CBC Finally Calls Quebecor on Their Smears

The public broadcaster finally hits back publicly at the Canadian media's resident bully.

CBC is mad as hell and is not going to take the Sun chain's crap anymore, as it has issued a press release slamming Quebecor, the company that owns the tabloid newspapers and the Sun News Network, for its single-minded devotion to taking down the country's public broadcaster. In other words, this is the news media equivalent of that scene in Rocky III when Rocky's against the ropes getting the tar beat out of him by Clubber Lang before getting his second wind and knocking him out.

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Anyhow, this news release. Very catty, but in a delightfully informative way. The CBC brass let us know that:

"• Quebecor has received more than half a billion dollars in direct and indirect subsidies and benefits from Canadian taxpayers over the past three years, yet it is not accountable to them;

• Quebecor uses this public subsidy and its dominant position in protected industries to make record profits yet complains that its TVA television network 'competes' against Radio-Canada;

• Quebecor boss Pierre Karl Péladeau has sent over a dozen letters to the Prime Minister and others in government to complain that Radio-Canada does not spend enough money advertising in his newspapers."

In addition, the release clears up some misinformation that the Sun guys, notably Brian Lilley and Ezra Levant, have been purveying, including that CBC is indeed accountable (to Parliament, the CRTC, the Auditor General, its board of directors, and the public, by posting expenses for flights and meals and such to its website). Further, the report explains just why the broadcaster is in court regarding access-to-information requests, saying it's gone to the Information Commissioner (who oversees these kinds of things) to figure out whether it's entitled to protect journalistic sources or programming strategies. The release also gently points out that Quebecor doesn't have to do any of this. While it's refreshing to see CBC publicly fight back against the Sun smear campaign, we wonder why it's taken it so long to do so.