2015.04.27
Media union urges CBC chief Hubert Lacroix
to ‘be brave, do his duty’ on stable funding
CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon is encouraging the head of the CBC to be “brave” and do his “duty” to speak up and demand sufficient funding to uphold the public broadcaster’s federally legislated mandate.
“You have said you have been advocating for the CBC behind the scenes. If that is true, it has not worked. That is evident in last week’s federal budget which didn’t have a penny for the CBC,” O’Hanlon says in an open letter to Hubert Lacroix.
Instead of calling on the federal government to restore the $115 million it cut, Lacroix has presided over and promoted a five-year plan that includes the “loss of a staggering 1,500 employees” in addition to the 3,000 positions that have been lost since the president and CEO was appointed by the Harper government.
“You have an historic choice,” the leader of the national union that represents most of CBC’s employees tells Lacroix. “You can be remembered as the man who coolly presided over the slow demise of a cherished national institution or you can speak up and be lauded as a champion of public broadcasting.
“History remembers the brave.”
O’Hanlon points out that a “vital national institution is being left to hemorrhage, including the loss of hundreds of journalists who act as watchdogs on power and tell the stories of Canadians and our communities.”
“Amid this carnage, a chorus of voices from across the country has cried out for proper funding. But the most important voices have been deafeningly silent — those of you and the rest of the CBC board.”
O’Hanlon assures Lacroix that CWA Canada and its largest Local, the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), is prepared to work with him to achieve a “robust” CBC provided he “change course, stanch the bleeding, and tell the government — publicly — that the CBC must have more funding.”
The CMG has been running a Champion Public Broadcasting campaign in an attempt to make stable funding of the CBC an issue in the impending federal election. Other supporters of the CBC include Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and Tous amis de Radio-Canada.
For interviews or more information, contact Martin O'Hanlon (email / 613-820-8460).