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Posts Tagged ‘CBC’

Something that I’ve tended to think about the current tenure of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is that although his government has pushed through (or tried to push through) much legislation that I personally disagree with (cuts to the CBC, cuts to arts funding, “tough on crime” legislation), by and large the government has been competent (there have been exceptions to this though too.) Being one who has never had much love for the media, Harper had made no public comments on his recent prorogation of the Canadian parliament until he recently deigned to sit down with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge for an interview:

At 5:24 into the piece, Mansbridge asks the PM about his decision to prorogue the current parliamentary session; in a very casual manner, and apparently doing his best to dissuade me of my belief in his government’s competency, Harper says “coming off an extraordinary year [2009][...]we want to take some time to recalibrate the government’s agenda, both on the economy and on some other matters.” What kind of government is not capable of evaluating what you’ve done in the past, realign goals for the future and govern at the same time? Not one worthy of governing in my opinion. Unfortunately this video clip cuts off without showing Harper’s comment that since the controversy about the transfer of Afghan detainee’s isn’t on Canadian’s radar at large it’s not something that his government is going to be concerned with. To see that as well as Mansbridge’s logical followup question “Just because it’s not an issue in polls, does that not make it important?” you can view the full clip here.

Something I find rather interesting is to compare our PM’s assertion that the government needs two months to ‘recalibrate’ and that they are focused on the economy, not silly little things like the rule of law and how we adhere to international treaties, with the constant criticism that President Obama faces in the US that he is not ‘focused’ enough for his decision to deal with the terrible legacies Bush left in the GWOT, healthcare, the economy, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan and whatever other issues an effective executive needs to deal with. The blogosphere in the States makes the easy analogy that one can walk and chew gum at the same time to illustrate that good governments needs to be multifaceted, as we are a multifaceted society. It’s a shame our PM either feels that is not the case, or crassly makes that case to defend his current politicking.

• Canada's Subsidised Culture This is the third in a series of posts highlighting the merits of governement supporting artistic endeavours.  I talked about Canada's government funded public broadcaster, and more specifically CBC Radio 3 here and about Canadian...
• Supreme Court Holds Off From Setting New Precedent, For Now [/caption] Friday was an extremely busy day and things did not all go Stephen Harper's way. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, held in part an appeal brought forth by the Prime Minister in...

• Food Culture Wars: Organic & Nutrient Dense vs. Manufactured & Inexpensive I ran across a great Op-Ed article in the Washington post over the current food culture war: organically raised meats & veggies vs. industrially manufactured...
• Sam Zell Imparts His Wisdom One of the advantages of going to a top-tier MBA program is that you get to meet a lot of succesful, well-known people. Last week,...

The other day I was calling myself naive for thinking that perhaps the unsuccessful attempt to bring down a trans-Atlantic flight on Christmas day would not be overblown. Boy was I wrong. It did seem to me that the Canadian response was somewhat more measured as new security was only put into place for flights to the US. It may however be time to break out the ‘naive’ label again. Listening to the CBC News:World Report Podcast on my way into work this morning, I was disappointed to hear that Transportation Minister John Baird is set to make an announcement later on this afternoon about new security measures that will be put into place at Canadian airports. When I switched over to my radio, the top of the hour newscast featured a similar report.

One of the DJ’s made two observations that are relevant here; with all the billions of dollars spent on airport security since 9/11, this attempted attack was (at least partially) foiled by passengers. She also noted that we don’t employ such extreme security measures in other modes of mass transportation, citing the relative lack of security when taking a ferry between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. To my ear it sounded as if the announcer was speaking from a place of fear and wishing for more security. This however seems backwards to me and her observations illustrated that quite well. We don’t have extreme security measures except for air travel as human irrationalities trump clearer thinking when flight is involved. The first point leads me to the conclusion that no matter how much is spent on security it is impossible to prevent all highly motivated individuals from attempting to use airplanes as a way to sew terror. None of this is to say that we shouldn’t be vigilant in regards to air travel and not have any security, merely that a cost/benefit analysis of our security spending is needed and in my non-expert opinion we are already well past the point of diminishing returns on dollars spent.

Stay tuned to the CBC or your Canadian news outlet of choice for more information on what is actually going to change.

Update : By my reading of this news report it appears that the new security measures entail installing the ‘full body scanners’ that we have been hearing about lately at Canada’s major airports to randomly screen passengers, but only those travelling to the US. I don’t have a problem with my privacy being violated by them seeing me ‘naked’; the privacy commissioner’s office is placated on that front, so I am too. I do think that they are a waste of resources, but the US masters have mandated them from on high, so I don’t really what options we have. As we get more extreme with screening, the frequency with which we see false positives like this will go up. I don’t even want to think how much money in lost productivity this screw up over honey cost.

• Diminishing Returns On Canada's Coattails For far too long, Canada has been content to let her international image and reputation warmly bask in the residual glow of glories and [/caption] good works long gone past. However, our squeaky clean image...
• Why Foot Drag When The Sh%t Has Already Hit The Fan? [/caption] Stephen Harper really came into power about five years later than what would have been optimal for him. So many of the decisions and maneuvers he makes seem to mirror the petty and weak...

• Obama Needs to Focus on Real Enemies WedNEWSday - March 4th, 2009 Barack Obama needs to worry less about socially re-engineering the United States of America via wealth redistribution and concern himself...
• Political Party Nonsense I will admit that I am never on top of the news that goes on in this country on a daily basis. I have no...

In passing along some thoughts on the now in theatres film Pirate Radio, Matt Yglesias makes the following observation:

It also comes [...] with a strong libertarian, anti-statist message. And of course it’s quite true that a public agency getting involved in the arts is likely to tend toward propagation of the status quo rather than toward innovation. The German government does a lot of subsidizing of opera, and by most accounts [...] they do a very good job of mounting good performances of the classic works. But boosting innovation, the way an illegal offshore radio broadcaster like the one depicted in the movie could, is not the forte of a state broadcaster.

If you’ve ever spent anytime on Matt’s blog then you probably already know that he’s a self-admitted Canadaphile. Part of his love for Canada extends from our waves of beautiful, bold, lush (insert positive adjectives here ad infinitum) Indie music. At the end of the day he posts a tab dump along with a link to some music; I’ve seen more than a fair share of Canadian Indie darlings linked to from there. Heck, yesterday’s post linked to the song “Black Rice” by Calgary, Alberta’s own WOMEN along with a favourable comparison to the Beatles. Other bands getting big name blogger love in the past include The Most Serene Republic, Metric, Tegan & Sara and The Arcade Fire.

Those bands bring me to my point: all of them have been huge beneficiaries of Canada’s socialist broadcaster, the venerable Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or the Ceeb to those who love it.  Everyone of these groups has received exposure on CBC’s terrestrial broadcasts but owe a much larger debt to Radio3.  If you find yourself asking “What’s Radio3?” you should get thyself to a nunnery their homepage.  In short they are ‘a Canadian Independent Music Superstation’ that is available through their webpage and on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 86.  Aside from the hosted radio stream that is available you can listen to a genre stream such as Rock, Hip Hop or Electronica.  Additionally, you can listen to any of the 80000+ tracks in their library by over 19000 bands on demand.  Throw in some great podcasts (this one is a tribute to synthesizers, linked to  by Matt in the past as well) along with a nationwide, searchable and filterable concert calendar and you have one of the most inclusive, innovative music communities going.  All of it funded by the innovation suffocating guvmint.

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• Great UK Music Industry Links By indielab.co.uk: Part two of our updated music industry links, as before if you think that we’ve missed one then just drop us a note...
• Free Oldies Music from Online Radio I am a fan of oldies music, particularly from the 60's and some doo-wop from the 50's. I am sure there are lots of other...