCF-TV in her native Montreal. Her career in the federal government received its start in the international cultural realm as the manager of the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris.
She then joined the National Film Board of Canada in 1977, working as a producer in its Sponsored Film division, liaising with dozens of federal government departments.
After serving as Deputy Film Commissioner, Joan was named Canadian Government Film Commissioner and head of the NFB in 1989, serving until 1995. In this role, in addition to the management of the NFB across the country, Joan made many appearances before Parliamentary Committees and led several international film delegations to a number of countries and industry events, including an international meeting on the role of women in media called “It Matters Who Makes It”. She spearheaded applications to the CRTC for two specialty services: TV Canada|Tele-Canada and Young Canada TV|Tele-jeunsse. She oversaw the strengthening of the NFB’s regional production studios, Studio D outreach to mentor more women filmmakers and broadening the Board’s role with First Nations creators. During her term Joan worked with both Liberal and Conservative governments in Ottawa.
After departing the NFB, Joan took over management of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and following that was appointed in 1998 as a commissioner of the CRTC where she served for nine years. During that tenure, she served on many hearing panels, including licencing renewals for all network broadcasters, a major decision on New Media, a myriad of radio licences across the country, and the approval of the Aboriginal People’s Television Network. Joan co-chaired the CRTC’s internal Diversity and Employment Equity Committee.
After leaving the CRTC and settling in Prince Edward County (The County), Joan managed Imperial Tobacco’s foundation providing grants to Canadian artists and artistic organizations. In the voluntary sector, Joan served on and chaired the boards of two hospitals as well as the Rideauwood Family and Addiction Services, all in Ottawa. After settling in The County, she headed the boards of the Festival Players and the County Community Foundation. While running the NFB, she served on the boards of the International Institute of Communications, the Banff Television Festival and Canadian Women in Communications.
Joan Pennefather is a graduate in history from Marianopolis College in Montreal, as well as having studied history at McGill and Oxford Universities. Born and raised in Montreal, she has lived in Paris, Ottawa, The County and now resides in Toronto. Joan is the proud mother of two sons and grandmother of three. Fluently bilingual, she has not only lived but has also had extensive experience in francophone issues both in Quebec and outside that province.
Kealy Wilkinson
Initially trained in engineering and law, Kealy avoided both by beginning her career on air with CBC Radio, hosting and producing a number of programs and series. Then, after a year mastering the CBC’s corporate ropes in Ottawa, she spent a decade working with Graham Spry at the Canadian Broadcasting League before opening Canada’s first broadcast consultancy.
She was invited to return to the CBC as Special Advisor, Strategic Planning and worked closely with senior management at Head Office and in the two Divisions to develop proposals for the Parliamentary Television Service and CBC-II/Télé-II and also authored various Task Force, policy and regulatory initiatives (e.g., Perspectives, The Connections Study).
Kealy has consulted to governments, broadcasters and cable undertakings in Canada, the US, England and Australia, and represented clients at more than five dozen Canadian regulatory hearings, as well as serving as Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee of the Board of Directors of TVOntario, Chair of the Board of Women in Film and Television (Toronto), and as Director of the Alliance for Children and Television. Currently, Kealy is the Executive Director of the CBMF/FMCR.