CBC’s president Hubert Lacroix appeared before a Parliamentary committee yesterday, again defending the Corporation’s decision to air a one-hour special of the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame gala that focused on Oscar Peterson and Paul Anka.
The CBC faced charges of racism after performances by Claude Dubois, a fellow 2008 Hall of Fame inductee, and other francophone artists were excluded from the television broadcast in March.
“Don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees,” Lacroix said, referring to the many CBC programs that address the country’s linguistic duality and the mandate of the gala broadcast. He also pointed out that CBC Radio 2 aired the show in its entirety, and that Radio-Canada, the francophone counterpart of CBC, did not broadcast the gala.
“We recognize that we could have done a better job of reflecting the diversity of the performances in our television broadcast of the gala,” he said. “And while programming decisions are ours to make, these events have raised our level of awareness on these issues and I can tell you we will do a better job with these kinds of broadcasts in the future.”
This is the second time in as many months that the public broadcaster has appeared before the official languages committee to answer questions about the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala broadcast. Last month, committee members grilled Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of English services, over the decision to air only English-language performances. The decision outraged Francophone artists, prompting the committee to call for CBC/Radio-Canada’s appearance.
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Man, you know what English Canada can’t get enough of? Whiny, moot complaints from French Canada. There are plenty of valuable opportunities for criticism and dialogue about the twin solitudes of Canada’s origin. But practically speaking, how many Canadians of either origin care about the Songwriters Hall of Fame? This feels distinctly like une montagne made out of une taupinière. Forgive my lousy French.
On a related note, I think ‘racism’ is the wrong term for this type of discrimination. French Canadians may be a distinct society, but I don’t think they’re a different race.