No candidate for leadership of the country has been as virulent as Pierre Poilievre towards CBC/-.
At another time, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien had each in turn threatened to close -, but no one took them seriously. This time, we cannot ignore the sword of Damocles that Poilievre brandishes on CBC/-. Rachael Thomas, his Conservative MP for Lethbridge and his “shadow minister” on the Heritage Committee, never misses an opportunity to remind people that the threat is real.
In November last year, Mr.me Thomas denounced the code which would stifle CBC/- journalists and deprive us of objective information. She attacked the directive prohibiting CBC/SRC journalists from describing Hamas and its fighters as “terrorists.” Immediately afterwards, she and her boss jumped with both feet on the 15 million bonuses that - distributed to executives while laying off the small staff.
In an exclusive interview granted last summer to Toronto SunPierre Poilievre said he was eager to close the CBC and turn its huge Toronto headquarters into apartments. The Front Street building is just one of 6,000 buildings and thousands of acres of federally owned land that Poilievre wants to put up for sale as soon as he is elected.
The example of Donald Trump
Such inconceivable promises would have been taken with a grain of salt a few years ago, but the comfortable election of Donald Trump, whose entire campaign was made of excessive promises, must comfort Pierre Poilievre and encourage him to continue on the path extravagant promises.
As the federal election approaches, the Conservative leader, far from distancing himself from the public broadcaster, is becoming more and more explicit about his intentions. He is no longer talking about sparing the French network, but rather “allocating certain funds to it so that linguistic minorities can have news that they would not have if we stuck to market forces.”
A realistic hypothesis
According to an Angus Reid poll conducted last year, a third of Canadians are in favor of completely cutting public funds from -. This year they will amount to $1.38 billion. I would be very curious to know the percentage of Canadians who would be satisfied with a public broadcaster offering CBC News and RDI on subscription, in addition to the current CBC/- radio networks, which would cost only a fraction of the money spent on television.
With better advertising revenues, TVA and Noovo could surely satisfy the entertainment needs of the French-speaking public, who can also count on Canadian and foreign digital platforms. Closing CBC/- is not a far-fetched hypothesis.
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