It’s an odd-numbered year, which means CBC is preparing its next public consultation with Quebec’s official language minority community, as required under its CRTC licence. (It also has a similar requirement for French-language communities in “Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Western Canada, and the North.”)

Like it did two years ago, the CBC is inviting people interested in expressing their views on its programming and services to a roundtable discussion on Thursday, May 2 from 10am to noon at Maison Radio-Canada.

For those who can’t make it in person, the event will be broadcast on CBC Montreal’s Facebook page and comments will be taken through online discussion as well.

Attendance is free, but registration is required. You can register here.

The way it worked last time is that people are broken up into small groups, each one led by a CBC employee (generally a journalist, on-air personality, producer or manager), and asked to discuss and come up with ideas.

You can see the Facebook video from the 2017 event here.

In addition to Debra Arbec, who will serve as host, this year’s participants will include:

Sally Catto, General Manager, Programming, CBC Television
Meredith Dellandrea, Managing Director, CBC Quebec
Fred Mattocks, General Manager, Local Services
Susan Marjetti, Executive Director, Radio & Audio
Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief, CBC News

As public consultations go, CBC’s isn’t bad. It engages with the audience and seems to take their views seriously.

The report filed with the CRTC after the 2017 event glosses over the feedback a bit, but goes into detail about the various events that the CBC has organized to get it more in touch with the anglophone communities across the province and have Quebec anglophones reflected on TV, radio and online.