"Menzies said the fundamental problem with the CBC is that it’s not so much a public broadcaster as it is a publicly funded commercial broadcaster that is competing with private news organizations for eyeballs and advertising dollars."
Here's my plan for the #CBC in the age of streaming. Keep #RadioCanada as is. Keep the news. #Telefilm becomes the home for funding new video; the #NFB produces videos in house and CBC TV becomes the distributer.
#CBCRadio as is; #RadioCanada as is; CBC News as is [0]; #CBC TV as a repertory broadcaster, more like #PBS; CBC Internet as a repository of Canadian taxpayer-subsidised videos.
No more direct competition with private networks for viewers and advertising; no more US game shows; no more CBC Sports; no quest to create a new hit show that also vaunts the Canadian identity.
[0] Maybe a few minutes on the hour every hour on CBC TV, similar to CBC Radio?
"During the 2015 election, the Liberals promised to end a Canada Post program, which was then underway, converting addresses from door-to-door home delivery to community mailboxes." A bad — but politically popular — decision of the Trudeau ministry.
For more radical change, @acoyne proposed many years ago that we give #CanadaPost to the postal union and let them find solutions.
Imagine if Republicans actually got on board with this awesome idea instead of painting it as the destruction of America like they undoubtedly will. Conservatives have lost their way and their minds, truly. https://www.threads.net/@potus/post/C607StBrwUy
@dmacphee The headline is misleading. It doesn't surprise me that the Fraser Institute, the Montreal Economic Institute or the Macdonald Laurier Institute say foolish things about #ClimateChange, but environmental issues are a very small part of what they do. It's like describing U of T as a place to play soccer.
As for @acoyne personally, he believes climate change is real and that humans are responsible. He's told the public we should have a #CarbonTax for 20 years or more.
It's always interesting when someone whose politics you think you know supports something unexpected: the NRA member who opposes capital punishment, the socialist who favours free trade, the pro-life feminist. How often are beliefs only found in a set because of a historical coalition, not any deeper principle? Do you hold any beliefs at variance with your political in-group?
@bluGill@laimis
I think some useful lessons can be drawn from the Canadian experience with immigration policy.
Immigrants can integrate well into their new home, and even high levels of immigration can enjoy wide public support, but the necessary precondition is that immigration must be in accordance with a system established by law. If the public feels immigration is mostly uncontrolled, then they turn against it.
I wish we could take the cameras out of the House of Commons. It was bad enough when politicians were playing for a clip on the evening news; now they're angling for a clip they can share on social media.
Parliament would work better if the real audience speakers were addressing were the other MPs in the House.
@jerome Sure, #PierrePoilievre shouldn't have called the PM a wacko, and he should have withdrawn the remark once the Speaker asked him to do so. It's a lowering of the discourse, unworthy of any MP, let alone the leader of the opposition.
But let's acknowledge that debate in the House of Commons has been deteriorating for sixty years at least. It's not so much a matter of individuals, there's a structural problem. I think the underlying cause is that they play to the cameras.
Mr. Clark and PM Trudeau had learned their parliamentary craft before cameras came in and the point became to gain a 30 second clip on the evening news.
I'm not saying that parliamentary debate in Canada was some Socratic ideal in the past, but it really was better.
"In February 1849, the Rebellion Losses bill formally turned up in the House of Assembly, then located in Montreal, the capital being a moving target in those days, alternating between French and English cities. The debate on compensation was, on the surface, about the money. Really, it was about anglophone prejudices and fears, about losing power, about having to live in a world that was making less sense."
I supported the #TransMountainPipelineExtension project in principle [0], but not at any cost. For this reason, it was always unwise for the government to be main funder of the project, let alone the sponsor. $34B is a huge amount of money; will the economic benefit of the project come close?
[0] The world does need to act against #ClimateChange, but fossil fuels are so widespread and fungible that unilaterally cutting supply is ineffectual -- we need to reduce demand.
I've been somewhat surprised by how slowly organisations already present on #Threads have been at sharing their posts with the #Fediverse. If you're trying to broadcast news about your sports team (for instance), why not make a simple choice that increases your broadcasting range?
So I'm delighted to see that @theagendatvo has joined the Fediverse in the last few days. Welcome, Mr. Paikin and #TheAgenda.
Personally, I think the anglophones of Québec have a weak case for partition. The Cree and Inuit (inter alia), on the other hand, have at least as much right to their traditional territories as the residents of Montréal and southern Québec do to them.
Here's my real opinion on the increase in the #CapitalGains inclusion rate in the recent federal budget: I don't think it was based on a belief it was necessary for "fairness". I don't even think it was based on a belief the gov't needs more revenue [0]. I think the #Liberals just wanted a symbol, something they can point at to claim that they are against the rich and for the middle class.
[0] The amount it will raise is not high, and PM Trudeau is unfazed by deficits.
"When the federal [gov't] announced an increase in capital gains taxes in its recent budget, the hike was defended, in part, as a way to ensure the wealthiest Canadians pay their fair share. But how exactly do we determine what a "fair share" is? Especially, as some data suggests, the wealthiest are already paying a larger share of the overall income tax burden."
If you have impostor syndrome, just remember that you've never been summoned to Parliament to be yelled at by the Speaker and MPs for a couple of hours for doing a Very Bad Job.
@evan Yelled at? The admonishment seems to have been "On behalf of the House of Commons, I admonish you." Mr. Firth should have received a real dressing-down from the Speaker.
"Up to and including Mulroney’s time, the grand commission was a distinctively, if not uniquely, Canadian way to conduct high-quality academic research, consult widely and consider policy options on vexing problems outside of the partisan political framework. In sector after sector, from the Constitution and fiscal policy to newspapers and fisheries, much of the architecture of federal policy was drafted by commissions."
"Gone is the plaster, the flooring, wiring, plumbing, elevator — in effect the surface layer of almost the whole interior. Now the empty shell is standing waiting for the order either to renovate it from the top to the bottom or to demolish and rebuild."
"There is good reason to think that Trudeau will eke out another victory when voters head to the polls in 2025. His previous two victories were earned with the same strategy: to thoroughly trash the Conservative Party as a dangerous threat to our country’s liberal values. He is likely to deploy it again against Poilievre, who seems to relish such an accusation. It may work."
"But that comes at a cost. Politics has grown rapidly partisan, polarizing, and vitriolic in recent years. Trudeau highlights this growing “toxicity in partisan politics, where opinion becomes identity in a way that we hadn’t seen in a long time,” he says. [...] I put it to the prime minister that he bears some responsibility for that trend."
"He was vowing to replace Canada’s electoral system, which tended to give parties power disproportionate to their level of support"
PR advocates believe that each party should have a number of MPs proportionate to the votes that party has received; but the relationship between power and proportion of MPs is inherently nonlinear.
"On remarquera une chose : l’ingérence étrangère passe par ce qui est le point faible de nos institutions démocratiques : les instances locales des partis politiques, au niveau de la circonscription et des investitures de candidats."
"The restrictions [Japan] imposes on some freedoms beget other freedoms we no longer have: the ability for ordinary people to go about their business peaceably and the freedom for their kids to be independent. Sometimes, striking the right balance between liberty and security can mean thinking outside the box — and even, outside our country."
GOP Rep. Mike Turner, chair of the House Intel Committee, tells CNN that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his #Republican colleagues.
"We see directly coming from #Russia ... communications that are anti-#Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor."
@GottaLaff@MikeImBack
if the #CPC comes back into power in Canada -- which the polls indicate is likely -- things will be similar to the years when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. Opinions vary about how good or bad the federal government was then, but it was not much like the Trump presidency.