Examines broadband developments and policies, and highlights challenges such as connecting users to fibre-based networks or coverage of rural areas.

An examination of federal and provincial government responsibilities with respect to native peoples, these essays deal with the most appalling "political football" in Canadian politics. Specially commissioned experts in the field write on topics such as fiscal, legal and constitutional issues, and examine the circumstances of specific native groups in Canada.

Digital technology has revolutionized modern television but what exactly has changed? The history of the digital transition is one of great scientific achievement, expensive failures, and significant political and industrial power struggles. In Shut Off: The Canadian Digital Television Transition, Gregory Taylor examines the technology, institutional players, and the policies that have shaped Canada's efforts to switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting. Taylor shows how digital television is part of a global media movement by comparing the Canadian experience with the ways in which the digital transition has been managed worldwide. Shut Off is about more than television - the digital transition is also a precursor for new developments in mobile digital media. The wireless spectrum freed by the move to digital television is a multi-billion dollar public resource, whose auction is impending. The book reveals how digital broadcasting has been the site of dramatic change in the political economy of Canadian media, and questions the market-driven process through which the still incomplete transition has unfolded. Considering wide-ranging issues such as equal access and television as a public good, Taylor highlights public and institutional actors in the policy process to provide an analysis of government and industry. Succinct and insightful, Shut Off is a timely assessment of a period of technological and economic upheaval in Canadian broadcasting.

Canada's creative industries encompass book, periodical, and newspaper publishing; radio and television broadcasting; the music industry; video game production; filmmaking and video production; telecommunications; and the new media. These industries represent a major sector in the Canadian economy and exert a profound influence on many aspects of Canadian life. In Cultural Industries.ca, thirteen contributors take a thought-provoking look at the industries that form this important sector and the central issues that are currently under debate. They also discuss how these industries have adapted to the rise of new digital technologies that have radically altered how they engage with their audiences and how they produce and distribute content. Offering a timely analysis and a wealth of current data, Cultural Industries.ca offers a unique portrait of this key sector of the economy.

This is the thirtieth volume in the series How Ottawa Spends. It is arguable that never in these years have Canadians faced such serious economic upheaval and political dysfunction as the current climate. The dramatic and seemingly sudden changes in the economy occurred simultaneously with a political drama - one that was largely disassociated from the real and pressing economic challenge. Early Harper budgets delivered lower taxes for all Canadians partly through highly targeted but politically noticeable small tax breaks on textbooks for students, tools for apprentices in skilled trades, and public transit costs. The needs of the beleaguered average Canadian and the "swing voter in the swing constituencies" of an already strategized "next" election were a key part of Conservative agenda-setting. In the 2007 budget alone there were twenty-nine separate tax reductions and federal spending was projected to increase by $10 billion, including a 5.7 percent increase in program spending. A small surplus of $3.3 billion was planned, almost all of which would go to debt reduction. As Harper savoured his 14 October 2008 re-election with a strengthened minority government, although without his desired majority, he and his minister of Finance already knew that his surpluses were likely gone in the face of the crashing financial sector and a looming recession. Future deficits were firmly back on the agenda. Contributors include Malcolm G. Bird (Carleton University), Chris Brown (Carleton University), G. Bruce Doern (Carleton University and University of Exeter), Melissa Haussman (Carleton University), Robert Hilton (Carleton University), Ruth Hubbard (University of Ottawa), Edward T. Jackson (Carleton University), Kirsten Kozolanka (Carleton University), Evert Lindquist (University of Victoria), Allan M. Maslove (Carleton University), Peter Nares (Social and Enterprise Development Innovations), Gilles Paquet (University of Ottawa), L. Pauline Rankin (Carleton University), Jennifer Robson (Carleton University), Robert P. Shepherd (Carleton University), Richard Shillington (Informetrica Limited), and Chris Stoney (Carleton University).

In the face of globalization and new media technologies, can policy makers and regulators withstand deregulatory pressures on the ‘cultural policy toolkit’ for television? This comparative study provides an interdisciplinary investigation of trends in audiovisual regulation, with the focus on television and new media. It considers pressures for deregulation and for policy in this field to prioritise market development and economic goals rather than traditional cultural and democratic objectives, notably public service content, the promotion of national and local culture, media pluralism and diversity. The book explores regulatory policy in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe. The book focuses on a range of instruments designed for promoting pluralism and cultural diversity, particularly the role of public service broadcasting and the range of measures available for promoting cultural policy goals, such as subsidies, scheduling and investment quotas, as well as (particularly national) media ownership rules. The book draws on findings of two research projects funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and is written in an accessible style by leading scholars of media law and policy, who bring to bear insights from their respective disciplines of law and political science.