Without a strong NFB, Canadians will lose sight of who we are

By Barry Rueger
Published: Globe and Mail
June 29, 2024
1148 words

Bill Mason camera helmetWhen I finally bought myself a lovely, red canoe in 1997, it was because I spent my youth, 30 years earlier, watching the many canoeing films by the National Film Board’s legendary Bill Mason.

I recently rewatched Paddle to the Sea, the Mason classic that virtually every child in Canada saw in the 1960s in elementary school. The 1966 film tells the story of a carved, wooden toy canoe containing an “Indian” paddler. The canoe was set free in a river in Northern Ontario, and eventually was carried down through the Great Lakes and out into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. On its journey, the little canoe was aided by many people – and one dog – who picked it up, rescued it and set it once again on its course to the ocean.

I saw that film during an era when there was no bigger thrill than entering a classroom and seeing a big 16-millimetre film projector and a collapsible white screen. Watching the film again, I noticed some things I hadn’t seen the first time. I was struck by the stereotyped First Nations paddler, but also by the powerful environmental message: The Great Lakes were being polluted by humans, with sewage and industrial waste dumped into the waters. I realized that when I saw the film for the first time, at age 8 or 9, it was the moment I first became an environmentalist, as did a great number of children in my generation.

In an age before the internet, and even cable TV, NFB releases shaped the way generations of Canadian children saw their country, saw the broader world, and saw themselves. Now, it seems as if our country has lost a collective sense of who we are. Sadly, the decline of the NFB has contributed to Canadians losing sight of who we are as a nation and what makes us unique.

As a young person, I learned about the Maritimes through films such as Rising Tide and The Sea Got in Your Blood, saw Saskatchewan grain harvested in Wheat Country, and learned about nickel mining in Sudbury in Miner. Sitting in a classroom in Kelowna, B.C., we experienced dog sleds and igloos in the Northwest Territories (At The Winter Sea Ice Camp), and saw famous singers like Paul Anka and Leonard Cohen – famous Canadian singers in an era when virtually all popular music came from the United States.

Like many of my generation, I allowed NFB films to shape me politically and socially. As I grew older, I explored the experimental and creative reaches of the NFB. The animation of Norman McLaren led me to more political films, such as his 1952 anti-war film Neighbours, and later in my mid-20s, in a church basement in Vancouver, to the controversial and influential anti-porn film Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography. And as late as 1993, Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, led me to a strong understanding of First Nations issues, and especially the standoff in Oka.

This was an era when the NFB still had a global reputation. It was well-funded, had production centres all across Canada, and most importantly, was widely known to Canadians and was a source of national pride. It was the very model of a national media organization, a model that filmmakers in other places envied.

In Britain, every person knows or has visited the British Museum. Paris has the Louvre, and Washington has the Smithsonian. Each of these institutions is a cornerstone of how those nations see themselves. Even in these divided times, Americans will look at the Smithsonian and agree: “This is our history.”

Canada lacks a national institution that teaches us who we are. Part of that reflects our relative youth as a single nation, with Newfoundland only joining Canada in 1949, and Nunavut being created 50 years after that. And part of that reflects a population spread out sparsely across our vast, far-flung country, where you can drive for a day or more between populated centres. Those distances mean that the majority of Canadians have never visited the Museum of Civilization or the National Gallery. Instead, for many decades, the National Film Board was the glue that held us together.

In May, The Walrus wrote about staffing cuts at the NFB. According to the NFB’s union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, 80 out 380 full-time NFB positions were eliminated this year. Regional studios in Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg, as well as “interactive studios” in Vancouver and Montreal, have been closed. The union says the recent cuts followed several decades of underfunding. Even though both the NFB brass and the Liberal government claim that the organization is being modernized, or reinvented, the sad truth is that these are insupportable blows and that the film board was already a mere shadow of what it was when I was young. Without production centres in different regions of Canada, and without employees with the time and expertise to create and commission new works, the NFB will cease to be a force that binds our country together.

Despite the boundless reaches of YouTube and TikTok, and despite a Canadian commercial film industry churning out police dramas and Hollywood blockbusters, there is still a desperate need for Canada to have a strong Canadian media production organization that will support the filmmakers and films that Disney or Lionsgate or Netflix won’t touch.

When I was young, the government of Canada was genuinely proud of the National Film Board, and understood that it played a critical role in helping Canadians love and cherish their country. Along with the CBC, the NFB told Canadian stories to Canadians. Even though the CBC is finally seeing some funding to replace the drastic cuts of the 1980s and 90s, the production of popular TV and radio programs is different from the thought-provoking films created at the NFB.

The NFB can still be the place where films are produced that are about us, and where filmmakers of any age can go to learn their craft and produce uniquely Canadian movies and documentaries. The National Film Board can rediscover its role as a cinematic hothouse; a place where non-commercial and experimental forms can thrive, and where the kind of filmmaking happens that will once again influence filmmakers globally.

Just as it was in the past, this is still a time when Canadians – especially young Canadians – need a place where they can see themselves portrayed as genuine Canadians, not as thinly disguised Americans. For that to happen, the government needs to step away from bottom-line concerns, and embrace the value of film as art and film as an instrument for social change. That will require secure and generous long-term funding commitments, and the restoration of production offices in every corner of Canada. The National Film Board is the soul of our country, and it needs to be preserved.

Bell Canada owes Canadians

By Barry Rueger
Published: Canadian Journalist.ca
February 13, 2024
1160 words

Bell Canada is set to axe 4,800 jobs, sell dozens of radio stations, cut newsrooms across Canada, and destroy CTV’s star investigative program W5.

The announcement by BCE Inc. made big news-but the real damage was done decades ago.

Canadian news has long been an expanding wasteland.

What saddens me is that government could have prevented this–and still has the power to fix it.

Full column is available at https://canadianjournalist.ca/column-bell-canada-owes-canadians/

Hacking the Airwaves

By Barry Rueger
Published: 2600 The Hacker Quarterly
October 12, 2023
750 words

Anette

My hacking spirit dates from long before I used computers. My first memory of it dates back to some time before 1980 – before the Internet, before personal computers, and surely before cel phones.

My group of close friends and hard-core partiers included the trio of Marty, Brad, and Frank. Frank and I had met at cooking school in Vancouver, and the rest – as they say – is history. We drank, we smoked, and we partied, including one year when I arrived at a Hallowe’en party dressed as Annette Funicello (as a Mousketeer).

The biggest memory for me though was running a proper pirate radio station.

At some point Marty had been owed money, and had accepted a small FM radio transmitter and antenna as payment. Since he also had a successful and longstanding DJ business it was a match made in heaven.

DJing in those days meant turntables, wooden cases full of vinyl records, big amplifiers, bigger speakers, and on occasion a home-built refrigerator sized dry-ice fog machine. Fill it up with water, stick in an immersion heater for a few hours, then dump in the dry ice. Fog!

Soon that do-it-yourself spirit extended itself to radio.

The DJ setup in his living room was quickly attached to the transmitter, and the antenna was stuck out an upstairs window. It didn’t take a lot of time to figure out where the “empty” space was on the local FM band, and with a little bit of tweaking we were broadcasting a music mix like nothing you heard on commercial radio or the CBC. While Marty filled the airwaves with New Wave and alternative music, the rest of us took turns driving around town just to see how far our signal went.

Marty worked on the assumption that the guys at Industry Canada who monitored such things didn’t work weekends or holidays, and he kept the radio station limited to those days. It was fun, and harmless, and cost nothing.

Still, it felt an awful lot like broadcasting into outer space, and after a while everyone started wishing they knew who was listening, and what they liked.

My friend Brad came to the rescue. He was employed by BC Telephone. In those pre-digital days every phone line was attached to a mechanical switch, and each of those switches was hard wired into the network. That was how you got your phone number. Brad was one of the guys that made those connections.

Brad figured out that there were always a few unused numbers and switches, so every Friday afternoon he would connect one of them to Marty’s home phone. Now, as well as his own phone calls, Marty could get calls from listeners. Each Friday he got a new “On-Air” phone number, and each Monday morning it would disappear when Brad arrived at work.

It was perfect. The radio station was success, there were more listeners than any of us imagined, and we could even take requests! And as far as we could tell, it was risk-free.

That was true until Marty moved into a south-facing tenth floor apartment, and attached the antenna to his balcony railing. Suddenly his radio signal went much further, and was much clearer.

He arrived home from work one day and found an Industry Canada vehicle covered with antennas sitting at his front door. Even though as far as we could tell that spot on the radio dial was vacant, it turned out that he had been interfering with a legitimate radio station 50 miles south of us in Washington state. The broadcaster in question called the American FCC, they contacted the Canadian Industry Canada, and Marty was visited by some very official folks who politely, but firmly, asked that he give them the transmitter. To his credit Marty’s reaction was to smile and say “What took you so long?”

Looking back at it, that experience probably changed my life by getting me involved in legal community radio, moving me far to the left, and by teaching me to generally distrust government.

The lesson learned is that if you can help someone to break the law just a little bit – like crossing the street when the pedestrian light is red – and if you can quietly point out to them that absolutely no-one was harmed, and no-one arrested, then you’ve started someone down the road to being anti-authoritarian.

If you plant that seed at just the right time you can change their life. Maybe they’ll even turn into a hacker!

Do we need CanCon for print media?

Published: Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (En français aussi)
February 4, 2020
1211 words

The Canadian content regulations established by the CRTC in 1971 played a major part in building our homegrown music industry. What would happen if we applied those principles to Canada’s news media sector?

The Top Thirty playlist for Vancouver's CKLG radio station in June 1973.In my hometown of Kelowna, B.C., in 1970, you bought your records at the Music Box store on Ellis Street. Each week you’d travel downtown to choose from the new 45s and albums that you’d heard on the local radio station. And while you were there you’d pick up the latest list of the top 30 records being played on Vancouver’s powerhouse station CKLG.

Looking at those old charts today, you’d be struck by one thing: aside from an occasional appearance by Anne Murray or the Guess Who, you would almost never see a Canadian artist in the Top 30. The charts were dominated by American and English musicians. The assumption at CKLG, and among its listeners, was that popular music came from those places, not from Canada.

Because there was little airplay for our musicians, there was also very little recording industry infrastructure in Canada. Becoming successful in music back then meant going to the U.S. to record, work and live. Today, by contrast, it’s hard to keep track of all of the Canadian artists who enjoy successful careers here and abroad. Everyone from Drake on down is able to record here and build a global profile without leaving the country. That wouldn’t have happened without Canadian content regulations.

Read the full article.

The Chinese media prepared me for the Canadian election

Published: Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (En français aussi)
October 15, 2019
1277 words

The Chinese media prepared me for the Canadian election

Donald Trump’s trade war with China was in full swing when we left for China. Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou had been arrested at a Canadian airport, and two Canadians had been detained in China. By the time we left it was July and the Canadian government was warning us to “Exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.”

The trip was wonderful, and we came away with a much greater understanding of China and the Chinese people, and with an appreciation for how little we knew about the history, culture and government of the country.

The most striking thing about living in what is undeniably a police state was the iron grip that government has on the news media. Since the average person in China isn’t likely to use a VPN to access foreign media, most people see and read only what the Communist party wants them to see and read.

… When we returned home, I was truly looking forward to returning to my regular media diet of Twitter, Facebook and our local newspapers. Instead, I was shocked to realize that the Canadian news landscape was far too much like the Chinese one we had just left behind. The only difference was that the control was by corporate interests instead of the government.

Full article here.

 

Community Radio in Canada

Published: Radio World International
January 2004
1700 words

Les Szabo at Co-op RadioIf the two hundred plus community radio stations in Canada have anything in common, it has to be the name “McCurdy”. It is difficult to walk into a community radio studio and not find at least one thing painted in McCurdy blue – either the “classic” light blue, or the newer dark blue.

Why McCurdy? Usually it comes down to two factors – the old McCurdy products were built like Mack trucks and were able to withstand years of volunteer use and sometimes sketchy maintenance. More importantly though, at the time that community radio in Canada was growing rapidly – throughout the eighties – a lot of large broadcasters were upgrading their studios, and McCurdy consoles, pedestals, and racks could be had for very little money.

Community radio in Canada exists in an environment that is quite different from the U.S. During the decades when the FCC made it impossible for community broadcasters to license a lower power station, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was actively encouraging new and different forms of non-commercial broadcasting. Since the time when the first community radio broadcasters were licensed in the seventies, the CRTC has consistently considered community radio to be an essential part of the broadcast system, offering a distinct alternative to both commercial radio and the government funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

More recently, at the time when the FCC was struggling with the idea of LPFM and third channel adjacencies, the CRTC was (at the urging of community broadcasters) bringing in “Developmental FM” Licenses. These licenses required a bare minimum of paperwork and equipment, and were designed to allow small communities to launch a community radio station as easily as possible. Developmental FM stations are limited to five watts, but are free of most regulation. The aim is to get new stations established easily and cheaply, and allow them to concentrate on building community support over the first few years.

Five watts does not sound like much, but it is an inexpensive way to get started and will typically cover a small town well enough to build an audience where none existed. At the end of the developmental period – typically four years – the new station is expected to apply for a full community radio license and move up to a higher power level.

Community radio in Canada actually encompasses a number of different kinds of licenses. A standalone station, not affiliated with an educational institution, will be licensed as a “Community” radio station. A station located on a University campus will typically be licensed as “Campus based Community”. “Developmental” licenses can come in either of these flavors.

Native broadcasters have yet another category of license to suit the specific needs of their communities, and there is yet another license type for “Instructional” stations attached to broadcast schools.

The differences between “Community” and “Campus based Community radio stations are less than would be imagined. The primary difference is that “Community” stations are allowed to broadcast more advertising than “Campus based Community” stations. Yes, non-commercial radio stations in Canada are allowed to sell and broadcast advertising, although the number of minutes per hour is limited. During the seventies and eighties stations faced the same sort of underwriting restrictions as American non-commercial broadcasters, but those were eventually dropped.

Unlike the U.S., where “College” radio is distinctly different from “Community” radio, all non-commercial radio stations in Canada have a similar philosophy and style. Both “Community” and Campus based Community” stations are required to open their doors to their local community. It is not considered good form to only allow students access to the airwaves, and in fact the regulations governing Campus based stations are explicit that they serve the entire listening community, not just the campus. It is also required that “Campus based” radio stations have a separate Board of Directors which includes both campus and non-campus representatives.

The other distinct feature of almost every “Community” or “Campus based Community” station is a heavy multicultural component. It is normal for established stations to broadcast in ten or twenty languages to as many cultural or ethnic groups. CKCU Radio in Ottawa for instance has weekly programs for the Jewish, Indian, Filipino, Afghani , Somali, Haitien, African, Persian, and Vietnamese communities. Many of these programs date from the early days of the station and play a critical role in their local communities.

Multicultural programs also play a critical role in the funding of community radio in Canada. Because community radio often offers the only media source in their mother tongue, multicultural communities are often major financial supporters of their local station. Unlike the U.S., where many community broadcasters can access funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) or the PTFP program, there is virtually no funding available to community broadcasters in Canada. The only broadcaster funded by the Canadian government is the CBC.

As a result community broadcasters rely most heavily on two income sources – student levies (for Campus based stations) and listener donations. Despite being allowed to sell advertising, the reality is that ad sales seldom bring in enough income to cover the costs associated with selling and producing spots.

The annual levy that students pay to support Campus based stations ranges from low of 40 cents to a high that approaches thirty dollars. Even though these are a fraction of the amounts that students pay for athletic fees or other “services”, there is always a fear that an incoming student government may choose to turn off the tap.

Although stations like CKCU or Vancouver Co-op Radio have been conducting annual funding drives for a couple of decades, station fund raising is still relatively unsophisticated. There is no equivalent to the Development Exchange Inc. (DEI) in Canada, and there is very little use of direct mail by community broadcasters. Consequently the most successful funding drives in Canada seldom exceed $100,000 annually, even in large cities.

Budgets at Canadian community radio stations are quite a bit smaller than in the U.S., with most stations operating on less than $200,000 a year, and only a couple of stations exceeding $300,000. Capital budgets tend to be very tight, and maintenance of equipment can be less rigorous than anyone would prefer. Equipment is invariably used until it is well past its prime. CD players for instance will typically spend two years in On-Air, then move to the Production studios, then to the music library.

The small budgets also are reflected in the low staffing levels. Many stations have only one or two full time staff, and it is unusual to see stations with the four or five FTE staffing that CPB would require in order to qualify for a Community Service Grant. This, coupled with traditionally low salaries, tends to lead to burnout and a high turnover. The tendency is for community radio staff to be young and inexperienced. Once employees gain skills and knowledge they almost always leave the sector for “real” jobs.

From an engineering standpoint community radio in Canada presents some interesting challenges. The people starting new stations are invariably beginners who are more concerned with serving their community than learning the ins and outs of frequency searches and HAAT. A good deal of our time (and a good deal of the content on our website http://www.community-media.com) is spent explaining basic concepts to community groups and individuals, helping them to understand what equipment they need (as opposed to what the salesman wants to sell them), and helping them to learn enough of the jargon to understand what is happening around them.

We consider ourselves lucky to have a few suppliers who understand that volunteer programmed community radio is not the same as commercial radio, and who will try to suggest equipment and products that are suitable. That means no automation system, no fancy “studio furniture”, and a focus on ease of use and durability.

We also keep close track of consulting Engineers who will work with community broadcasters on ten and fifty watt engineering briefs, and who understand the meager budgets of these stations.

As part of our work we also produce and distribute radio series to these community broadcasters. Once again the lack of a CPB or PTFP means that station facilities are quite limited. Outside of the francophone sector there are no satellite down links, so programming is almost universally distributed on compact disc. Thankfully the use of cassette tape from program distribution is almost dead.

Internet distribution is starting to become more common, but many stations are hampered by old computer equipment, poor Internet connections, or simply the skills and organizational support to take programming from the ‘Net to the Control Room. Again, most of these problems a refection of low budgets.

Some will argue that the low budgets help to keep community radio stations focused exclusively on community service. Big egos are discouraged, as are the opportunists who only want to make a buck. The result is an ever growing network of stations that without exception place community service before profit.

Even the major commercial broadcasters seem to understand the role of community radio in Canada. Instead of considering them a threat, companies like Rogers and Standard Broadcasting seem to understand that community broadcasters serve a lot of marginal communities (in dollar terms) that the bigs guys would rather not deal with.

Instead of fighting the community radio sector, the major – and many not so major – broadcasters actively support community radio. Standard Broadcasting for instance has for many years financed the annual Standard Radio Awards of Excellence in community radio broadcasting, and CORUS Entertainment, owner of more than fifty radio stations, as well as cable television properties, has underwritten the Dig Your Roots project, which discovers new bands in Canada and presents live concerts broadcast via the ‘Net. Both of these projects are coordinated by the National Campus and Community Radio Association. (NCRA).

Even though stations may struggle with poor funding and aging equipment, it’s still fair to say that community radio in Canada plays a vital role, and will continue to see steady growth for many years to come.r

Bio: Barry Rueger has been working in community radio for more than twenty years. His company Community-Media.com offers training and consultation to broadcasters in Canada, the U.S., and abroad.

http://www.community-media.com

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/

National Campus and Community Radio Association
http://www.ncra.ca/

CFMU Radio Volunteer Manual

Published: CFMU Radio (pdf)
October 2003
28 pages

CFMU Radio is the campus/community radio station located at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.  In 2003 Barry handled the design and layout for their first ever Volunteer Handbook. It marked Barry’s first use of Adobe Pagemaker, at the end of the days when such work was done by sticking printed text and images onto “flats” using an electric waxer.

Wavelength

Published: Canadian Society for Independent Radio Production
1999 – 2002

From 1999 to 2002 Barry was editor, designer, and contributing writer of Wavelength, a newsletter published by the Canadian Society for Independent Radio Production (CSIRP).  During that time he worked closely with radio producers and writers in Canada and the US.  Links to PDF copies of all nine issues are posted below.

Wavelength Issue 1 – January 1999
Wavelength Issue 2 – June 1999
Wavelength Issue 3 – October 1999
Wavelength Issue 4 – April 2000
Wavelength Issue 5 – October 2000
Wavelength Issue 6 – February 2001
Wavelength Issue 7 – Summer 2001
Wavelength Issue 8 – Winter 2002
Wavelength Issue 9  – September 2002