This week officially marks the 75th anniversary of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a national icon that continues to prove that news and culture can be cool.
The CBC is a gem that all of us can treasure, and in very personal ways. While it offers a wide variety of programming on radio and television, designed to suit varying tastes, it stops short of trying to be all things to all people. Instead, it sticks to its mandate of presenting the best this country has to offer, along with the inevitable warts.
When CBC Victoria opened 13 years ago, it only enhanced the appeal of the national network, offering more localized content and further forging a link between Canada’s three coasts. The public broadcaster continues to rank at or near the top of listenership in the Capital Region, no doubt for its combination of local, regional and national information and entertainment. Where else can you tune in and hear everything from in-depth news interviews and musical retrospectives to comedy and even the odd serialized drama?
There are people who believe taxpayers shouldn’t be funding the public broadcaster when not everyone watches or listens. But the CBC remains one of the few institutions we can trust to remain as truly Canadian as hockey, politeness and beavers.
That national thread is something we need to cultivate and embrace.
Report cards not for administrators
News that B.C. teachers will likely not be issuing fully filled-out report cards is troubling.
Not only are letter grades a critical way for parents to confirm how their children are progressing, teacher comments often indicate such intangibles as work habits, citizenship and social interaction.
Report cards are not merely administrative, as the teachers’ union would have us believe. They give parents confirmation of information heard in conversations with both teachers and their children, and must be kept separate from work-to-rule guidelines.