It's not a Toronto Broadcasting Corporation by Noreen Golfman

The CBC's decision to get back into the business of regional newscasts has roused the disapproval of Toronto columnists, including The Globe and Mail's Kate Taylor. In this debate, Toronto-centricity is ill-informed.

It's not up to the president of the CBC to expand or diminish CBC's grassroots mandate. It's the law. The Broadcasting Act calls on the CBC to "reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions."

Recently, the all-party House of Commons standing committee on Canadian heritage determined unanimously that the CBC has been falling short on its local and regional obligations. "It is incumbent upon the CBC to ensure that levels of local programming based on local needs are delivered to audiences." The committee asked the CBC to "deliver a strategic plan with estimated resource requirements to Parliament on how it would fulfill its public service mandate to deliver local and regional programming."

After a decade of centralization, the majority of CBC's English-language employees now live and work in Toronto. But 90 per cent of Canadians live elsewhere, and the CBC is not the Toronto Broadcasting Corporation. In Newfoundland and Labrador, where I live, we depend heavily on CBC radio and television. It functions as a Newfoundland Broadcasting Corporation. CBC president Robert Rabinovitch's past attacks on regional operations have strangled its capacity, cutting local audiences by two-thirds. Ask any Newfoundlander.

Parliamentarians are aware of how little local content is available in Canadian radio and television, so it's no surprise that MPs would espouse that priority for the CBC. Heritage Minister Liza Frulla was a co-author of the heritage committee's report.

What would a strong grassroots CBC look like?

It would establish a balance between local and network programs. In communities across the land, CBC radio and television would increase the quantity and variety of grassroots programs. In addition to news, these programs would include current affairs, putting a spotlight on community issues, local drama, live performance, variety, music and other forms of popular culture such as amateur sports.

Programs would be presented during peak listening and viewing hours. On CBC Television, for example, at least one hour in the prime-time block from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. would be presented locally. These grassroots programs would not be poor cousins. With today's less expensive production techniques, they could be just as sophisticated as network programs.

Empowered executives at the grassroots level would make programming decisions, drawing on local advice to assess needs. The style and content of programming could vary widely from one region to another. Network programming would draw on the best grassroots programs, chosen competitively and recast for a national audience.

A strong grassroots CBC would also address geographic gaps in service. Urban areas such as Chicoutimi, Hamilton, Barrie, Kitchener and Victoria, as well as vast rural areas such as northern Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and rural British Columbia remain underserved. Even where CBC services exist, many communities receive second-class "affiliate" service from stations that carry only some of CBC's programs.

And yet, all Canadians pay for the CBC through their taxes. A strong grassroots CBC should serve Canadians equally well, regardless of where they reside.

The notion that people in the communities where 90 per cent of Canadians live should be content to have a national conversation moderated almost entirely from Toronto is a patronizing throwback to the past. The CBC should chart a new course, live up to its legal mandate and take advantage of the incredible wealth of talent in communities across the land.

In abandoning its metropolitan to hinterland model, this new CBC would become a strong east-west link, helping our diverse country maintain a distinct culture on the northern half of the North American continent.

Noreen Golfman, associate dean of graduate studies at Memorial University, chairs the steering committee of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

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