Your Conservative Party of Canada:
“Some of our official language communities could not survive ... without Radio-Canada. They don’t have any other options,” said Glover earlier this week. “To keep them connected to our Canadian identity or Canadian values, news, etc., CBC-Radio Canada is absolutely essential.”
How exactly is Radio-Canada essential to these communities? In what way would they not survive? Would mass starvation plague certain Franocophone regions of the country without the CBC's French language service? Would they suffer from some severe medical condition? There was a time when terms like "essential" and "survival" applied to life and death matters, not just whether you could receive standard issue Leftist propaganda in the official language of your choice. Those times, clearly, have passed. How you spend your free time is apparently an essential matter of the federal government.
Perhaps Minister Glover, a former Winnipeg cop, was being a tad metaphorical. By survival she did not mean the physical survival of Francophones, but their cultural survival. Without access to Radio-Canada the country's pockets of French-Canadian culture, at least outside Quebec and its immediate vicinity, would apparently fade into the great blandness of English Canada. Now for an old cranky reactionary like yours truly this isn't especially perturbing.
It should not be the business of government to promote culture. The whole idea has a vaguely authoritarian sound to it. If culture is fated to die, no amount of government subsidy will prevent that. Cultures survive as conscious acts of will. If the Francophones of St Boniface no longer value their language and traditions, it will fade into the past. That's their choice, not Ottawa's.
Note the minister's comment about "keep them connected to our Canadian identity." Who defines that identity? Apparently the government department Shelly Glover heads, the creepily named Department of Canadian Heritage. This begs the old question, what do they know of Canada who only Eddy Street know? When bureaucrats define culture either you get crude propaganda, bad culture or both.
Those Canadians of a certain age will not so fondly recall Can-Con, the mediocre music and dreadful TV shows that plagued the Canadian airwaves for decades. Within seconds of a tune playing on the radio, or a sitcom appearing on those fat flickering boxes, you would know immediately it was Canadian. No self respecting American network or record executive would ever allow such low production value stuff to reach the airways. It was too embarrassing.
But that was then. We watched the King of Kensington because nothing else was on. We listened to Can-Con pop because that's what the radio played. Then them gosh darn Yankees invented the internet and Can-Con got blown to bits. We don't have to watch bad Canadian drama, because we can watch iTunes or Netfix or Hulu or You Tube or Vimeo or whatever great idea clever people come up with next. It's called real progress, which is perhaps why progressives are so opposed to it.
It challenges their pretended monopoly of ideas.
Meanwhile the stimulus of competition, as well as the natural maturing of Canadian culture, has created high quality Canadian music, television and even the odd movie. We will probably never have a proper entertainment industry in Canada. This is not for lacking of trying or talent. It's just that the old question still applies: If you're really that good why aren't you in the States? There are certain opportunities that exist only at the epicenter of global English speaking culture. Innovative technologies are driving down media production costs. That does provide hope that Canadians can create world class cultural product without permanently leaving Canada.
Ultimately technological change means that government defined culture, always a somewhat absurd presumption, is now a dead letter. The CBC cannot, whatever Minister Glover's aspirations, keep anyone connected to Canadian identity. Canadians will damn well connect to whatever and whomever they choose. They will decide what Canadian culture is and should be. They have the tools and they have the will. In the process the CBC is being revealed for what it is, a jobs program for mediocrities. There are certainly very talented people working at the Mother Corp. Throw $1.1 billion dollars at anything and you'll pick up a few people who know what they're doing. But exceptions make bad rules. The CBC mostly shows either unwatchable dreck or American rebroadcasts.
What applies here in the Imperial Capital will, soon enough, apply through out the Dominion. You can still kind of make the argument that some communities are too remote to connect to the outside world. Fine. Give them a refundable tax credit to buy satellite radio receivers. What about French content for Francophones in St Boniface? Netflix has a French language service. At the moment its showing Radio-Canada material, but given the success of House of Cards it won't take long for clever independent Quebecois artists to realize they have a new outlet for their talents, one that does not require going through the dead hand of the Radio-Canada bureaucracy.
What will speed up this process considerably is getting rid of Radio-Canada's public subsidy. Netflix, or its competitors, isn't going to produce original French content if it knows the Canadian taxpayers will do it for them. Independent artists are going to be less likely to take risks knowing that Radio-Canada is still the biggest game in town. There are seven million Francophones in Canada. If you can't make money entertaining a market that large, you're probably not trying. A market with a natural language barrier too. Perhaps not blockbuster movies. But TV shows, books, music and art works are certainly feasible. All of which can be distributed with greater ease and lower cost than ever before.
Shelly Glover, who no doubt has the best intentions, isn't preserving Canadian identity. She's preserving the jobs of those who have for decades presumed to tell us, both English and French, what it means to be Canadian. Their time is up. Hopefully their meal ticket is as well.
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