End of public broadcasting?

Dear Friend,

The wolf has doffed his sheep’s clothing and the gauntlet has been thrown.  

Please help finance our campaign for the CBC’s very survival.

This is the question the Conservative Party asks in its latest fundraising letter, threatening to kill our CBC.

The very existence of Canada's national public broadcaster is at stake. 

Since his election in 2006, Stephen Harper has harboured a thinly concealed, extreme and hostile agenda against our CBC, raising its ugly head from time to time.  But mostly, Harper has tried to hide it from public scrutiny because he knows that affection for public broadcasting is widespread in Canada.

But apparently, desperate times call for desperate measures.  The Conservatives have lost 25% of the support they assembled to win the May 2011 election. Harper and company have languished in this deep hole for many months.

This may explain why the Conservatives would trot out their radical plan to kill the CBC – a desperate bid to secure their base. After all, for Harper it’s all about winning – not what’s good for Canada.

Now that this radical plan is visible for all to see, it’s logical to conclude the Conservatives will sell or kill the CBC if they are re-elected.

Please give generously so FRIENDS can prepare for the most ambitious electoral strategy we have ever mounted.

Our strategy is to build grassroots teams at the local level where it matters most, that is in ridings where the outcome of the 2015 election will likely be too close to call.  It is these ridings with razor-thin pluralities where the political parties will focus their attention in the race to win. If we can mount a strong show of support for public broadcasting in these ridings, we may be able to persuade the Conservatives to reconsider.

We’ve already started to prepare for 2015, but we need your help to make this strategy successful.  

So far, we have launched a new social media video to declare for all to see and hear that though Harper wants to control and silence our CBC, he cannot drown us all out.

We have also conducted the first phase of an innovative recruitment campaign to strengthen FRIENDS’ grassroots network. But we need to do much more, especially recruiting additional supporters in key ridings.

And we are testing on-the-ground campaign techniques during the current by-elections.  Just this weekend, FRIENDS volunteers hit the streets in Trinity-Spadina to gather new support for the CBC. 

But we need to do much more – and fast.  The Canada Elections Act severely restricts the amount we can spend to get our message out to the public during an election campaign – but not before the campaign formally begins.  So now is the time to act. 

Please give generously to help us ramp up our preparations, including:

• Engaging local campaign organizers
• Reaching out to voters in swing ridings through telephone town hall events and other innovative techniques
• Online and traditional advertising

The very future of Canadian public broadcasting is at stake.  This will be our most important campaign of 2014.

Please join me in making a special gift today:

Yours sincerely,

Ian Morrison
Spokesperson
FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting