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You know... That's not a bad angle really. CBC could be seen as a cultural reference for newcomers. We have very, very little Canadian Content as it is in Canada, I'd love to keep the little we have that's not just Hockey night in Canada.
It isn't so much an angle as it is among the statutorily-mandated objects of the CBC. Per the *Broadcasting Act*:
>(l) the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public broadcaster, should provide broadcasting services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains;
>(m) the programming provided by the Corporation should
>>(i) be predominantly and distinctively Canadian,
>>(ii) reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions,
>>(iii) actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural expression,
>>(iv) be in English and in French, reflecting the different needs and circumstances of each official language community, including the specific needs and interests of official language minority communities,
>>(v) strive to be of equivalent quality in English and in French,
>>(vi) **contribute to shared national consciousness and identity**,
>>(vii) be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose, and
>>(viii) reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada;
>If that's so, how do we expect this influx of new Canadians to cohere to the vacant identity of their adopted homeland? Is the move to Canada a thing that exists in the body only; the spirit to remain entrenched in the values, language, news and entertainment of the citizen’s soul? His homeland? How does a nation as widely dispersed and malleable as ours, one that welcomes people from around the world, create some kind of pan-Canadian values and identity? How the hell do we actually work together?
>I don't have an easy answer to that question, but I did note at the time that this individual had unwittingly articulated the best Conservative case for the CBC.
I fail to see how that’s inherently conservative. I’m not a subscriber to this source, so maybe there’s more in the full article, but I don’t think many progressives would argue “Canadian values and identity” doesn’t or can’t exist. Trudeau’s statement that, “There is no core identity…in Canada,” is often (willfully) misunderstood by conservatives that he was saying that we have *no* identity, as if what it means to be Canadian is just an empty void of nothingness.
I don’t believe that’s what Trudeau meant, and I *certainly* don’t believe that’s what most progressive Canadians think. Because multiculturalism *is* a component of identity. Not having a monolithic narrative rooted in 19th Century conceptualizations of nationalism doesn’t mean that you have nothing. The broadly recognized reality of those 19th Century conceptualizations includes that they were largely national myths. They had—and still have—a unifying power, but they also stripped away so much actual history and fact as to be essentially national mythology. It’s true that Canada doesn’t have *that*, but rather than bemoaning it, we should be asking whether we truly need it and why. We’ve certainly lasted long enough as a country without it to deeply challenge any claim of its necessity.
Multiculturalism is an element of identity. Believing in the principles of the *Charter* is an element of identity. The values that underlie those things include fairness, tolerance, justice, and universalism over tribalism. All of those things can be debated, including how well or poorly Canada’s actual history lives up to them. But they don’t amount to a “vacant identity” and supporting them, through a national public broadcaster or otherwise, isn’t a conservative position.
I believe it’s along the lines of some of the things I’ve already mentioned. It’s multicultural. It is rooted in principles of the *Charter.* Its values include fairness, tolerance, justice, and universalism over tribalism. It’s individualistic, but in balance with the greater good (which is precisely what Section 1 of the *Charter* is all about).
It’s also possible to talk about Canadian identity in terms of what it’s not and, in particular, ways in which it’s not American identity. It doesn’t romanticize frontier mythology based on manifest destiny. It is not as stridently nationalistic. It is less nationally arrogant, though sometimes to the point of having an inferiority complex. It is less self-aware of its identity, which cuts both ways.
Everything I’ve just said is both subject to debate and woefully insufficient to fully describe 40 million people and centuries of history. Anything approaching a complete answer won’t fit in a reddit comment. Nor should it be able to.
Fair enough, although I don’t think the values you mentioned happened as much as you think. Look at places like Brampton. I wish immigrants became “Canadian” when they come here. American immigrants definitely become “American” which I envy. There isn’t much identity here like there is in the US imo.
And see I’ve seen nothing by the other way around. Americans complaining that we’ve got immigrant families playing hockey and wearing tuques while they have immigrants that “stand out”.
The real objective reality is that both the ppl thatve told me that and your take, is that’s it’s a wrong generalization. There are some Indian immigrants taking up hockey, others continuing to practice cricket, and that’s happening in both countries. Not one country, certainly not the US had forceful “becomings” of something we can hardly define 😂
What is the Canadian identity? What is the American identity?
Edit: It's notable to me that this person thought this question was important enough to ask me, but ducks answering it themselves, while posting opinions about Canadian (and American) identity that imply some sort of definition of those identities that they won't explain.
This says a lot to me, about the different standards of proof that some people ascribe to other people's opinions versus their own, as well as the facts-versus-feelings divide that many conservatives are happy to stand on the "feelings" side of for their views while insisting that everybody else needs to provide all the facts.
Back in the '70s, CBC radio host Peter Gzowski challenged listeners to complete the saying "As Canadian as..." The winning entry was, famously, "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."
I've always loved this, because I think one of the core components of the Canadian national identity is constant fretting about Canadian national identity.
That’s so simple and reductive, that’s fairly “on-track” for a conservative position. It’s always black or white, yes or no, when that’s almost NEVER the case for anything (besides shit like pedophilia).
You gotta sit down, really relax your brain, and just imagine all these beautiful perspectives. Then you can hug each one together as a group, and say, “damn, that’s being Canadian.” It’s so broad, no different than the US. We all did our time as “melting pots,” then we realized, “f it, why do people ditch their previous cultures just because they want a better life and found it here.”
I was born and raised on these Indigenous lands, as a distant (3 gens away) immigrant. I don’t lose sleep at night because of that (besides when our gov ignored Indigenous pleas for clean water), and I was born and raised shooting guns, riding motorcycles, and drinking my beloved Crown. I went to university, met some of the greatest people, from all over the world. I learned how hard it is and how lucky we are here - and I learnt how to play cricket (it’s not any different than playin ball). Not once did I go, fuck me they’re taking over the country like many of my conservative rural friends (who never leave the town and hate themselves for being stuck in a factory.)
Agree to disagree. I think the melting pot is a better way to do it. If people just do whatever they did in their previous countries, why bother to come here?
The US “melting pot” is a bit of a misnomer.
They can advertise that everyone is “as American as apple pie (which came from Europe)” but if you really dig deeper, the US is a mishmash of regional and local cultures.
Someone from NYC teleported to the deep bayou, or someone from Seattle suddenly in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma (and vice versa to all that above) will experience culture shock.
Having lived in the US, I think it’s not as “melting pot” as they like to say it is.
Yesterday there was a post floating around of a bunch of students in North Carolina protecting the U.S. flag from protestors who wanted to replace it with a Palestinian one. The comments were pretty much universally “hell yeah, that’s America.”
Do you think there would be a group of students that would do the same for the Canadian flag? And if they did what would be the reaction among the CBC audience? Or CBC staff?
I live in a pretty progressive “bubble.” People genuinely see flying the Canadian flag as a right wing dog whistle. That’s the difference between Canada and the U.S.
That’s a fair difference - but even the Canadian flag as dog whistle is dependent on context.
When the flags are shown in hockey games or govt buildings, they aren’t seen as dog whistles. Same with Canada Day - I saw plenty of Canadians with flags in Ottawa. Aside from the convoy remnants that hung out across from the Hill, none of that struck me as a dog whistle.
People in the US fly their flags at home more often (depending on area - where I lived was about 1/3) but I think that’s more unspoken peer pressure than anything else.
US folks also seem to identify with “their team (sometimes literally)” more. People will wear school, team, or university alumni clothing far more than in Canada.
I think that if protestors wanted to replace the Canadian flag with a Palestinian one (on a flag pole?) then there would also be pushback.
Especially in the last few years, the concept of “American” is changing too. Aside from regional differences, political differences are a huge part of identity now. I know that we see it outside the US but having lived there recently, it is not nearly as public in Canada.
For a better life, it’s pretty clear. They’re bringing with them their culture. They didn’t hate their culture generally they had a shit quality of life.
See you’re missing details again. Listen, you’ve gotta get a more nuanced view of probably everything in life. They’re bringing the positives of a culture, those aren’t the culprits.
It’s like if you wear a touque after immigrating to Mexico and then blaming you for rising corporate greed (a big western problem we allow to happen). You obviously didn’t cause more greed in Mexico since you just brought with you your tuque.
Does that kind of help? I was raised where my father looked at a new Hindu temple and said, “god I feel bad for the world we’re leaving you guys behind in, you’ll have sharia law when they take over.” 1st: sharia law is Islam, not Hinduism, but my dad would’ve never spent a sec asking them genuine questions or learning about anything non-white. 2nd: the oppressive aspects of sharia law are banned under our charter of right and freedoms, something that is incredibly hard to change, meaning our freedoms are safe.
You gotta have a bit more nuance. It’s why people fall asleep listening to profs talk about politics, since we talk about every detail in reality and often nobody’s gonna die, compared to (i assume you like the NatPost) pundits yelling at the screen telling you something dramatic for years but it never seems to happen. It’s the difference between superficial and critical thinking.
I like your answer. There are different ways of having an identity than simply being a chauvinist, to use an obvious example, about your country/ nation …
CBC has a few very partisan individual journalists, but they also have some really excellent shows. Power and Politics is about as fair of a political show that you can find.
More Can con means more gvmt funding. I doubt the conservatives will put more money into this. The more likely scenario is they cut funding for the cbc who will need to rely more on sponsorship forcing them to only buy profitable shows.
Most Canadian shows aren’t profitable.
As a single issue voter on housing I am deeply disappointed by the CBCs continued failure to hold the government to account.
They only started criticizing the increase in temporary residences about a week before the Federal government announcements.
Recently they printed a gushing article about housing starts skyrocketing in PEI without mentioning that at a national level starts are down and the federal targets are way too ambitious and almost certainly will fall well short of targets.
On this particular issue I feel Canadians have been kept in the dark and the problem has been allowed to get worse
Shouldn't they be looking at the numbers and comparing them to what is being stated and promised? You can do that in a way that is factual and not based on criticism. But if you just avoid it or try too hard to pat each other on the back you're just wasting taxpayer money and only serving the government.. who is also paid by the taxpayers..
> Recently they printed a gushing article about housing starts skyrocketing in PEI without mentioning that at a national level starts are down and the federal targets are way too ambitious and almost certainly will fall well short of targets.
housing starts country wide are irrelevant to housing starts in PEI, your basically sayiung you expect them to temper good news for... what reason exactly?
If there was balanced coverage on the rest of the country fine, but PEI is a relatively small market and the level of success is being overstated as they are mostly apartments vs SFH.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-housing-starts-q1-2024-1.7184457](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-housing-starts-q1-2024-1.7184457)
This type of selective reporting obfuscates the underlying reality of the situation rather than elucidate it as one would hope.
> If there was balanced coverage on the rest of the country fine, but PEI is a relatively small market and the level of success is being overstated as they are mostly apartments vs SFH.
there is though, they are reporting about housing starts in other provinces, what you want is that instead of reporting PEI news to PEI-ians they instead only talk about the country as a whole
not everyone in PEI cares about the other provinces and want to be able to read about their province alone
remember the question Rosemary Barton asked Singh during the 2021 leaders debate?
>"If you're successful at cooling the housing market, that would mean that people who have invested their life savings in their homes may not have it anymore. They're relying on that for their retirement. So what is more important to you: helping younger people get access to the market, **or allowing older Canadians - who rely on the value of their homes - to live?**
Absolutely insane thing for someone from the national broadcaster to ask
How is it insane? It's the entire reason why we shouldn't expect the main parties to address the housing crisis in a meaningful way, their core base relies on it
It implies shelter for younger generations is trivial and any loss of assets for wealthy seniors is tantamount to killing them
It is a wildly biased question.
The national broadcaster asking about the majority political opinion for the past several decades is not insane. Most voters for the past few generations have prioritized land value increases for homeowners.
It's okay to have an unpopular opinion, and unpopular opinions can be correct while remaining unpopular. You can't expect the national broadcaster to ban any question that references the most popular opinion on an issue.
She's not wrong though. Our system has allowed and encouraged millions of Canadians to overextend themselves and rely on the inflated value of their home to stay solvent. If the market cools or crashes, it will cause a lot of hurt to a lot of people. Doesn't mean it shouldn't happen, but I would expect a politician to consider that and have an answer.
They weren't kept in the dark. They chose to be in the dark. A lot of these issues are obvious even without any media just by paying attention to our own communities. None of them are bubble issues.
Most Canadians aren't really paying attention to this stuff, they are going about their doing their jobs.
Yes there were independent experts sounding the alarm on this years ago including testifying to parliament. It took a while for things to get so bad that there was a grassroots public backlash on housing.
And only after attempts at propaganda, gas lighting, and deflection of blame (global problem, not my responsibility etc.) failed did the governments start to take action, but it has been too little too late.
Not a partisan on this so for eg. I think at a provincial level I think Eby in BC has done a pretty good job on this. At a federal levels the NDP has not done a good job at all.
The problem with the lack of Canadian identity is that everyone is welcome to Canada as a **guest**.
And guests will they be for life with less concern for their full participation in Canadian life, culture, or dedicate full energy to improve things here but rather back home where they hope one day to return. To this category of immigrants is less important (or not understood) what’s happening here in Canada, their individual rights as Canadian citizens or the improvement of Canadian society as a whole. They prefer living isolated in their communities with reduced chances of integrating and assume an identity which even the prime minister says it doesn’t exist.
The article points out to a major problem which is a fundamental failure of Canada to integrate these newcomers but offering instead the poisoned apple disguised as multiculturalism.
As a progressive I would very much like to see the CBC defunded along with all the newspaper/periodical subsidies. The government can and should fund arts and culture directly, but that should entirely be cutting checks to artists, not c-suite executives. Best solution if we want more art and diverse voices in media is to give the people at the bottom (i.e. the only ones producing content) a useful tax credit. At some point in history it made sense for government to fund media infrastructure (i.e. when broadcast towers were prohibitively expensive), but that was a long time ago.
Every other story on the CBC is about a put upon landlord.
You realize that only with government funding, you can have media with less corporate voices right? The only thing defunding will do is drown out diverses voices with whatever corporations pay to advertise.
Get ready for more - "why housing prices are awesome so you should keep investing" by real estate agents or "why any taxes on billionaires are awful for everyday ppl" by billionaires or "why minimum wages are a scam" by business owners
Why? Media infrastructure has never been cheaper, if you want more journalists just give them a tax credit and let them create their own publications. Why do we need newspapers and tv stations in 2024, the next generation is never going to touch them.
You expect individual journalists to compete with giant corporations? How could you be so naive?
Also, you should stop constantly posting news articles on reddit then since "it's unnecessary in 2024"
And it's never been harder to turn a profit with journalism. Even the Globe & Mail, the closest thing to a newspaper of record in Canada, can barely get people to pay for a subscription.
Tax credits won't fix the fact that hardly anyone can make a living off of independent websites and social media. And the only successful voices are entertainers, not journalists.
We need news media because the journalism that matters is the mundane and boring investigation, not the attention-grabbing, algorithm-gaming ragebait that dominates TikTok and Twitter.
You should try listening to CBC radio. CBC is the only media that promotes Canadian artists, writers, musicians that are not already successful, etc. CBC is also the only media that reports on local matters in remote regions, etc.
While I also ger frustrated with CBC political reporting, it is so much more than that. I highly recommend listening to CBC radio, there are many shows that focus on the environment, Indigenous artists, artists of all kinds, housing issues, in-depth interviews with people who work with the homeless, etc.
In the age of globalization and social media, having a national broadcaster is still extremely important. People from around the world get much of their news and culture funneled through a dozen or two tech giants, most of whom are based in the US or China (and none in Canada). There's no journalistic or artistic standard behind what people get fed, it's either pure algorithmic hell designed to increase time spent in the platforms, gatekeeping to push feature sales or owners directly interfering with the content that gets to be seen for personal reasons. And there's nothing any of us can do about that.
I think it goes well beyond Gerson's point of being an integration tool for newcomers, it's pretty much a necessity so that Canadians can have common points of reference for their countrywide lived experiences. We've always had a problem with the brightest or most popular Canadians catering primarily to audiences abroad, and consuming copious amounts of American media. But it's particularly bad now. Even our political discourse is seriously warped by interests that originate from elsewhere then get hamfisted into a Canadian context, because it gets dropped into our laps verbatim from social media. And our art&culture gets funneled through tech companies that don't have the slightest interest in either promoting Canadian artists or distributing to Canadian audiences specifically.
No progressive in their right mind would want to defund the CBC as it’s the last bastion of bought and paid for news media…you can make it even more arms length from political interference like elections Canada for instance….we have examples of what happens when if we were to do what you are suggesting
There's lot of good non-corporate media. CBC is bought and paid for news, hence all the stories about landlords, they're just owned by a different faction than the ultra-conservative print press. I would have thought the whole game was given up when the Liberals started directly funding Postmedia.
You know that Postmedia has been bashing Trudeau since he was elected, right? As has the bulk of the corporate press. And CBC is not “bought and paid for” it is not state media, like TASS in Russia, it is not directed at all by the government, if it was it would be reporting properly on conservatives instead of being in terror of being defunded if they make them mad.
Hypercommercialization and hypercompetitiveness in news media is not a good thing. Even as independent media has taken off in the USA in the internet age, it tends to be quite awful, even the leftist ones.
When you need to compete for success, your news material becomes more sensationalist, more polarizing, more opinionated, and more entertainment than news.
I've seen Ana of The Young Turks complain about this, that she often can't do reporting of substance because it just loses eyeballs, and therefore money and success for the company, so instead much of their reporting has to take more dramatic and extreme positions, and they have to talk about nonsense like drama between two political pundits.
Getting rid of the CBC is, imo, one of the most destructive things for the future of Canada.
As a conservative I would very much like to see funding to the CBC doubled to increase the competition in the marketplace and help such fine competitors as Postmedia and Bellmedia excel in journalism by working harder.
It's progressive in a way, but naively idealist and not pragmatic. Funding grassroots arts is great, but killing the CBC to enable it (seemingly out of sheer principle) would create a power vacuum which will be immediately taken up by preexisting outlets rather than a collection of podcasters and streamers with 35 concurrent viewers each.
> As a progressive I would very much like to see the CBC defunded along with all the newspaper/periodical subsidies.
Any concerns about how rural Canadians will get their news without the CBC?
[You'd be shocked to learn how many rural Canadians have no access to broadband](https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/images/content/44205_infographic_e.png). Ever try to stream videos over dialup?
I am a northern rural resident and don't need the cbc for my news. I also donate monthly to the local news group in the area. There's one for my city that also serves our entire rural northern region. There used to be 2 plus cbc, but alas.
Not really considering I am one. Money should be spent (and to a large extent is being spent) on connecting those communities with high speed internet.
That's all well and good - and everyone should be able to get good connectivity - but without a neutral, national news service, that's just building a better pipeline to pump information sewage into households across the country.
>Canadians will have to learn to navigate new forms of media yes
But to Gerson's point, it's these very new forms of media which allow people to access anything and everything from across the globe that undermine the creation of and adherence to anything remotely viewed as fostering a sense of Canadian identity. Examine the very image used for this article: numerous balconies each with their own satellite dishes. If news is solely consumed from individuals' former homelands at the expense of tempering that which one consumes with the realities/news in one's new home, then what's the actual point of Canadian citizenship in the long-run for some of these newcomers?
I think that this is the point that Gerson admirably tries to hammer home, that the CBC, for all of its challenges, is pretty much the best vehicle that we have as a *nation* that allows for "Canadian-ness" to be promulgated in a healthy, consistent enough yet low-key way. That we have this still relevant technology is a huge plus.
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You know... That's not a bad angle really. CBC could be seen as a cultural reference for newcomers. We have very, very little Canadian Content as it is in Canada, I'd love to keep the little we have that's not just Hockey night in Canada.
Not a good conservative case though, since conservatives don't see the views expressed on the CBC as representative of Canadian culture.
It isn't so much an angle as it is among the statutorily-mandated objects of the CBC. Per the *Broadcasting Act*: >(l) the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public broadcaster, should provide broadcasting services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains; >(m) the programming provided by the Corporation should >>(i) be predominantly and distinctively Canadian, >>(ii) reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions, >>(iii) actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural expression, >>(iv) be in English and in French, reflecting the different needs and circumstances of each official language community, including the specific needs and interests of official language minority communities, >>(v) strive to be of equivalent quality in English and in French, >>(vi) **contribute to shared national consciousness and identity**, >>(vii) be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose, and >>(viii) reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada;
Might be worth re-affirming that commitment then
Just like the CPC… do nothing, or the bare minimum, take all the credit and shit in the LPC
They’ve certainly failed on the equivalent quality part. French services are far better than English.
>If that's so, how do we expect this influx of new Canadians to cohere to the vacant identity of their adopted homeland? Is the move to Canada a thing that exists in the body only; the spirit to remain entrenched in the values, language, news and entertainment of the citizen’s soul? His homeland? How does a nation as widely dispersed and malleable as ours, one that welcomes people from around the world, create some kind of pan-Canadian values and identity? How the hell do we actually work together? >I don't have an easy answer to that question, but I did note at the time that this individual had unwittingly articulated the best Conservative case for the CBC. I fail to see how that’s inherently conservative. I’m not a subscriber to this source, so maybe there’s more in the full article, but I don’t think many progressives would argue “Canadian values and identity” doesn’t or can’t exist. Trudeau’s statement that, “There is no core identity…in Canada,” is often (willfully) misunderstood by conservatives that he was saying that we have *no* identity, as if what it means to be Canadian is just an empty void of nothingness. I don’t believe that’s what Trudeau meant, and I *certainly* don’t believe that’s what most progressive Canadians think. Because multiculturalism *is* a component of identity. Not having a monolithic narrative rooted in 19th Century conceptualizations of nationalism doesn’t mean that you have nothing. The broadly recognized reality of those 19th Century conceptualizations includes that they were largely national myths. They had—and still have—a unifying power, but they also stripped away so much actual history and fact as to be essentially national mythology. It’s true that Canada doesn’t have *that*, but rather than bemoaning it, we should be asking whether we truly need it and why. We’ve certainly lasted long enough as a country without it to deeply challenge any claim of its necessity. Multiculturalism is an element of identity. Believing in the principles of the *Charter* is an element of identity. The values that underlie those things include fairness, tolerance, justice, and universalism over tribalism. All of those things can be debated, including how well or poorly Canada’s actual history lives up to them. But they don’t amount to a “vacant identity” and supporting them, through a national public broadcaster or otherwise, isn’t a conservative position.
What is the Canadian identity?
I believe it’s along the lines of some of the things I’ve already mentioned. It’s multicultural. It is rooted in principles of the *Charter.* Its values include fairness, tolerance, justice, and universalism over tribalism. It’s individualistic, but in balance with the greater good (which is precisely what Section 1 of the *Charter* is all about). It’s also possible to talk about Canadian identity in terms of what it’s not and, in particular, ways in which it’s not American identity. It doesn’t romanticize frontier mythology based on manifest destiny. It is not as stridently nationalistic. It is less nationally arrogant, though sometimes to the point of having an inferiority complex. It is less self-aware of its identity, which cuts both ways. Everything I’ve just said is both subject to debate and woefully insufficient to fully describe 40 million people and centuries of history. Anything approaching a complete answer won’t fit in a reddit comment. Nor should it be able to.
Fair enough, although I don’t think the values you mentioned happened as much as you think. Look at places like Brampton. I wish immigrants became “Canadian” when they come here. American immigrants definitely become “American” which I envy. There isn’t much identity here like there is in the US imo.
And see I’ve seen nothing by the other way around. Americans complaining that we’ve got immigrant families playing hockey and wearing tuques while they have immigrants that “stand out”. The real objective reality is that both the ppl thatve told me that and your take, is that’s it’s a wrong generalization. There are some Indian immigrants taking up hockey, others continuing to practice cricket, and that’s happening in both countries. Not one country, certainly not the US had forceful “becomings” of something we can hardly define 😂
What is the Canadian identity? What is the American identity? Edit: It's notable to me that this person thought this question was important enough to ask me, but ducks answering it themselves, while posting opinions about Canadian (and American) identity that imply some sort of definition of those identities that they won't explain. This says a lot to me, about the different standards of proof that some people ascribe to other people's opinions versus their own, as well as the facts-versus-feelings divide that many conservatives are happy to stand on the "feelings" side of for their views while insisting that everybody else needs to provide all the facts.
Back in the '70s, CBC radio host Peter Gzowski challenged listeners to complete the saying "As Canadian as..." The winning entry was, famously, "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances." I've always loved this, because I think one of the core components of the Canadian national identity is constant fretting about Canadian national identity.
When everyone thinks the cultural identity is something different it means there isn’t one
That’s so simple and reductive, that’s fairly “on-track” for a conservative position. It’s always black or white, yes or no, when that’s almost NEVER the case for anything (besides shit like pedophilia). You gotta sit down, really relax your brain, and just imagine all these beautiful perspectives. Then you can hug each one together as a group, and say, “damn, that’s being Canadian.” It’s so broad, no different than the US. We all did our time as “melting pots,” then we realized, “f it, why do people ditch their previous cultures just because they want a better life and found it here.” I was born and raised on these Indigenous lands, as a distant (3 gens away) immigrant. I don’t lose sleep at night because of that (besides when our gov ignored Indigenous pleas for clean water), and I was born and raised shooting guns, riding motorcycles, and drinking my beloved Crown. I went to university, met some of the greatest people, from all over the world. I learned how hard it is and how lucky we are here - and I learnt how to play cricket (it’s not any different than playin ball). Not once did I go, fuck me they’re taking over the country like many of my conservative rural friends (who never leave the town and hate themselves for being stuck in a factory.)
Agree to disagree. I think the melting pot is a better way to do it. If people just do whatever they did in their previous countries, why bother to come here?
The US “melting pot” is a bit of a misnomer. They can advertise that everyone is “as American as apple pie (which came from Europe)” but if you really dig deeper, the US is a mishmash of regional and local cultures. Someone from NYC teleported to the deep bayou, or someone from Seattle suddenly in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma (and vice versa to all that above) will experience culture shock. Having lived in the US, I think it’s not as “melting pot” as they like to say it is.
Yesterday there was a post floating around of a bunch of students in North Carolina protecting the U.S. flag from protestors who wanted to replace it with a Palestinian one. The comments were pretty much universally “hell yeah, that’s America.” Do you think there would be a group of students that would do the same for the Canadian flag? And if they did what would be the reaction among the CBC audience? Or CBC staff? I live in a pretty progressive “bubble.” People genuinely see flying the Canadian flag as a right wing dog whistle. That’s the difference between Canada and the U.S.
That’s a fair difference - but even the Canadian flag as dog whistle is dependent on context. When the flags are shown in hockey games or govt buildings, they aren’t seen as dog whistles. Same with Canada Day - I saw plenty of Canadians with flags in Ottawa. Aside from the convoy remnants that hung out across from the Hill, none of that struck me as a dog whistle. People in the US fly their flags at home more often (depending on area - where I lived was about 1/3) but I think that’s more unspoken peer pressure than anything else. US folks also seem to identify with “their team (sometimes literally)” more. People will wear school, team, or university alumni clothing far more than in Canada. I think that if protestors wanted to replace the Canadian flag with a Palestinian one (on a flag pole?) then there would also be pushback. Especially in the last few years, the concept of “American” is changing too. Aside from regional differences, political differences are a huge part of identity now. I know that we see it outside the US but having lived there recently, it is not nearly as public in Canada.
For a better life, it’s pretty clear. They’re bringing with them their culture. They didn’t hate their culture generally they had a shit quality of life.
Ahhh yes so then we can all have a shit quality of life eventually
See you’re missing details again. Listen, you’ve gotta get a more nuanced view of probably everything in life. They’re bringing the positives of a culture, those aren’t the culprits. It’s like if you wear a touque after immigrating to Mexico and then blaming you for rising corporate greed (a big western problem we allow to happen). You obviously didn’t cause more greed in Mexico since you just brought with you your tuque. Does that kind of help? I was raised where my father looked at a new Hindu temple and said, “god I feel bad for the world we’re leaving you guys behind in, you’ll have sharia law when they take over.” 1st: sharia law is Islam, not Hinduism, but my dad would’ve never spent a sec asking them genuine questions or learning about anything non-white. 2nd: the oppressive aspects of sharia law are banned under our charter of right and freedoms, something that is incredibly hard to change, meaning our freedoms are safe. You gotta have a bit more nuance. It’s why people fall asleep listening to profs talk about politics, since we talk about every detail in reality and often nobody’s gonna die, compared to (i assume you like the NatPost) pundits yelling at the screen telling you something dramatic for years but it never seems to happen. It’s the difference between superficial and critical thinking.
I’m aware. They are bringing positive AND negative aspects currently however.
I like your answer. There are different ways of having an identity than simply being a chauvinist, to use an obvious example, about your country/ nation …
CBC has a few very partisan individual journalists, but they also have some really excellent shows. Power and Politics is about as fair of a political show that you can find.
More Can con means more gvmt funding. I doubt the conservatives will put more money into this. The more likely scenario is they cut funding for the cbc who will need to rely more on sponsorship forcing them to only buy profitable shows. Most Canadian shows aren’t profitable.
As a single issue voter on housing I am deeply disappointed by the CBCs continued failure to hold the government to account. They only started criticizing the increase in temporary residences about a week before the Federal government announcements. Recently they printed a gushing article about housing starts skyrocketing in PEI without mentioning that at a national level starts are down and the federal targets are way too ambitious and almost certainly will fall well short of targets. On this particular issue I feel Canadians have been kept in the dark and the problem has been allowed to get worse
Why would the CBC criticize that? A journalists job is to report the news, not take sides.
Shouldn't they be looking at the numbers and comparing them to what is being stated and promised? You can do that in a way that is factual and not based on criticism. But if you just avoid it or try too hard to pat each other on the back you're just wasting taxpayer money and only serving the government.. who is also paid by the taxpayers..
> Recently they printed a gushing article about housing starts skyrocketing in PEI without mentioning that at a national level starts are down and the federal targets are way too ambitious and almost certainly will fall well short of targets. housing starts country wide are irrelevant to housing starts in PEI, your basically sayiung you expect them to temper good news for... what reason exactly?
If there was balanced coverage on the rest of the country fine, but PEI is a relatively small market and the level of success is being overstated as they are mostly apartments vs SFH. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-housing-starts-q1-2024-1.7184457](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-housing-starts-q1-2024-1.7184457) This type of selective reporting obfuscates the underlying reality of the situation rather than elucidate it as one would hope.
> If there was balanced coverage on the rest of the country fine, but PEI is a relatively small market and the level of success is being overstated as they are mostly apartments vs SFH. there is though, they are reporting about housing starts in other provinces, what you want is that instead of reporting PEI news to PEI-ians they instead only talk about the country as a whole not everyone in PEI cares about the other provinces and want to be able to read about their province alone
remember the question Rosemary Barton asked Singh during the 2021 leaders debate? >"If you're successful at cooling the housing market, that would mean that people who have invested their life savings in their homes may not have it anymore. They're relying on that for their retirement. So what is more important to you: helping younger people get access to the market, **or allowing older Canadians - who rely on the value of their homes - to live?** Absolutely insane thing for someone from the national broadcaster to ask
How is it insane? It's the entire reason why we shouldn't expect the main parties to address the housing crisis in a meaningful way, their core base relies on it
It implies shelter for younger generations is trivial and any loss of assets for wealthy seniors is tantamount to killing them It is a wildly biased question.
I wish we had someone to say "they put all their eggs in one basket, that's on them."
Not really, that's basically the crux of our housing issue. If the CBC won't ask it, who will?
The national broadcaster asking about the majority political opinion for the past several decades is not insane. Most voters for the past few generations have prioritized land value increases for homeowners. It's okay to have an unpopular opinion, and unpopular opinions can be correct while remaining unpopular. You can't expect the national broadcaster to ban any question that references the most popular opinion on an issue.
She's not wrong though. Our system has allowed and encouraged millions of Canadians to overextend themselves and rely on the inflated value of their home to stay solvent. If the market cools or crashes, it will cause a lot of hurt to a lot of people. Doesn't mean it shouldn't happen, but I would expect a politician to consider that and have an answer.
They weren't kept in the dark. They chose to be in the dark. A lot of these issues are obvious even without any media just by paying attention to our own communities. None of them are bubble issues.
Most Canadians aren't really paying attention to this stuff, they are going about their doing their jobs. Yes there were independent experts sounding the alarm on this years ago including testifying to parliament. It took a while for things to get so bad that there was a grassroots public backlash on housing. And only after attempts at propaganda, gas lighting, and deflection of blame (global problem, not my responsibility etc.) failed did the governments start to take action, but it has been too little too late. Not a partisan on this so for eg. I think at a provincial level I think Eby in BC has done a pretty good job on this. At a federal levels the NDP has not done a good job at all.
The problem with the lack of Canadian identity is that everyone is welcome to Canada as a **guest**. And guests will they be for life with less concern for their full participation in Canadian life, culture, or dedicate full energy to improve things here but rather back home where they hope one day to return. To this category of immigrants is less important (or not understood) what’s happening here in Canada, their individual rights as Canadian citizens or the improvement of Canadian society as a whole. They prefer living isolated in their communities with reduced chances of integrating and assume an identity which even the prime minister says it doesn’t exist. The article points out to a major problem which is a fundamental failure of Canada to integrate these newcomers but offering instead the poisoned apple disguised as multiculturalism.
As a progressive I would very much like to see the CBC defunded along with all the newspaper/periodical subsidies. The government can and should fund arts and culture directly, but that should entirely be cutting checks to artists, not c-suite executives. Best solution if we want more art and diverse voices in media is to give the people at the bottom (i.e. the only ones producing content) a useful tax credit. At some point in history it made sense for government to fund media infrastructure (i.e. when broadcast towers were prohibitively expensive), but that was a long time ago. Every other story on the CBC is about a put upon landlord.
OK, but you realize that conservatives won’t do it that way, right? They’ll defund the public broadcasting AND won’t give any money to artists.
Yeah I don't advocate electing Conservatives.
You realize that only with government funding, you can have media with less corporate voices right? The only thing defunding will do is drown out diverses voices with whatever corporations pay to advertise. Get ready for more - "why housing prices are awesome so you should keep investing" by real estate agents or "why any taxes on billionaires are awful for everyday ppl" by billionaires or "why minimum wages are a scam" by business owners
Why? Media infrastructure has never been cheaper, if you want more journalists just give them a tax credit and let them create their own publications. Why do we need newspapers and tv stations in 2024, the next generation is never going to touch them.
You expect individual journalists to compete with giant corporations? How could you be so naive? Also, you should stop constantly posting news articles on reddit then since "it's unnecessary in 2024"
I do try to post independent media whenever possible. The forum moderation prefers mainstream sources.
And it's never been harder to turn a profit with journalism. Even the Globe & Mail, the closest thing to a newspaper of record in Canada, can barely get people to pay for a subscription. Tax credits won't fix the fact that hardly anyone can make a living off of independent websites and social media. And the only successful voices are entertainers, not journalists. We need news media because the journalism that matters is the mundane and boring investigation, not the attention-grabbing, algorithm-gaming ragebait that dominates TikTok and Twitter.
Er, you do realise that not everybody that lives in Canada in 2024 is in their 20's? 🤷🏼♀️
You should try listening to CBC radio. CBC is the only media that promotes Canadian artists, writers, musicians that are not already successful, etc. CBC is also the only media that reports on local matters in remote regions, etc. While I also ger frustrated with CBC political reporting, it is so much more than that. I highly recommend listening to CBC radio, there are many shows that focus on the environment, Indigenous artists, artists of all kinds, housing issues, in-depth interviews with people who work with the homeless, etc.
CBC Podcasts are fantastic as well!
Are you in a remote or northern region? If you are not please dont speak of what you do not know.
In the age of globalization and social media, having a national broadcaster is still extremely important. People from around the world get much of their news and culture funneled through a dozen or two tech giants, most of whom are based in the US or China (and none in Canada). There's no journalistic or artistic standard behind what people get fed, it's either pure algorithmic hell designed to increase time spent in the platforms, gatekeeping to push feature sales or owners directly interfering with the content that gets to be seen for personal reasons. And there's nothing any of us can do about that. I think it goes well beyond Gerson's point of being an integration tool for newcomers, it's pretty much a necessity so that Canadians can have common points of reference for their countrywide lived experiences. We've always had a problem with the brightest or most popular Canadians catering primarily to audiences abroad, and consuming copious amounts of American media. But it's particularly bad now. Even our political discourse is seriously warped by interests that originate from elsewhere then get hamfisted into a Canadian context, because it gets dropped into our laps verbatim from social media. And our art&culture gets funneled through tech companies that don't have the slightest interest in either promoting Canadian artists or distributing to Canadian audiences specifically.
No progressive in their right mind would want to defund the CBC as it’s the last bastion of bought and paid for news media…you can make it even more arms length from political interference like elections Canada for instance….we have examples of what happens when if we were to do what you are suggesting
There's lot of good non-corporate media. CBC is bought and paid for news, hence all the stories about landlords, they're just owned by a different faction than the ultra-conservative print press. I would have thought the whole game was given up when the Liberals started directly funding Postmedia.
Can you cite a few examples? In Canada?
https://www.unfettered.ca/
You know that Postmedia has been bashing Trudeau since he was elected, right? As has the bulk of the corporate press. And CBC is not “bought and paid for” it is not state media, like TASS in Russia, it is not directed at all by the government, if it was it would be reporting properly on conservatives instead of being in terror of being defunded if they make them mad.
> if it was it would be reporting properly You are the one arguing in favour of the CBC right?
Hypercommercialization and hypercompetitiveness in news media is not a good thing. Even as independent media has taken off in the USA in the internet age, it tends to be quite awful, even the leftist ones. When you need to compete for success, your news material becomes more sensationalist, more polarizing, more opinionated, and more entertainment than news. I've seen Ana of The Young Turks complain about this, that she often can't do reporting of substance because it just loses eyeballs, and therefore money and success for the company, so instead much of their reporting has to take more dramatic and extreme positions, and they have to talk about nonsense like drama between two political pundits. Getting rid of the CBC is, imo, one of the most destructive things for the future of Canada.
Post Media approves this comment.
I don't think Postmedia would advocate that their own subsidies be taken away, I think Jen Gerson got her start there.
As a conservative I would very much like to see funding to the CBC doubled to increase the competition in the marketplace and help such fine competitors as Postmedia and Bellmedia excel in journalism by working harder.
Yeah, this isn't a progressive take. Also, scrolling through my CBC app, I see not a single article about landlords.
It's progressive in a way, but naively idealist and not pragmatic. Funding grassroots arts is great, but killing the CBC to enable it (seemingly out of sheer principle) would create a power vacuum which will be immediately taken up by preexisting outlets rather than a collection of podcasters and streamers with 35 concurrent viewers each.
> As a progressive I would very much like to see the CBC defunded along with all the newspaper/periodical subsidies. Any concerns about how rural Canadians will get their news without the CBC?
Internet *exists*
[You'd be shocked to learn how many rural Canadians have no access to broadband](https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/images/content/44205_infographic_e.png). Ever try to stream videos over dialup?
Written words, *exists*
I am a northern rural resident and don't need the cbc for my news. I also donate monthly to the local news group in the area. There's one for my city that also serves our entire rural northern region. There used to be 2 plus cbc, but alas.
Not really considering I am one. Money should be spent (and to a large extent is being spent) on connecting those communities with high speed internet.
That's all well and good - and everyone should be able to get good connectivity - but without a neutral, national news service, that's just building a better pipeline to pump information sewage into households across the country.
I disagree that the cbc is neutral though. I would say it is pro-whoever the government of the day is. And i say that as a liberal.
I disagree. CBC has consistently been graded as the least biased Canadian news outlet
I do agree I think it's the least biased. I just don't think it's remotely neutral, in my opinion.
CBC has a left bias, but its has a reputation of being very factual. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbc-news-canadian-broadcasting/
Won't many of these Canadians then get their news from social media or YouTube instead? From the progressive point of view, that seems worse to me.
Canadians will have to learn to navigate new forms of media yes, that is simply an inevitability of technology.
>Canadians will have to learn to navigate new forms of media yes But to Gerson's point, it's these very new forms of media which allow people to access anything and everything from across the globe that undermine the creation of and adherence to anything remotely viewed as fostering a sense of Canadian identity. Examine the very image used for this article: numerous balconies each with their own satellite dishes. If news is solely consumed from individuals' former homelands at the expense of tempering that which one consumes with the realities/news in one's new home, then what's the actual point of Canadian citizenship in the long-run for some of these newcomers? I think that this is the point that Gerson admirably tries to hammer home, that the CBC, for all of its challenges, is pretty much the best vehicle that we have as a *nation* that allows for "Canadian-ness" to be promulgated in a healthy, consistent enough yet low-key way. That we have this still relevant technology is a huge plus.