The manager of local broadcaster CHIP 101.9 was recently named the president of a provincial association for community radio stations, known by the acronym ARCQ.

François Carrier, the manager at the Fort Coulonge-based station, said that he was eager to advocate for. . .

community radio. He has served as the vice-president of the organization since 2016.

“I want to do everything in my power to support our members during the post-COVID era”, Carrier wrote in a statement. “I would first like to thank the outgoing President, Tanya Beaumont, with whom I have worked closely for the past three years and who will prove to be an important ally for me in the pursuit of our objectives. The next few months will be crucial for our association, as we need to prepare for our recovery.”

The ARCQ was founded in 1979 and has 37 member stations all across the province. Carrier said that four, including CHIP, feature English programming. He said his role will be to discuss the future of community radio with government officials, both at the provincial and federal levels as well as members of Quebec’s cultural industry. He said the role of effective government communication was highlighted during the course of the pandemic.

“I know in the Quebec government and François Legault said a couple of times… we [had] a good result for the vaccination … I think it’s probably because they invested a lot in communication, in advertising for media,” he said in a follow up interview.

In his statement he further expanded on that topic, asserting that the communication strategies employed during COVID-19 should be adopted in the longer run.

“Over the past year, the Québec government has invested an average of $15.57 per capita in media, to inform the population of an unprecedented health crisis,” Carrier wrote. “These investments in trusted sources of information like our radio stations have been the best possible vaccine against disinformation. It allowed the messages to be heard and understood by the population. As part of its recovery plan, Québec would therefore benefit from keeping up with those good habits and to build on them.”

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