Part A of the report One Media Law sets the context for the case study and first acknowledges Professor Matthew Fraser’s public allegation that the CRTC suffers from institutionalized corruption and has been captured by industry interests since the late 1980s (Fraser, 10 June 2000). Information regarding the CRTC is presented, including its operation at arm’s length from Parliament, the significant commercial influence on decisions made by its commissioners and the fact that these federal regulators are subjected to intense lobbying. The culture of secrecy at the CRTC is also raised, as well as research findings that the governance process used to appoint commissioners to the federal regulator is poor and prone to patronage (Friendly, 2004).

To put the social phenomena of regulatory capture and systemic corruption into proper context, the work of a number of scholars and organizations is relied upon, including: Carpenter, 2014; Carpenter and Moss, 2014; Carrigan, 2014; Dal Bó, 2006; Deighton-Smith, 2004; Domhoff, 1979; Hardy, 2006; Jain, 2001; Johnston, 1997; Kernaghan, 2003; Klitgaard, 2000, 2004; Kwak, 2014; OECD, 2009; Ogus, 2004; Stigler, 1971; Stiglitz, 2013; Warren, 2004, 2006; Whitehouse and Leach, 2014; and Zingales, 2014.

Click on the following link to read Part A of the report One Media Law (starting on page 7).