It's time to sell the state broadcaster

It's time to sell the state broadcaster

Yesterday I debated against four CBC executives at once. It was hardly a fair fight.

Unfair for them, I mean.

Four on one would have been a good idea if the CBC's goal was to rebut everything I said four times.

But their own arguments made the case to defund the state broadcaster better than I did.

The debate was hosted by the International Institute of Communications — and the opening remarks were by none other than Hubert Lacroix, the CBC's president, fresh from his humiliating defeat at the Federal Court of Appeal. Last week that court unanimously ruled that, under Lacroix's leadership, the CBC would be forced to hand over information about how it spends our money to the federal transparency ombudsman. Yet he still had the chutzpah to ask for another another $1.1 billion bailout.

The CBC is 75 years old. It has received a government bailout every one of those years. If you add it up since 1936, including the interest on that debt, the cost of the CBC is greater than Canada's national debt, $571 billion.

When I revealed that calculation, the room of CBC supporters laughed. It was the sound of people laughing all the way to the bank.

Carol Off, one of the CBCers who was debating me, was particularly hard to argue with. Because she made all my points for me.

She is supposed to be a journalist. But she declared herself a public servant. As in, a government worker. Hey, that's my line!

She said she envied the state broadcaster in North Korea, because it never had trouble forcing political guests to appear on its shows, as Off apparently does.

I heard that authoritarian streak several times in the debate. Marie-France Bazzo, a former CBC host, said that in a democracy such as Canada, there are too many voices — and they need someone to sort through them and filter them. Not surprisingly, that someone would be her and her CBC friends. She said the CBC was a "way to structure society."

And you thought it was just an expensive channel on your TV dial.

Patrick Beauduin, the executive director of French CBC, wasn't as ideological as Bazzo or Off. He said the CBC's advantage over its private rivals is that it is smarter and more thoughtful. So, an extra helping of self-esteem and snobbery. He obviously has been hanging out with Lacroix.

It was sad, actually. Once, the CBC had a great mandate. Seventy-five years ago it was to build a national radio network. Perhaps 25 years ago it was to provide public affairs content that was available nowhere else.

But today, 500 channels from the History Channel to A&E to Bravo clean the CBC's clock. YouTube and Netflix are coming to finish it off. The CBC is reduced to airing Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. We need a government broadcaster for that?

As its national importance has fallen, its self-importance has skyrocketed.

We used to have a national gas station, called Petro-Canada. We used to have a national airline, called Air Canada. We used to have a national train, called CN. All had some political justification in the past. All are privatized now, and doing great.

The CBC had its moment. That moment is gone. Time to sell it.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY