I just want to mention some of the damage that's been done to date with this purge--and it's nothing less than that. There's no more young composers competition. Ben Heppner has recently gone on record as stating, “The most important moment in my career was winning the CBC competition in 1979.” Where's the next Ben Heppner going to come from? There are no more young composer competitions.
There's no more Two New Hours show, which was cut off just before its 30th anniversary. It was a world-acclaimed show. There's no more Howard Dyck, Larry Lake, and Rick Phillips--in fact, no more erudite, learned, and eloquent hosts any more. We have hosts who talk too much, breathe heavily into the microphone, and can't pronounce foreign names, but they do sound under 50, I'll give them that much.
We have censorship of CBC blogs, even elimination of the ones that got too critical. We have dumbing down to the lowest common denominator of dull jazz, folk, world, and other diverse bad music.
What do we do about all of this? I know you're concerned, we're all concerned, about CBC independence, but here's my quick answer--and we'll probably come back to it later. The government controls the appointment of the CBC board, its chair, and its president. This committee can express its views on whether changes should be made at that level, or indeed even further down the line. There's nothing wrong with this committee expressing its views. We have freedom of expression in Canada, and you have privilege.
The government also controls the CBC budget. There's no need to provide taxpayer subsidies to a second-rate commercial radio network. Before you think about increasing the CBC's budget and etching it in stone for several years, you should ensure the money will be well spent, not spent on the vision of a few managers who want to use this institution to promote mediocre commercial music--or even quality commercial music that needs no promotion or subsidy. I have no objection to commercial music, in its place and in its time.
All this is strangely reminiscent.... What goes around comes around. Those who don't study history are condemned to repeat it. I urge you to have a look at this great book by Knowlton Nash, who knows a thing or two about the CBC. All of this has happened before, and will probably keep on happening, and that's what makes this country wonderful. But you have a role to play occasionally in correcting things at the CBC, and this is another one of those points in history.
Thank you very much.