Dear Editor,
Similar to a lighthouse sending forth a beacon of light the CBC is essential in providing reliable information in this oft-muddied, disjointed media universe. The CBC, our public broadcaster, knits together diverse regions, cultures and peoples providing a forum in which Canadians can learn and appreciate our similarities and differences.
Is it not heartening to know that a national broadcaster seeks to inform rather than provoke? With a mandate to enrich and enlighten rather than disturb and distress, sadly all too common today among many media outlets, instead the CBC stretches out across the land connecting varied isolated communities. CBC/Radio-Canada is the country's only media company that serves all Canadians, in both official languages and eight Indigenous ones from coast to coast to coast. The objective here is to unite not profit.
Conservatives lament spending money on institutions that deepen and broaden the Canadian experience. Preferring instead to entice voters with promised tax cuts that make their greatest impact on a few wealthy individuals in society. Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has called the CBC the "biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party", a predictable response to rile public passions rather than discuss reasonable changes to the public broadcaster. Ironically, it was the Conservative Prime Minster, R.B. Bennett, who 1932 passed the act to establish the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission. Originally it was conceived to “keep Canada from being overwhelmed by American culture”. https://www.
At a time when we need to be united, steadfast and resilient from bombastic threats from the south what is more valuable than a public broadcaster that champions the uniqueness of the Canadian experience? To defund the CBC is misguided and wrong.