CPAC (TV Channel)
CPAC ( /ˈsiːpæk/ SEE-pak; English: Cable Public Affairs Channel and in French: La Chaîne d'affaires publiques par câble), is a Canadian Category A specialty service devoted to coverage of public and government affairs, including carrying a full, uninterrupted feed of proceedings of the House of Commons of Canada, with two audio channels, one in English and the other in French. CPAC is similar to services in other countries including C-SPAN (USA), La Chaîne parlementaire (France), Phoenix (Germany), BBC Parliament (UK) and NBR in (Brazil), from which CPAC occasionally airs programming.
CPAC's main purpose is the broadcast of proceedings of the House of Commons. Other programming includes meetings of House of Commons and Canadian Senate parliamentary committees, occasional Supreme Court proceedings, political conventions, conferences, committees and coverage of general elections. CPAC also airs the proceedings of certain Royal Commissions and judicial enquiries. Proceedings of the Senate are not carried as the upper house has yet to agree to allow its sessions to be televised. On April 25, 2006, Senator Hugh Segal moved that the proceedings of the Senate be televised; the motion has since been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament for consideration.
In 2003, at the behest of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), CPAC and its carriers started to allow television viewers to choose which language they hear the service in, putting the feed of one language on the service's main audio channel and the feed of the other language on its SAP channel. Some cable systems also offer the two feeds on separate channels for easier access. CPAC has also offered a "floor" feed, a feed that does not carry any simultaneous translation, although due to the changes noted above, it may not remain in use over cable or satellite television.
A choice between all three feeds are offered on CPAC's free Internet video stream available on their website. Selected events and programs are also available as a podcast.