Executive Director
Monica Auer is FRPC’s Executive Director, having been appointed soon after FRPC was organized. Monica began her career in communications regulation in the mid-1980s, when she began working at the CRTC. She provided research and analysis with respect to concentration of ownership, audience data, major network renewals and issues related to portrayal in programming. She worked at CBC head office from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, dealing with issues related to the Corporation’s regulation by the CRTC. After leaving the CBC Monica worked as a consultant, preparing reports presented to the Copyright Board of Canada, before returning to school to study law.
Monica has earned undergraduate degrees in French and German, political science and law; she earned graduate degrees in political science and law. After being called to the Ontario bar in 2006 she completed her articles, and launched her own practice, specializing in matters related to the CRTC.
FRPC’s Executive Director is assisted from time to time by experts in Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications.
Expert resources
Members of FRPC have a wide background in Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications, in the public, private and community sectors. Their expertise and experience provides an invaluable contribution to FRPC’s advocacy, research and analysis.
Hi – I was wondering how you got your hands on the CBC annual reports from pre-2002? Great work on the CBC report by the way, it’s very informative!
Hi Jake,
Thanks for your note; I apologize for the delay in responding (and if I DID respond, I apologize for my forgetfulness).
I was lucky to have a number of the CBC annual reports from when I worked there in the early 1990s. I found a few of the older Annual Reports online. I then visited the National Archives, and the libraries at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, and scanned their copies. I was left with two that I could not find.
CBC itself, incidentally, could not locate any of its pre 2000 annual reports, and no longer has a library (apparently).
Apart from anything else that is happening in Canada’s broadcasting system it is tragic that we are losing its history, even when it is simply documents like CBC’s Annual Reports.
Regards,
Monica Auer.
Please do keep up the great work here. https://cartt.ca/commentary-exceptions-gaps-in-c-11-could-make-new-broadcasting-legislation-dysfunctional/
… and please do consider further weighing in on Bill C11 legislation (exception to the exception) that would see willing Social Media administrators apply to the CRTC for registration as not for profit community media (aka new media).
The question really is, who owns a FaceBook Group? … and that answer is far from clear… https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ken-zakreski_is-a-facebook-group-an-asset-of-a-not-for-activity-6901263462077464576-djX7?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web
Hi Ken, thanks so much for your kind words. Just an FYI that we’ve posted all four of our published commentaries on C-11 on the website in a weird place for now because I hate having to work with our website – https://frpc.net/research/bill-c-11-comments-by-frpc/.
Re the E2E (exception to the exception) matter, I agree with Michael Geist on this. My concern, though, is that it may in the end not matter if C-11 does or doesn’t expressly include users in the Act, because the CRTC may just find a way. You may know that the CRTC in 1988 began regulating Canadians’ ‘freedom of expression’ over the air, through a policy (in other words, not even through enforceable regulations or conditions of licence) on open-line programming: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/1988/pb88-213.htm. It relied on the general high-standard provision at that time.
That said, from having worked at the CRTC in the late 1980s, I sincerely believe that the CRTC would like LESS work, not more – it just doesn’t have the resources to deal with users on top of everything else (B’g Act, Tns Act, CASL, Elections Canada Act and Accessible Canada Act).
I was interested in the ‘facebook page asset’ issue, and from what I briefly read on your site agree with David Fewer. It really comes down to what FB’s terms of service/contract allow. FYI, I have often heard a similar question about the ‘ownership’ of cable community channels (the pre-internet equivalent of FB) – in that case, the channel is fully the ‘property’ of the cable system, and unless some of the community programmers were able to obtain rights to the programming they produced/created, the cable system would own those too.
Monica that was a terrific presentation you made today at CHPC. Well done.
A belated thanks!, Howard!