The Liberals' CBC panel looks an awful lot like an exercise in Laurentian self-criticism - plus a little bit of monkey business in Alberta

Nenshi gets a free ride from most media who, in doing so, probably didn't enhance their reputation for fairness

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

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If journalism is going to survive in Canada, the CBC has to be dealt with.

No other industry could survive let alone thrive if one of its largest players received a massive annual $1.4 billion subsidy and was left free to compete with everyone else for talent, audiences and advertisers while giving away for free the commodity - news - that so many others are trying to sell via subscriptions.

It’s insanity. And it has to stop.

The Opposition Leader, Pierre Poilievre, wants to kill it - at least the English part - or so it appears. He is the third successive Conservative Party leader to have achieved that position on a cry to “defund the CBC” that works conservative crowds into an absolute frenzy every time he says the words. Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge, meanwhile, wants to make the Mother Corp better and, to help her do that, she’s appointed a panel of experts to, it would appear, tell her what she wants to hear.

Here’s the list:

• Marie-Philippe Bouchard, CEO, TV5 Québec Canada

• Jesse Wente, Chair of the Canada Council for the Arts, founding Executive Director of the Indigenous Screen Office

• Jennifer McGuire, Managing Director, Pink Triangle Press (and former head of CBC News)

• David Skok, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, The Logic (independent media startup)

• Mike Ananny, Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California Annenberg

• Loc Dao, Executive Director of DigiBC

• Catalina Briceno, Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal

Here’s how Minister St-Onge sees it:

“This advisory committee, with its diverse perspectives and experiences, will help me fulfil my mandate to modernize CBC/Radio-Canada. It will be able to better promote our culture, our stories, our languages, our artists, and our creators, while adapting to our rapidly changing broadcast and digital landscape.”

Well, who doesn’t want that? Except she didn’t include in that anything about what makes the CBC controversial and why Conservatives want to kill it: its English news.

I have made the acquaintance of some of the panelists and they are certainly pleasant and well-informed individuals. But Oh My Goodness - the overall composition of this group just reeks of everything that’s wrong with how the CBC and Heritage Canada view the nation.

Two from Lower Canada (Quebec), three from Upper Canada (Ontario), one from B.C. and one from the USA - with a soupcon of LGBTetc and Indigenous influences added for flavouring. No one from North of 49.2 degrees, no one from east of Montreal and just one from west of Niagara Falls (not counting the guy in SoCal who was previously attached to the Trudeau Foundation).

And - someone has to say it - there doesn’t appear to be a lot of diversity there. It just looks that way.

(Historically, the CBC is ever so much like The Crown: prime ministers and governments come and go and while it is occasionally buffeted by the winds of political change, The Firm carries on and endures.)

What the CBC needs is for someone - anyone - in politics to take the reins, declare what the nation needs and doesn’t need from it, give it the ability to borrow the money needed for downsizing and relocations and get after it. Yes, a brief public consultation is required but the world is changing rapidly, the private news sector needs an ally not an enemy and there is no time to waste.

Sorry panelists, please don’t take it personally but all I see coming is more blah, blah, frickin’ blah. Prove me wrong.

Meanwhile, Blacklock’s Reporter broke the news that the companies for which four of the panelists work have received anywhere from $371,294 to $1.6 million in federal grants while others had past and current connections to federal funding and payrolls. Fair to say that within the group there’s little evidence of any inherent opposition - at least on principle - to the idea that what will cure the CBC’s problems is just more money.

I would tell you more but Blacklock’s patrols its paywall the way a grizzly sow protects her cubs (and I say that with great affection). If you are looking for original news from Parliament Hill, I recommend you check them out.

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There aren’t many politicians who can refer to their opponents as “monkeys” and get away with it, but Alberta NDP leadership candidate Naheed Nenshi just did.

Addressing one of his rivals for the job being vacated by Rachel Notley, the former Calgary mayor - unashamedly adored by most of the province’s media - said to Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse that: “I have been to question period a grand total of once in my life and I have been watching you and the monkeys on the other side."

This certainly caught the eye of Samuel Blackett, press secretary to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

“As a black man, I’m shocked and disturbed that Nenshi would use such a charged term by calling conservatives “monkeys,” he posted on X.

But that was pretty much it in terms of response to what for most politicians would have been considered a major, and ugly, faux pas. Other than a CBC reference to conservatives being irate over it and coverage by Western Standard, the story did not go beyond the walls of Twitter/X.

Here’s the deal. I have known Mr. Nenshi for a long time. He is no racist. But also has he never been shy to throw that label at others - often by framing their statements as “dog whistles.”

Calling people “monkeys” - particularly when that group includes black people - is more than a dog whistle, in my view, and the incident should have been covered, with apologies offered and accepted graciously

Not bothering to report this incident also undermined people’s trust in journalists because we all know that had Ms. Smith - whom I have also known for a very long time - called her opponents “monkeys,” media and Mr. Nenshi would have lost their frickin’ minds.

And she, I can attest, is no racist, either.

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Thanks this week to Jesse Brown for inviting me to “co-host” as a guest on his Canadaland podcast.

Also to Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson at The Line for carrying this piece I wrote on the unravelling of the Bill C-11 agenda and to the team at The Hub for making room for me to shed some light on what the CRTC might be up to in terms of regulating online news sites. That commentary can be found here. Last but not least, thanks to Rob Breakenridge at 770 CHQR Global News Radio for inviting me to share my expertise on his show.

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