Photo courtesy of CRTC
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has granted five new radio licences to serve Indigenous people in urban areas.
The new stations will be located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto.
Northern Native Broadcasting of Terrace, BC, will be setting up a station in Vancouver.
The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta will have new transmitters in Edmonton and Calgary.
First Peoples Radio was granted licences in Ottawa and Toronto.
The CRTC says the new stations must reflect the communities they serve, include a large portion of local content, such as news, and deal with the specific concerns of Indigenous people.
That includes spoken programming in an Indigenous language.
Applications by several other organizations to operate radio stations to serve the urban Indigenous communities in those five cities were denied.