Hands off the CBC!

Scan page 11

Care for a glimpse of the venomous agenda of the Conservative government for the Canadian Broadcast­ ing Corporation? Just look at a report emanating from the widely discredited Senate. The Conservative-domi­ nated Senate committee on transport and communica­ tions, in a document titled “Time for Change: The CBC/ Radio-Canada in the 21st Century,” recommends gut­ ting the public broadcaster.

It dismisses calls for giving the CBC stable, multi-year funding, stating that CBC needs are subordinate to the government’s needs. Instead, the appointed Conserva­ tive Senators insist the CBC “explore alternative fund­ ... Labour Day (continued from page 12: “Canada Labour Day 2015: Workers should not pay for recession”) the slowdown on overseas events beyond Can­ ada’s control, declining to explain just how his government allowed the country to become so exposed in the first place.

Business pundits continue to suggest that the U.S. economy will fuel a rebound—except that, so far, that hasn’t happened. Canadian manufac­ turing has been slow to recover, despite a weak­ ening loonie (now below 77 cents U.S.) making exports, at least in theory, more attractive. To top it all off, the International Monetary Fund cut America’s growth forecast for 2015, while also slashing its outlook for Canada.

In just a few short years, Canada went from being one of the developed world’s most resil­ ient economies to among the most vulnerable. And, unfortunately for heavily indebted Cana­ dians, there are plenty of storms (including the extreme weather kind, stemming from climate change) that threaten to push us under.

But those are not the only forces pressing down on workers. Our corporate rulers, and their ser­ vants in government, continue to seize on capi­ talist decline to argue that we are “living beyond our means” and to demand concessions in wag­ es, job security, and benefits.

To the extent that the bosses can force union­ ized employees to our knees, they can more eas­ ily impose wretchedness all across the board.

Thus, Labour Day 2015 can be a turning point, ... Greece (continued from page 10: “Is the Sanders campaign a ‘new movement’?”)

Without a sharp challenge to capitalist misery from the left, the violent anti-immigrant racists of Golden Dawn could make substantial gains.

The left must be in the streets to pose a revolution­ ary alternative to capitalism and smash the fascist threat.

Capitalism is a brutal system that defends its wealth at any cost. The left cannot fool capitalism with clever arguments and slogans. Only the working class has Wing models.” That could include slapping a licence fee on households, forcing the public to pay extra to get the CBC channel, and asking viewers to sponsor pro­ grammes and make voluntary donations (shades of the feeble PBS in America).

The Senators also want the CBC to stop in-house pro­ duction of non-news and non-current events program­ ming. They recommend that “a portion of the CBC’s funding be reallocated” to a superfund that private companies could draw on to produce Canadian content. Could this corporate agenda be any more obvious? Now, the CBC is no paragon of proletarian virtue. Liberal ideology defines its programming, reserving plenty of air time for more conservative propagandists (Don Cherry, Kevin O’Leary, and Rex Murphy instantly come to mind). Occasionally, someone to the left of news anchor Peter Mansbridge is shoehorned into a regular discussion panel (like UNIFOR’s spritely leftfor good or ill. Many collective agreements, in the private and public sectors, are up for negotiation.

The auto bosses are pressing for rollbacks and three-tier wage structures. Owners in the ser­ vice industries, where wages are typically low, often get away without even paying workers, many of whom are immigrants. Ottawa seeks to eviscerate, and then privatize the postal service. Queen’s Park is targetting education workers and members of the Ontario public service for major givebacks.

In Quebec it’s the same story, but with a poten­ tial difference. Unions have formed a common front. Their leaders talk about taking joint job action in the fall.

Such talk should be translated into action. Not after the Oct. 19 federal election, but now. The fight against labour concessions, the battle for good jobs, decent pensions, green energy con­ version, replacement of crumbling infrastruc­ ture, improvement of public services, justice for indigenous peoples, the conscription of “dead capital,” and the steep taxation of the rich, should fill the work places and spill out onto the streets.

With class-struggle leadership, workers could set the tone for massive change, laying the basis for a new society. Now is the time to act—to in­ stall fighting union leaders, and to mobilize the ranks against the capitalist austerity agenda. Both steps, inseparably linked, are required to go forward.

Across the Canadian state, the rallying cry for this Labour Day should be: Common Front, Gen­ eral Strike, Workers’ Government. n the power to defeat the Troika. What’s at stake in Greece is an historic battle between its working peo­ ple and a capitalist system gone mad in a worldwide war over shrinking profit margins. Only a revolution­ ary strategy based on working-class mobilization can defeat the Troika. Only an overthrow of capitalism can save Greece.

Since the “no” vote victory, Greece has seen terrible setbacks to the struggle to shake off the Euro-Bank­ sters, but the spirit of the July 5 referendum must be nourished and strengthened as Greek workers face even bigger challenges.

A united workers’ front of all labor and socialist or­ ganizations against capitalist austerity can and will Keynsian economist Jim Stanford).

But the point is this: the CBC offers some creative space, and presents a range of voices not found on Bell Media-CTV, Shaw-Global, Rogers, TVA (Quebec), etc. Moreover, the CBC is a public employer whose union­ ized workers are under attack.

This year the CBC will get about $930 million from the federal government—a third of what the BBC gets on a per capita basis—and it will raise $700 million from ads and other sources. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have cut $212 million in funding for the network in re­ cent years.

CBC, and its employees, deserve increased fund­ ing—starting with a reversal of the Harper cuts. That is clearly necessary, as is workers’ and community demo­ cratic control of the corporation, for there to be greater scope for progressive public broadcasting in the future.

— BARRY WEISLEDER.

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