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CBC Issues: What MPs can do
By Julia | October 1, 2008
The Stand On Guard for CBC Coalition has prepared a document to advise Members of Canadian Parliament how to take responsible action with regard to recent changes at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. What follows is an excerpt from the beginning of that document. The complete document is available as a PDF here.
This material is designed to help MPs make a critical assessment of the changes to Radio 2 proposed by CBC management, and to encourage them to continue examining CBC decisions as an ongoing parliamentary concern. We hope it will empower them to find a legitimate way to ask questions and demand answers without feeling hampered by the constraints of the Broadcasting Act, and to take action on controversial CBC issues.
MPs must not see the ‘arm’s length’ clause of the Broadcasting Act as a total hindrance to a meaningful ability to affect the direction of CBC when there is a major philosophical change, as is presently true for Radio 2. The ‘arm’s length’ clause was originally intended to prevent politicization of CBC so the Corporation would not feel any pressure or obligation to promote the philosophy of the political party in power. As well, it was to prevent censorship of material presented, allowing CBC independent, impartial journalistic freedom. But does this mean that journalistic independence should be used as a screen to permit a small management clique to take apart a national cultural icon with impunity and to affect the cultural future of this country?
The Broadcast Act provides a counterbalance in Clause 40, which suggests that “The Corporation is ultimately accountable, through the Minister, to Parliament for the conduct of its affairs.” Thus, journalistic freedom does not necessarily apply to a wholesale change in cultural direction without some form of accountability to Parliament.
A reasonable reading of this section would be that while Parliament may not interfere in day-to-day decisions, it does, indeed, have power over major changes of direction, such as the present one. If there is any doubt about this, MPs should seek legal council and clarification regarding these two clauses.
Canadian Members of Parliament and Canadian citizens are encouraged to download the complete document in PDF format here.
Topics: StandOnGuardforCBC Publications | 1 Comment »
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October 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
[...] on CBC2 is truly unfortunate. I appreciate the effort involved in creating the document entitled “What MPs Can Do” and I sympathise with all those devoted to this [...]