Al Jazeera in Canada on brink of approval

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is widely expected Thursday to approve a licence for international news service Al Jazeera English to broadcast in Canada.

The decision by the country's federal broadcast regulator will be announced on its website at 11 a.m. and no one is expecting anything other than a thumbs-up.

"We're excited and very hopeful because we know that thousands of Canadians have told the (commission), and they've told us that they want the opportunity to watch AJE in their homes," said Al Jazeera English managing editor Tony Burman, a former senior editor at CBC News.

The commission announced in February it would invite public comment and hold hearings on licensing the channel after Toronto-based Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. agreed to act as sponsor.

The vast majority of comments received by the commission supported the application.

On its website, the commission made it clear it would be "predisposed" to approve the network's right to broadcast in Canada "absent clear evidence ... that (it) would violate Canadian regulations, such as those regarding abusive comment."

That's a far cry from 2003 when an attempt to have the network's sister organization, Al Jazeera Arabic, licensed in Canada met strong opposition because of a perceived anti-Israeli bias.

Then, the commission imposed requirements that would have forced cable and satellite companies to monitor and be responsible for any content viewed to be inflammatory or anti-Semitic. As a result, no company agreed to carry the Arabic language channel.

Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said in an interview that neither his organization or B'nai Brith Canada opposed the Al Jazeera English application, in part because of Burman's assurances to leaders of Canadian's Jewish community earlier this year that a liaison committee would be formed to respond quickly to any concerns raised about content on the network.

Farber noted that Al Jazeera Arabic "continues to this very day to broadcast some very, very problematic programs that would never see the light of day here in Canada because of CRTC regulations."

"Much of what I've seen of Al Jazeera English is not a problem. As a matter of fact, their real concentration, interestingly enough, has been on the north-south divide as opposed to the Middle East. That's good. I think that's the kind of work they should do because it's an area that is not focused on here in North America and good for them for doing that," Farber added.

Al Jazeera English, based in Doha, Qatar, has been operating since November 2006 and has a staff of about 1,200 representing 50 nationalities, with an audience reach estimated at 140 million households, ranking third behind CNN International and BBC World News.

"Al Jazeera English is ... determined to bring to the forefront the views and perspectives of the developing world," Burman noted.

"(Canadians) are going to see a lot of coverage of Latin America, of Asia, of Africa and parts of Europe that they've never ever seen before and from a perspective that would be incredibly interesting to a multicultural Canadian audience," Burman said, adding the network will set up a bureau in Canada following the approval announcement.

Slava Levin, president and CEO of Ethnic Channels Group Ltd., said it'll be up to Al Jazeera English representatives to begin negotiating "carriage" deals with cable and satellite carriers across Canada.

"It's a good channel. We weren't concerned it was not going to get approved. We just wanted to know when," Levin said, adding his company "carefully scrutinized" the network's content before agreeing to act as sponsor.

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