CBC is needed to save Canada from American billionaires who own social media platforms – what an utterly insane proposition.
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But after CBC host David Cochrane posited it on air, it’s being treated as gospel truth by Liberals and CBC supporters.
The idea was raised during a panel discussion on Power and Politics about defence spending and Canada meeting its NATO target that took a bizarre turn. Emilie Nicolas, a columnist with the Le Devoir newspaper went on a rant about how dangerous Elon Musk is as owner of X while being so close to Trump.
That’s when Cochrane took the conspiracy theory from Nicolas and ran with it.
“Let me lay out the scenario for you,” he said to panelist Garry Keller.
“Pierre Poilievre wins the election next year, he defunds the CBC, he ends the media subsidies to the National Post, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and all the others, they struggle, they go under. He’s then gotta do a renegotiation of NAFTA in 2026 with Donald Trump, with no national public broadcaster and a diminished Canadian media, and social media platforms owned by American billionaires who are cozy with the President of the United States. What kind of a playing field does Canada walk into in its national interest in that?”
“That’s a huge hypothetical,” Keller answered.
That’s putting it mildly.
A video clip of the exchange was immediately shared on X by Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull who said Cochrane’s idea was a scary thought. Other Liberal supporters spread the clip as well, treating the idea not so much as a far-fetched theory as absolute fact.
Cochrane says Poilievre has promised to end the media subsidies, but they’re already over. In 2018, the Trudeau government promised $595 million over five years to news organizations and that program wasn’t renewed.
That funding, which worked out to $119 million a year spread over multiple news outlets, pales in comparison to the $150 million a year increase to CBC funding that Trudeau announced in 2016. In 2022, the Trudeau government also promised another $400 million for CBC spread over four years.
Under Trudeau, CBC has been flush with cash and handing out big bonuses to executives while cutting 800 jobs, at least, and losing audience share.
As for CBC being the vital resource to inform Canadians with the truth, let’s remember, CBC leans hard left. Yes, they will have conservatives on, but the entire ethos of CBC is urban and left with a disdain for the conservative worldview.
This is the news organization that sued the Conservative Party in the middle of the 2019 election with two of their journalists as part of the suit. In July 2020, when Erin O’Toole was running to be leader of the Conservative Party, he did a radio interview with Cochrane where they edited out his very reasonable and well articulated answer on why he wanted to defund CBC English Television.
Those two examples seem to show a broadcaster putting their thumb on the scale.
Of course, there are countless other examples of biased coverage over the years, including downright disinformation. So, excuse me, but we don’t need CBC to save us from disinformation – we need to be saved from CBC.
That’s what Pierre Poilievre is promising to do.
His plan would cut funding for CBC’s English services but maintain funding for CBC’s French arm, Radio-Canada. I’d prefer that he cut all funding but I’ll take what I can get.
A recent piece by Harrison Lowman at The Hub, which also details the many problems with CBC from the perspective of a fan, says that Poilievre would cut CBC funding within the first 100 days of forming government.
That doesn’t mean CBC would disappear, it means that they would have to stand on their own two feet without the $1.5 billion headstart. They could adopt a subscription model for their website or they could ask for donations much like PBS in the United States, but they would definitely need to cut their bloated, overpaid bureaucracy.
If there ever was a need for CBC, and I’m not convinced there ever was, there is no need for CBC now. That includes as a so-called protection against American owned social media outlets.