Aboriginal radio proposal loses out

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An Ontario radio station owner tried to invest almost $2 million towards establishing a national Aboriginal radio network but he couldn't get a broadcasting license from the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission.

Doug Bingley, controlling shareholder of Barrie's Rock 95 FM, said he learned a lot about the frustrations that Aboriginal people encounter when they deal with the federal government after he attempted to obtain a space on the FM dial for a joint venture with Aboriginal Voices, an Aboriginal-owned quarterly magazine that is based in Toronto.

"The Broadcasting Act and CRTC policy encourages Aboriginal participation," Bingley said. "Based on that, the frequency should have been awarded to our proposal. But it wasn't. I see Aboriginal broadcasting as a big issue. I read the policy and interpreted it to mean that if we were willing to assist Aboriginal broadcasting then the CRTC would give us a license. But they gave the frequency to the CBC. That decision makes the policy look like so much lip service paid to Aboriginal interests. My attitude is: if you're not going to do it, say you're not going to do it. Don't make some dopey policy and then ignore it."

Bingley's proposal received the least attention during the high-profile, much reported process that led to the decision to give the vacant 99.1 FM frequency to the CBC. The decision was announced last July. The change-over will take place in March.

The media in Toronto focused on the CBC and on another proposal that would have established a station to serve the black community in the Ontario capital region. Bingley feels his proposal was the best when considered in the light of written legislation and policy. He suspects that the decision was influenced by political considerations. After several years of drastic federal funding cuts, there was public pressure on Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps to help CBC Radio. Some observers feel the decision indicates the commissioners felt that pressure.

"That's what I sensed," Bingley said.

Gary Farmer, the publisher of Aboriginal Voices, has no doubt that political issues were played out in the CRTC decision, but he believes the project will soon become a reality anyway. The actor, with several Hollywood motion picture credits on his resume, is from the Six Nations reserve in southern Ontario. When contacted for his comments, he was making plans for a live broadcast during the annual Toronto SkyDome Powwow in late November. He said that there are two other vacant radio frequencies that could be obtained in the near future. Either could be used to broadcast from a transmitter on top of Toronto's CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure. That would ensure wide distribution of the signal in the huge southern Ontario market. Bingley and Farmer said their long-term goal is to use satellite technology to spread the signal across the entire country, creating a national Aboriginal radio network.

"The decision put us back by a year," Farmer said. "We should be there, at the most, two years from now."

For Bingley, a non-Aboriginal businessman, this process has been a revelation.

"It's the first time I've wandered down the Aboriginal path and the impression I got from the bureaucrats was 'We'll get around to you.' That's always the case, it seems. They put it off for a year, then 10 years go by, then 100 years go by and nothing happens," he said. "In the mainstream, you get a vague understanding of Aboriginal issues as you watch them from the periphery. But I saw it first hand."

Bingley believes the CBC could have fixed the problems they were having with the AM 740 spot on the dial, a channel the public broadcaster has used for more than 60 years. They should not have been in the running for the FM frequency, he believes. He said he believes in the system. He is a part of the broadcasting system and believes it has treated him fairly for the most part. That just makes i more puzzling for him that, after he allied himself with an Aboriginal group, the system seemed to stop working the way it should.

"It appears Native people have once again been betrayed by the system," he wrote in a letter to the editor that was published in the Globe & Mail on Oct. 14. "I hope that's not the case."

An appeal to the minister for a review of the CRTC decision by Bingley (and several other groups) met with no response.

CRTC sources insist there was no political influence behind the decision.

Ian Morrison, spokesman for the Friends of Public Broadcasting, a group that watches CRTC decisions and other developments in the Canadian broadcasting business, said the CBC needed to make the change because the AM 740 frequency was unreliable.

"Our position is if CBC programming is available on Baffin Island and every other remote part of this country then it should be available clearly in downtown Toronto or Hamilton," he said. "There were five million people affected by this. They wanted a strong CBC signal in the Toronto market."