Summoned by the Senate, Acadian associations went to Ottawa on Wednesday to demand greater inclusion of their communities in - programming.
The Société nationale de l’Acadie (SNA), the Acadian Federation of Nova Scotia (FANE), the Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador (FFTNL), the Société acadienne et francophone de l’Île-du-Prince -Édouard (SAFILE) as well as the Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick (SANB) affirmed that the voices of the populations they represent do not resonate sufficiently with the public broadcaster.
Their appearance is part of a consultation by members of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications on local services offered by CBC and -. Several other organizations representing minority communities were also heard.
“- is essential for our communities,” said SNA president Martin Théberge from the outset, contacted by Acadie Nouvelle on Thursday morning.
“Acadia must be more present everywhere in the system, and therefore it must percolate into national programming, and not just at - Acadie.”
He and his counterparts therefore not only hope that there will be more content creation and coverage of news reflecting Acadia in local - stations, but that these reflections will also be perceptible throughout the country.
“Acadia must find itself within the national program. We think that it takes breaking down barriers to get there,” he continued.
Mr. Théberge therefore said that he would not only like to see and hear more content from Acadia, but also to see Acadians play different roles in national productions, whether in research, animation or directing. , For example. He also believes that programs broadcast from one end of the country to the other could be more interested in personalities and stories from outside Quebec.
“This could involve increasing the presence of Acadians at Tout le monde en parole,” he illustrated. There could be Acadian researchers on Pénélope McQuade’s show, who will look for speakers in Acadia, so that it is not just Montrealers or Quebecers.
Promoting “division” and “assimilation”
According to the Broadcasting Act, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation should “reflect Canada as a whole and reflect the country’s regional diversity, both nationally and regionally, while responding to the specific needs of the regions.” However, Mr. Théberge suggested that the concentration of resources in metropolitan areas can harm this objective.
“If everything is produced, created, animated and researched from a single building located in Montreal, it is normal that the content mainly reflects Montreal, and that the issues discussed will be the trash cans of Plateau-Mont-Royal and the Champlain Bridge. But these are not the realities of Halifax, Moncton or Caraquet.”
The president of the SNA also noted that broadcast technology poorly serves certain French-speaking communities in the Atlantic. He claims that areas of Newfoundland and Labrador cannot access - programming via the airwaves.
As such, the state-owned company says it is not able to cover the entire Canadian territory with its transmitters and confirms that their waves do not reach the municipalities of Corner Brook and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. However, she notes that her programming is accessible on the Web.
Mr. Théberge also believes that the fact that SRC transmitters send programming from the Sept-Îles station, in Quebec, to communities in Labrador is problematic.
“When we think about COVID, for example, people in Labrador had access to Quebec’s directives and were not exposed to those of Newfoundland,” he stressed.
“We are promoting a division of the country where we only hear what comes out of Montreal and Quebec. We know the Quebec Minister of Health, but we know little about the policies of our own provinces.”
This type of gap will tend to contribute to the decline of the relationship with the community and the language, according to him.
“We encourage inferiority complexes, a lack of information and situations where people don’t know us,” he insisted, giving the example of Acadians taken for English speakers by Montrealers.
“If I’m in Newfoundland and I’m never talked about on French-speaking television or radio, if I don’t recognize myself there or if I don’t have access to it, I’ll listen to the programming in English. My cultural references will be English speakers. The information will be that of the English community. So, we promote assimilation.”
