Steve Anderson of OpenMedia.ca, a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes an open and innovative communications system in Canada, appeared before a House of Commons committee that’s looking at the future of media.

Listen to the podcast here.

OpenMedia.ca reports:

“The Committee on Canadian Heritage is exploring developments in
emerging and digital media, how these developments are affecting
Canadian cultural industries, and what federal institutions could do to
assist Canadians and cultural industries. . . . [Anderson raises]
important issues such as Internet neutrality, media ownership,
independent media and broadband access.

From an OpenMedia.ca press release:

OpenMedia.ca at the CRTC

“This Thursday, April 29, OpenMedia.ca will bring community media experts
to the CRTC’s Community TV hearing. Steve Anderson will introduce the
panel; research associate/board member Michael Lithgow, and board member
Prof. David Skinner will argue that the CRTC should liberate the more
than $1 million collected annually by big cable companies to fund local
media innovation hubs across the country.

If cable monopolies weren’t pocketing that money, we could have:

•    Independent media centres in communities across the country that
would act as incubators for job creation, empowerment and media
innovation;
•    A platform for local debate, culture and programming controlled by
citizens, not private media monopolies;
•    Media centres at which everyone, including marginalized citizens
like at-risk youth, could freely develop their skills and capacities and
share their experiences and perspectives.

You can help reinforce our panel by getting friends and family to send
letters to the CRTC.

As Steve Anderson wrote in a recent Media Links column, “The mobile and
wireless-accessed Internet, combined with emerging open web and
open-data applications, has the potential to usher in a new era of
connectedness, bringing dramatic changes to social practices and
institutions. If we get digital public policy right, Canada could become
a leader in mobile communications, fostering empowerment, job creation
and new forms of entrepreneurship, expression and social change.”

We are bringing your voices to Ottawa and to the CRTC … let’s hope
they listen!

Our small, dynamic team relies on support from individuals like you to
continue our work. Please donate today.

Thank you.

-The OpenMedia.ca team ”