Mr. Speaker, this week CBC's president admitted that the mother corp cannot keep local news on the air due to 16 years of government cuts. He finally admitted that it has been made very clear to him on several occasions that the CBC is not a priority of the government. His plan will eliminate 17 CBC local news shows in favour of a Toronto based supper hour show with five inserts, one per time zone.
Our most important cultural institution is redefining Canada as a country without communities but instead time zones. This homogenized confederation does not reflect the Canada I know.
The Prime Minister says it is okay, that $1 billion of stable funding goes into the CBC every year. If only it were true. Sadly, the CBC has not seen that kind of money for over five years. The Prime Minister's figure is over $200 million too high. This may seem like a small chunk of change to the PM but it is a serious amount of money to the number crunchers at the CBC.
I urge the Prime Minister to put his money where his mouth is and actually give the CBC the—