Air Quotes On "Leader"

I'm never one to back down from a lively debate, but the point of debating is to listen to the other side and try to defeat the argument that your opponent is making. Canadian politics took a shift this week when Canadian Progressive Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called for Twitter to label the CBC as "Government-funded Media" after proclaiming his party would defund the CBC if they take office. By no means do I care about political maneuvering by any party, but this demand made by Poilievre reeks of desperation by both a leader and a party grasping for positive headlines. Whatever the case may be for Poilievre's stupid demands, I'll stand by the CBC for its commitment to Canadian amateur athletics.

Some of you reading this article may agree with Poilievre's stance on the CBC. Yes, the CBC does receive government funding as part of its overall budget, but the attack on the CBC by Poilievre is based in some sort of weird act of vengeance towards their journalists and news programming for what Poilievre believes are slights and unfavorable reporting on him and his party. I don't know who handles Poilievre's marketing campaign, but the worst thing about being talked about is NOT being talked about.

This isn't Politics Blog In Canada, though, and I don't care if one party's or one leader's feelings were hurt by what the CBC reported. They're all adults - I assume they've been taught how to deal with negative press and commentary. What I do care about, however, is the lasting effect that defunding the CBC would have on something I care more about than the average Canadian sports fan: Canadian university sports broadcasts.

My appreciation for CBC on the Canadian university sports' front started back in 2018 while in London, Ontario. At the time, the U SPORTS National Championship broadcasting rights were held by Rogers Sportsnet - a company based in Toronto - and they had sent a broadcast crew to cover men's hockey in Fredericton, New Brunswick, but sent no one to cover the games in London. Coverage was three games so it wasn't the full tournament, but at least they had someone watching those games.

I wrote an article expressing my disappointment in Sportsnet's coverage of U SPORTS competitions at that time, and the Sports Information Director of the school I was covering took me aside and chastised me for insulting the right's holder of U SPORTS events. My response was, "You're worried about their response when they couldn't even send a staff reporter to this event to cover the action?" While I understood that there could be repercussions, his facial expression told me that he somewhat agreed with me despite him being unable or unwilling to say that.

Three years later, I wrote another article celebrating the transfer of the U SPORTS broadcast rights to the CBC. CBC's coverage of amateur sports is some of the best this country has, and their commitment to amateur sports that receive less-than-normal coverage on Canadian TV - skiing, figure skating, soccer - gave me hope that they'd bring that same professionalism in their coverage of amateur sports to their U SPORTS broadcasts.

Cutting the CBC's funding doesn't change the way that CBC does journalism, and I'm sure that Poilievre knows this despite his demands for those cuts. The CBC will still report the news as they always do, but cutting their funding will undoubtedly affect their coverage when it comes from having the same budget for crews covering amateur sports. That, of course, could affect their coverage of U SPORTS broadcasts, and that's simply something I'm not willing to risk with the Progressive Conservatives leading this country.

Some will read this and think, "Teebz, you're overreacting." Maybe I am in a few cases, but consider these numbers from 2021 about CBC's viewership of U SPORTS:

• Total views exceed the U SPORTS digital viewership from the entire 2019-20 season by 8%.
• 8% of commentators identify as BIPOC and 30% of commentators identified as female.
• The Toronto-Victoria women's field hockey championships series saw digital viewership increased by 4000%.
• Queen's women’s rugby victory saw a 300% increase in views compared to 2019.
• U SPORTS digital coverage has increased viewership by more than 643% compared to the same period in 2019-20, with 97% of those audiences coming from CBC Sports digital platforms, according to Adobe Analytics.

It's hard to deny the importance of CBC's coverage to U SPORTS when you see those numbers. We saw the importance this year with the National Men's and Women's Ice Hockey Championships happening on the same weekend, and CBC had crews in both Halifax and Montreal to cover those tournaments despite games overlapping. Would cutting CBC's funding have forced them to choose between the two tournaments? I can't answer that, but cutting funds could mean that the CBC is forced to make decisions like that.

Beyond that, when have you ever seen a field hockey game broadcast on TV in Canada? Outside of the Olympics, that answer is "never". Women's rugby? That answer is the same number of games of field hockey - never. Yet we push these athletes to be the best they can be in every Olympiad despite us never having seen them play. More broadcasts of any kind means more money for the sport as interest in it grows, and that's vitally important when it comes to paying for training, places to play, and, ultimately, winning on the biggest stages.

Cutting the CBC's funding would be devastating on a number of fronts, but not how the Progressive Conservatives think. Instead, they'll weaken sports that are generating interest and viewership on CBC's digital platforms, they set the growth of and interest in U SPORTS back by decades, and they'll undoubtedly weaken the CBC's ability to cover Canadians who take part in the downhill skiing circuits, the CEBL, and Canadian soccer as the CBC makes tougher decisions on what to cover with a smaller budget.

As much as I'm making a case for amateur sports, I should also point out that the news cycle won't change unless the Progressive Conservatives change the CBC's leadership which they have no ability do, Canadian law as the CBC's editorial independence is protected in the Broadcasting Act, and the CBC's own Journalistic Standards and Practices. If Poilievre is just going to be an echo chamber for conservative politicans south of 49th parallel, focusing his crosshairs on the CBC was the wrong choice from the "Stupid Things To Say" playbook.

For me, as a fan of U SPORTS men's and women's ice hockey, I'll automatically vote against the Progressive Conservatives if they make this part of their platform in any national election. As I said off the top, it reeks of desperation when it comes to earning votes, and, frankly, it's downright stupid. The CBC is doing fantastic work when it comes to both their coverage of the news in Canada and amateur sports in Canada, and only one of those things would be severely affected by Poilievre's threats of cutting funding to the network.

If Pierre Poilievre doesn't like the CBC, he's welcome to his opinion. If he campaigns on that idea, he's going to lose in a big way in the next election. I don't even need the CBC to tell me that because it's just so un-Canadian in its approach.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!