From The Globe and Mail:

One of the longest running and most contentious debates in Canadian broadcasting is coming to an end with the expected approval by federal regulators to allow Al Jazeera's English television network to be carried here.

Sources close to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission indicate that Al Jazeera English, the international spinoff of the Qatar-based Arabic language news network Al Jazeera, will likely be cleared for Canada this summer, possibly within weeks.

The move comes after a push to bring the English version of Al Jazeera to Canada, which saw the news network take the unusual step of sitting down with its opponents this spring to work through concerns about its programming. In the past, the Al Jazeera Arabic network has been accused of allowing anti-Semitic content on air, and critics in Canada wanted assurances the English version would be different.

“Canada is one of the only countries in the world that has neither Al Jazeera English or Al Jazeera Arabic, including the United States and Israel,” said Tony Burman, a former CBC executive who is now managing director of Al Jazeera English based in Doha, Qatar.

“I don't think there is any conspiracy, I just think that there hadn't been, up until a few months ago, a concerted effort to get carriage,” he added.

Available in Canada only on the Internet or though satellite signals pulled in from the United States, Al Jazeera English was launched in 2006 amid a flurry of media attention. This week, the network will be picked up by cable carriers in the Washington area – another step toward getting broader carriage in North America – but Canada remains one of its biggest challenges.