One of the more interesting topics to arise from this federal election campaign concerns the future of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). One party calls for the ‘defunding’ of the CBC while another promises to increase it. Although money is a material consideration, the idea of publicly funded broadcasting raises value questions other than monetary.
Defunding (to stop providing public money) is political lingo; it means to privatize. Without public funding the CBC’s assets would fall under private corporate control. What kind of corporate control? The US provides a few examples of how private ownership can change a communication enterprise’s integrity. The Washington Post, founded in 1877, had acquired a proud and solid reputation of editorial independence when the paper’s ownership was assumed by a multi-billionaire in 2013. The paper’s editorial independence was soon put on a short leash by its new owner.
Twitter, an innovative internet communication platform founded in 2006, had earned a freedom of expression reputation by the time the company was purchased and rebranded by a multi-billionaire. Turkey’s users of the service soon discovered that criticism of their country’s autocratic leader was suppressed by the platform’s new owner while messages from extreme right sources snowballed. Facebook’s multi-billionaire owner followed suit by suspending fact-checking the information disseminated on his platform.
The CBC’s privatizing proposal is limited to the public broadcaster’s English service. Public ownership of Radio Canada, the CBC’s French service, would be retained. Why should our publicly funded broadcaster be limited to a unilingual French service? What could such an arrangement contribute to a national dialogue on issues of national interest?
The proposal to increase funding for the CBC refers to examples of publicly funded broadcasters in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany without specifying the nature of their funding. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is funded by way of monthly licence fees collected from every UK household. Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, is funded from federal taxes.
The proposal calls for the CBC’s funding to be placed under the jurisdiction of the House of Commons rather than Cabinet. Should these funds be raised by way of a BBC-style licence fee, a designated tax (e.g. GST, fuel tax, etc.) or should they be drawn from general revenues? Should the needed legislation be limited to the CBC’s funding or should it also address other aspects of the CBC’s structure and responsibilities, matters such as the make-up and appointment of the board of directors, the corporation’s management structure and its operational mandate?
The cost of running the CBC today amounts to $2.91 per citizen per month. How much we would save by funding only Radio Canada and privatizing the CBC’s English service has not been determined. Increasing the CBC’s funding to expand its services would raise our per capita contribution to $3.22 per month, an extra 31 cents.
Is money the primary measure of the value of factual information? Autocrats need to control information to control their empire. They need unchallenged power to disseminated ‘alternate’ facts. That is why control of information is priority #1 for any would-be autocrat seeking to subvert his empire’s democracy. Free and fair elections are a democracy’s lifeblood. Financially secure (publicly funded) journalism covering politics, economics, and culture is democracy’s oxygen. The supply of that oxygen is Parliament’s responsibility; a democracy cannot delegate the funding and control of its oxygen to billionaires.
Andre Carrel is a retired public sector administrator living in Terrace, B.C.
