Donald Trump’s return to the White House will transform any number of issues here in Canada, from trade and energy to immigration and our relationship with NATO allies. One aspect of Trump’s second presidency that’s gotten less attention so far is what it means for the CBC and the Conservative Party of Canada’s repeated promise to defund it. But make no mistake: if the CBC is eliminated, our national sovereignty won’t be far behind.
As with Trump’s more grandiose declarations, it’s tempting for some people to dismiss Pierre Poilievre’s pledge to kill the CBC as partisan bluster. But as with Trump, that would be a mistake. Just ask Harrison Lowman, the managing editor of The Hub. “This week,” he wrote, “I was told by a well-placed Conservative that Poilievre intends to eliminate all funding for the English arm of the broadcaster. And that he’ll do it in his first 100 days in office.”
If that happens, Canada would be mostly defenceless in the information war that would be fought online over our future. One of the declared combatants in that, Elon Musk, has already made it clear he will do almost anything — including manipulating the algorithm at Twitter/X — to advance the interests of Trumpism. It’s not hard to imagine him putting his thumb on the scale again if Trump decided to wage economic and political war against Canada.
And then there’s the growing spectre of separatism in Quebec. The Parti Quebecois is suddenly riding high in the polls there, and the prospect of another independence referendum feels almost inevitable at this point. Imagine how that might play out in a country where the traditional institutions of mainstream media are a shell of their former selves, if they even exist at all, and the CBC — in English Canada, at least — has been scattered to the wind. Mix in social media, the ever-present problem of Russian disinformation campaigns, and you have the recipe for a very bad outcome.
Sean Speer, the founder of The Hub, thinks this is all much ado about nothing. “The CBC is now one of virtually infinite sources of information and cultural content available,” he wrote on social media. “This growing competition is reflected in its declining audience. Less than 5 percent of English Canadian viewers are watching CBC television and barely 2 percent are tuning into the CBC News Network.”
I hope you can see the sleight of hand at work here. As the Globe and Mail’s editorial board wrote last May, “The TV side’s dismal performance – and atrophying relevance – does not carry through to either English-language radio or the CBC’s French-language arm, Radio-Canada. Even while TV audiences shrank, CBC Radio has managed to increase its market share, which was already much healthier than the English TV branch.”
The future of the CBC clearly isn’t in television, and it’s long past time it realized that. But its radio and online news services clearly fill a valuable role in our shared information diet, one that becomes all the more urgent as newspapers continue to shrink and retreat into themselves. Entire communities in our country are now barely served by private-sector media, and therefore depend heavily on the CBC for access to reliable information. Eliminating that would be sacrificing them to the whims (and perils) of social media — and at the moment where we can least afford it.
Speer suggests that when it comes to the CBC, “a combination of technology and evolving consumer preferences have rendered its public purpose obsolete.” I’d say it’s actually the exact opposite. From its inception in the 1930s to its glory days in the 1970s and 1980s to now, the CBC has been a deliberate instrument of national unity. It has connected Canadians from coast to coast to coast in our vast country, and served as the connective tissue in a place that might otherwise have fallen more fully into the cultural and political orbit of the United States. That is its public purpose: one that’s more essential than ever as Canadians risk being lost to information silos and social media algorithms that push them ever-deeper into their own frustrations and away from any sense of common cause or mutual interest.
I understand why Conservatives like Pierre Poilievre and his various proxies want to defund the CBC. If they can marginalize its influence or eliminate it entirely, it clears the field for media outlets like True North, Rebel Media, and other openly (and flagrantly) partisan organizations to shape our shared beliefs which are are increasingly being debated and discussed on social media platforms that have no regard for things like accuracy or the truth. If the CBC loses, they win.
But if Canadians lose the CBC, we will lose the ability to understand and talk to each other. If we lose the CBC, we lose one of the last safe spaces we have to come together and try to understand the vast and disparate land we share. If we lose the CBC, we lose a key institution that connects us with our past and helps us understand our future. And if we lose the CBC, we risk losing the ability to separate and sort objective fact from self-interested fiction.
If we lose that? Well, then we lose our country.
Comments
While CBC needs to adapt to the times, and hopefully new leadership at CBC will begin the task, I can't imagine a Canada without the CBC.
It was the steady increase in the CBC’s slanted reporting and supporting and non-critically questioning our federal government’s policies in regards to both national and international issues that led me to Canada’s National Observer in the first place for more objective news coverage and analysis. After a lifetime of being a CBC supporter I don’t feel the same sense of dread at the CBC’s demise when there are now many independent news and analysis outlets on-line that provide more balanced coverage and actually interview objective analysts like Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Sachs, Aaron Matte, Max Blumenthal, Paul Jay (a former CBC producer), Jeremy Scahill, Glenn Greenwald, etc, etc, who you will never, or rarely see or hear on the main stream media outlets club which the CBC has sadly become a member of. The CBC’s biased coverage of the Ukraine and Gaza hostilities and its unquestioning support of our federal government’s actions regarding those conflicts have been particularly disturbing to witness. Perhaps in its present model where it relies on federal government funding to keep operating it has too close a relationship to provide critical/unbiased news coverage of our governments policies and it is time to die a natural death.
Les, you're right that the CBC doesn't do a good enough job at telling the truth (I'd add climate change to your list), but most people don't read the National Observer, Tyee, Narwhal or the Breech. We should work to fix CBC, not scrap it!
I ve spent the last 15 years weaning off my beloved CBC tv and a lot of radio, though it still my go to station. Of course I m old so who cares, as They ve made clear for the past 20 at least. If anyone s interested I ve got great odds of being around another 20 just to be spiteful.
But despite so much of it being an unrelatable mess, I remember the glory days, and how it introduced me, a small country bumpkin from New Brunswick to the splendour of Canada and its many dimensions and humour. I recall how proud I felt to be part of this very special nation and how that played out throughout my career in public service. I still feel that way although there are not many places that validate that experience any more.
I dont know what s after tv, is streaming even part of it? but whatever, that national voice makes so much sense and I am depressed that Max has written it off. But then he seldom thinks of us here in the east anchoring down our bit of the place. I like to think if the CBC were to make more of our stories, he and other Albertans might enjoy the links we share again. It was glorious when it was growing and full of promise. Alberta was young and feisty and delightful.
But CBC sure needs a housecleaning and refreshing. I blame harper of course. Once a news junkie, I d be on life support if forced to watch PNP again. There used to be such acute minds and tongues. Now? crochety superficial rage farmers parroting the Fire Trudeau message promulgated by the hard right and yet they still think of themselves as progressive and left of centre. I d ask Chantal to go back and read some of her 90s columns again.
What a glorious experience it used to be though. I grew up in a Dief worshipping family with values I still espouse. Along with red, orange and green ones these days. But no one reflects who I am. My day is over you say.
I fear yours is shrunken and nasty and I am sorry for you. I wont have to live much of it (even if I make 20 more) but you will. You might miss us.
Under the current circumstances, I'd say CBC is being far TOO unbiased, are clinging to journalistic objectivity when bothsidesism no longer makes any sense, i.e. when the right wing has lost its mind, such as it was, and has become utterly destructive with "Project 2025," and Christian Nationalism's victory.
The way things are now, CBC shouldn't even be inviting the conservatives who will deign to speak to our public broadcaster on ANY program. They're all basically Trump and/or Putin now, greedy, selfish, bad boy disruptors for the sake of it. And what they want to disrupt is ALL our institutions, of which CBC is one that connects this huge, disparate country, reaching every corner. And yet I see more and more people succumbing to the the novelty of having their own FEED at their fingertips, which are not all created equal to say the least.
The National Observer is fighting the insane right wing populism, not CBC, because these guys don't even accept climate change, and our media is now privately owned by them. Public broadcasting is like public health and public education, all cornerstones of democracy and based on the IDEA that is "Canada," a country that can be loosely defined as NOT AMERICAN, clearly never more important than now. Progressive political parties who don't seem to realize, even now, that they need to unite, are following THAT idea, not the GOP playbook like the conservatives.
As a proud francophone from Quebec, even though I don't tune in everyday recently to the CBC, unlike past years, I still cannot see a distinctive billingual country shoulder to shoulder without even the streaming app. Compared to the likes of even Global TV, how many tv shows and documentaries has ever described the canadian landscape as better as the CBC? And PP has talked about how he will spare the Radio-Canada branch, I don't think he understands how this works as both networks are owned by the same crown corporation here in Ottawa. And as Chantal Hébert said it, Radio-Canada has long also been the voice of francophones outside of Quebec. Pulling the plug on the CBC means that the stories coming from these communities would be hard to transfer to the Radio-Canada branch. Although I do wish Trudeau can at least have another trick up his sleave in a future campaign debate, if everyone expects to bring PP in power, by hoping they can get their white picket fence house in less than 5 minutes before he puts the axe on the CBC, not only they are in it for a trainwreck, but I will be ten times more upset.
My example is two different mediums, but still it's the principle. Regarding environmental reporting, the CBC is head and shoulders above my Nat. Post satellite newspaper who have a strong aversion from even mentioning such news (it's as if the environment just doesn't exist,
or should be of no concern to me the Con. voter they are trying to manufacture by pretending the CPC led by P.P. and cheer leaded by Danielle Smith are not about to unleash a Trump like wrecking ball on environmental regulations).
Dumb 'em down, it'll hurt less, and they will never know what hit 'em.
Hands off our CBC, P.P.
Would you please get off Twitter already.
I have to turn CBC Radio One off every week night now as thoughtful analysis of the nation and world is replaced by insipid, for the most part, pop music. I thought Radio Two was the music channel. C'mon folks, dig into your archives! Does CBC really play the top 20?!!
The idea that “a combination of technology and evolving consumer preferences have rendered its public purpose obsolete,” seems absurd in light of the popularity, reach, and poisonous impact of right-wing political talk radio. Having CBC Radio as an alternative when sitting in a car stalled in traffic is a valuable and badly needed resource.
I have been a CBC Radio listener my entire adult life and am in my ninth decade. I have always said that the CBC is the thread that holds the country together. It is as important, if not more important, than the railway. I would be lost without the CBC Radio.
I for one applaud you Max, for your trademark-- an exceptionally and uniquely mature perspective for someone of your generation, clearly articulated.
And what's happening is terrifying, you're absolutely right, what has slid in the back door and the side door gradually over decades, hiding in plain sight enough to attain normalcy. In retrospect it's been surprisingly easy and despite a current taboo against comparing anything or anyone to Hitler, also actually coincides with what happened with Hitler and Nazism, starting with the fact that both horrors were openly VOTED FOR by a public weary with various overwhelming realities at the time looking for a scapegoat and for someone to FIX IT. (One of Trump's signs behind him reads, "Trump will fix it.")
Our current contributing realities of the pandemic, climate change, neoliberalism, and a big tech perceived like it was some new "Taylor-made" religion (instead of the unprecedentedly successful example of manipulative corporate hegemony it actually IS) by a couple of generations of young people whose "self-esteem" MAY have been a tad overindulged, and this includes all the GUYS who were naturally born "low-level superheroes in their own minds" but have graduated along with end-stage capitalism to the phase of SERIOUSLY seeing a way to take over the world. Seriously, and this phenomenon is perfectly embodied by Elon Musk, he of the Nazi countenance.
Add on the irritating but persistent distraction of the bleeding heart, woke left, i.e. actually evolving human beings, pushing various "minorities" forward, legions of pent-up and worthy groups which unbelievably still includes WOMEN, despite being half of humanity, something that still mainly results in mere lip service, so is automatically and obliviously relegated and generally dismissed like most things in their "silly, distant lives." And we have the perfect storm that reminds us what Timothy Snyder said: "Post-truth is pre-fascism." We're there.
The HUB is the enemy because its founder has delusions of the aforementioned grandeur when he disingenuously quotes what passes for what HE labels as nostalgia by intoning that "institutions are hard to dismantle," when clearly he, and we can all see how no, turns out they are NOT. Trump gives guys like him away, as he does with Poilievre. His managing editor may be offering a defense for CBC, but its founder isn't. It's like the Globe and Mail sucking and blowing all these years but endorsing conservatives, always in the guise of BOTHSIDESISM that should now be our collective anathema.
So it's past time to pick a side, but one will likely win because a) people hate to look "intolerant," especially journalists and b) the money is on the right, despite it never having been more wrong.
If the CBC was actually obsolete, the Conservatives wouldn't care about it. If they're so hot to do it in, it must have some importance. If your enemy really wants to do something, there is usually good reason to stop them.
I'm one of those that doesn't watch CBC television much anymore , but I've never been a big viewer of network television. They lost me with reality TV and the evening news lost me during covid-19 when I just became completely disinterested in the news. But CBC online news is still excellent for me because I can choose what I want to read. Same goes for the National Observer, Narwhal, and the Tyee. These are the places where I find the well written stories that are always interesting - like Max's work.
But radio (and to a greater degree the podcasts for my favourite shows) is where CBC really shines for me. If someone told me they were killing Q with Tom Power, Sunday Magazine with Piya Chattopadhyay, The Current with Matt Galloway, Ideas, Commotion, What On Earth, Quirks and Quarks, After Dark, Unreserved, Day 6, The Next Chapter and some shows I'm probably forgetting, I'd be ready for civil disobedience and maybe a shutdown of some border crossings - although pushing my Toyota Yaris out of the way might be a bit easier than towing a semi truck.
My best memory of CBC is when my wife and I moved from Ottawa to Calgary in the 90's and as we drove across Canada we fell in love with CBC radio. On some highways it was the only station we could find (except for local country stations) and the shows were so genuinely Canadian. They made me love our country and the amazing people that live here.
Poillievre will follow the strangely successful populist playbook and do whatever it takes to divide us and poke average, moderate Canadians in the eye. But if he messes with CBC there's going to be hell to pay. I'll drive back to Ottawa for a protest on Parliament Hill that will make the Freedom Convoy look like a garden party.