Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel: Biographies

Janet Yale is an accomplished leader and senior executive with long years of management experience in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Currently, she serves as the President and CEO of the Arthritis Society (Canada) after a long career in the telecommunications and broadcast sectors. In June 2018, she was appointed by the federal Ministers of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Canadian Heritage to serve as Chair of The Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel.

Previously, she served as President and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association and, later, as the Executive Vice President at TELUS. Ms. Yale also served as a Director General at the CRTC and as General Counsel at the Consumers Association of Canada.

Ms. Yale is Chair of the Arthritis Alliance of Canada, the out-going Chair of the Health Charities Coalition of Canada, Past-Chair of the Ontario Trillium Foundation and serves on the boards of Samara and the Ottawa Art Gallery. In 2008, she was awarded the United Way Community Builder Award for Volunteer of the Year.

During the course of her distinguished career, she has received a number of awards and recognitions. In 2001, she was named "Woman of the Year" by the Canadian Women in Communications Organization. She is a recipient of both the Queen Elizabeth II Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals. She was also named as one of Canada's 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women's Executive Network from 2004 to 2006, and inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2005, she was named Businesswoman of the Year by the Women's Business Network and in 2006 she was named Woman Leader of the Year by Federated Press.

A lawyer and economist by training, Ms. Yale is fully bilingual (English & French), a keen marathon runner and passionate about health, the arts and business. She splits her time between Ottawa and Toronto with her husband and grown children.

Peter Grant is Counsel and past Chair of the Technology, Communications and Intellectual Property Group at law firm McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto. He is considered a pioneer in the field of communications law in Canada. His practice touches all areas of communications law, including broadcasting and cable television, discretionary programming services, digital media services on the internet, copyright collectives, and cultural industries.

Peter is the author of numerous articles and publications, including the Canadian Broadcasting Regulatory Handbook, a standard industry reference published every two years, now in its fourteenth edition. He was the former co-chair of the National Conference on Communications Law and Policy convened by the Law Society of Upper Canada every two years. The conference is now administered by the International Institute of Communications (IIC).

From 1974 to 1978, Peter was seconded to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) under an Executive Exchange Agreement. During this period, Mr. Grant acted as a Special Counsel to the Commission and performed duties as Commission counsel in numerous broadcasting and telecommunications regulatory proceedings.

Peter was a member of the Canadian delegation to UNESCO in 1974, and to the G-7 conference on the Information Society in Brussels in 1995. Peter is a past national chair of the Media and Communication Section of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) and a former chair of the CBA Special Committee on Freedom of Information.

He received his BA in 1964 and his LLB in 1967, both from the University of Toronto.

Hank Intven is a lawyer based in Victoria, British Columbia, where he teaches telecommunications, broadcasting and Internet law at the University of Victoria. For more than 30 years, he has been recognized as a leading advisor to business, governments and regulators in the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. He has advised a wide range of communications companies, investors, financial institutions, regulators, governments and other clients on communications-related business, regulatory and policy matters in Canada and in more than 25 other countries. He is the president of the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications.

Hank was a partner in the law firm McCarthy Tétrault LLP from 1986 to 2013. Prior to that, he was Executive Director of Telecommunications at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). He was the main external advisor to the Canadian government in the preparation of the Canadian Telecommunications Act and was one of three members of the Government of Canada's Telecommunications Policy Review Panel, which delivered a blueprint for the future of Canadian telecommunications policy in March 2006. Earlier in his career, Hank was General Counsel with the Consumers Association of Canada, and Director of its Regulated Industries Program.

Hank is the author of the Canadian Telecommunications Regulatory Handbook, a comprehensive guide to Canadian telecommunications law and regulation, published between 2012 and 2017. He is also the editor of the international Telecommunications Regulation Handbook, published in 2000 and distributed around the world by The World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union.

Hank studied at Western University and Osgoode Hall Law School. He was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1976 and the BC Bar in 2013.

* Panel member until June 28, 2019

Marina Pavlovi is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa and is a member of its Centre for Law, Technology and Society.

Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Professor Pavlovi acted as an in-house counsel for a telecommunication company in Belgrade (Serbia) and practiced (as an of-counsel) in the area of international commercial arbitration with a law firm in Salzburg (Austria).

Her research expertise is in consumer rights in the cross-border digital economy and in technology policy and regulation.

She holds a law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), an LL.M with concentration in Law & Technology from the University of Ottawa, and is called to the Ontario bar. She received the 2015–2016 Common Law Section Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2017–2018 Common Law Section Public Engagement Award: Public Education and Outreach.

Monique Simard has a long and distinguished track record in the cultural industries. She was President and CEO of the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) from 2014 to 2018 and was previously Director General of the National Film Board of Canada's French Program. In April 2018, she was appointed as Chair of the Board of the Quebecor Fund.

Her other experience includes member of Committee on Science and Technology in Canada from 1989 to 1991, Producer and Vice President at Productions Virage from 1998 to 2008; President of the Board of the Cinémathèque from 2000 to 2004; member of the Board for l'Observatoire québécois de la mondialisation in 2002 and in 2003; and member of the Board of l'Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ) and of the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal.

She studied political science and history at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Monica Song is a partner with Dentons Canada LLP and the head of the Communications Law group at the firm. A skilled administrative lawyer with in-depth knowledge of the business, legal, regulatory, licensing, and public policy issues affecting the communications industry, she has over 20 years' experience advising clients in the sector, including wireline and wireless carriers, resellers, satellite operators, cable companies, Internet service providers, cloud-based application service providers, digital media undertakings, content providers, and equipment manufacturers and distributors.

Monica has been a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law for the past ten years and is frequently invited to speak at administrative and communications law, and other industry conferences.

Prior to entering private practice, Monica clerked with Justice John Charles Major at the Supreme Court of Canada. Holder of degrees in both of Canada's common and civil law traditions, Monica interned at the Québec Court of Appeal and is fluent in French.

Monica has a BA (Hons) from the University of Toronto, an LLB from the University of Western Ontario and an LL.B (Civ.) from l'Université Laval.

Pierre Trudel is a full Professor at the Public Law Research Center (Centre de recherche en droit public or CRDP) of the Faculty of Law at the l'Université de Montréal. He is a regular contributor at Le Devoir. He is an associate researcher at the Centre facilitating research and innovation in organizations (CEFRIO), member of the Council of the Center for Media Studies (Université Laval) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

He has been a visiting professor at the following universities: Université Laval (Quebec), Université Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) and Université Namur (Belgium). From 1986 to 1988, he was Director of Research for the Federal Task Force on Broadcasting Policy. From 1990 to 1995, he was the Director of the Public Law Research Center at the Université de Montréal. He currently teaches media law and cyberspace law. He has authored several books and articles in media law and information technology law, including Droit de la radio et de la télévision (1991).

He is currently working on research projects on the fundamental rights to information, protection of personal information online, evaluation of legal issues and risks, Internet of Things, e-health, audiovisual law and e-commerce.

He holds a LLM from Université de Montréal.