Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
| Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommuications canadiennes | |
The current CRTC logo
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 Terrasses de la Chaudière is the headquarters of the CRTC |
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| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1968 |
| Preceding | |
| Jurisdiction | Canada |
| Headquarters | Gatineau, Quebec, Canada |
| Minister responsible | |
| Agency executive |
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| Parent department | Canadian Heritage |
| Website | www |
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC, French: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes) is a public organisation in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasting and telecommunications. It was created in 1976 when it took over responsibility for regulating telecommunication carriers. Prior to 1976, it was known as the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, which was established in 1968 by the Parliament of Canada to replace the Board of Broadcast Governors. Its headquarters is located in the Central Building (Édifice central) of Les Terrasses de la Chaudière in Gatineau, Quebec.
The CRTC was originally known as the Canadian Radio-Television Commission. In 1976, jurisdiction over telecommunications services, most of which were then delivered by monopoly common carriers (for example, telephone companies), was transferred to it from the Canadian Transport Commission although the abbreviation CRTC remained the same.
On the telecom side, the CRTC originally regulated only privately held common carriers:
Other telephone companies, many of which were publicly owned and entirely within a province's borders, were regulated by provincial authorities until court rulings during the 1990s affirmed federal jurisdiction over the sector, which also included some fifty small independent incumbents, most of them in Ontario and Quebec. Notable in this group were:
The CRTC regulates all Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications activities and enforces rules it creates to carry out the policies assigned to it; the best-known of these is probably the Canadian content rules. The CRTC reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage, which is responsible for the Broadcasting Act, and has an informal relationship with Industry Canada, which is responsible for the Telecommunications Act. Provisions in these two acts, along with less-formal instructions issued by the federal cabinet known as orders-in-council, represent the bulk of the CRTC's jurisdiction.
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Wikipedia