XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   From: "@nyet.ca   
      
   It needs to be one of the issues put to the Liberals and the NDP prior   
   to the 2015 election.  What the Cons have tried to do to our national   
   broadcaster is nothing short of censorship through crippling with   
   funding cuts.  We need to see that funding restored and increased.  CBC   
   is our only remaining link with finding out what the federal government   
   is up to.   
   _______________________________________________   
      
   THE CANADIAN PRESS — CP — May 29 2014   
      
      
   CBC letter to Harper slams Tory attacks   
      
      
   OTTAWA - The Conservative party's public attacks on the CBC have been   
   "wilfully destructive" and undermine its independence, says a newly   
   uncovered letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper from the broadcaster's   
   Tory-appointed former chair.   
      
   The sharply worded 2010 letter, released last month under the Access to   
   Information Act, alleges that unwarranted attacks that year "disparaged   
   the Crown corporation in order to solicit political donations for the   
   Conservative party."   
      
   The missive from then-CBC chair Tim Casgrain warns the party and   
   government MPs against "intruding" on the broadcaster's independence as   
   they seek "to influence the content of programming."   
      
   "While this may be fair game in partisan politics, the charges are   
   unfounded in fact and wilfully destructive of an asset of the Crown."   
      
   Casgrain's dyspeptic dispatch was triggered by controversy over remarks   
   by CBC pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research to a newspaper columnist,   
   Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail.   
      
   Graves later apologized for telling Martin he had urged the Liberal   
   party to "invoke a culture war" with the Conservatives and to not fear   
   polarizing debate over issues such as tolerance.   
      
   Conservative MPs and party officials immediately seized on the remarks,   
   demanding the CBC fire Graves as its pollster.   
      
   Casgrain, appointed by the Harper government to the CBC board of   
   directors in April 2007, said Graves' polling work for CBC had integrity   
   and reliability — and noted the government itself had hired him in the past.   
      
   "The government comes dangerously close to intruding on the independence   
   of the broadcaster when it seeks to influence the content of programming   
   or determine whose views will or will not be represented on its   
   airwaves," says the letter, a highly unusual direct communication from   
   the CBC board to a prime minister.   
      
   Casgrain's five-year CBC term ended in June 2012. An executive at a   
   Toronto flight business, his only comment this week was that "the letter   
   speaks for itself. I have nothing to add."   
      
   A spokeswoman for the CBC said the Prime Minister's Office never   
   responded to the letter, which was also copied to then-heritage   
   minister, James Moore, who also did not respond.   
      
   France Belisle said the chair and board have not sent any further   
   letters to the prime minister touching on the public broadcaster's   
   independence.   
      
   Harper's spokesman Jason MacDonald said the Prime Minister's Office has   
   "no intention of getting into a play-by-play around correspondence that   
   goes back to 2010."   
      
   "The CBC chair is entitled to his views and to expressing them. The   
   government respects the CBC's independence, and it continues to receive   
   significant taxpayer funds."   
      
   A spokesman for the Conservative party took issue with the Casgrain   
   letter, saying this week that "no media organization, not even the CBC,   
   gets to dictate how the Conservative party can and cannot fundraise."   
      
   "When the CBC invites partisan guests and treats them like neutral   
   observers, we're going to point out their bias to Canadians," Cory Hann   
   said in an email.   
      
   "When the CBC is being biased against our party in their 'news'   
   coverage, we will never hesitate to inform Canadians."   
      
   An Elections Canada database indicates a Tim Casgrain twice donated   
   $1,050 to Toronto's Eglinton-Lawrence Conservative Association in 2007   
   and 2008. The riding was then held by a Liberal but was won by   
   Conservative Joe Oliver, now finance minister, in the 2011 election.   
      
   A recent fundraising letter from the Conservative party accuses a cartel   
   of five big media groups in Canada of bias in favour of Liberal Leader   
   Justin Trudeau, and pointedly asks party supporters whether the CBC   
   should be privatized.   
      
   "The CBC receives more than $1 billion per year in taxpayer funding —   
   yet is widely perceived as holding a Liberal bias in their news and   
   analysis," says the letter from Fred DeLorey, the party's director of   
   political operations.   
      
   Ian Morrison, spokesman for the pro-CBC lobby group Friends of Canadian   
   Broadcasting, said from Toronto that the letter was "serious stuff —   
   it's troubling but not surprising."   
      
   "I'm proud of Mr. Casgrain. ... He wrote to the only guy who was capable   
   of ending the fundraising attacks."   
      
   The 2012 federal budget chopped the CBC's budget by $115 million over   
   three years, with the corporation shedding more than 600 jobs this year   
   alone. The cuts were among a spate of spending reductions across   
   government to balance the budget by 2015, and leave the CBC with just   
   over $900 million in annual operations funding.   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)