When citizens cast their vote this election they should be aware of where their preferred party stands on issues relating to media policy and democratic communations. As I said when I first conducted and election survey on media and cultural issues in 2006, called Where the Parties Stand on Culture – policy decisions in the cultural realm, will ultimately impact on our media’s ability to cover and inform citizens with regards all other important issues, be they related to health care, the economy, the environment, or to matters of war and peace.
Thankfully a number of organizations this year have put media and culturally related questions to Canadian national political parties. This year all parties generally responded, except for the Conservative Party. All of these surveys/report cards to tremendous work from these groups for the benefit of informing Canadian voters of these vitally important issues. I humbly urge voters to read these reports (or at least their summery reports) to better inform your voting decision (SEE BELOW).
Digital Future Survey: The Parties Respond (by Open Media)
http://openmedia.ca/survey
We’re Voting CBC (by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting)
http://www.friends.ca/were-voting-cbc
Vote for our culture (by ACTRA)
http://www.actra.ca/main/press-releases/2011/03/federal-election-2011/
(SEE MORE IMPORTANT REPORTS FROM ORGANIZATIONS BELOW)
Here’s where the parties stand on the CBC (by the Canadian Media Guild
http://www.cmg.ca/newsresults.asp?ID=1610&SubjectID=64&BranchID=10
Response from Federal Parties to CEP’s questionnaire (by Canadian Energy & Paper Workers Union)
http://www.cep.ca/pub/response-federal-parties-ceps-questionnaire
….follow me on Twitter @MediatedJustice