Letter to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell re: The Knowledge Network

The Hon. Gordon Campbell
Premier
British Columbia
Parliament Buildings
Victoria, BC
V8V 1X4

Dear Mr. Campbell:

Your Party's pledge to "maintain and improve The Knowledge Network as B.C.'s educational public broadcasting network" is a most welcome development. On behalf of 16,085 BC families who support our work for strong Canadian content, we congratulate and thank you.

On a per-capita basis, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is more strongly represented in British Columbia than in any other Canadian jurisdiction. We are not affiliated with any broadcaster or political party. Our mission is to defend and enhance the quality and quantity of Canadian programming in the audio-visual system.

Yesterday Kelly Reichert of the BC Liberals faxed the Vancouver office of Strategic Communications, a firm that has provided us with communications support for ten years throughout the country. In that letter (PDF 26 KB) Reichert referred to "complaints we have received from many Vancouver residents about an apparent telephone survey regarding the Knowledge Network".

For your information, Strategic Communications has undertaken no work regarding the Knowledge Network other than under contract with Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. Specifically, it and we have not undertaken any surveys regarding the Knowledge Network other than last year's Ipsos-Reid poll, which we commissioned and released publicly thirteen months ago.

All communication by Strategic Communications on our behalf has been exclusively to Friends' supporters throughout BC, none has had any partisan dimension, and we have received no complaints from our supporters in this connection.  In fact, there was no survey component to our communications with supporters. Reichert's suggestion that we or Strategic Communications were "push-polling" is false.

Now that we have seen your new Platform (HTML | PDF 1.46 MB) regarding The Knowledge Network, we will be in touch with our supporters to inform them of this welcome development.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Morrison
Spokesperson

Enc.

April 26, 2005 - Vancouver Sun: Partisan teachers' union finds itself noticed in Liberal election platform by Vaughn Palmer
B.C. Liberal Party election platform jettisons plan to privatize Knowledge Network.

February 24, 2005 - Policy Brief: Submission to CRTC re Knowledge Network of BC Licence Renewal [Application 2004-0846-0]
FRIENDS supports the renewal of Knowledge Network's licence, but says the CRTC should question why the Open Learning Agency has sought a three year licence when the standard is seven years.

Mar 29, 2004 - FRIENDS Press Release: Don’t Sell Knowledge Network – British Columbians
FRIENDS survey of British Columbians says most oppose the sale of the provincial public educational broadcaster, Knowledge Network.

March 29, 2004 - FRIENDS Opinion Poll: Attitudes Toward the Knowledge Network in British Columbia
Ipsos-Reid poll shows more than twice as many British Columbians oppose than favour the provincial government's proposed sale of Knowledge Network to private broadcasters.