The CBC: It's NOT a Canadian thing

Faced with declining audiences and decreasing support from the public who pay its bills, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (aka the Canadian Broadcorping Castration -- but that's an old blooper) has launched a series of TV sports to show how Canadian it is.

Why this should be necessary, apart from the reasons cited above, is unclear. You'd think the name would say it all, as would the fact that the CBC was created by act of Parliament in the 1930s to provide a broadcasting service that would reach and serve all of Canada. Perhaps the problem is that the CBC needs to be reminded of its mandate.

Here are three examples the CBC's new ads cite to prove "it's a Canadian thing". (That's the strap line. Geddit?)

• You can hear play-by-play of NHL games in Punjabi! The Sikh gentlemen calling the games are shown with great beads of sweat under their turbans from thinking up the Punjabi equivalents of "puck", "high-sticking" and "Leafs lose again".
• The CBC broadcasts Little Mosque on the Prairie, the very Canadian story of the funny things that happen in a Muslim community in the hinterlands of Saskatchewan. Little Mosque, they claim, is being aired (if not watched) in dozens of countries...excluding Canada.
• In June the CBC-TV will be showing, live from South Africa, the World Cup, the global championship of "the beautiful game" which has such a wide following in Yellowknife, Medicine Hat and Dildo, Newfoundland. (American readers can look that up on Google.) This presumably makes up for not broadcasting the Winter Olympics which were held in Vancouver.

The problem -- and the truth -- is that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is not a Canadian thing. It's a Toronto thing! It's run by a gang of very liberal, very PC elites whose view of Canada is about as far as they can see from the top of the CN Tower (just across the street from CBC HQ).

This subset of the chattering classes is even more out of touch with the thinking and interests of typical Canadians [is there such a thing? ed.] than their political masters in Ottawa. Outside of Surrey BC and Mississauga ON, Corner Gas (not a CBC sitcom) is infinitely more relevant...and more funny...than Little Mosque could ever be. As for Hockey Night in Canada in Punjabi, words fail me.

I'm not arguing for the sale of the CBC to private enterprise, as has been suggested more than once. Nor do I advocate cutting off its public funding. I just wish the Corp's marketing and PR people would get real, and stop trying to convince us that multiculturalism is the Canadian norm.