‘Skippy’ Wants to Shatter the CBC. And Maybe Canada
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2025 11:37 am‘Skippy’ Wants to Shatter the CBC. And Maybe Canada
[ https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/04/17/S ... atter-CBC/ ]
Wrecking a national bulwark makes sense if Poilievre is fine with foreign assimilation. What would Machiavelli say?
John MacLachlan Gray - April 17, 2025 - The Tyee **NUMEROUS INTERNAL LINKS**
EXCERPT: "Canada’s transcontinental railway was completed in 1885 as a defence against annexation by the United States — a steel hyphen connecting an archipelago of isolated population centres from coast to coast.
Were it not for the Canadian Pacific Railway, Canada would consist of Ontario (Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada) and the Maritimes (Down East), and people west of Winnipeg would be singing “Yankee Doodle.”
The railway begat the telegraph line, which begat the radio signal, which begat the CBC — established in 1936 as a defence against U.S. cultural assimilation at a time when Canadians were snapping up radio sets and tuning them to border stations in Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo and Boston.
Put another way, if the national railway was to be Canada’s skeleton, the CBC was to be its nervous system. (Even today it remains the only broadcasting service whose primary purpose is to deliver communications to an audience, and not audiences to advertisers.)
Surprisingly, in light of current events, both these visionary federal projects were undertaken by Conservative governments.
But not the Conservatives/Reformers of today, who, like the Trump-Musk regime, feel that any public amenity is intrinsically biased by being in favour of its own existence.
However, in Skippy’s case there is that little problem of timing.
To advocate taking a baseball bat to one’s national communication system when under threat from a foreign power invites speculation that Skippy, like his American friend, might be somebody’s asset.
Which brings us to his puzzling refusal to obtain high-level security clearance. . . . ."
More . . .
[ https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/04/17/S ... atter-CBC/ ]
Wrecking a national bulwark makes sense if Poilievre is fine with foreign assimilation. What would Machiavelli say?
John MacLachlan Gray - April 17, 2025 - The Tyee **NUMEROUS INTERNAL LINKS**
EXCERPT: "Canada’s transcontinental railway was completed in 1885 as a defence against annexation by the United States — a steel hyphen connecting an archipelago of isolated population centres from coast to coast.
Were it not for the Canadian Pacific Railway, Canada would consist of Ontario (Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada) and the Maritimes (Down East), and people west of Winnipeg would be singing “Yankee Doodle.”
The railway begat the telegraph line, which begat the radio signal, which begat the CBC — established in 1936 as a defence against U.S. cultural assimilation at a time when Canadians were snapping up radio sets and tuning them to border stations in Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo and Boston.
Put another way, if the national railway was to be Canada’s skeleton, the CBC was to be its nervous system. (Even today it remains the only broadcasting service whose primary purpose is to deliver communications to an audience, and not audiences to advertisers.)
Surprisingly, in light of current events, both these visionary federal projects were undertaken by Conservative governments.
But not the Conservatives/Reformers of today, who, like the Trump-Musk regime, feel that any public amenity is intrinsically biased by being in favour of its own existence.
However, in Skippy’s case there is that little problem of timing.
To advocate taking a baseball bat to one’s national communication system when under threat from a foreign power invites speculation that Skippy, like his American friend, might be somebody’s asset.
Which brings us to his puzzling refusal to obtain high-level security clearance. . . . ."
More . . .