Canuck

  Friday, 11 June 2004

CBC News: Arts groups call on politicians to speak up on culture < 10:00:37 PM>.

Though the Conservative party has also steered away from laying out comprehensive cultural plans, party leader Stephen Harper recently said he wants to review the CRTC, Canada's federal broadcast regulator. At a press conference, he also mused about privatizing CBC-TV's main English channel and commercializing CBC Radio Two.

As Election Day approaches, the country's arts and culture community is calling on voters to demand clarification from politicians about their plans for the arts. Ignoring a party's cultural platform could eventually damage Canada's artistic future, said rock musician Simon Wilcox.

CBC News: Conservative plans alarm domestic film, TV industry < 9:58:37 PM>.

Though the official Conservative platform recently released to the public doesn't go into detail about cultural issues, the briefing notes are more expansive, including promises to open up the country's direct-to-home satellite market to American companies and a relaxation of foreign ownership limits in Canadian media and telecommunications. [snip] The recommendations include reducing the CRTC's role to that of a registrar, removing its power to set Canadian content rules or to hold broadcasters to their licence obligations.

Canada's Conservatives Now Election Front-Runners < 9:20:10 PM>.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's opposition Conservatives became the front-runners in a major poll for the first time in more than a decade on Friday in what commentators said was a catastrophic development for Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin. [Reuters: World]

Chatting with a friend the other day I said 'It's kind of fun to see the Liberals get slapped around a bit but . . .' He cut me off and finished the sentence 'Yeah. But not too much!'