08 December 2005

Guild to press candidates on public funding for CBC

Canadian Media Guild | TNG Canada Local 30213

The Canadian Media Guild is determined to keep the summer's hot issue of CBC funding from moving to the back burner and cooling off during the winter election campaign.

Lise Lareau, CMG national president, announced this week that the Guild will push candidates from all parties to speak publicly about where they stand on increased public funding for the CBC.

The dissolution of Parliament interrupted the work of the Heritage Committee, which summoned CBC President Robert Rabinovitch and three senior managers to appear before it at the end of October. Rabinovitch in particular was grilled about the eight-week lockout of CBC employees that pushed the issue of funding for the public broadcaster to the fore.

In a motion passed by the Committee, Conservative culture critic Bev Oda called on the government to create a task force to review the CBC's mandate.

NDP culture critic Charlie Angus put forward a motion of non-confidence in Rabinovitch, but it never came up for a vote and died when the government fell.

However, notes Lareau in a communique to members, "as you may have read in the Globe and Mail or seen satirized on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Our Public Airwaves is asking Canadians to speak out about the Rabinovitch record" in a campaign it has just launched, called A New CBC. (The CMG helped found OPA, an advocacy group for public broadcasting.)

The Guild made a submission to the Heritage Committee "to counter misleading statements made by CBC managers during their testimony," says Lareau. "The Guild did not have the opportunity to appear before the committee in person. I believe this was partly due to the fact that the issue has lost the political resonance it had in September."