Moments ago, Josée Verner was sworn in as minister of Canadian heritage. She replaces Bev Oda. The Heritage ministry has strong influence over the CBC.
A member of the provincial Action démocratique du Québec and the federal Conservative Party of Canada, Verner also once worked as a political staffer in Quebec City in the Robert Bourassa government. Verner has spent almost 20 years in the communications and public service fields.
She was a candidate for the Conservatives in the 2004 federal election and finished second with 31% of the vote, the party’s best Quebec showing, in a three-way race that was won by the Bloc Québécois’s Bernard Cleary. This was contrasted with her victory in a two-way race in 2006.
Looking to boost the party’s profile in Quebec, and hoping to make Verner a viable candidate in future elections, Conservative leader Stephen Harper took the unusual step of naming Verner to the opposition shadow cabinet even though she was not a Member of Parliament. She served as critic for the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec and the Minister responsible for La Francophonie, both posts then held by fellow Quebecker Jacques Saada. She was also appointed chair of the Quebec Conservative caucus which at the time was made up of herself and Conservative senators.
She is also one of the most socially liberal members of the Conservative caucus. For example, she supports same-sex marriage.
Verner, 48, was first elected as a Member of Parliament in January 2006, from the riding of Louis-St-Laurent. Last year, she was appointed as the Minister of International Co-operation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages in Prime Minister Harper’s cabinet.
In addition to being the chair of the Québec Caucus for the Conservative Party of Canada, in June 2004, she was named the spokesperson for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Québec in Mr. Harper’s shadow cabinet. This was widened to also include the Official Languages portfolio in September 2005.
She is married with three children.
Bev Oda assumes Verner’s former portfolio of “International Cooperation.”
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Ding dong the witch is dead? Now, where are those perky little dwarves…
Well, Oda was useless, glad she’s been given the boot. If Verner is just as bad, then I may go out on a limb and say that the problem might be… Harper.
How shocking that Gord is still buying Paul Martin’s ’scary’ Harper groupthink. If only Canada could go the way of Venezuala and their soon to be President-for-life Chavez. Imagine - a permanent socialist/communist ‘leader’ to continually fund the Liberal propoganda machine.
Oh, Mike… Is having a lack of a sense of humor a prerequisite for joining the Conservative Party? (No socialist or communist ties, No sense of humor…)
What a world you must live in where the boss is never accountable for their workers actions. Or in this particular case, inaction.
Copps did more right than wrong, but when she did wrong, I was happy to slam Chretien for it.
I’m actually a FAN of Harper. I just believe in the right to slam all PM’s equally.
Sorry if you see that as being a communist.
Thanks Gord for the explanation that your post was ’supposed’ to be funny. I guess I haven’t watched enough Wayne & Schuster or those crazy Air Farce laff-a-minute CBCers. (I love the one where the laugh track goes nuts for 60 seconds while the guy in the coffee shop keeps pouring sugar into his coffee - over & over & over & over (every week too) - see The Marx Brothers circa 1925)
The smiley face must be code for ‘this is funny’ to the CBC insiders. I appreciate your explanation, and will look out for the smiling face from now on. Otherwise, how would you know something is ’supposed’ to be funny on the CBC?
Oh, BTW Gord - I don’t see you as socialist or communist. I do see much of the CBC leanings as such - all to the tune of $1 Billion of taxpayers money! That’s not funny!
^ Zing!
That’s classy, Mike. Attack shows like the Air Farce and Wayne & Shuster to make yourself appear smarter and better than everyone else, when NO ONE likes the Air Farce anyway. You’ve proved nothing.
And nice work at the sarcasm about my “cbc insider” humor. I’ll give you credit there. That really took me to task. Although you might want to check the title of this blog before you jokingly accuse someone of trying to be too “inside the cbc”.
Get it?
I made a joke, but I didn’t put a smiley face, so I’m not sure if you got that I was making a joke.
Incidentally, I hate laugh tracks as well… But I’ve noticed, in my line of work, that the people who complain the most about laugh tracks are also the same people who watch The Office and say that it isn’t funny because there are no jokes.
And if you’re going to go back to the well and argue that the left leaning, socialist CBC shouldn’t be paid for by public funds, why don’t you go to someone that can actually refund your 10 dollars a year instead of bitching and moaning on a CBC EMPLOYEE BLOG?
Hey, did you notice that the article that proceeds these comments is about Canada’s new Heritage Minister?
Why don’t you write her a letter and ask for your 10 bucks back?
If she’s actually does her job, maybe she’ll write you back. And if she doesn’t maybe you should take it up with Harper.
Is it a requirement that you must be a current employee of the CBC in order to know what’s best for the CBC, Gord?
When you declare this to be a CBC EMPLOYEE BLOG, surely you’re not implying that this blog is only for the participation of CBC workers.
It’s BY a CBC employee, of course.
So are several other blogs, such as the one by Paul Gorbould and The Tea Makers (apparently).
To see a more comprehensive list, check out Peter Janes’s PLANET CBC.
I couldn’t possibly think of getting 10 dollars from The Heritage Minister just for complaining about the CBC.
It would mean losing one’s status as an amateur.
Gord said “I made a joke, but I didn’t put a smiley face” I guess you need a laugh track, because I can’t find the joke. Must be a CBC thing where you have to point out the funny parts.
Allan, Mike. You guys just made my day. Thanks.
As far as I’m concerned, Sr. Chavez in Venezuela is making as big a mistake by driving the private networks and stations out of business as the anti-CBC crowd is trying to make by wanting CBC gone, and the end result will be the same either way: lack of diversity of voices. I don’t want either situation to happen here.
Dwight equates a soon to be dictator for life - who is in the process of shutting down (or nationalizing) all ndustry - to people who feel that CBC is far too left wing for an organization that takes $1 Billion a year off taxpayers. I think that this fuzzy logic is more proof as to the leanings of the CBC and her group-think crowd.
The CBC is simply not a place for diverse voices!
It is a safe home for voices like Dwight and Chavez. Any one who disagrees (while paying the tab) is called a nazi, neo-con, Bush-lover, etc. Dwight, please reply by labeling me with one that I missed form the CBC vault of labels.
I think I’ll borrow from Mr. Harper’s playbook at the moment, and therefore avoid playing this game instead of doing as you ask.
Hey Mike, you forgot innumerate! If the taxpayer was paying a billion a year I might have a chair that doesn’t make my butt go numb in under an hour.
But it is a nice round number. Maybe if you say it often enough reality will realign and we’ll actually get it.
Kev must be joking without a laugh track! CBC humour again I guess.
Check page 59 the CBC 2005/2006 annual report … http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/annualreports/2005-2006/pdf/AR0506_e.pdf. $946 Million isn’t as round as $1 Billion, but from the sharp end of the taxman’s stick - it’s pretty damn close. All to slap a good portion of the population in the face with your left wing bias.
Kev must be one of those “deny it often and it will go away” group thinkers. It’s not the chair that makes your butt numb Kev.
I numbly sit corrected. For some reason I thought that $1 billion was our total budget, and mixed that up with the fact that a big chunk of our revenues comes from ads.
Even so, is it worth mentioning it every time you post a comment? It doesn’t change the fact that it’s not very much money in the grand scheme of things, and is a pittance compared to the revenue sources of properly-funded public service broadcasters.
May I ask what Mike means when he talks about “left wing bias”? Because I keep seeing this written as if it means something specific and my research into the terminology produces very vague answers. Are you talking about people who think there’s no such thing as a free market? Or are you talking about people who think that it is possible to effect change with collective action? Or maybe about people who think that there is a place for government in the economy of a nation? Or what exactly? Because there is no collective CBC political point of view that I know about (in fact, those of us who are journalists are not allowed to expouse our own beliefs). I’m thinking that the “left wing bias” concept is just a label and I’m wondering if it just means “people I don’t agree with”. And I really can’t figure out how anyone would know whether s/he agrees with me or not.
Thanks for acknowledging your mistake Kev.
My problem is not so much the cost (although $1Billion a year is huge to real people), but my problem is that the CBC is filled to overflowing with left wing ideologues who rub my nose in their piss while I pick up the tab. A $Billion a year could easily be switched from the Liberal propaganda machine to health care and it would make a big difference.
I think the CBC should stick to Hockey, Fine & Performing Arts, and Local News. Stay out of places where the ideology sticks out so much - like national news and documentaries. Then, I’d gladly shut my trap about my wasted tax dollars.
In that scenario, the only entities reporting national news would be the private media conglomerates, which are well on their way to being a single conglomerate with a single message. Would you be comfortable with only one voice, rather than 2, even if it was the one that represented your views? In a democracy, isn’t it important to have a viable forum for dissenting or at least alternative viewpoints?
I dunno, I find it hard to take the idea of the CBC being a capital-L Liberal propaganda machine too seriously. I don’t think you could really say they’ve gone after the current government to any degree, any more than they did the last one. Then again, after my last mistaken assertion, I’m open to you pointing out a source that indicates that that’s the case!
If Kathleen is indeed a journalist, she must work for the CBC. Her research is clearly designed to ‘uncover’ facts that fit into her predetermined result.
For Kev and Kathleen, please refer to Ryerson’s “The Canadian News Directors Study” by Ann Rauhala and Marsha Barber … http://www.cjc-online.ca/viewarticle.php?id=993 It found, among other things that:
–> CBC news directors are three times more likely to vote NDP than are their private sector counterparts
–> during the study (early 200s I think), 14% of private news directors would consider voting for the then Alliance Party, while 0% of CBC news directors would consider voting this way
–> as a general finding, private sector news directors tended to vote in similar ways as the rest of Canadian voters, while CBC employees are far more likely than average Canadians to hold left-of-center political view points
Now Kev - I’m not a journalist, but Kathleen can confirm for us that news directors are the ones with a huge impact on what ‘news’ gets out to the public and how it is filtered/presented.
You must realize Kev, even anecdotally, that your co-workers all seem to hold that politically correct, pro-union, anti-corporate, anti-American attitude. Everybody agrees with Strambo and Gian! It isn’t like that in other news organizations or other work places where — unlike the CBC, there is a diversity of voices and ideas.
So you’re saying that if the news director is likely to vote NDP, that means s/he is left wing? And that you can tell the bias of the news director and the reporters and all the production staff by watching/listening to the programming?
I say that choosing to vote for any particular party in this country does not define a person as either left or right wing since all of us have a variety of opinions about all kinds of things ( For some reason, people categorize the Green Party as left wing, when it’s economic tendencies are not remotely left wing. Or check out Rod Dreher’s book “Crunchy Cons” for a very convincing discussion about letting affiliations to political parties determine choices against personal values). I am also challenging the assumption that anyone can detect an overall bias from CBC programming itself. If you have evidence of that, I would like to see it.
Another joke without the laugh track. FYI - the NDP is a socialist political party. So, yes - I would go out on a limb and connect the dots regarding an NDP voter with the left wing!
Mike, your interpretation of that study is a bit flawed.
First off, about your NDP point, if you look at the actual percentages, the difference is 4.5% to 13%. This is, admittedly, about 3:1, but with such a small sample size, it’s not statistically significant. Even if it was, the percentage of the general population that said they’d vote NDP was 13-16%, so CBC news directors are actually closer to the public in this respect. So another way of looking at this is that private news directors are 1/3 as likely to vote for the NDP as the public! Does this bias their coverage? Maybe you should look into that.
Also, the statement that “CBC employees are far more likely than average Canadians to hold left-of-center political view points” is a bit misleading. For a start, you’re looking at a survey of news directors. We may have a quite a few, but they don’t make up even remotely close to a significant percentage of the CBC headcount. So you can’t extrapolate to all employees from this study. Also, even if you could, the statement isn’t supported by the numbers. The only significant (and again, not statistically) difference is a complete lack of support for the Canadian Alliance, but really, how often do the chickens vote for the fox?
Anyway, even including this difference, the difference between public news directors’ voting preferences and those of the general public don’t justify “far more likely”. Liberal and NDP support is comparable, more so than for private sector directors, and support of moderate conservatives is also about on par.
But none of this really matters, because you’re using this as evidence of editorial bias, and this is flawed in two ways. First of all statistically, as the sample size is too small to be seriously compared with proper samples of the general population. It’s interesting, but it’s not evidence, not even circumstantial evidence.
Also, you’re assuming that either intentionally (which I think is your position) or unintentionally, said news directors are introducing bias as a result of their voting preferences. But since that’s your original assumption anyway and you haven’t shown any direct evidence of that bias, it’s hard to know how seriously to take it.
As for last your point about anecdotal evidence, I don’t actually see that, no, and even if I did, anecdotal evidence isn’t worth much when it comes to a serious issue like potential bias in a public service broadcaster.
Kev, your analysis of the specific statistical aspects of the Ryerson study are legitimate. I’m sure sample size is important, but a small sample size doesn’t necessarily invalidate the study.
I believe that anecdotal evidence is worth much. From a poor tax payers’ point of view, it is the product/service that I am receiving every day. To taxpayers, it’s a value for money thing.