OTTAWA – Friends of Canadian Broadcasting today presented a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed by 13 prominent Canadian journalists and educators supporting the watchdog’s call for changes to Bill C-60 so it does not undermine the editorial independence of the CBC.
The letter, signed by journalists including CBC’s Joe Schlesinger, Don Newman, and Globe and Mail columnist emeritus Hugh Winsor, was tabled this morning at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance by Ian Morrison, Friends spokesperson, during his appearance before the Committee.
“Without change, Bill C-60 will give government the power to remove the conditions which underpin the integrity of CBC’s journalists, editors, producers, writers and broadcasters and empower them to provide independent coverage of the government. The government would do this by directly manipulating their working conditions, collective agreements, pay and benefits – a degree of interference with a public broadcaster that is unheard of in the free world today,” Morrison said.
Morrison also tabled a legal opinion Friends commissioned from media lawyer Brian MacLeod Rogers which notes that Bill C-60 could negate all of the protections put in place in the Broadcasting Act by the Mulroney government to safeguard the CBC’s independence. The document concludes that the provision of Bill C-60 related to the CBC will provoke legal action.
“We recommend that the government steer clear of this morass by removing the CBC from Bill C-60, or failing that, making the clauses referencing CBC explicitly subject to the protection from interference afforded by sections 35(2) and 52 of the Broadcasting Act,” Morrison said.
