The CBC Cuts and the Slow Dismantling of Canada

I don't know how many Canadians realize how badly Stephen Harper has wounded the CBC.

But from what I hear from a friend who works there, and who expects to be among the 2,000 employees who will soon lose their jobs, the wounds are practically mortal.

And the Cons could be gnawing on its bones in less than three years.

And if you want to know how much pain that is causing, all you have to do is read this sad letter.

There’s a pervasive sense of impermanence at the CBC these days, and it’s not conducive to creativity. We hear the cliché “death by a thousand” cuts a lot when the CBC is mentioned. It’s an apt cliché. Canadians might not care now, but they will, and then it may be too late.

Because not only are the Cons hurting all those employees, especially the younger ones. The ones who will be laid off first, because Shelley Glover is refusing to lend the CBC money to encourage older workers to retire.

But Harper and filthy un-Canadian regime are also dealing a mortal blow to the creative forces in regions all over this country.

There will probably always be a CBC, but it will become just a trusted news brand, a symbol the politicians will bring out when it’s convenient to present Canada as a civilized and advanced nation. What is being squeezed out of the public broadcaster, drop by drop, is creativity. Creativity makes culture. You can’t mandate creativity, you have to nurture it.

And as I've said before, what makes it even more depressing is that Harper is being aided and abetted in that disastrous initiative by the CBC's useless managers, and its Con friendly President Hubert Lacroix.



The CBC’s enemies are not only circling their prey from the outside, including the Conservative government with its unrelenting budget cuts. Its enemies are also working from within. The CBC has a compliant board of directors overwhelmingly stacked with Conservative party donors and a president, also conservative, who appears ready to implement any budget cut in virtual silence.

Who would make it sound like he's repositioning the CBC, instead of making it smaller and weaker.



Dan Murphy/Artizans

But then of course that's exactly what Stephen Harper wants. Because as these Star readers point out, Harper isn't just dismantling the CBC.

He's dismantling Canada bit by bit. 

Over the years CBC has made me feel more connected to this amazing country and to my fellow Canadians than any penny-pinching politician could ever imagine. Harper prattles on and on about the economy but he is continuously burning the very bridges that unify this great nation.

It’s just another sellout of our public services to the ever-grasping invisible hand of the free market. It’s the dismantling of Canada bit by bit . . . nation building in reverse. We need the next election before there is nothing left of us. Maybe by then our federal government will be reduced to a P.O. box in Ottawa.

And as that CBC producer says if we want to stop him the time to speak up is NOW.

It’s easy to blame the Harper government for what’s happening now, but where are the voices of dissent from the Liberals and New Democrats? My colleagues need to hear, loud and clear, that Canadians do care about what happens to their public broadcaster.

The CBC either can't or won't defend itself, so we must defend it ourselves.

Please sign this petition. Or any others out there.

Write to your MPs.

Tell them the CBC belongs to all Canadians.

And prepare to defeat this rabid Con monkey.

Before he destroys our country...



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