Polls consistently report that Canadians trust CBC above other broadcasters, says Ian Morrison
Source : Toronto Star
October 2, 2005
Last week Joe Clark told a packed audience in Massey Hall that "the CBC is one of Canada's few remaining national institutions, able to help us be more than we have been. We need it." I agree with him.
Clark is not the first Conservative prime minister to support public broadcasting.
In the depths of the Great Depression, R.B. Bennett created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, which became the CBC. He did it to link Canadians from east to west to share their ideas and dreams in the face of a rising sea of radio signals from the United States.
Bennett's legacy is remarkable. From radio to television and new media in French, English and aboriginal languages, the CBC has spent seven decades living up to a mandate which the 1991 Broadcasting Act describes as an obligation to "reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions."
That's a tall order in a country of six time zones, but CBC does it rather well.
Opinion polls report consistently that Canadians trust CBC more than other broadcasters.
They want their government to fund it properly.
That broad support applies among both official language groups, in all regions of Canada and with supporters of all political parties. It extends well beyond CBC's core audiences. It seems we want it there for important occasions even if our listening and viewing drifts elsewhere.
By international standards, CBC is not awash in funds.
We tend to compare ourselves with the United States, where public broadcasting is but a marginal force.
Per capita, the BBC receives twice as much funding as CBC. The Germans, Japanese and Scandinavians are all much more generous to their public broadcasters (operating in smaller territories and fewer languages) than are we Canadians. I conclude that by international standards, we get good value for the money we spend.
The current lockout has demonstrated what a Toronto Broadcasting Corporation would look like.
Many northern Canadians have told me that the lockout makes them feel completely cut off from the rest of the north, as well as from their fellow Canadians.
Of course, the CBC has warts.
One of them is an outdated patronage system where its president is appointed by a prime minister. Unlike other corporations, CBC's board cannot hire or fire its CEO.
This may explain the lockout, but it can easily be fixed by Parliament. Two years ago, the House of Commons Heritage Committee unanimously recommended a solution.
As the late Dalton Camp once wrote in these pages, "We are its only shareholders. When you hear people talk about reducing the role of the CBC, or selling off its assets, look closely at who's talking — it won't be a voice speaking for the people of Canada, but for shareholders of another kind of corporation."
Ian Morrison is spokesperson for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
