The Federal Budget and the CBC

Well, the threat that was the Federal Budget and the Harper rampage has begun on a relatively subtle note.

On top of killing well established institutions like the National Council on Welfare because the Tories don't care to know anything about the poor anyway beyond where to jail them and cutting Environment Canada's because they want to know even less about that, the CBC is another obvious target with a 10% slash to their budget.

Of course it should come as a surprise to no one considering the network usually cares about the underprivileged and the abuses of the corporate world that hacks like Sun TV would rather ignore with faked news events about other stuff.  At least the BBC has their license fee structure to keep them funded without the government being able to directly attack them fiscally;  it's obviously decades too late for the CBC to setup the equivalent. In fact, at least one Tory MP wanted the cut to be 30%, and I bet Harper made sure that story spread in the name of political good cop/bad cop.

Now all we can do is decide if we really want to have a public broadcaster even as it has to cut back on its regional programming, focus on sport and entertainment to make a buck, close down Radio 2 or (ugh) put ads on CBC Radio 1.

If you want to help keep this national voice then check The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and while you're at it: check out the kind of CBC TV programming we might see far less of in the future: