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Pierre Juneau (born October 17, 1922) is a retired film and broadcast executive and one-time member of the Canadian Cabinet.
He was born in Verdun outside of Montreal to a working class family. After graduating from the University of Montreal he studied at the University of Paris where he met Pierre Trudeau with whom he founded the dissident political magazine Cité Libre upon returning to Montreal.
Juneau joined the National Film Board of Canada in 1949. In the 1950s he was the NFB's assistant regional supervisor in Quebec and then became the chief of international distribution, the assistant head of the European office and the NFB's secretary. In 1964 he became the board's director of French-language production. In 1959, Juneau was a cofounder of the Montreal International Film Festival serving as its president until 1968.
In 1966, Juneau was appointed to the position of vice-chairman of the Bureau of Broadcast Governors. When the BBG became the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in 1968, Juneau became the body's first chairman. In the early 1970s he was the architect of the CRTC's Canadian content regulations which required a certain percentage of radio and television time to be devoted to programming (or music in the case of radio) produced in Canada. Canadian content, by requiring radio stations to give air play to Canadian artists, is credited with the creating a domestic market for Canadian music and the subsequent boom in music production. The music industry's Juno Awards are named after Juneau.
In 1975, Juneau left the CRTC to accept an appointment by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to the Cabinet as Minister of Communications. Since Juneau did not have a seat in the Canadian House of Commons he attempted to enter parliament through a by-election but was defeated in the Montreal riding of Hochelaga by the Progressive Conservative candidate and resigned from Cabinet.
He was subsequently appointed to the civil service by Trudeau as Under Secretary of State and then, in 1980, as Deputy Minister of Communications. In 1982 he became president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As Juneau was closely identified with the Liberal Party he was viewed with hostility by the Tory government of Brian Mulroney which came to power in the 1984 Canadian election.
Despite financial pressures, Juneau's term as CBC President saw the inauguration of a new cable service, CBC Newsworld and an increase in Canadian content on CBC to 95% of programming.
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