Full Comment - How the CBC lost its purpose

00:00:00.000 If CBC didn't exist today, would we invent it at this point?

00:00:06.880 Hi, I'm Brian Lilly. This is the Full Comment Podcast, and CBC, or The CBC, depending on how you describe it,

00:00:12.600 is an organization we spend a lot of time talking about in this country.

00:00:16.360 No wonder we spend a lot of money on it.

00:00:18.260 Now, I am on the record, having written my own book many years ago called CBC Exposed,

00:00:22.840 and countless columns on the issue, that I'm not a fan of how the state broadcaster currently operates.

00:00:29.640 Even that term drives some people around the bend.

00:00:32.780 But David Cayley is someone who worked for CBC for a very long time, still sees a role for it,

00:00:38.540 and wants to see Canada's public broadcaster get back to its beginnings.

00:00:43.100 He is the author of a book, The CBC, How Canada's Public Broadcaster Lost Its Voice, and How It Can Get It Back.

00:00:49.900 It's published by Sutherland House Books, and you can find it anywhere that you buy books.

00:00:54.780 But he's with me now to talk about CBC.

00:00:57.560 David, thanks for the time.

00:00:59.640 You're welcome.

00:01:00.600 Glad to be here.

00:01:02.620 You spent more than 30 years, you said, working just on CBC, mostly with the show Ideas,

00:01:11.180 but you freelanced for it even before that.

00:01:15.000 So more than 50 years of association with CBC.

00:01:18.040 What would you say is the biggest change between when you first worked with the organization and what you see happening now?

00:01:27.980 Well, that's quite a question.

00:01:29.900 I, in my book, have divided the history of the CBC into three eras, the third one about to begin in my fantasy,

00:01:42.600 but two actually existing eras, one of which began shortly before I did in the 1960s, in which I describe as populist.

00:01:51.920 And so I think I was coming in at a moment of high excitement.

00:01:58.760 The radio, where I worked, was just recovering its, or finding a new métier after its eclipse by television in the 50s.

00:02:09.080 So there was great excitement.

00:02:11.080 My argument is that that era is coming to an end, perforce, because of the segmentation, the fragmentation, and the divisions within the audience.

00:02:26.420 The CBC's move in the 60s was towards the audience.

00:02:33.440 It was going to be for the audience.

00:02:36.720 That's why I call it populist.

00:02:40.020 And that audience is no longer singular.

00:02:44.340 It never really was, but it was much more singular, I think, than it is now.

00:02:49.700 And that's what, to me, is the sign that a new era and a new way of going on needs to begin.

00:03:00.800 You mentioned populist, and there were large audiences.

00:03:06.740 There still are, in some cases, in some cities.

00:03:09.900 CBC radio does very well.

00:03:11.560 Television, well, nobody's doing great in television these days.

00:03:15.360 The audience is splintering all over the place.

00:03:17.900 But you said that CBC looked to go towards the audience.

00:03:23.280 And a criticism that I have of CBC and that many others share is that it's telling you now.

00:03:32.400 It's not representing the country.

00:03:34.980 It's telling you.

00:03:36.140 It's lecturing you on how things should be, at least in political coverage and some aspects.

00:03:42.060 Would you say that that's a valid criticism?

00:03:44.720 Well, obviously, generalization is hazardous among so many disparate programs.

00:03:55.780 In a punchy book, it's hard to be as nuanced as one would like to be.

00:04:01.500 So I don't think all CBC programs are the same.

00:04:06.200 And my experience is more in radio than in television, although I've tried to say something about television.

00:04:13.740 So does the CBC lecture?

00:04:17.420 I think the CBC has fallen into a kind of community with a certain audience.

00:04:23.920 It speaks in the voice of that audience.

00:04:29.180 I don't know if it's always lecturing.

00:04:31.620 Oftentimes, it's just sharing assumptions with that audience.

00:04:38.460 So there may be a lecturing or a homiletic component.

00:04:44.340 I don't find that to be that prominent.

00:04:47.460 I think it's more a set of shared assumptions that I would say are problematic given the divisions in the country.

00:04:56.100 Well, that reminds me of something that the late, great Doug Fisher said.

00:05:03.920 And he was elected as a CCF MP from the Thunder Bay area back in the 1960s.

00:05:14.480 And he did an interview with CBC television and his complaint to them then.

00:05:20.080 In fact, let me play this clip.

00:05:21.560 When you say metropolitanism, could you define it for me a little more?

00:05:26.120 People in Toronto, and particularly the community, it seems to me, that's involved in communications,

00:05:32.420 tends to forget about the millions of people who are back behind the little center that they know.

00:05:38.940 And the influences of the big city and personnel who are involved in some of this tend to forget.

00:05:46.160 It's just the way we politicians do.

00:05:47.620 We get down in Ottawa, in the House of Commons, and after a few months,

00:05:51.960 we forget about the constituency and the country out there,

00:05:54.420 and we get all involved in our own little procedural games and party knifing and so on.

00:05:59.060 Well, I think this tends to be a great preoccupation.

00:06:01.740 And somehow, this metropolitanism and the big structure needs to be broken down

00:06:05.980 so that more creative people and more intention of the programming people

00:06:11.860 gets out to touch these people out in the country.

00:06:14.540 I mean, it's similar to what you were saying, David, what Doug Fisher said,

00:06:18.320 is that it speaks the same language as an audience speaks with them.

00:06:26.440 Do you think that that is the role of the public broadcaster, or should it be wider?

00:06:34.300 I know that when Richard Sturzberg took over CBC English Services,

00:06:39.540 he wanted it to go wider.

00:06:42.780 He wanted it to reflect the country, and he wasn't sure that it was at the time.

00:06:49.160 Well, he wanted it to be more popular, right?

00:06:53.280 That was a hit.

00:06:54.520 Which didn't sit well with some people inside the organization.

00:06:58.420 I didn't.

00:06:58.780 Well, I think there's some confusion about that.

00:07:05.460 I think Sturzberg was largely successful and was found to be an abrasive person in certain ways

00:07:13.520 and didn't last.

00:07:16.420 But when he was dismissed, the policy that he started continued.

00:07:22.820 I regarded that policy as a continuation of populism.

00:07:28.280 His manifesto to us when he took over and gathered us all together was,

00:07:33.320 these programs that are getting 250,000 viewers need to get a million viewers.

00:07:40.280 We wanted viewers.

00:07:43.880 And he regarded CBC Radio, as he says in his book, as a kind of model.

00:07:48.500 He thought that television had remained elitist in some way, whereas radio had not.

00:07:56.280 He says this quite explicitly in his memoir, The Tower of Babel, that he wrote after he was dismissed.

00:08:03.700 So, I'm not sure Sturzberg has the answer I'm looking for, about the manner that is appropriate for a public broadcaster

00:08:20.080 that wants to speak or be available to its entire country.

00:08:25.840 So, you've said that CBC has lost its voice in some ways.

00:08:36.360 How?

00:08:37.140 Describe how you feel that they've lost their voice.

00:08:40.620 Is it not following that populist ethos that you said was so active, especially in radio in the early days,

00:08:48.620 of your career with them?

00:08:50.500 Or is it something else?

00:08:51.660 Is what, you know, I know you write about it extensively, but, you know, explain to the audience

00:08:56.040 how they lost their voice, and then we'll talk about how they can get it back.

00:09:00.700 Well, when the revolution, as I consider it, in the 60s occurred and led by a program called

00:09:09.840 This Hour Has Seven Days, which...

00:09:12.780 Legendary program.

00:09:13.740 Legendary program, which was canceled by the old management, but largely succeeded.

00:09:19.560 And it began with, I mean, as a revolutionary too, with a manifesto that it was going to bring

00:09:28.600 justice to the people, it was going to bring urgency, it was going to be for and with its

00:09:37.480 audience in a new way.

00:09:39.020 So the old CBC, at least in the imagination of the revolutionaries, was elitist.

00:09:46.560 It was reserved, it was formal, and it was in the estimation of Eric Koch, an old producer

00:10:01.240 who was a friend of mine who died a few years ago, it was church-like.

00:10:07.560 And Alphonse Rimet, who was the president at the time of this seven days uprising, also

00:10:14.520 characterized it that way.

00:10:15.900 So if we take that metaphor, church-like, it had internal standards, right, which it referred

00:10:25.540 to.

00:10:28.560 Alphonse was unhappy with This Hour Has Seven Days because it was betraying the CBC's political

00:10:36.720 neutrality, which he felt was a central principle that had been painfully achieved because there

00:10:45.760 were many battles with the government in the early days over, you know, the government

00:10:51.200 ministers initially saw the CBC as what people now say it is, a state broadcaster, and would

00:10:58.420 call up and say, you're not to run this, don't do that.

00:11:02.380 So the arm's length relationship was achieved with difficulty and at length, and Rimet saw it

00:11:11.900 as compromised by This Hour Has Seven Days.

00:11:14.200 So that was the first era.

00:11:16.740 The second era was this with the audience.

00:11:20.640 And I think many brilliant things were done during that era.

00:11:28.220 So if you look at This Country in the Morning, which became Morningside, I think it effectively

00:11:35.360 answers Doug Fisher's charge that this is a metropolitan organization.

00:11:40.380 I think Zosky did embody a fairly Catholic, if I can use that word, vision of Canada and

00:11:48.000 what it contained, what it included.

00:11:50.820 Well, so you mentioned Peter Zosky, who was the longtime host of Morningside, and in my view,

00:11:58.760 one of the best radio broadcasters that we had in this country.

00:12:03.160 And someone who, in my view, took a genuine interest in whatever was before him and whatever

00:12:08.960 was going on in the country could make anything interesting, listening to Peter Zosky talk about it.

00:12:14.660 But I'm not sure if we've seen that talent since he left the airwaves come back, and whether

00:12:23.580 that's because he was just such a unique talent or a different sort of thing.

00:12:28.780 But I don't get the same sense, and I'm a former listener, I guess you'd say, because CBC radio

00:12:36.180 is rarely on for me now, and television's fragmenting.

00:12:41.820 But do we have that sense, that view still happening at CBC?

00:12:47.820 Because I would say part of the reason I'm no longer a listener is that I didn't find that

00:12:53.580 it was there.

00:12:54.060 Well, I think what I was going to go on to say about Zosky was that that, I just want

00:13:02.780 to say that that vision, that accomplishment was there, but I think it ended with a change

00:13:10.720 in the times, not just a change in the disposition of the CBC or whether there was no more Peter

00:13:18.080 Zosky's.

00:13:18.800 It was that opinion polarized in the country, and not just in our country, and radically

00:13:28.640 so after 2016.

00:13:31.080 And the CBC, in effect, took a side, and it took the side of what it considered to be its

00:13:42.060 audience.

00:13:43.660 Now, if you go back to the 60s, a very explicit statement by the manager who authorized this

00:13:52.480 hour has seven days was that CBC spoke only to its audience, which he called it Don Mills

00:13:59.980 talking to Don Mills, and that it needed to break out of that middle-brow ghetto.

00:14:05.640 That was, well, things often end paradoxically in history, and I think the CBC has ended up

00:14:15.740 back in the ghetto that it tried to break out of, where it's Don Mills talking to Don Mills.

00:14:24.920 It's not Don Mills anymore.

00:14:26.700 Maybe it's the annex talking to the annex now, or whatever.

00:14:30.100 Yeah, I was going to say.

00:14:31.420 Whatever you would say.

00:14:32.440 Whatever you would say.

00:14:33.340 Don Mills doesn't work as a symbol, but then it did.

00:14:39.660 And I'm sure many up-and-comers at the CBC in 1963 lived in Don Mills.

00:14:45.520 So, anyway, I think it's ended up back in that situation, not exactly by design, and needs

00:14:54.480 to rethink.

00:14:57.100 That's my view.

00:14:59.940 So, how would that happen in a day and age where we used to talk about the 50-channel universe

00:15:07.660 and then the 500-channel universe?

00:15:09.480 Well, it's infinite numbers of channels now.

00:15:14.000 Whether, and this is a problem for radio writ large, not just CBC radio, it's a huge problem

00:15:21.980 for television.

00:15:22.660 We've seen the television ratings discussed on Parliament.

00:15:28.080 Less than 5% of the primetime viewing audience on any given evening is tuned in to CBC.

00:15:36.280 It's probably at about 3.5%.

00:15:38.220 Now, the audience is just going to keep fragmenting.

00:15:43.720 We all have these devices that we carry around that we consume content on now.

00:15:48.740 Well, everyone's got a podcast, which is replacing radio.

00:15:53.360 Everyone's posting videos, which is replacing TV.

00:15:56.820 How do you have a national public broadcaster that unites the country when we're all off

00:16:04.040 in our own bedrooms and living rooms consuming different things?

00:16:07.980 Well, the short answer is, for me, is one step at a time.

00:16:14.400 The revolution that's raging around us is, in my opinion, unprecedented.

00:16:21.780 Anybody who knows a little bit of history knows how upsetting previous media revolutions have been.

00:16:34.040 The printing press arguably touched off 100 years of war.

00:16:37.620 One can go back further to the beginnings of alphabetic literacy and see the same upheaval.

00:16:47.460 But nothing like what we have now has been seen before.

00:16:51.640 Every single person with a smartphone is a broadcaster, is a publisher.

00:17:01.240 I don't think we can really get our minds around that.

00:17:06.020 And I think even trying to get your mind around it is probably going to lead to despair.

00:17:14.740 If you think, well, what are we going to do?

00:17:17.400 The country's divided.

00:17:21.180 People are at each other's throats.

00:17:24.480 People largely take their views from their imagined enemies.

00:17:30.680 If you think that, I think this.

00:17:34.700 It's civility, listening, questioning all seem to be at a very low ab, right?

00:17:42.920 Because as soon as you open your mouth, you're in a position.

00:17:47.880 You've taken a position.

00:17:49.560 You're being forced into a position.

00:17:51.940 I can't answer that, and I certainly can't design a new CBC.

00:17:56.700 So what I've tried to do in the second half of my book is just open some lines of thought about what it might be like.

00:18:07.340 And those would be largely that it would recognize publics as dynamic and multiple, that they are changing and that they are multiple.

00:18:26.220 So it would need to be pluralistic.

00:18:29.500 I think it needs to be more formal in a sense that I hope doesn't mean stuffy or withdrawn, but simply standing back so that it is not identified with this or that fraction or fragment.

00:18:47.000 I think it needs to be more questioning because I think there are real questions and that the question does open a real question opens a path.

00:18:58.860 That's a belief of mine.

00:19:00.700 I think it needs to be more thoughtful, which goes with withdrawing so that you don't take the question as settled.

00:19:10.840 Sure. Let's take a break there.

00:19:13.160 And when we come back, you do spend a chapter in the book talking about and taking CBC to task for how they handled one of the biggest events in all of our lifetimes from late, that being the COVID-19 pandemic.

00:19:26.720 We'll come to that when we're back right after this.

00:19:29.700 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What?, where we unpack the biggest, weirdest, and wildest political moments in Canadian history you thought you knew and tell you what really happened.

00:19:40.840 Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes.

00:19:45.480 If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What? everywhere you get podcasts.

00:19:51.520 So, David, you talk about CBC as the place where things should have been noticed during the COVID-19 pandemic, where things should have been talked about.

00:20:02.920 And in your assessment, CBC was not treating that issue, which dominated headlines for two and a half years, the way that you've just described how they should be withdrawn, questioning, thoughtful.

00:20:21.820 They weren't any of those things in the pandemic, were they?

00:20:25.480 No, I can't say this to you.

00:20:27.960 I would say most of the media was not.

00:20:30.200 No, I mean, the CDC was not exceptional, but neither did it do any of the things you just said.

00:20:37.520 I remember as a journalist who did question our public health officials for some of the things that they did, as you note, early on, and I was there for those news conferences, we were told masks don't work.

00:20:54.240 And then it was, well, you can't leave your home without them.

00:20:57.560 As someone that would question what the public health officials were saying as a working journalist, I can tell you that it was not well received by my media colleagues to say anything that wasn't in line with the official statements of the day.

00:21:15.720 Should CBC have done more to look at the claims, the questions that others were putting out, rather than just parroting the government?

00:21:30.700 Yes, I think I would answer that with an unequivocal yes.

00:21:38.480 I think it's a shibboleth.

00:21:40.380 I think it's a dividing line.

00:21:43.040 It's a test case of exactly that.

00:21:47.380 When all about you are losing their heads and blaming it on you, as Rudyard Kipling says.

00:21:53.400 Yeah, I mean, I read by John Yanidis on a reputable source in March 2020 an essay saying that if people didn't wait and find out what this is before acting decisively, a fiasco would ensue.

00:22:22.860 John Yanidis was professor of medicine at Stanford.

00:22:29.620 He was an eminent medical statistician.

00:22:32.960 He had virtually touched off the so-called replication crisis in science with an article some years before saying that most scientific studies couldn't be replicated.

00:22:45.260 Unitas is one example of many voices that spoke in 2020.

00:22:54.900 Another was Richard Chabas, who was the former chief medical officer of health in Ontario.

00:23:01.780 He'd been 10 years in that position in the late 80s and into the 90s.

00:23:06.680 He had been absolutely prescient during the first SARS crisis.

00:23:10.100 He had been a regular on the CBC.

00:23:13.520 So he was a man, an elder, and an eminent figure in the field who should have been attended to, who went on CBC News Network on March 20th, 2020,

00:23:27.380 and gave an interview which was thoughtful, but which raised questions about the policy of lockdown specifically.

00:23:36.080 That interview was removed that same day.

00:23:41.540 Letters were sent from the head of that section of CBC News World to the relevant people saying he must never have Chabas on again.

00:23:51.680 And he's the equivalent of a climate change denier.

00:23:57.520 That was already a well-established scarecrow.

00:24:02.580 And he never was on again.

00:24:05.740 Richard Chabas, who's an acquaintance of mine, assembled this dossier, sent it to the CBC ombudsman, and never got a satisfactory answer.

00:24:18.140 So I think that's very, I harp on this case, but, and some of my friends are tired of hearing about it, but I think this is shocking.

00:24:29.840 That an elder of the community is disregarded at a moment of crisis is unwise.

00:24:37.580 I interviewed Dr. Chabas during the pandemic.

00:24:42.180 He told me he wasn't getting many calls from the media at that point.

00:24:46.140 He was effectively banned.

00:24:48.720 Dr. Neil Rao used to be the, one of the go-to medical experts at CTV.

00:24:55.820 He had the same treatment.

00:24:57.960 Yeah, he got the same treatment because he took a more nuanced position.

00:25:02.080 It seemed that if you weren't willing to scare the bejesus out of everyone on a daily basis, your views weren't welcomed.

00:25:12.740 Yes.

00:25:13.440 I mean, I think you can explain it.

00:25:16.720 It's not easy to explain, but people were under the influence of a panic.

00:25:24.040 I think they were under the influence of an archetype, if you'll pardon my Jungian language, the archetype of the apocalypse.

00:25:34.980 And I think they were additionally in the grip of this polarization that had been intensifying since 2016.

00:25:43.360 So you can explain it, but I don't think you can excuse it entirely in an organization that is established in the public interest.

00:25:57.520 It's not a private media outlet.

00:26:00.620 Its statutory obligation is to enlighten the people of Canada.

00:26:07.020 I had the broadcasting act, asked it to enlighten the people of Canada as well as entertain them.

00:26:15.820 You mentioned a couple of times you've mentioned or alluded to tribalism and, well, if someone I don't like believes that, then I must believe something else.

00:26:27.000 When Travis Danraj had his show on CBC News Network, Canada Tonight, he wanted to bring together people of various positions and just let them be authentic as they debated issues of the day.

00:26:45.060 And he called it The Intersection.

00:26:46.360 That was his portion of his show.

00:26:47.800 And, you know, I remember going on with Sheila Cobbs and Guritan Singh, the brother of Jagmeet Singh and former New Democrat MPP here in Ontario.

00:27:03.720 And the simple fact of my name being mentioned on CBC was enough for people to write in and complain.

00:27:11.080 I mean, there is a demand by some in the audience to say we don't want to hear certain voices.

00:27:22.060 As the national public broadcaster, how wide should CBC, whether it is the pandemic or politics or anything else,

00:27:32.280 how wide should CBC be looking to go in terms of who they bring on, who they profile, who the audience sees and hears from?

00:27:44.440 Well, I think it should be utterly Catholic. 0.93

00:27:49.200 So you're using that in the term universal?

00:27:51.460 I'm sorry, I'm leaning heavily on that word today.

00:27:55.120 I don't mean Roman Catholic.

00:27:56.340 A lot of people don't know that Catholic means universal though.

00:27:59.160 Catholic means universal.

00:28:00.760 Yeah, universal, let's say.

00:28:02.280 And, you know, accepting opinions that are, that violate the law and intend to destroy the very forum that, in which they're participating.

00:28:17.280 But I think there should be a public forum in which all opinions are welcome.

00:28:29.620 It doesn't mean the CBC has to suffer fools gladly or do extensive interviews with people who think Bill Gates has two heads or whatever the case may be.

00:28:40.400 Oh, he does.

00:28:41.620 He keeps the other one in the closet.

00:28:43.700 I'm joking.

00:28:45.100 So, anyway.

00:28:48.760 Well, that's interesting.

00:28:50.940 I'm joking.

00:28:51.700 No, I know what you mean.

00:28:53.380 It, it, um, uh, but, but yeah, Travis Danrage would, uh, would post on social media that I was coming on and his inbox would immediately be filled with protest.

00:29:04.900 Yes, you know, you can't have him on.

00:29:06.740 So, I, to me, the, the way to unlock this, uh, is it, it's a mode of thinking, I think, uh, because you, you have to see that there are questions here.

00:29:24.140 Right?

00:29:25.800 So, if, uh, if a vaccine that has been tested for a few months, uh, very scantily is proclaimed to be safe and effective, something has been said, which is beyond knowing.

00:29:43.920 All right?

00:29:45.700 There's, there has to be questions about it.

00:29:48.280 You can't introduce a brand new technology, which is not really properly vaccination at all, but a new procedure by which you manufacture the antigen within the body of the recipient.

00:30:03.440 And then what you just simply, there are questions in which you simply don't have evidence at all.

00:30:10.720 And then say that it's going to be this way.

00:30:13.460 Right?

00:30:13.740 So, there, if, if you can only see that there are questions, then, right?

00:30:22.880 When I started in journalism, we were taught to ask questions.

00:30:26.940 And then, I mean, to use the example of the, the vaccine, um, we were told, take the first one that's available to you.

00:30:37.100 They're all safe and effective.

00:30:38.140 And then, well, AstraZeneca was quickly pulled after a whole pile of people got it because they determined it was no longer safe and effective.

00:30:46.600 Um, so, I mean, yeah, we should have been questioning all along.

00:30:51.880 Some, some folks were, but most were not.

00:30:54.020 No, I mean, yeah, you, you, I think, saw it as, perhaps I did as, as a, as a, as some, a somewhat totalitarian regime was, was introduced worldwide.

00:31:10.760 And, uh, it, uh, it was surprising to me how little it alarmed people on the left, uh, that that was the case.

00:31:21.980 Uh, so, yeah, but, but the, but the fundamental thing is not who's right, uh, but that there is a question.

00:31:33.220 And the question, I mean, there are limits to knowledge and there are, uh, uh, opinions that are founded ultimately in conviction, in faith.

00:31:50.300 Um, there isn't, I think, you know, one of the most pernicious things which has the CBC in its grip is the myth of science, which, uh, would, which emerged during the pandemic, in my opinion, as it, it declared itself as a myth.

00:32:13.600 Uh, uh, i.e. there is a correct, ascertainable, and unanimous opinion that's possible to put forward on a subject about which you know next to nothing because it's just happened.

00:32:29.860 Uh, and to be able to carry conviction, uh, that you're following science, that's, that's a, a really peculiar situation, I think.

00:32:41.800 Um, there, there was.

00:32:43.380 And there was no term.

00:32:44.700 I think it needs to be questioned.

00:32:46.420 There was no term I headed more during the pandemic than trust the science.

00:32:50.960 Um, you know, I was there for the very first news conference in Ontario announcing a, uh, uh, that they had a, a virus.

00:33:01.320 And, and of course, you know, it was mentioned that, uh, you know, they first told us wear masks if you want, but they don't work.

00:33:09.280 Uh, eventually we were told we had to stand six feet apart.

00:33:12.680 At that news conference, they were all sitting shoulder to shoulder, passing a microphone back and forth.

00:33:18.660 Our feet.

00:33:19.300 Uh, and, and, and, and then it, you know, it, it became, well, we can only trust these scientists.

00:33:26.140 And if you have other views, you, you mentioned Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and the Great Barrington, uh, declaration.

00:33:31.800 These were all smart and accomplished people who were, uh, shunned and ridiculed.

00:33:37.880 I mean, just mentioning Great Barrington, uh, declaration on CBC was kind of, um, uh, you know, just, uh, an offhand code for people that shouldn't be listened to.

00:33:49.860 I know, which is very strange, really, given the eminence of the three, uh, people who made the declaration, and given the fact that what they said was essentially the conventional wisdom, uh, in public health.

00:34:07.080 Uh, up till, uh, sometime in February, 2020, when it miraculously, suddenly, and seemingly unanimously changed a very interesting thing, uh, to, to meditate on.

00:34:23.360 But that's how it appeared to me.

00:34:25.300 But yes, I, I, I was, I was struck by that.

00:34:28.900 Uh, and I, I keep harping on it because I think, I mean, and Richard Chavis has tried to convey this also, right?

00:34:37.080 That, that, that what he was saying was the established wisdom in his field that, and that had guided his whole career in effect.

00:34:51.160 Can CBC or the media in general regain trust with the public?

00:34:58.200 I mean, obviously large parts of the public, um, uh, liked what happened.

00:35:02.240 Um, they, they voted for it when they had chances to.

00:35:05.520 Um, but there is a portion of the public that feels that they were lied to, uh, dismissed, and are very distrustful of, of the media.

00:35:17.740 Can, can anyone get that trust back?

00:35:20.160 I have no idea, Brian.

00:35:22.600 I'm an old man.

00:35:24.020 I've tried to say what I think is true in this book.

00:35:26.840 I think the way the CBC ought to proceed is clear to me, whether it will be successful is, is beyond my knowledge.

00:35:37.840 Um, I, I, I don't, it's certainly, you can't redesign the CBC to suddenly be all things to all people.

00:35:46.340 No.

00:35:46.500 And to overcome this crisis of trust, uh, I think we're, we're in a, whether or not the future of humanity is at stake, which arguably it is and has been ever since Hiroshima, uh, whatever you think about the dangers of climate change.

00:36:10.500 I think we're in a, uh, uh, a period of world revolution, right?

00:36:18.340 That what we have called modernity, or a lot of people don't use that word because it's a fancy word, but the, the modern period is, is under challenge.

00:36:32.180 What we mean by science is under challenge.

00:36:37.380 Um, what is right and true is under challenge.

00:36:43.340 Uh, it, I, I don't think we can at all foresee the future.

00:36:51.660 Uh, I just think the CBC can give better counsel than it does.

00:36:59.560 And it does have a statutory mandate to be a counselor to the country.

00:37:07.340 So let, let me end on this then, David.

00:37:09.740 Um, you've got CBC radio, you've got CBC television, you've got a changing media landscape.

00:37:16.320 You've got a government that has given it more money.

00:37:19.120 Supporters of CBC would argue not still not enough that it's, uh, needs to be funded at a higher level, but.

00:37:24.700 Uh, I don't see that coming along more than 150 million that was just given in the budget.

00:37:31.780 But how do you, how do you structure or run CBC, um, that does have this statutory mandate through the Broadcasting Act that was set up before the age of the internet, before the age of the smartphone?

00:37:46.720 How do you run CBC going forward as a public broadcaster that is forward facing to the whole country in, in this changing landscape?

00:37:58.660 It's, it's a big question, I know, but what are your thoughts?

00:38:02.220 Well, I have no idea, uh, I, in detail.

00:38:05.940 Well, I, I, I, I think probably I'm counseling greater wisdom and I, I don't, uh, where's wisdom to be found?

00:38:17.300 I think it begins with the mode of thought, with how you think about the task that you have, how you think about the country that you're to serve, how you think about the audience, how you think about the question of vaccination or the question of euthanasia or the question of anything else that divides people, right?

00:38:46.600 And, and, and how you see, um, so I think fundamental questioning has to start, uh, and I think that, I mean, in a chapter called, um, living in the question, I've put forward the views of essentially a German philosopher called Hans-Georg Gadamer, who says the path of all knowledge leads

00:39:16.420 through the question, what he means is that a real question, which has to be a real question, right?

00:39:25.820 You don't know the answer to it in advance, opens a way, it opens a path.

00:39:32.520 Uh, if you knew what the path was, it wouldn't be a real question.

00:39:37.480 Uh, if you knew the way, you wouldn't need to ask a question.

00:39:41.240 Uh, I think there, it has to begin in questioning and then the path emerges.

00:39:50.540 I don't think you can do it the other way around.

00:39:54.340 There's no blueprint for a new era at the CBC.

00:39:57.680 There wasn't a blueprint for the second era.

00:40:00.180 Uh, when, when, when seven days made their revolution, they didn't have this country in the morning in mind necessarily, or a morning sign or anything that was good in, in, in the new order, the new regime.

00:40:18.520 Um, it couldn't foresee it.

00:40:20.200 It has to be created as you go.

00:40:24.340 And it, it has to be created, um, one step at a time as anything is.

00:40:31.100 And, and I think it begins in a mode of thinking and a way of thinking, pardon, mode.

00:40:38.580 Well, thank you very much for the time.

00:40:40.600 Thank you very much for the book.

00:40:41.920 Uh, anyone that's looking for Christmas gifts, I'm sure you can find the book, uh, either at a local bookshop or online.

00:40:48.320 David Cayley.

00:40:49.080 Thanks so much.

00:40:50.780 Thank you, Brian.

00:40:52.100 Full comment is a post-media podcast.

00:40:54.680 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:40:56.520 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx.

00:40:58.800 Theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:41:00.480 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:41:02.600 Remember to hit that subscribe button, leave us a like, a comment, and share this on social media.

00:41:07.780 Until next time.

00:41:08.560 Thanks for listening.

00:41:09.360 I'm Brian Lilly.

00:41:14.880 Here's that clip from Canada did what?

00:41:17.300 I promised you.

00:41:18.320 So, um, although, although abortion was sort of accessible, it really wasn't.

00:41:29.440 But then 1988 rolls around.

00:41:31.820 And what's the law on abortion then?

00:41:34.360 Suddenly, there wasn't one.

00:41:37.040 Literally no restrictions existed in 1988.

00:41:40.340 Abortion went from heavily restricted to completely unrestricted almost overnight.

00:41:46.520 There was no referendum on this.

00:41:48.240 There wasn't even an act of parliament.

00:41:50.380 This whole thing is due to a somewhat surprised decision out of the Supreme Court of Canada.

00:41:55.060 And it came about in large part because of one man, a Canadian doctor who had been relentless about running illegal abortion clinics since the 1960s and was determined to overturn the laws prohibiting the practice.

00:42:07.380 Along the way, he endured multiple arrests, constant raids, a jail term, a firebombing of his clinic, an attack by a fanatic wielding garden shears, the approbation of virtually his entire profession, and frequent death threats.

00:42:21.000 If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What? everywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - January 05, 2026

How the CBC lost its purpose

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript