Television network will create opportunities for Metis people

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The Metis people of Canada will soon be able to turn on their televisions and see themselves, their history and their culture represented on the screen, when the Metis Michif Television Network (MMTN) hits the airwaves.

The new network was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on Nov. 6. Ken Schaffer, the main force behind the new network, is hoping to launch it in April 2004.

"I have been working toward this for 10 years of my life, minimum, just trying to get the quality and balance for the Metis people in films and video in television and broadcasting, and it has been a long road," Schaffer said.

Through Regina-based Metcom Productions Inc., Schaffer has been producing Metcom, the longest running television series in Canada about the Metis people, and the first in the country to do so. The show began airing on the Saskatchewan Communications Network in 1997, then was picked up by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).

Schaffer sees the granting of the license for the MMTN as part of the evolution of broadcasting in Canada, explaining that each new network created in the country came into being because of the shortcomings of its predecessors. Radio-Canada, the French arm of the CBC, came into being because the CBC wasn't providing enough programming to meet the needs of the country's Francophone community, Schaffer said. Similarly, the APTN was created because Aboriginal people weren't being adequately represented on the two CBC networks. And now, the MMTN is being launched because the Metis people aren't being adequately represented on the CBC or APTN.

"It's kind of like coming to the final step, because we are really the last group in the Constitution of Canada to really step forward to exercise our right to communicate on the same level as the French CBC, English CBC and APTN, and of course Northern Broadcasting," he said.

"In my opinion, Canada became truly Canada the day that they recognized us to have our own television network as one of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Because we've never been able to really communicate with the rest of Canada, " he said, pointing out that there currently are only three television shows being aired in Canada that deal specifically with Metis people.

"This is giving us a national voice to communicate with all Canadians, " Schaffer said. "It's a wonderful thing."

Now that the license for the new network has been approved, Metcom will be concentrating on developing a budget, and working to get commitments from cable companies to carry the channel as part of their basic package. Schaffer is hoping people who want to watch the network will help out with the latter, by sending letters of support to Metcom, which they will then forward on to the cable companies.

Another area that Metcom will be focusing on is making sure it has something to put on the air when the network is launched, and that Metis people across the country are involved in the process.

"What this means is . . . thousands of careers will now be launched. The Metis will be working with all areas of Canada, so the non-Aboriginal as well as the Aboriginal, to fulfil its goals to deliver quality programs to our cable viewers across the country," Schaffer said.

To do that, Metcom is partnering with the Gabriel Dumont Institute and Metis Employment Training of Saskatchewan Inc. (METSI) to develop and deliver a Metis specific film and video course that will be offered across the country.

"It's a short course, and it will allow people the ability to be able to step right up to the bat as producers, directors, camera people, and get involved and start working in the field, if that's their choice," Schaffer said.

"This has been a dream for many little girls and boys, who have sat back and said, 'Why can't we do this?' And we can. That's the bottom line. Don't even go 'Why can't we?' anymore. We can. So it's a simple situation of trying to get everybody eady, be prepared. Those people who think they have an interest in it, I suggest they take the course."

The course will not only give people the skills they need to work in television production, but it will also give them a foot in the door as far as getting their work aired on the MMTN, Schaffer explained.

Students in the course will create a pilot tape, which they can then submit to the network, where it will be either accepted for broadcast, or suggestions will be made about how to improve it so it will be accepted.

"So in other words, really what happens is if they take the course, it's pretty much an automatic in to getting their show run," Schaffer said.

He expects the course will be up and running within the next six months.

"We have complete national support, as far as I know, from every Metis employment and training centre from across this country," he said. "This is the biggest job creation program for Metis specific that I think has ever happened in the whole country, period."

For now, Schaffer suggests that anyone wanting more information about the course should contact his or her provincial Metis training organization.

Anyone wanting to send in letters of support for the Metis Michif Television Network can e-mail them to Ken Schaffer at ken@metcom.ca, mail them to Metcom Productions Inc. at 136 Milne St., Regina, SK S4R 5B7, or leave a message in the on-line guest book at http://metcom.ca.