Thank you very much for inviting us to make this presentation. We're more than pleased to be able to do so. As you know, we have a strong stake in culture, and we hope the CBC does too.
The CBC is one of our most important national institutions, not only presenting Canadian culture, which I'll get back to in a minute, but on the radio, at least, providing a national forum. In many ways, Canada as a nation is an unnatural construct. With the bulk of its population spread out in a thin band along the U.S. border, the natural movement of people and goods is north and south. Our national institutions were designed to link east and west--the railways, the Trans-Canada Highway, and of course the CBC.
In its early days the CBC was an important showcase for Canadian talent, one of the few that existed. Some of you, probably not many--nobody here is as old as me--might remember the stage series that was on Sunday nights. It was a wonderful show that showcased talent like John Drainie, Tommy Tweed, and others whose names I can't remember. The thing is, they were our stars. Their voices were recognized from Halifax to Vancouver. To a considerable extent, CBC radio continues in that tradition, and through its local, regional, and national programs it has created an infrastructure that lets different parts of the nation tell their stories to each other. This is part of the important education of our children and our citizens. It's through the sharing of our stories that community identities are clarified and confirmed.
Who can forget, for instance, Morningside and the late Peter Gzowski, shows like Cross Country Checkup, Tapestry, Quirks and Quarks, and As It Happens? These are nation-builders, and I could name more.
CBC television, however, is another story. While it is to be commended for important presentations like Canada: A People's History, which is a wonderful series, and its coverage of the recent events at the Vimy Ridge monument, it's becoming more and more like American television every day. Quality shows like Da Vinci's Inquest, Intelligence, Opening Night, and This is Wonderland are cancelled and replaced with more and more American-style reality shows.
To attract the advertisers it needs to support its programming, CBC television tries to appeal to a mass audience. That audience, they know, is mainly attracted to American television, which seems to be getting cruder and more brutal day by day. Is that the kind of course we want the CBC to follow, an imitation American channel?
Like CBC radio and the BBC--and I will shock you--I think CBC television should be commercial free. Perhaps we can buy licences as they do in Britain. It would probably never fly. One thing cable television has shown us is that people will pay sometimes quite significant amounts in order to be able to watch television. A better way still would be the government giving CBC enough money to let it play the role that its founders intended.
The CBC also plays an important economic role, in that in many communities it is the crucial professional organization that validates and pays professional artists for their work, who, believe me, are not overpaid. This enables the artist to remain in and contribute to those communities as they work in any number of arts-related fields and industries. This is an industry that creates work. As an arts council we have gone through pages of statistics after statistics to show job creation and so on, and they're out there by the thousands if you want to look at them. Anyway, it returns far more than its fair share to the community.
The CBC in Winnipeg has presented many of our clients. The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra are obvious examples, as are the playwrights who've worked in radio drama in Winnipeg, and the actors, singers, and technicians. Along with the support provided to professional artists by the arts councils in various provinces and territories, the CBC work allows local artists to put down roots in the community and share their knowledge and commitment to excellence. The CBC also frequently provides especially promising young performers with their first national exposure.
We cannot underestimate the impact of the various documentaries that have emphasized the arts and culture of this country. Through these, many of us have come to value the arts and to understand the public value of the arts in our nation and in each community.
Just as an aside, when I was about 15 years old the CBC had a Saturday afternoon program on folk music. People went up into the Appalachians and recorded it. I found it fascinating, and I never missed a Saturday afternoon. I think you underestimate the capacity of youth to listen to the CBC, and what that can do. My mother had a grade 8 education. When we talked about books, I would be surprised at how much she knew about some Victorian writer. She told me that the CBC was her university.
We know that we can't go back to the good old days of when the CBC played a vital role in helping to keep the nation united and informed during the thirties and the war years. But we can share a vision of a new CBC, one that has at its heart a commitment to the arts and culture of the many regions, providing a national stage. We need a CBC that is committed to the sharing of this country through the exploration of its stories and dreams, sharing them with each other and the world. It is only through this that we will continue to grow--grow new ideas, new directions. It will be done not by copying and mimicking but by challenging ourselves as a confident and mature nation that values both its past and its future.
Thank you.
