OTTAWA It was the CBC’s 75th birthday Wednesday, but at the weekly Conservative caucus meeting there was no cake.
There were no Conservative tributes to the public broadcaster in the House of Commons, no press releases, not even a wink, just an icy silence as the CBC filled the airwaves with vintage images of everything from Barbara Frum to Mr. Dressup.
In fact, as it enters its 76th year, the public broadcaster again finds itself under daily assault.
It may seem like it was always thus.
Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien regularly feuded with the broadcaster and it has run afoul of federal governments for at least half a century.
But it has never been under siege like this.
The animosity toward the CBC from the government of the day is no longer whispered at cocktail parties or kept behind closed doors, but has bubbled up to the surface in strangely obsessive and mean-spirited ways.
The drip, drip, drip, assault has made the CBC a popular Conservative target, sitting up there with big union bosses or anyone who does not espouse fealty to the Royal Family.
Exhibit A would be the Parliamentary committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
Its existence may be a mystery to most Canadians, but it has been turned into the personal playpen of Conservatives who now appear to be usurping the role of the country’s courts in its zeal to force the CBC to release documents.
Both opposition parties have boycotted the committee, crying “abuse of power” because government members are demanding the CBC hand over documents while the broadcaster is still before the Federal Court of Appeal on the matter.
It is lost on no one in Ottawa that the charge is being led by Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro, the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Thursday, Heritage Minister James Moore praised Del Mastro for his relentless pursuit of transparency and his demand that CBC be accountable for the money it receives.
But this phony war is not being fought in a committee room vacuum.
The Conservatives and the Sun News Network, a CBC competitor much friendlier to the government, appear to be working hand in glove.
Meanwhile, the “privatize’’ crowd within the Conservative caucus has not only been emboldened, its ranks have swelled.
They argue there are no conservative voices on the network, they point to its dwindling influence as evidenced by its declining viewership and they argue that its $1.1 billion in government funding gives it an unfair advantage over its private competitors.
“Your sense of news is one-sided,’’ New Brunswick MP John Williamson told CBC CEO Hubert Lacroix last week.
“Viewers are looking for a good debate and they are not getting it from The National.’’
But the privatize gang is, so far, largely talking to itself.
No one has properly thought through the consequences or the fierce pushback that would come with such a move, and it has never been hinted at by Moore.
The Conservatives ignore the fact that it was CBC technology that allowed the Prime Minister’s final visit to Afghanistan in May to be broadcast from Kandahar and it is CBC technology that allows him to beam his message to the rest of the country from the far North.
The CBC, to be sure, has done itself no favours with its prolonged battle with the information commissioner over the release of documents.
The scalpel is coming.
Lacroix says a budget cut would not deter the CBC from its goal of providing more national, regional and digital coverage going forward.
He says he might be slowed, so he should probably expect to move 10 per cent slower.
Moore might be the best friend the CBC has on the government side, but he has made it clear that the broadcaster will be cut like any other department.
His challenge might be holding it to 10 per cent.
Origin
Source:Toronto Star
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