In a way, I was there at the
beginning. It was 1988 and I was working at Sunday Morning for CBC in Toronto
producing documentary radio for the nation. One night in the editing bays,
there was a very large Native man editing tape in one of the plexi-glassed
cubicles. It was audio editing the analog way, listening to tape with
headphones on a reel to reel machine until you found your spot, marking the
tape with a grease pencil and cutting it with a razor blade. I took the bay
next to him.
I did not know Gary Farmer from
the stage although I knew of him and the success of Thomson Highway's Dry Lips
Oughta Move to Kapuskasing was all over Toronto. PowWow Highway the movie that would make him
an international star was not going to be released until 1989. We were two
Native guys trying to get our work edited and ready for the national airwaves
of CBC. It was a couple of nights in the late 1980's and I do not remember if
he talked about Aboriginal Voices Radio but I know we talked about radio and
getting our stories heard and being in control of the medium.
When Gary created a pilot episode
of Aboriginal Voices Radio in the mid 1990's, he brought me in as talent and
had James Cullingham our Executive Producer from CBC produce the show. Gary and I would do other projects together
but never radio.
He used his great influence as a
person and personality to put together the team that got radio licences in most
of the major Canadian markets and Aboriginal Voices Radio Network was born. The
first licence for Toronto was granted by the CRTC in 2000. Licences in Regina,
Saskatoon, Montreal, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Vancouver, Edmonton and
Calgary would follow.
Then at some point in the
mid-2000’s he was driven out of Aboriginal Voices Radio Network. I don't know
how it happened, I broached the subject a few times with Gary but it was not
something he would talk about. These days he continues to act on stage and
screen as well as singing the blues with his band Gary Farmer and the
Troublemakers.
In the years after Gary very
little radio was made and the long lonely death spiral began. In 2009, AVRN
lost their licenses in Kitchener-Waterloo and Montreal. Many began silent
witness to the dream circling slowly inevitably into oblivion.
In 2012, I offered to take on the AVRN operation in
Edmonton. I had family there and had helped build a youth driven Native radio
station in Winnipeg. I would go to work in programming and finding talent but
also identify job training dollars and other sources of revenue to build the
station. The offer was rebuffed.
A year later, I read the CRTC
warnings to AVRN online and sent a number of emails with concerns about the
future of the network for the purpose of writing on this blog. On June 13, 2013
I received an email from Jamie Hill, President AVRN.
“AVR is not at risk of failure at
this time. Though I do believe it was at great risk of that in the distant
past. When I became involved with AVR in 2004, AVR was about $1.8 million in
debt, had very little money coming in, had not filed required financial
statements with the CRTC and was thus in a state of non-compliance with
conditions of licence, and was well past the CRTC policy maximum of 3 extension
requests to get the stations on the air in 6 of its 7 cities. At that point AVR
was at great risk of failure.”
I had queried about AVRN’s transparency.
“Also Miles, I would like to
comment on your statement about a lack of information regarding AVR. As you are
aware AVR operates in an extremely competitive business environment and must
behave prudently as far as releasing information about its operations that
other competitors could acquire and distort and attempt to use against AVR in
Ottawa to advance themselves at the expense of AVR. I view this as AVR doing
its best in undertaking sound business practices to ensure AVR's business
survival. Rest assured there are numerous other broadcasters in Canada who
would like to see AVR fail so they can have an opportunity to try to acquire
AVR's radio licences - each of which would be worth tens of millions of dollars
to a commercial broadcaster.”
I didn't know what to write and
so I kept my silent vigil.
In October of 2014, the station
in Ottawa ceased broadcasting.
According to Wikipedia, "In
December 2014, AVR renamed itself to Voices Radio, as its scope expanded out of
the aboriginal realm and more into music from mainstream artists, generally
bent towards adult contemporary. In February 2015, Voices Radio began to air
old time radio programs from the United States."
On June 25, 2015, The CRTC
rescinded all the licenses of the Aboriginal Voices Radio Network.
The death of Aboriginal Voices
was greeted with a murmur. There was a story on APTN and a few words here and
there. I saw one post on facebook and nothing else.
It should have been a beautiful
thing - a place to share our music and our voices and it was wasted. Silence
sings the dream dying.
***
In response to this blog Gary
Farmer sent me the following message. I have edited out references to
individuals other than Jamie Hill who was quoted in the original story.
Hey miles. took a read.
the big thing that sticks out to me is that jamie says, "AVR was in
debt when he took over" 1.8
million. that is a total lie. in the first 7 years of operation we had
financing from the private broadcasters to build the network. So we were not in debt when I left.
(The board) would not let me take
the dollars and develop original content. I knew our original content would see
the station to audience enough to make it reality. We needed public support to survive. I did not want to survive off Canadian
government financing. I knew that was a
dead end. If we were to meet success it
would have been with Canadian audiences ready to embrace the history of
relations between Canadian government and Indian people.
In the end the Canadian
government did not want a free public voice for Native people in Canada cause
they had already made deals to exploit natural resources to continue their way
of life...and they knew a public radio voice from Native people would raise
issue.
If you read our original submission
for licences...you can see our effort clearly...we wanted 25% spoken
content...to inform Canadians of that history between Canadians and
Indians. Seeing Harper in office it all
becomes clear.
CBC fought every license we ever
tried for...be interesting to get the legal costs to do that for so many years
and we beat them good...our writing and concepts won us those licences...and
jamie's harvard educated self was a hired gun to do exactly what he did..bring
it to demise.
All I ever did was give it money. money i earned from my career as an actor to
book the magazine and radio licensing.
For that matter I financed myself to help win APTN license as well. TVNC
enlisted me because of my CRTC experience winning radio licenses. Of course
with the strength of mark macleod and john the engineer both from public radio
initiatives.
In the end. AVR owned legit
$100,000 of my own money. Now that my career has obviously subsided I have
nothing to show but this story. No home.
A beater car. And tour small time
to make ends meet playing harmonica and singing blues songs. A fitting end to a dream to engage Native
Canadians in our reality in a creative way.
I believe still today that that
is the route of success as Native people.
We need access to all audiences to tell our story and to inform the
young to their Indian history and heritage. The reality is to be Canadian is to
be Indian. We made Canadians.
They owe us our common histories.
Aug 6 – 2015
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