Oct - Old Ottawa South

Page 10 The OSCAR - OUR 31 st YEAR OCTOBER 2005
Please give me back my CBC
By Mary Anne Thompson
My life has not been the same
since the CBC stopped in
August. All of a sudden my
mornings seem aimless, unfocused,
and ungrounded. This same sentiment
has been echoed over and over in
OOS. There are many people who
feel bereft, in mourning almost,
without their accustomed connection
to the CBC. Sure, there are other radio
stations, but none are able to inform,
entertain, and engage me in dialogue.
The CBC does not try to sell me
anything except enthusiasm about
Canada, our people, our complex
and unique culture, our stunningly
beautiful geography, and our
indefinable identity in a world that is
becoming more and more corporate,
more impersonal and meaningless.
There is no escaping that the CBC
is a corporation, with a President
and CEO (Robert Rabinovitch),
management, directors, staff and a
product that they produce. The CBC
was created as a Crown Corporation in
1936, replacing the CRBC (Canadian
Radio Broadcasting Commission)
which had become highly susceptible
to political interference. In 1937, new
transmitters in Toronto and Montreal
permitted national coverage of 76%
of the population of Canada, with
farm broadcasts in both French and
English.
The CBC relies almost entirely
on public money. It is the very fact
that it has not been expected to make
a profit—make money—that has
enabled its programming to exemplify
the highest standards of journalistic
expression - to be the heart of what it
is to be Canadian. Reflecting Canada
is its mandate and raison-d’etre and is
Carleton Jounalism students on the Sparks Street Mall (photo by Peter Robinson)
manifest in its policies, which include
the following:
•Be predominantly and distinctively
Canadian,
•Reflect Canada and its regions
to national and regional audiences,
while serving the special needs of
those regions,
•Actively contribute to the flow
and exchange of cultural expression,
•Be in English and in French,
reflecting the different needs and
circumstances of each official language
community, including the particular
needs and circumstances of English
and French linguistic minorities,
•Contribute to shared national
consciousness and identity,
•Be made available throughout
Canada by the most appropriate and
efficient means
•Reflect the multicultural and
multiracial nature of Canada.
How to put a price on these
services? The global corporate view is
that if it doesn’t make money it has no
value. This is like saying that a forest
has no value until its trees have been
stripped from the landscape and sold
to the first buyer. Or that the north
has no value until we strip it of its
indigenous people and its resources-
-minerals, oil, and maybe water, now
that the polar cap is melting. Maybe
we could put children to work so that
they would not be such a drain on
their parents’ coffers. Just because
something doesn’t make a profit,
doesn’t mean that it is worthless—on
the contrary—it makes it priceless.
It is unfortunate that Canadian
politicians have not been burning the
midnight oil to help the some 5,500
CBC employees get back to work.
Mind you, these workers had 15
months of contract talks before the
lock out. At the centre of the dispute is
the CBC management’s determination
to use more contract workers for
the creation of its programs. Union
leaders, on the other hand, argue that
full-time employees provide a better
service. Both sides insist that they
want a strong, distinctive CBC.
Creating radio and television
programmes is a co-operative
endeavour involving people of many
skills and it makes sense that a
stable work force is more conducive
to team-building and team-work.
Producing quality programmes is not
taught just in school; it is learned on
the job, learning from others, having
the freedom to experiment with
professional feedback, being part of a
team in which one earns trust. If the
CBC goes to contract workers instead
of employees, it might as well send
the jobs offshore.
Don’t let the CBC become another
Canadian asset that is undervalued.
We don’t value what we’ve got until
it’s gone.
In its news and current affairs
programmes, the CBC is a
counterbalance to commercial news.
Where the commercial networks must
cater to their owners and advertisers,
the CBC has the freedom to express
views that are unhampered by
commercial or political views. At one
time the major news organizations,
like the ABC, CBS, and NBC, in the
United States, were owned by people
interested primarily in the news.
These same networks are now owned
by large multi-national corporations
whose primary purpose is to make
money, for themselves, and their
stockholders. Their product has been
compared to prolfeed, first described
in George Orwell’s 1984 -- the opiate
pabulum fed to the proletariat to keep
them passive and unquestioning.
The service provided by the CBC
extends from coast to coast and into
the north. The CBC has been heard
around the world, since 1945, with
the opening of CBC’s International
Service, which was renamed Radio
Canada International in 1972.
The various services of the CBC
do not make a profit in terms of
money—only in terms of service and
satisfaction. The CBC informs its
listeners and viewers of upcoming
events in the many arenas of our lives,
and it reports on events that have taken
place. The CBC supports the myriad
of Canadian talent that emerges each
year and provides a forum for the
expression of our achievements as a
nation, and as individuals in local and
remote parts of the country. Is not this
what OSCAR is to Old Ottawa South?
OSCAR is a way for us to know what is
going to happen in our neighbourhood,
what has happened, what our various
friends and neighbours think and feel
about the local and wider world. It is a
way to show to the wider world—we
are on the web—who we are, what is
important to us.
Picket lines have been a daily sight
on the Sparks St Mall, where lockedout
employees and supporters rally
together to voice their support of the
CBC. Fans of the CBC have been
providing lunches for the locked out
workers.
There are a number of ways to
show your support for the locked
out employees and express your
frustration with the government and
CBC management.
Visit the CBC picket line on Sparks
Street
Visit www.ourcbc.ca where you can
send a message to Paul Martin
Organize an email campaign with
family, friends and co-workers
Get more information – www.
cmg.ca; www.cbcunplugged.ca;
www.ottawaguild.ca; www.cmg.
ca/cbcnegscomparingproposals.pdf;
cbcontheline.ca
Email the following:
President and Acting Board Chair at
Robert_rabinovitch@cbc.ca
Paul Martin – pm@pm.gc.ca
Hon. Liza Frulla – Minister of
Canadian Heritage – Frulla.L@parl.
gc.ca and liza_frulla@pch.gc.ca
Ed Broadbent – Broadbent.E@parl.
gc.ca
Visit www.parl.gc.ca or http://canada.
gc.ca/directries/direct_e.html to find
email addresses and phone numbers
of Members of Parliament and
Senators.