Chapter activist Roy Brady wants to make the CBC an issue in the upcoming federal election.
The Council of Canadians Peterborough-Kawarthas chapter is working to defend the CBC.
The Peterborough Examiner reports, “About 25 people gathered on Monday night at Artspace to stand up for the CBC. The group is called We Vote CBC – Peterborough, and it is a local offshoot of a national campaign to make CBC funding an issue in the forthcoming federal election. …The national campaign – called Friends of Canadian Broadcasting – asked the leaders of all the federal parties to convey their policies on the CBC on camera. …Locally, the group has been distributing lawn signs and lapel pins that say We Vote CBC.”
The article adds, “Kady Denton, chairperson of the local group meetings, said that Peterborough was specifically selected by the national campaign to get a grassroots group started. That’s because this is a bellwether riding, she said, and also because people here feel strongly enough about maintaining CBC funding that they will actively campaign for it. Also in attendance on Monday night were former Peterborough riding federal NDP candidate Dave Nickle and Council for Canadians activist Roy Brady.”
The Huffington Post has reported, “Since Prime Minister Harper took power, public funding has fallen from just short of $1.3 billion to around $1.04 billion. …[As a result], the CBC has seen successive rounds of layoffs amid its financial difficulties.” It has also been noted that the Harper government has stacked the CBC Board of Directors with its own supporters. Ten of the twelve Board members have donated to the Conservative Party, including Board chair Herbert Lacroix, who has been criticized for pushing hard to make CBC journalism favourable to the Harper government. Friends of Canadian Broadcasting spokesperson Ian Morrison says, “Stephen Harper’s mission has been to silence and control our CBC, just as he has done with a long list of other perceived enemies.”
The Council of Canadians believes that funding levels for the CBC must be restored, both to reduce its dependence on commercial revenue and to reinvigorate its local and regional capacity, and that appointments to its Board of Directors must be made at an arm’s length from the federal government. For more on the campaign “to fight for a strong CBC and the presence of Canadian content on radio and television”, please see the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting website here.
For more on the Council of Canadians Election 2015 campaign, please click here.
