How Long Has This Been Going On”?
From: Jacob Rempel yasch @telus.net
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007
Subject: How Long Has This Been Going On”? eg CBC/ Maude Barlow
Rxxxx wrote asking us to support the Friends of Public Broadcasting in their campaign supporting the CBC in its strruggle for survival. I reply to Rxxxx and to email received from Mxxxx and C.D., who wrote under the subject heading SUBJECT: CBC and Maude Barlow
The writers ask, “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and complain about how CBC program The House, gave short shrift to nationalist Maude Barlow, but gave spotlight attention to that champion of deeper Canada/USA integration, Tom D’Aquino.
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To the question “How long … ?” my reply is this: It’s been going on for a long time.
The CBC remains very good for many issues. I usually support friends.ca and the CBC.
The CBC remains the very best for many issues. However, when it comes to the great issues of our time for Canada, I mean the issues of independence and sovereignty, the CBC has for long favoured the voices of those who promote the continental drift into the USA corporate, economic, political policy, and military maw.
A snub to Maude Barlow and other nationalists is standard practice on CBC political programs.
Our longtime critics of continental integration, who have communicated with great insight and with sophistication in speeches, articles and books, have long been given short shrift not only by the private mass media, but also by the CBC, our great public broadcaster.
I believe it’s because they look for approval and support from the political class in government, responsible for CBC support. The government has long been in close alliance with corporate class interests such as Tom D’Aquino’s Canadian Council of Chief Executives, which has no sense of Canadian national identity or values, or Canadian independence and sovereignty, or Canadian national interests.
The interests of these chief executives are the same as the expansionist interests of international corporations based mainly in the USA, but which seek control of Canadian resources and assets first, then press their influence with government to get deeper integration policies adopted.
It’s working.
Thus, the CBC political reporting and commentary accepts uncritically the deeper integration, accepts the Prosperity and Security Agreement, accepts the FTA, the NAFTA, accepts the loss of Canadian ownership to USA corporate ownership, accepts any and all privatization(even of the CBC), accepts military partnership with the USA abroad, etc….. even when the majority of voters has several times voted for parties against that agenda.
Like the corporate and political establishment, and the private mass media, the CBC has long dismissed as irritating minor eccentrics those Canadians who have raised concerns in speeches, articles and books, Canadians such as the Citizens Concerned About Free Trade, the Campaign for Canada, the WAFFLE of the 60s, the Committee for an Independent Canada of the 70s, the National Party, the Canadian Action Party, the Council of Canadians, many individual academics and politicians, a conservative political icon like Dalton Camp, a prime minister like John Turner, a farmer like David Orchard, a film like “Hoodwinked: the Myth of Free Trade”, politicians like Paul Hellyer and Connie Fogal, and massive crowds of demonstrators who for decades have opposed the continental integration agenda of the corporate and political establishment.
The CBC accepts government policy uncritically even when 60% of the voters votes against the government party, as they have voted several times for parties opposed to the continental integration agenda.The CBC seems to say “The winner takes all !” including the CBC voice.
Airplay for critics of all these stages in the loss of Canadian sovereignty have always been minimized, so that the snub to Maude Barlow and the place of a special spotlight for Tom D’Aquino is just a repeat of a thousand similar biased coverage by the CBC since Maude Barlow, David Orchard, Mel Hurtig, Sheila Copps, and many others debated Tom D’Aquino, John Crosby and other continentalists in the 80s and 90s.
On these issues of deeper integration with the USA politics, policies, the economy and war, the CBC by default always favours the continentalist agenda. The Friends of Public Broadcasting has failed to remark on this CBC practice, and therefore fails to address the real threat to the CBC.
My own question:
Why have our public broadcaster CBC, if not as a voice of the people? Why should we support the Friends of Public Broadcasting when that loyal fan club fails to support the people who criticize the CBC for failing to support Canadian independence and sovereignty?
…Jacob Rempel, Vancouver yasch@telus.net
REFERENCE:
Subject: CBC and Maude Barlow
Hmn, C.H., this is beginning to be a concern. How many others on this list have noticed this tendency in the CBC? I’d be curious to know, too, how long a time perod people would date it back to.
Strains of that old song, “How Long Has This Been Going On” ….. but the CBC has been like a very close companion in our joint love affair with Canada, and if it is true, it would feel like a very sad betrayal. I tuned in specifically to hear Maude Barlow, and didn’t hear her at all (I was in and out of the room) …….. and given that notices went around about it, and you say that the CBC announced it, I wonder if they just used her name to get listenership then, because I tuned in with the impression that there was going to be a substantial show with her about SPP.
….mxxxx
Original Message—–
From: C.H.
Sent: February 24, 2007 10:53 AM
Subject: CBC and Maude Barlow
With all due respect for Rxxxxx’s recent posting to support the. CBC, I must state that if my CBC tax dollars are going to allow the CBC to have biased membership in the Scoundrels’ Club as was evidenced on ‘The House’ this morning, I will pass.
The CBC had announced that Maude Barlow of The Council of Canadians would be addressing the SPP issue on the program. I was silly enough to believe this.
All I heard from Maude was a few seconds of a taped statement. Kathleen Petty, who hosts the programme allowed Tom D’Aquino, boss of all bosses for the corporates, a personal interview to state among other things that the SPP had been in the parliamentary committees and therefore open to the public. Yet I have not been able to get MPs or the editor of my local rag to discucss the subject. This guy is the boss of all Fibbers.
I will be in contact with CBC but not to support it. The CBC appears to be aiding and abetting the sell out of my country.