Last week’s column produced a surprising (to me) flurry of comments from readers. The piece wasn’t even about my hero, Doug Ford; it barely mentioned reliably controversial Justin Trudeau. The subject was Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s ambition to abolish the CBC and his bizarre notion of somehow converting its decrepit former headquarters on Bronson Avenue in Ottawa – into affordable housing for young families.
Known as the Edward Drake Building in the years (1964-97) when it housed the CBC, the huge structure (10,000 square metres of floor space) is considered to be an exceptional example of the “expressionist strain of modernism” in Canadian architecture. As such, it is a national heritage building, protected by federal heritage law from demolition or alteration. But it has been so badly neglected that its Treasury Board overseers recently downgraded its physical condition from “poor” to “critical” (the same as 24 Sussex Drive, the abandoned prime ministerial residence).
Notable among readers’ responses were strongly worded emails from certain CBC advocates expressing, um, displeasure with what they interpreted as an unwarranted attack from an enemy of the crown corporation. Their interpretation is wrong. I’ve always been a believer in public broadcasting and a supporter of the CBC, if not of its boneheaded programming decisions in recent years.
The point I sought to make is that CBC appears to have reached a political crossroads. It is up against a new, intense, ideology-driven Conservative leader who is intent on proving himself and who clearly relishes feeding the CBC as raw meat to his true believers on the right and far-right. This is happening at a time when declining public support for the broadcaster and its annual parliamentary subsidy ($1.2 billion this year) has reached a danger point. And at a time when it is far from clear that the minority Liberals still care enough to go to the wall to save the corporation’s expensive hide.
The CBC is no ordinary broadcaster. Since its creation in the early 1930s, it has been a symbol of Canadian nationhood. Although nationalism is not the force it once was, and the CBC has become an awkward hybrid of public service and private sector revenue-seeking, the corporation still represents in eyes of its loyalists something distinctively Canadian, a cultural wall, if you will, between American commercialism and a Canadian idealism, still faithful to radio pioneer Graham Spry’s celebrated 1932 aphorism: “The state or the United States.”
A country like Canada, founded by two nations that didn’t much like each other, familiar adversaries in war, prickly neighbours in peace, enhanced by the most diverse population in the world, and subject to relentless regional stress, needs national institutions, especially in communications, to bridge differences and hold the parts together. They are institutions that provide symbols of common purpose and values that citizens can accept and respect.
In years past, when its flagship English television service, in particular, was at its best, the CBC was a symbol to be proud of – smart, bold, creative, and distinctively Canadian. In its more recent, and frequent, bad years, when it is consumed by internal dogfights over shrinking budgets, it seems to look to its own navel for inspiration as it serves up a menu of exaggerated anger, negativism, and regional distrust, along with entertainment programs indistinguishable from the most inane offerings of American networks.
Its managers decided that its English offerings needed to be freshened and made more contemporary, to be more cosmopolitan (or less Anglo), and to expand the corporation’s reach with new and generally younger faces and voices exploring edgier subjects that someone had deemed would be of keen interest to selected segments of a presumed audience, if not to a significant portion of the CBC’s traditional followers.
Whether this slice-and-dice approach to audience and ratings has actually extended the CBC’s reach is an open question. What is not open to question is the reality that many established CBC supporters – faithful fans of long standing – feel overlooked by the broadcasting service they have loved, relied upon, and learned from, for much of their lives.
The dread among CBC lovers today is that it will go the way of an earlier national institution. The CPR was a favoured public enterprise until the politicians fell in love with the automobile and transferred their affection and taxpayers’ money from railways to highways.
The question in 2023 is whether the Liberals still see their problem child through a lover’s eyes. If they don’t, it’s game, set and match to Poilievre.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com