Dionne Case

Dionne Case (1978), known as Re Public Service Board et al, Dionne et al, and Attorney General of Canada et al. When François Dionne, a cable-system operator, challenged the Québec Public Service Board's competence to give licences, the Supreme Court of Canada found that Parliament had exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of the technical aspects of cable television stations and over their programming if it involves the interception of television signals and their rebroadcast to subscribers of a cable-television company. According to the minority opinion of 3 judges, a cable system is different from radio broadcasting (a federal matter), just as a navigation company is different from navigation, because distribution by cable can be limited to a defined territory; a cable-broadcasting company operating within a single province would therefore fall within provincial jurisdiction.