I’ll start you here. This morning’s Q opening essay made me cry. I hadn’t connected these dots, but Jian’s got a fine, fitting summary of what’s happening at our public broadcaster and the reason why several high-profile staffers are leaving now. Their loss is deeply felt, and their reasons above reproach. No doubt they can find work somewhere else at a higher rate, but that has always been true. They are leaving to make us pay attention.
It’s something that doesn’t happen often enough in Canada, and I am sad and angry and proud to see it happen in this epoch of unrecognizably-conservative government. It’s an old saw that the political right in Canada is to the left of the political left in the USA. It’s also pretty much always been demonstrably untrue – the situation is vastly more complex than that. But it’s getting worryingly close to being untrue on its face now, because our political priorities have shifted away from a strong social infrastructure towards money making at the cost of our collective soul.
I won’t rehash the things I said previously. They still apply. But I’d encourage you to listen to Jian’s essay and to his previous thoughts on the matter. And to read about Alison Smith and particularly Linden Macintyre’s reasons for leaving.
Macintyre’s stance is an older, better vision of Canadianness – humble, dignified, and chock-full of integrity. I’ll leave you with some of his words:
Among those losing their jobs, “most of them people have never heard of, [but] everybody knows their work,” MacIntyre said.
“Maybe one of the 657 should be visible, should be somebody people recognize and maybe [the public] can think about the 657 and perhaps become aware of the fact that an awful lot of the 657 people are young, bright, talented and they represent the future of the CBC.