Waiving Part I Broadcasting Licence Fees and Providing Equivalent Funding to CRTC

Providing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) with funding to offset the revenue loss from waiving the Part I Broadcasting Licence Fees for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

Part I Broadcasting Licence Fees are paid by broadcasters to CRTC as per the Broadcasting Licence Fee Regulations, 1997, based on CRTC’s estimated regulatory costs for the current fiscal year and the broadcasters’ revenues from the most recently completed return year[^1]. As such, the 2020-21 Part I Fee amount is not expected to be directly impacted by economic uncertainties related to COVID-19.

Unsolicited Telecommunications Fees were subtracted from the revenues of regulatory fees for 2019-20 and 2020-21 (projected regulatory fees), resulting in a collective amount of Part I Fees and one other type of CRTC fee. The growth rate of this collective amount was applied to the 2019-20 estimated Part I Broadcasting Licence Fees to produce the projected amount for 2020-21.

PBO estimates total net cost of this measure to be $33 million in 2020-21.

Any deviation from the data published CRTC Future-Oriented Statement of Operations 2020-2021 would affect the result. Data sources expressed the numbers in thousands in some cases and in millions in other cases. The actual regulatory fees for 2020-21 are unlikely to be exactly the same as the projected values.

• Estimates are presented on an accrual basis as would appear in the budget and public accounts.
• A positive number implies a deterioration in the budgetary balance (lower revenues or higher spending). A negative number implies an improvement in the budgetary balance (higher revenues or lower spending).