Apparently without the CBC, our nation has no face and no culture. What a load of Crap!

The following are excerpts from the House of Commons debates yesterday. Apparently I and Canadians have no national culture or identity as I do not watch the CBC. We need Pravda and controls in order to have heritage. I ask you, who is trying to control us... really.....

Mr. Paul Szabo (Liberal Party): Mr. Speaker, there is no one culture. The best way to define Canadian culture is that it cannot be defined. It is so diverse. We are a model to the world because of our multicultural policy and the way we have opened up our doors to people around the world.

[...]

Maria Minnia (Liberal Party): There are fantastic regions within this country with a tremendous amount of capability to produce a tremendous amount of music, arts, dance, song, theatre and authors. It is absolutely phenomenal, but they need to be nurtured. If we do not nurture our own artists and our own cultural entities, and then expose them to Canadians across the country so that we can share and support them, then we have lost. We actually have no way of giving ourselves some identity and really express who we are to each other and to the world around us. Quite frankly, without that, we do not really have a face to our nation.

I thank the hon. member for the question because I believe that Canadians do support public broadcasting and, in particular, the CBC, and this is why I continue to fight for it and continue to support it.

[...]

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): [...] I reference a briefing paper from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It states:

Culture is in need of protection in the trade negotiations because unrestricted competition in this arena would replace local and national cultural expression with powerful international media conglomerates....Culture and telecom are being treated very differently, as if they were distinct...This approach needs to be revisited, because in Canada these two sectors are rapidly merging and becoming inseparable. As a result, trade negotiations to promote more foreign involvement in the provision of telecom services, including foreign ownership, threaten our cultural expression.

[...]

I want to see long term stable funding for the CBC. Just a couple of days ago, a news advisory came out about the CBC's television design department being under threat of closure. Why is this happening when we are debating the UNESCO treaty and supposedly the idea that we support protecting and promoting the diversity of culture in Canada? Why would we close that department? It has had a long history of protecting and enhancing original programming in our country? This measly cost saving measure of $1 million will have a significant impact on original productions in Canada.

The debate today is important. If we are serious, we need to pass the motion. We also need to ensure that the amendment put forward by the NDP is adopted. We need to give clear direction to the trade negotiators, who are acting on behalf of Canada, to ensure that they do not negotiate away our cultural sovereignty as part of so-called competitiveness.

I am glad to support the motion today, but it is just a first step. We need to do much more to ensure that we support our artists, our cultural institutions and bilingualism in public broadcasting. We need to support organizations like the CBC to ensure they are not threatened each and every year by what the government plans on doing. Otherwise we will find ourselves in a void. We will find ourselves in a country which has lost its identity, its cultural expression and its voice. These issues are important in protecting our identity.

[...]

Ms. Libby Davies (NDP Party): Mr. Speaker, it is precisely because of the reality of how technology is overtaking at a very rapid pace. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' document talks about what the future looks like. It talks about the average house having one unit that has a radio, television, music, films, news, Internet access, e-mail and maybe things we do not even envision yet.

This is broadband and its capacity to send huge amounts of digitized material over a single network should tell us of the urgency of this issue of how the protection and enhancement of Canadian culture is related to these trade negotiations that are going on that are based on telecom services and broadcasting services. These things now are very integral to each other.

It is a warning to us that unless we recognize that reality we will have given up our cultural sovereignty in the race to advance technology and so-called competitiveness that will leave behind cultural expression. I appreciate the member's question because it is precisely because of that point that we are urging our amendment today, which I hope the member will support.

Mr. Rod Bruinooge (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I find myself in an interesting moment wanting to continue with the member's discussion point.

What direction will my hon. colleague's ideas in relation to technology eventually go? We know it is important for us as Canadians to continue developing our culture and to ensure it is competitive on the international stage. However, I am afraid that what she just suggested is the very slippery slope to approaching what we see in China, which is the complete control of the Internet and the suppression of all ideas that are against the state. That is what we would eventually have to do in order to achieve what she is talking about. How would she do what she is trying to do without going down that slippery slope?

Emphasis mine.

The opinion I agree with here is the CPC MP. The liberals and NDP would have you believe that obviously, without the CBC, Canada has no culture, no face, no voice. You've got to be kidding. I am going to check.... I know alot about, for example, Australian culture and I wonder if I learned this from the Australian government funded broadcasting corporation. I will check to see if they have one.

UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous commenter, there is, in fact, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In reading through the site, it appears that, for example, ABC Radio International had an international audience of 50 million in the 1990's. Here is an excerpt from their site:

Radio Australia

In the early 90s the ABC's international network, Radio Australia increased the duration and reach of its broadcast services to Asia, the Pacific and beyond. In 1991-2 the network was broadcasting in eight languages to an estimated audience of more than 50 million people. By 1994 when Radio Australia celebrated 55 years of short wave broadcasts, the network was delivering programs throughout the Asia-Pacific region in nine languages via an expanded network of short wave, satellite and cable transmissions. In response to changing technology across its core region of operation the network negotiated agreements with several stations in the region to deliver radio Australia programs direct to their local audiences.

In 1997-98 Radio Australia's budget was reduced by more than half, resulting in severe staff cuts and curtailment of services. The network set about delivering its programs to the region using alternate delivery methods, building an extensive network of more than 100 partner stations and providing content content live via satellite and the internet.

It also states that ABC increased it's annual revenue from $688,000 to $11,300,000 in ten years. I wonder how our CBC compares? Of course, the auditor general isn't allowed to audit, is it? Regardless, I do not know about Australian culture from their programming.