August 26th, 2005

Joanna []
IA, USA

To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Joanna [], and I am from Calgary, Alberta. I have lived in Iowa for the past two years while attending Chiropractic college. I have been dismayed, as we all are, by the recent labour dispute between the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the Canadian Media Guild (CMG). This dispute is the newest event in a slow devaluing and dismantling of our national public broadcasting service. I understand all labour discussions are inherently complex, and I will not pretend to understand all the intricacies of the dispute. I am writing to share my understanding of the importance of national media, and affirm the necessity of a satisfied and secure workforce for fulfillment of the CBC mandate.

The CBC/Radio-Canada Corporate Plan Summary for 2004-2005 to 2008-2009: Building For the Future states:
"As Canada’s national public broadcaster, the Corporation exists to help Canadians understand and appreciate themselves within both the Canadian and world contexts. In essence, Canadians turn to their national public broadcaster to help them connect to the Canadian experience."

This mandate has been elaborated in various ways to include: deepening regional roots, ensuring pan-Canadian program content, setting the standard for Canadian journalism, reflecting Canadian stories, emphasizing our multicultural and multiracial nature, and reaching Canadians wherever they live. I see CBC as the line of communication that entangles the individual minds and hearts of our citizens. Without this netting, this transmission of words and ideas, we lose track of each other, lose cohesion, lose our national voice.

Whenever a new controversy brings the status of the CBC back to the forefront, there are always those who complain nationalized media has become irrelevant and too expensive. These voices always proclaim how little they use CBC, how poor the programming is, and again, how dearly all this “third-rate” broadcasting hits the taxpayers’ wallet. This always frustrates me, because the existence of national media is not just about personal experience, not just about the audience. Even if I don’t religiously watch or listen to anything on CBC, this does not mean I find it worthless, useless, or unimportant. I find simple security in the fact I can make the choice to participate, profound comfort in the mere presence of the CBC. Anything that makes its existence seem precarious robs me of this comfort, presents a Canada where I might not have the choice, and that insecurity detracts from my Canadian experience, even if I don’t catch Vinyl Café or Tapestry every Sunday. Consider the significance of my opinions, given my membership in the famously desirable 18-35 year old demographic. A visit to cbckeydemo.blogspot.com will demonstrate how many of my fellow constituents likewise believe in the importance of the CBC.

Although the primary role of national media may be user-ship, it plays an important political role, in representing our national framework to the world. Media is the great international equalizer. I agree with Carole Taylor “that Canada has something important to offer the world at this particular moment in history: our values, our ideas, our talent …our experience as a compassionate, bilingual, multicultural country.” CBC does not exist, first, for our pleasure, second. It does not stand abstractly as the creator of Canadian substance for the citizens to consume. We, the people, the citizens, the audience, exist first, for the dissemination of the CBC, second. We provide the substance of Canadian thought and experience out of which CBC programming is fostered. As it holds our national consciousness together, we can then turn around and hold it out to the world.

What does it say about a country when they can’t organize and fund a coherent national media? How can a country claim to have a national spirit, a national identity, if they don’t carry a national voice? Public broadcasting is recognized across the globe as essential for maintaining national identity. Consider the BBC in England, NPR and PBS in the United States, other national voices in Australia, France, and Japan. Our broadcasts are our testament, to the world, about what this country stands for, what this country means. Carole Taylor continues, “You can’t be an independent strong nation in any meaningful way without a vibrant, beating sense of who we are, what our stories are, what our values are, what our history is.” The message is WE ARE; the medium is the Canadian Broadcast.

This lockout means the national voice has been so diminished, so silenced, so devalued, the Corporation refuses to commit to sustained resources for its maintenance. Resources are not only monetary; resources comprise physical space, physical people, and physical funds. The CBC has chosen to dismiss the people, chosen to empty their work-spaces, chosen profit for themselves over profit to the nation. To fulfill its mandate, the CBC must be committed to hiring and keeping quality employees, to providing a stable, functional work-space, and funding the necessary technology and training to fit the changing media environment. In fact, Section IV, D. of the CBC/Radio-Canada Corporate Plan states:

"The Corporation is committed to creating and maintaining a work environment where employees are equipped and motivated to succeed in their work, where they understand how their work fits into the Corporation’s overall direction, and where they have the opportunity to continually improve their skills and pursue a career path that benefits both them and the Corporation."

What motivates a work-force that has been literally expelled from their work environment? How can an employee fit their work into the Corporation’s overall direction without certainty about their own future in the Corporation? Where is the opportunity to train continually in a temporary, fluctuating work team?

Marshall McLuhan once said, “I am not, by temperament or conviction, a revolutionary: I would prefer a stable, changeless environment of modest services and human scale.” I think this is everything I ask of the CBC, a stable Canadian reporting of Canadian humanity. This is everything Canada asks of the CBC, and I believe, everything CMG asks, also. No one in this dispute is trying to revolutionize Canadian media, because the world has already provided us with a background of constant change and flux. We are all looking for policy that ensures stability in the face of that change. I call on the Corporation to re-affirm their own commitment to their staff, the 5500 creative minds that bring cohesion to our 31 million voices. I call on the Ministry of Canadian Heritage and the government to confirm its commitment to the Corporation. I hope for a speedy resolution, and return of the CMG employees to their posts, satisfied and secure on all sides.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,


Joanna []

Resources:
CBC/Radio-Canada Coporate Plan Summary for 2004-2005 to 2008-2009: Building for the Future. June 2004.

“Public Broadcasting: Why Bother? “ Carole Taylor, Chair, CBC/Radio-Canada, CBC/Radio-Canada. The Canadian Club Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario: October 22, 2003.

John Robert Colombo’s Famous Lasting Words: Great Canadian Quotations. Douglas & McIntyre, 2000.

http://cbckeydemo.blogspot.com