Ezra Levant
Toronto Sun
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is a bloated waste of taxpayer money, said Ezra Levant. It may have made sense to fund a national broadcaster back in the 1930s, when the CBC was founded with a mandate to build a national radio network. You could even make a case for its continued existence 25 years ago, when it provided TV coverage of public affairs that was available nowhere else. But today, “500 channels, from the History Channel to A&E to Bravo, clean the CBC’s clock.” The CBC has actually been “reduced to airing Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.” For that, we spend more than $1 billion a year?
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Yet even as its importance has plummeted, “its self-importance has skyrocketed.” In a debate with me this week, CBC anchors claimed that the vital service they provide is to act as a filter or curator of the news, highlighting what is most important for Canadians to know—as decided by them, of course. That argument is a repellent mixture of authoritarianism and outright “snobbery.” Canada has managed to privatize its other state-owned companies with great success: the gas company Petro-Canada, the airline Air Canada, and even the national train service. “The CBC had its moment. That moment is gone. Time to sell it.”
-
One great cookbook: ‘The Woks of Life’The Week Recommends A family’s opinionated, reliable take on all kinds of Chinese cooking
-
Digital addiction: the compulsion to stay onlineIn depth What it is and how to stop it
-
Can Trump bully Netanyahu into Gaza peace?Today's Big Question The Israeli leader was ‘strong-armed’ into new peace deal
-
Malaysia: Hiding something or just incompetent?feature It is “painful to watch” how Malaysia has embarrassed itself before the world with its bungled response to the missing plane.
-
Tunisia: The only bloom of the Arab Spring
feature After years of “stormy discussions and intellectual tug-of-war,” Tunisia has emerged as a secular democracy.
-
Australia: It takes two to reconcile
feature To move beyond Australia’s colonialist past, we Aborigines must forgive.
-
Israel: Ariel Sharon’s ambiguous legacy
feature Ariel Sharon played a key role at every major crossroads Israel faced in his adult life.
-
South Africa: Trying to live up to Mandela
feature That South Africa was prepared for the death of Nelson Mandela is one of his greatest legacies.
-
China: Staking a claim to the air and the sea
feature China has declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that includes a set of islands claimed by Japan.
-
China: Is our aid to the Philippines too meager?
feature China donated $100,000 to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, but later increased the amount to $1.6 million.
-
Philippines: A calamitous response to calamity
feature “Where is the food, where is the water? Where are the military collecting the dead?”