(Ottawa) By suggesting splitting CBC/Radio-Canada into two separate state corporations rather than bringing them together as senior management envisages, the Bloc Québécois is taking the path of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, who are promising to put the key in the door of the organization’s English services, said Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge on Monday.
“What shocks me is to hear the Bloc adopting roughly the same position as the Conservatives, that the CBC/Radio-Canada should be completely separated. While we’re at it, completely “defund” CBC. (…) It makes no sense,” she said during question period in the House of Commons.
Thursday, the parliamentary leader of the Bloc Québécois, Alain Therrien, made his “proposal” to make CBC and Radio-Canada more independent of each other by recognizing that “the two do not have the same cultural identity, not the same audience, not the same corporate culture.”
In their discussions on Monday, Mr. Therrien denounced the “modernization plan” of the state corporation which he judges to be “more of a rescue plan for the CBC at the back of Radio-Canada”, a plan which does not does not exclude rapprochements at the programming and management level.
The minister assured, as she did last week when the first echoes of this project surfaced in the media, that “in no way” will a restructuring of the state corporation affect services to the country’s Francophones , both in Quebec and elsewhere in the country.
In his question of relaunch, Mr. Therrien did not react to the comparison with the Conservatives that the minister had just made. Instead, he once again implored the Trudeau government to curb this “very dangerous idea of rapprochement” since “in Canada, when you put English then French together, well it gives English because French is secondary.”
Minister St-Onge also returned to the charge. “I would like to point out to you that the Conservatives applaud when the Bloc talks (…) of separating CBC/Radio-Canada then of completely “defunding” CBC,” she said. What is happening with the Bloc which is also aligned with the Conservatives on something as fundamental as our public broadcaster, like Radio-Canada? »
However, a journalist from The Canadian Press noted that it was rather when the minister mentioned the idea of “defunding” that Conservative MPs began to applaud.
“They (the Bloc) were never able to protect Radio-Canada against the Conservatives under (the Conservative government of Stephen) Harper. They will not be more capable now,” she pleaded.
According to CBC/Radio-Canada, the project unveiled last week does not aim to “eliminate the editorial and programming independence” of the English and French services. It actually aims, it is said, to “ensure the sustainability” of the public broadcaster by making “the best possible use of our limited resources, particularly in terms of technology”.
These comments were far from reassuring Quebec Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, who then estimated that if the changes extend to programming, “culturally speaking, for Quebec, it would be a catastrophe”. Mr. Lacombe said he believed “unequivocally” that it is essential to maintain two distinct services.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promises to “defund” the CBC. However, he intends to protect Radio-Canada’s French services, and particularly those intended for the country’s French-speaking minorities, since he considers them an essential service. Mr. Poilievre assures that he can separate CBC and Radio-Canada.
reference: www.lapresse.ca