Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you very much for inviting me to appear on this panel. I'm a great CBC supporter, and I welcome the opportunity to present my views to you today.
There's no question that the CBC is in crisis and that it desperately needs major reform. For years now, the CBC has been chronically underfunded by government. In fact, the CBC has suffered massive cuts to its funding and it has been deprived of the reliable long-term funding essential to planning its operations. As a result, the CBC has been forced to increasingly rely on advertising revenue to survive. Depending on private corporate advertising has compromised the CBC's objectivity and its ability to protect the public interest. At the same time, the CBC has drifted towards a private sector style of management, which is totally inappropriate for a public broadcaster.
In my youth, the CBC was a proud institution that produced quality Canadian programming. Today it is a pale shadow of its former self. Much of the CBC's current programming consists of American or other foreign TV programs. Recently we've even seen American so-called “reality” TV shows bumping The National from prime time. Programming of this sort, American pop culture programming of any kind, clearly violates the mandate of the CBC. It is inexcusable that CBC management has allowed this to happen, and it is even more outrageous that the Government of Canada has been so wilfully negligent in its treatment of the CBC.
Critics may argue that the CBC has outlived its usefulness, or that we should privatize it, but the fact is that the CBC is more relevant now and more essential to Canadian unity and independence than ever before. In a world of corporate globalization and increasing U.S. regional dominance, we need a revitalized CBC to protect the public interest, to promote Canadian culture, and to foster Canadian unity and independence. In order to reform and reinvigorate the CBC, I believe that the following actions are essential.
First, Parliament must ensure that the senior leaders of the CBC, its board of directors and president and CEO, are not appointed based on partisanship or patronage. Therefore, the CBC leadership should not be appointed by the Prime Minister or the government. Instead, perhaps the CBC leadership could be chosen by an all-party House of Commons committee made up of an equal number of MPs from each party represented in the House of Commons. This way we could make sure that the CBC better reflected the priorities of all Canadians, not just those of the governing party.
Second, Parliament should give the board of directors of the CBC the power to hire and, if necessary, fire the CBC's president and CEO. The CBC's board of directors should always include a majority of people with Canadian public sector broadcasting experience. The CBC president and CEO should always come from the ranks of the CBC staff. This way we could be sure that they have the necessary depth of experience and commitment to the organization.
Third, Parliament must provide the CBC with sufficient stable long-term funding so that it can fulfil its mandate, including revitalizing grassroots programming and vastly improving Canadian content. No matter what the fiscal circumstances of the government, the CBC plays a vital role in our culture, and it should always be protected as a priority for government funding. But now in this age of massive multi-year budget surpluses, it is disgusting that the CBC has suffered crippling funding cuts so that it even has had to shut down its costume department. In a prosperous society like ours, this simply cannot be tolerated.
Fourth, Parliament should ensure that if it increases government funding, the CBC will simultaneously phase out private advertising. There's no place for private advertising revenue at a public broadcaster, and if the CBC were properly funded by the government, there would be no need for it.
Fifth, Parliament needs to strengthen the CBC's mandate from one of being “predominantly and distinctly Canadian” to one of being “overwhelmingly and distinctly Canadian”. Only this kind of crystal-clear mandate will ensure that the CBC focuses on broadcasting almost exclusively quality Canadian programming.
Sixth, Parliament must ensure that the CBC fulfills its mandate “to contribute to Canada's shared national consciousness and identity”. To achieve this, the CBC should make large increases to arts and cultural programming, for example, by producing more contemporary Canadian dramas, historical documentaries, and TV movies. Canadians need to see and hear uniquely Canadian stories in order for our culture to thrive.
Seventh, Parliament should direct the CBC board of directors to give high priority to the instructions of the Broadcasting Act that the CBC “reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions”. The CBC needs to build its programming capacity at the grassroots level in communities all across Canada, so that it serves the needs of those communities and is at the same time representative of Canada as a whole.
Eighth, Parliament must prohibit the CBC from becoming involved in partnerships with private broadcasters. Canadian private broadcasters are an absolute disaster in cultural terms. The level of corporate concentration of broadcasting and media in Canada is appalling. A few massive corporations have unprecedented influence on Canadian culture, and they project a corporate neo-liberal agenda of privatization, deregulation, and destruction of government and the public good. If the CBC were to become involved with them, it would be a terrible conflict of interest. The CBC's role is to serve the public interest; the private broadcaster's goal is to maximize the profit of its shareholders and to further its agenda of corporate control. The CBC must remain true to its mandate of serving the Canadian public interest, and it can only do that by preserving its independence and integrity.
Ninth, Parliament needs to ensure that the CBC maintain its focus on news and current affairs programming. In this world of increasingly concentrated corporate media, Canadians need the CBC more than ever to inform us about what is really happening across the country and to provide us with thoughtful, in-depth analysis. This is one area that, tragically, has seriously deteriorated in recent years. A number of events of great significance to the independence and integrity of Canada have transpired in the last ten years, but have been largely unreported or only superficially reported by the CBC. For example, the coverage of the security and prosperity partnership of North America, which I believe will result in submerging Canada in an anti-democratic, U.S.-dominated North American entity, has received only a passing mention on the CBC. Yet this is precisely the kind of pressing threat to Canadian sovereignty that the CBC has a unique responsibility to provide meaningful coverage of.
Tenth, Parliament should direct the CBC to continue coverage of major Canadian sports, such as hockey. There's no question that hockey is a significant part of the Canadian identity.
I urge the committee to recognize the perilous state the CBC is in now, and to follow the recommendations above in order to save the CBC. If you do not act now to save the CBC, Canada will lose a great institution, which has played a vital role in building and preserving our nation.
Once again, thank you very much for having me here today, and thank you for considering my recommendations.