The Omnibus budget bill being debated in Parliament contains a clause that would give the Conservatives direct control over the salaries and working conditions of the CBC’s journalists and creative staff. This is outrageous! It is a direct threat to the independence of journalists.
We depend on news that is relatively unbiased, that doesn’t reek of partisan influence, especially on the CBC. We need a broadcaster that is free to criticize and hold governments of all political stripes accountable to us. It is only in dictatorships that control of journalism is held by governments. There is no public broadcaster in the world in a democracy that would have the amount of political interference that is being proposed for the CBC in Bill C-60.
It is frightening to realize that the changes proposed would undermine and control one of our cherished Canadian icons of freedom and cultural identity.
This is just the next step in the Harper plan to privatize and control national radio and TV. They have recently had approval to put advertising on CBC-2, unheard of in decades of commercial-free broadcasting.
I encourage everyone to contact our MP and our prime minister to urge them to stop this takeover of the CBC. The CBC once had the respect and the envy of the world for its lack of political control by partisan governments. Harper is out to kill that.
Eleanor Millard
Carcross