If Pierre Poilievre becomes Prime Minister and he decides to fulfill his promises with the blind relentlessness of Donald Trump, - and the CRTC could live out their last good days.
The Leader of the Opposition has continued to repeat his hostile intentions regarding - and the CRTC. This organization, created by Trudeau Sr. in 1968 to regulate the content of Canadian telecommunications and protect culture, is roughly the equivalent of the American FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Over time, the CRTC, which is not a paragon of agility, has become very controlling and increasingly bureaucratic.
If some conservatives – and more than one broadcaster – want the CRTC to be wiped off the map, the fact remains that a telecommunications regulatory body is essential. But Poilievre could limit his role to telecommunications and ensure that the CRTC is no longer the guardian of television and radio, cable and the Internet.
What to keep from the CBC?
Poilievre is unlikely to follow through on his Trumpian promise to shut down the CBC, but very few Canadians would object to him cutting it to its bare minimum. It could, for example, preserve the continuous news network CBC News Network – even if its market share is only 2% –, Radio One, CBC Music, RCI, the news service in seven languages, CBC North and - North.
To avoid losing the CBC’s rich repertoire of dramas, children’s programs and documentaries, we could keep CBC Gem. Like Illico and Crave, CBC Gem would occasionally present original Canadian shows and series.
-Even if the French network remained intact, the public treasury would then realize an annual saving of several hundred million and, above all, Pierre Poilièvre could, as he dreams of, transform the white elephant at 250 Front Street West in Toronto into social housing!
A thousand reasons to “defund” CBC
There is no shortage of reasons to cut CBC funding by half or more. If a third of English speakers consider the CBC to be important, those who watch it are becoming increasingly rare. The market share of English-speaking television is barely 4.4%. Most young Anglos, especially those in the West, don’t even know the CBC exists. 10 years ago, the English network could boast of totaling 35 million hours of viewing per year. There are only 16 million left, or less than six minutes per day per head of pipe!
Poilievre therefore has nothing to fear if he amputates the CBC. You would have to be naive to imagine that Anglos will fight tooth and nail to keep a television that they no longer watch.
Related News :