Why Has OMNI Television Stopped Italian Programming in Thunder Bay?

My Shaw Cable package in Thunder Bay includes a channel (No. 195) called OMNI.  As its website states: “OMNI is Canada’s only multilingual and multicultural television broadcaster, offering a wide range of ethnocultural and third-language programming to the country’s diverse communities. OMNI is available in more than 11 million households across Canada through its five local over-the-air television stations in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto (OMNI.1 and OMNI.2) and its national speciality channel – OMNI Regional, which is comprised of four regional channels and is offered as part of all digital basic television packages throughout the country. In Quebec, OMNI Regional has partnered with independent ethnic broadcaster, ICI Television, to offer French-language local programming to the province’s ethnic communities. OMNI offers a wide range of locally produced and acquired programming, including daily national news in Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin and Punjabi, current affairs programming and popular entertainment programming including Bollywood movies, Asian cinema, and Italian and Portuguese telenovelas.”

Now the channel available in Thunder Bay via SHAW appears to be some version of OMNI regional.  Its two Toronto channels are OMNI1 and OMNI2 with OMNI1 offering a fair amount of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese programming while OMNI2 offers more Punjabi, Mandarin and Cantonese programming. Until last week, what I assume is OMNI regional here on Shaw in Thunder Bay had two Italian newscasts around noon – one its Toronto news program in Italian and another the RAI news broadcast from Italy.  I used to watch them quite frequently and would even PVR them if I was unable to watch them during the noon hour period.  Well, this week these seem to have disappeared and the OMNI channel’s programming in Thunder Bay seems to largely reflect OMNI2.  When I contacted SHAW, they said that they have no control what OMNI provides, they just provide access to the Channel.  I have contacted OMNI itself via their “Contact Us” link but have yet to hear back.

Not sure what has happened here given that there are nearly 3000 people in Thunder Bay whose first language is Italian (Thunder Bay’s CMA population in 2016 according to the Census was 121,620) and the entire community of Italian descent is probably close to 10,000. Italian appears to be the largest foreign first language group in Thunder Bay followed by Finnish at just under 2000.  True it is an aging first language community but then so is the Italian community in the GTA which has access to OMNI1.  In terms of some of the other first language groups in Thunder Bay with programming available on OMNI there is Cantonese (180), Mandarin (315), Punjabi (75), and Tagalog (200). Yet OMNI no longer has  Italian programming from the OMNI regional feed available in Thunder Bay. 

What has happened here?  Not sure because I have not heard back from OMNI but my best educated guess is that this was a made in Toronto HQ one size fits all decision that decided that since SHAW is based in Western Canada (i.e. Vancouver and Calgary are the big centres there) the programming should reflect the community composition there.  One would have expected a multicultural television broadcaster to have done a better job on its community composition home work, but these things happen.  Hopefully, OMNI will come to its senses and put back an hour or so of Italian programing back on OMNI regional (or better yet add OMNI1 to the package feed that SHAW provides in Thunder Bay) and allow me to get back to watching Toronto area news reports done by Gianpietro Nagliati.

 

Is This the End of Trying To Balance Ontario's Budget?

The Ford Government announced a major cabinet reshuffle this morning and it is obviously an attempt to reboot and rebrand a government that has run into difficulty in terms of its popularity – and particularly the popularity of the “Populist” Premier who obviously did not take kindly to be booed at this week’s Raptor’s Celebration. All politicians I believe have an deep rooted need to be liked but if it becomes a dominant characteristic it can lead to bad policy.

Obviously, the Premier has decided that the source of his current unpopularity is a function of the actions of three ministers in particular: 1)  former Finance Minister Vic Fedeli who has now been put in the Economic Development Portfolio and replaced by former Environment Minister Rod Phillips, 2) former Child and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod who is being replaced by the former Economic Development minister Todd Smith and  3) former education Minister Lisa Thompson who is being replaced by a cabinet newcomer – Stephen Lecce – on the eve of what will be contentious negotiations this summer as teacher’s contracts expire. There are a number of other changes – such as Caroline Mulroney moving out of the Attorney General position to Transport – and you can get the new list here.  For those of you in the Northwest, Greg Rickford fortunately remains in charge of his portfolios.

There seem to be several themes here.  First, moving ministers out of portfolios where there has been controversy and putting in new faces.  It remains to be seen if the idea is to sell the same ideas with new faces or have an abrupt policy shift.  Second, an increase in the number of GTA area ministers which given the population and clout of the region is probably a wise strategy and was an important omission the first time the cabinet was constructed.  Third, an increase in the size of cabinet - from 21 to 28 – which will no doubt raise eyebrows in the Toronto area given the early move to reduce Toronto City council from 47 to 25. 

In some respects, this cabinet shuffle probably is going to signal an end to attempts to enact major reforms and changes designed to put Ontario’s Finances on a more sustainable path.  There is no doubt that some of the issues that affected people in health, education and social service sector were handled in a particularly ham-handed way but a move towards re-opening the taps wider in order to make a populist Premier more popular is not a good thing in the long run.  However, the expansion of cabinet is an important symbol that says there is not going to be as firm an emphasis on reining in the deficit and debt.   Indeed, it is very disappointing to see Vic Fedeli out of Finance given his energy level and steady hand when it came to the operations of government.

It will be an interesting summer.

Housing Prices Up in May...Even in Thunder Bay

The May Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index has been released and it shows the home price index in Canada up in May for the first time in nine months though it was the smallest May increase in 21 years.  Given that there is usually a bump up in real estate markets in the spring, given the small increase by historic standards, it means that real estate markets are still slow.  Indeed, once the index is seasonally adjusted it would appear that the index is actually down 0.4 percent in May rather than up 0.5 percent. 

Some of the largest markets in the country – like Vancouver – are still in decline but Ottawa and Hamilton have been seeing larger increases.  According to the Teranet Index: “Unadjusted indexes were up on the month for nine of the 11 metropolitan markets of the composite index, the exceptions being Vancouver (−0.2%) and Edmonton (−0.3%). Calgary was up 0.3%, Winnipeg 0.5%, Toronto 0.7% and Victoria 0.7%, but indexes for these four markets were down when seasonally adjusted. Index changes for Montreal (+0.5%), Quebec City (+0.8%), Halifax (+0.9%), Ottawa-Gatineau (+1.9%) and Hamilton (+2.2%) would have remained positive after seasonal adjustment.”

Of interest to those of us here in the North are the results for Thunder Bay and Sudbury which are part of a set of figures not included in the main composite index.  Quoting Teranet: “Down from nine months ago were the two in B.C. – Abbotsford-Mission (−5.2%) and Kelowna (−3.6%). Up were the five in Ontario – Thunder Bay (1.6%), Sudbury (2.9%), London (4.0%), Kingston (4.2%) and Windsor (6.8%).”  These last five cities are all places that have economically had a pretty tough time over the last few years and rising house prices are some evidence of recovery.

So, it would appear that the continuation of lower interest rates in Canada, plus what has been strong employment growth is on the whole managing to prop up real estate markets especially in some smaller Ontario centers a bit more removed from the GTA.  Windsor certainly comes to mind.  Prices in these markets are still more affordable at least by current Canadian standards though given the overall sluggishness one really cannot expect a resurgence of the boom of the last few years.  Aside from Hamilton, other centers closer to the GTA are not doing as well – for example Barrie, Peterborough, Guelph and Oshawa. 

 

Trump, Brexit and the EU

On his recent state visit to the UK, US President Donald Trump waded into the Brexit issue and Britain’s EU relations with a number of pronouncements that included tweeting that Britain should throw off the “shackles” of EU membership and also offering the promise of a US trade deal once they left.  If Britain follows through and leaves the EU, a trade deal with the United States would be an important consolation prize but one hopes the British have been watching the US and its ongoing relationship with Canada and Mexico to know that even with trade deals, economic relations with the current US administration can be a bit of a roller coaster.

Of course, President Trump is up to more than simply trying to throw the British a lifeline.  Trump and indeed a chunk of like-minded American policy thinkers have never liked the EU and have been waiting for Euro and the EU to fall apart and fail.  Indeed, one perspective in the Harvard Business Review a number of years ago refers to the EU as a failed experimentbecause of its slow recovery from the 2008-09 recession, the undemocratic aspects of the EU Commission and the failure to create a more integrated federation.  Of course, if Europe was successful in creating a more integrated federation, it would likely spark the ire of Donald Trump even more.

Indeed, with his attacks on the relevance of NATO and the EU, it has been noted that Trump has been trying to disrupt the EU.  While the presence of a united Europe which shares common economic and cultural values and supports a liberal international order, with the United States should be seen as a natural ally, the current President of the United States essentially sees a united Europe as a large bloc that would better serve American interests by being shattered into smaller units. These smaller units can then be played off one against the other for short term economic and political advantage whether it is trade deals that benefit the United States or other short-term alliances.  

Needless to say, the Europeans have a right to be miffed not only with the UK which with Brexit has become a disruptive rather than constructive force in Europe but also with President Trump who is openly hostile to the EU.  Of course, Britain’s behaviour is probably rooted in its history as it spent centuries making sure that continental European powers did not come together to form an alliance.  Once they did with the creation of the EU, a cynic would argue that Britain eventually joined to be a disruptive force from within – indeed, De Gaulle thought they should not be admitted.  The best thing that Europe can do if Britain leaves the EU is to work towards sticking together and becoming more united, but this is going to be a tough task.