CBC in Quebec City

English-speaking Quebecers in Montreal, and particularly those in the regions, are concerned about the latest round of cutbacks at CBC and Radio-Canada. They fear that deep cuts to news and programming at our public broadcaster will do irreparable harm to basic news services and programming. They also expressed concerns that the very existence of an institution that is dear to their hearts is threatened and, with that, the vitality of English-speaking communities in Quebec.

“To survive, our communities need to be strong and visible” noted Robert Donnelly, president of the Quebec Community Groups Network. “Coverage by the CBC is one of the factors that helps us maintain vitality in our communities, many of them far flung and with little or no access to private English broadcasters. Many English-speaking Quebecers are also listeners and viewers of Radio Canada, which sometimes talks about our communities and provides strong and effective coverage of the greater society in which we live.

“We support public broadcasting that has a clear mandate to cover every nook and cranny of our country and our province,” added Robert Donnelly. “We do not want to see cutbacks that will hurt many of our communities. The current cutbacks will mean some of our communities will have less access to news and programming that reflect them. Some won’t have any coverage at all.”

More than 20 years ago when Pierre Juneau was president of the Crown corporation he said, “Amidst the myriad of other available voices, I believe that Canadians, now as when public broadcasting was first created in Canada, want at least one clear strong Canadian voice, from coast to coast, on the air waves of their own country,” noted Communications Consultant Jonathan Goldbloom. “This statement is as true today as it was then, particularly in what is a rapidly changing media landscape.”
“As Pierre Juneau said, in these changing times, we need the CBC and Radio-Canada,” said Goldbloom, president of JGA Strategic Communications. “I urge Quebecers from all backgrounds and milieus to join us in speaking out in favour of sufficient funding for our national broadcaster.”
Hugh Maynard, a former president of the QCGN and president of Qu’Anglo Communications, noted the cuts are especially bad for English-speaking communities in the regions.
“There are no private English radio stations outside of Montreal since the shutdown of CKTS in Sherbrooke two decades ago, noted Hugh Maynard. “The Quebec Community Network of CBC is one of the few places our communities can turn to see themselves reflected in the news.”
Guy Lapointe, who is in charge of the “I Am We Are For a Quality Public Broadcaster” campaign for Greater Montreal, said he was thrilled to see English-speaking and French-speaking Quebecers join hands to fight for quality broadcasting in Quebec.
“We are going through hard times and the support has given me a boost in my efforts to try and convince the powers that be that a strong public broadcasting system is essential to the very fabric of Canada and Quebec,” said the journalist for Radio-Canada. “But even better, I am enjoying the warm feeling of two communities speaking with one heart.”
Also on hand for a press conference June 17 was Guy Rodgers, executive-director English-Language Arts Network, who noted the cuts will impact Quebec artists.
The campaign has also received the support of a number of QCGN members including Townshipper’s Association, The Regional Association of West Quebecers, Voice of English-speaking Quebec and Committee for Anglophone Social Action (CASA) in the Gaspé, to name a few. Support for the plea to save the CBC and its French counterpart is growing day by day.
The Quebec Community Groups Network (www.qcgn.ca) is a not-for-profit organization bringing together 32 English language community organizations across Quebec for the purposes of supporting and assisting the development of English-speaking minority communities throughout the province.

For further information: RSVP: Rita Legault, Director of Communications, (514) 868-9044 Ext. 223, Mobile (514) 912-6555, rita.legault@qcgn.ca;

CBC Television For generations Canadians have counted on their public broadcaster to bring them news and cultural programming so that they can better understand their country and the world around them.

For generations Canadians have known where to turn to hear stories about fellow citizens, stories that remind them day in and day out of the shared richness of our diverse and collective identities.

And for generations Canadians have witnessed how the broadcaster that they own and subsidize with their tax dollars has brought them the world.

Canada is a country where Acadians remember 1755, where Loyalists celebrate their homesteads in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, and where the Métis pay homage to Dumont and Riel. From coast to coast to coast, Radio-Canada guarantees the French language remains strong, alive and exciting. CBC also contributes to the vitality of the minority language community in Quebec, reflecting it back to English-speaking Quebecers and to the rest of Canada.

CBC/Radio Canada reporters and hosts are among the best trained in the business.

CBC/Radio Canada producers and technicians are honoured worldwide for their expertise.

CBC.CA writers have made the Crown corporation’s website the most widely read site in Canada.

For CBC/Radio Canada employees, working for the public broadcaster is not just about collecting a paycheque: it is a vocation, a chance to be part of something bigger, an opportunity to be at the heart of helping to define who we are and what we are becoming.

No private broadcaster offers the range of services this vast and diversified country requires. Moreover, Canada’s private broadcasters are currently slashing their news gathering budgets and threatening to reduce their footprint in an effort to meet shareholder’s objectives.

But CBC/Radio Canada has a different raison d’être: to make sure the voices, ideas and stories of all Quebecers and all Canadians are heard and to make sure what happens in the rest of the world is interpreted through Canadian eyes.

CBC/Radio Canada is home to young musicians and feminist poets. It is a stage where philosophers can argue and a round table where survivors of residential schools can express their pain.

CBC/Radio Canada is home to Little Mosque on the Prairie, to Tout le monde en parle, to Ideas, and Quirks and Quarks.

It is where Michael Enright spends time with Alice Munroe and where Peter Mansbridge can take us on a tour of a Canadian military camp in Afghanistan.

And it is where Céline Galipeau makes us feel and think about the complexities of a fast developing country like India.

In mainland Quebec, the Community Radio Network brings news to English speakers living in communities from the Laurentians to the Lower North Shore. Without the CBC, fishers in Harrington Harbour and university professors in Lennoxville would be less able to see themselves reflected as part of a minority community that shares a past, a present and a future, and is an integral part of Quebec and Canadian society.

So tell us why is CBC/Radio Canada is being forced to cut 800 jobs across the country? Why is the government even considering obliging CBC/Radio Canada managers to cut five per cent more from a budget that – compared to other countries’ per capita spending on public broadcasting – is already among the lowest in the world?

Why is the government cutting support to artists and artisans who make Canada the envy of the world? Does the money the government saves now matter more than the health of our public institutions, than the culture we share as a country?

We call on all the progressive members of the Conservative caucus, Liberals, Bloquistes, New Democrats – and all of those who want to save the CBC – to speak out loudly and clearly.

I am, we are, dedicated to a healthy public broadcaster.