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Lack of confidence in the CBC/Radio-Canada President and Board

Today, after much consideration and discussion, the Canadian Media Guild took the unprecedented step of publicly declaring our lack of confidence in the CBC/Radio-Canada President and Board of Directors.

We join with our ​colleagues represented by the SCRC (the union that represents 3,000 Radio-Canada employees in Québec and New Brunswick) to ask for an end to the leadership of a ​​team that is implementing a plan to weaken the public broadcaster, and ​that ​has lost our confidence.

Over the last eight years, CBC/Radio-Canada has been systematically ​cripple​​d, with unprecedented  programming cuts across the country and questionable plans to sell off production assets and buildings​, ​which threaten​s​ the public broadcaster’s ability to produce programming in both official languages. Along with constant cuts to staff – more than 25 per cent of workers laid off in five years – this damage is the vision of this President and Board.

Six months ago, we asked Hubert Lacroix to be honest with Canadians about the crisis at CBC/Radio-Canada, and to publicly fight for the funding necessary to continue creating original Canadian programs and deliver quality news in communities across the country.

Mr. Lacroix and the CBC/Radio-Canada Board’s failure to step​-​up has broken our confidence in their ability to lead Canada’s largest journalistic organization and national public broadcaster. Instead of fighting for a strong​ ​CBC/Radio-Canada​,​ ​accessible on different platforms, they have announced that even if the funding is restored, they will continue with the plan to diminish CBC/Radio-Canada.

After much consideration and meetings with our elected union leaders across the country, we are forced to take this step, before the plans implemented by this leadership​ at CBC/Radio-Canada​ leave irreversible damage,​ and​ a public broadcaster that is a virtual “distributor of programming” and not the creator, and leader it was meant to be.

Unlike Mr. Lacroix and the Board, we cannot remain quiet about the urgent threat CBC/Radio-Canada is facing given that, to quote the President, “like the proverbial frog in cold water that is slowly heated, (…) [CBC] is being boiled to death.”

Carmel Smyth,
National President, CMG

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