Conservative MP Andrew Scheer has launched a petition to defund Canada’s public broadcaster, citing concerns about CBC News’ “radical left-wing” content and its impact on the country’s media landscape.
“There are also concerns that CBC’s online news presence is undermining the viability of Canadian print and online media, reducing the diversity of voices available to Canadians.”
Scheer noted in his petition that CBC receives $1.5 billion in annual Canadian taxpayer money, despite CBC television being watched by less than 3.9 percent of Canadians and CBC News broadcasts attracting less than 1 percent of Canadians.
Scheer’s petition has accrued over 3,800 signatories as of the publishing of this article.
“In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press,” Henley said in her article titled “Speaking Freely.”
She also said that working at CBC News in the current climate is tantamount to “embrac[ing] cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity.”
“It is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States and spread through American social media platforms that monetize outrage and stoke societal divisions,” Henley wrote.
“It is to pretend that the ‘woke’ worldview is near universal—even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read.”
Henley said “good journalism” cannot be done under this context, which she says is to “capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat.”
In the 2020 Conservative leadership race, O'Toole had promised to defund CBC News—reducing it to radio and French-language services, and cut funding for CBC English TV by 50 percent.
“The ratings show that very few Canadians watch CBC. And so why should 100 percent of taxpayers subsidize it?” O'Toole said. “So it should be more of a public broadcaster model, with less commercials, less competition.”