It established a publicly owned Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) with a mandate to provide programs and extend coverage to all settled parts of the country. Bennett responded to the appeals of the CRL by passing the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act (1932). The newly elected Conservative government of R.B. They prepared pamphlets stating the case for public ownership recruited other voluntary organizations as well as representatives from business, banking, trade unions, the farming community and educational institutions and sent a formal delegation to meet the minister of marine and fisheries, who held the responsibility for licensing radio operations at the time.Ĭanadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) But the report’s basic principles were defended by the Canadian Radio League (CRL), an informal voluntary organization set up in Ottawa by Alan Plaunt and Graham Spry in the fall of 1930. It recommended the creation of a national broadcasting company with the status and duties of a public utility and a source of public funds to develop a service capable of "fostering a national spirit and interpreting national citizenship." Specifically, it called for the elimination of the private stations, albeit with compensation.īecause of the economic crisis, consideration of the Aird Report was delayed, and this enabled some of the more powerful private stations and their principal lobbying agency, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, to launch a campaign against it. After receiving submissions from across the country and visiting other broadcasting systems, the Aird Commission submitted its report on 11 September 1929, less than two months before the stock market crashed. The moving force within the Aird Commission was Charles Bowman, editor of the Ottawa Citizen, who was convinced that public ownership of broadcasting was necessary to protect Canada against American cultural penetration. Davidson Danton (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/PA-122240). Honourable Louis St-Laurent with officials of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Montreal, 1951 - (L-R): Mr. The privately owned Canadian stations were not only beginning to fall into American hands but also seemed incapable at the time of providing an adequate Canadian alternative to the programming that was flooding across the border from the United States. Together with the example of the British Broadcasting Corporation, however, the CNR radio stations helped to make the merits of public ownership more apparent to the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting appointed by Mackenzie King on 6 December 1928, under the chairmanship of Sir John Aird. Its schedule included concerts, comic opera, school broadcasts and historical drama, though by the end of 1929 it was still providing only three hours of programming a week nationally. During the 1920s the Canadian National Railways (CNR) developed a radio network with stations in Ottawa, Montréal, Toronto, Moncton and Vancouver. ![]() ![]() The creation of the CBC/Radio-Canada as a crown corporation on 2 November 1936 followed two earlier experiments with public broadcast ownership in Canada. From its creation in the midst of the Great Depression to the present day, it has sought to provide Canadians with a broad range of high-quality indigenous information and entertainment programming, even as its critics continue to lobby the government to abolish its funding of the Crown Corporation and level the playing field for all broadcasters. While ultimately responsible to Parliament for its overall conduct, it is independent of government control in its day-to-day operations. It is funded primarily by federal statutory grants (currently nearly 60 per cent of its budget), but also derives revenues from commercial sponsorship, advertising, and the sale of programs to other countries.
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