12.16.2010

I Love The CBC

This morninng an old friend's email arrived extolling me to learn about the perilous situation the CBC. In part the email says: "Stephen Harper’s secret plan for the CBC was revealed on November 23rd when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage mused publicly about killing our public broadcaster! Consider for a moment: cutting CBC’s grant would kill CBC Radio One, CBC Radio Two, CBC Television and CBC NewsNet, leaving Canadian broadcasting entirely in the hands of the private broadcasters, and in the case of television, private broadcasters controlled by cable monopolies!"

YIKES! i love the CBC, it's not perfect but, compared to all the other north american competition, it's the only source willing to take even a modest anti-corporate perspective in choosing its news or documentary subjects. The CBC is an intagrel part of Canadian culture, millions of radios in Canada are permenently tuned to it, the National every evening is the most watched show almost every night, hell, Hockey Night in Canada is the most important unifying force Canada possesses. Kill the CBC, you kill Canada as we now know it.

Living here in southwest BC we have access to all the corporate American networks, the BBC and the Canadian networks. On any given day on any topic or story all of us are better off by examining things from different perspectives, the wider apart the better in terms of telemetry. Even the slight differences able to be gleaned from our available media can give a more multi-dimensional view. That's, for me-a news junkie, the #1 reason i love the CBC is the slightly different viewpoint that their mandate as a public broadcaster demands of them.

So, in my turn, i'll ask you to please sign the petition below in support of our beloved CBC. Agreed, Internet petitions are often useless, nonetheless, by reading up on the issue, by taking an action, i ended up more aware, more awake. You will too.