The impoverishment of language

 

1.

Everywhere life is being reduced, flattened out, and the variety and multiplicity of life is lessened. Small communities are absorbed into cities and cities into a megalopolis; the nation state is being absorbed into larger economic and military alliances, it's only a matter of time before the nation state disappears. And what is the motivation for reducing life, flattening it out, lessening the variety of everyday life? Someone's getting rich, someone else is getting more powerful; and the rest of us are losing out. 

2.

Not too many years ago, North American workers saw their jobs moved to other countries where wages are one tenth or less of what was paid to workers here. American workers were told they would have to "recycle" themselves, but this didn't happen, it was an optimistic and false plan from the beginning. It was a flattening out of society, making more people poor, and a reduction of the number of jobs and the variety of jobs, it was a diminishment of the diversity of jobs here. There was also nothing for these people to recycle themselves to, there were no better jobs for them to move up to even if they did reeducate themselves; it was a fairly cynical move on the part of business and government leaders, they were laughing behind their hands. It was enforced poverty on a segment of society that had worked hard and in the past would have moved to middle class status. Some of these former workers ended up unemployed or homeless or on drugs. Some moved on to work for fast food restaurants and some now drive for Uber or Door Dash delivering food for these same restaurants.

3.

Political and economic changes begin with language, with words, and it can be seen all around us. Words are censored, given new meanings, or deleted from the way we speak when they challenge a political agenda that would control the population. People are now afraid to say what they think and feel and justifiably so; now everyone's concerned they aren't politically correct. Certain words aren't allowed to be said. Certain thoughts and ideas aren't allowed to be expressed; you will suffer condemnation, loss of position in society, perhaps your employment, you will be excommunicated, you will be cancelled. Better to shut up and hope for a better future or else you might disappear from your profession, your friends, your old life. The people who forbid freedom of speech used to be the people who championed free speech, now they are the most vociferous opponents of free speech. 

4.

Consider that our vocabulary has fewer words, fewer long words, than the vocabulary of people just fifty years ago; with this loss of vocabulary we lose the nuance of expressing sophisticated ideas, we lose how to describe things, whether material or emotional, we become language deprived. The vocabulary of the Victorians was more sophisticated than our present day speech; children today have difficulty reading children's books from the Victorian or Edwardian Age, everywhere people have been dummed down. We've become fat and stupid. An obvious example is the revising of Roald Dahl's books, censoring them according to Woke preconceptions which, basically, dumb people down to the same already low level. The King James Version of the Bible is thought to be too difficult for people to read, in fact the vocabulary of the 1611 translation of the Bible is fairly easy to read and is beautifully written; but read the King James Version? Read Chaucer? Read Milton? Read Shakespeare? Read Walt Whitman and William Blake? They're all by dead white men and their books are heading to the municipal dump.

5. 

While our vocabulary today has fewer words what we're allowed to say and what we aren't allowed to say has also been reduced, made subject to what is politically correct. It is made difficult because the politically correct are in the ascendant and they have become mainstream, their ideas have been normalized. I noticed a news broadcaster on CBC, only yesterday, when he mentioned President Trump, he referred to him as "Trump" and he sneered and assumed the audience agreed that Trump deserved this visual and audible condemnation; this television announcer could hardly be criticized, after all, his middle class audience most likely agree with him or why would they be watching the biased CBC news? Whether or not Trump deserves to be sneered at is not my point, it is the underlying assumption of a government employee on a national television network that is subsidized with taxpayers' money expressing a biased opinion on what purports to be a factual reporting of the news. Politically correct assumptions supercede common sense and truth. We may think that government is benevolent because Justin Trudeau keeps telling us that Canadians want to be "safe", but government's motive is power and social control. Forget about being "safe", we all know that "safe" in life doesn't exist.

Note: Revised and edited on 23 February 2023.

Review of Edwin Varney's ineffable, The Mystical Poems

 

Review:

ineffable, The Mystical Poems, (2022)

Edwin Varney

The Poem Factory, Courtenay, BC

ISBN: 978-1-895593-57-0

Unpriced; 14 pages

by Stephen Morrissey

Back in 1977, I reviewed Edwin Varney's Human Nature (1974), published in CV II (Vol. 3, no. 2); it was my first published book review.  And here I am, so many years later, reviewing Edwin Varney's new chapbook, ineffable, The Mystical Poems (2022). Edwin has published over twenty books and chapbooks of poetry, and he is well known for his activity in the arts community, in Canada and internationally, as a poet, visual artist, publisher, and mail art artist.

In these poems Edwin writes of having mystical experiences and although these experiences are ineffable this is exactly what he does, he writes of "that which cannot be spoken about aloud . . ." Many people have been interested in mysticism, including myself; it is defined by W. T. Stace as an experience of the "undifferentiated unity of the universe." Stace's book, The Teachings of the Mystics (1960), which I read in the early 1970s, is mentioned in the bibliography of ineffable, The Mystical Poems. But read Edwin's poems for a less intellectual and more immediate description of this experience. Mysticism is a spiritual experience common to all religions; but, ironically, it is also without the need for the accoutrements of organized religion.

Edwin uses a format in this chapbook that is similar to several other chapbooks he published with The Poem Factory, a press that he founded with my wife Carolyn Zonailo. The format is a running prose statement, or a single sentence, in the header of the page or several pages, and the poems are placed beneath this header. This format gives a unity to the book as well as, in this case, a description of the mystical experience in both prose and poetry; however, in describing a profound experience, poetry often trumps prose; poetry is the experience, prose describes the experience. He writes, "Poetry, because of its use of metaphor, simile, paradox, and generative use of language, is the most evocative, precise, and highly charged form of communicating these experiences." (7)

While this chapbook offers only eight of Edwin's poems, he has notebooks full of unpublished poems; I have seen his notebooks and diaries lined up on library shelves in his former Vancouver home, and Carolyn Zonailo edited Solar Eclipse, (The Poem Factory, 1994), a chapbook of some of these notebook poems. The simple, direct, style in ineffable, The Mystical Poems is the product of a lifetime of writing and also of a particular type of personality, one who values truth and authenticity over obscurity, one who values the human dimension. He writes, "I was there, completely there./ A door opened to somewhere else/ and I entered into the world."

In "The Field" Edwin remembers a summer day when he saw a snake shedding its skin, "leaving behind a dry husk", and this image becomes a metaphor for his own life; "I too will shed my skin/ and flesh, too soon." Life is short, it is an experience of chronological time in the timeless cosmic zone. This poem is about the transience of life and our life in this world, in which every phase of life—childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age— is an incarnation and a gateway to the next incarnation, we shed lives as the snake sheds his old skin; "There is only the present", he writes, so don't worry about the future.

Edwin's poem, "Angel", describes our common spiritual/psychological journey in life. It is the archetypal fall from innocence into experience, as described by William Blake, and perfectly expressed, succinctly expressed, in Edwin's poem. "A man fell from eternity into time.// In another age,/ he might have been called an angel/ but that was when people/ knew more about these things." And then life unfolds and one "wandered thru work,/ relationships, money, love/ politics, health, and all the things/ we share as occupiers of this planet." The final two lines of the poem illuminate the experience for us; he writes, "When I hit the ground,// I was broken but I remembered." And what did the narrator remember? He remembered the eternal, his metaphorical angelic origin, the divine inspiration of nature, and that while we are in the world we are not necessarily of this world. It is where ". . . all contradictions vanish,/ a point where love is the only motive." ("Point of No Return", p. 12)

The authenticity of Edwin Varney's poems bridges definition and the thing defined; his work is an achievement of expression, his work is authentic. He writes,

                                    So look around and listen, be present,

                                    If you look deep enough inside yourself,

                                    you see the world.

                                    You will be at home wherever you are

                                                "Lighthouse Park", 5-6

 

ineffable, The Mystical Poems may be ordered by writing to The Poem Factory, 4426 Island Highway South, Courtenay, BC, Canada V9N 9T1

 

Notes:

One

All poets should know something of mysticism in poetry, whether in Rumi, Rimbaud, Whitman, William Blake, or other poets who have been "inspired", which means they have had spirit breathed into them, by God or nature or serendipity. Poetry can be an expression of a mystical, cosmic, experience; prose rarely is.

Two:

It benefits poets if they publish chapbooks; with desk top publishing it is very easy to self-publish, or publish others, at low cost, in editions of any number you want, and distribute these chapbooks free of charge, or at any price you want, to other poets in order to keep in touch with our small community of poets, to build relationships, and share current work. The message is: keep a dialogue going. It is also more important now than ever to publish in print, poetry is a print medium, print on paper. Reading on a screen is not the same as reading something printed on paper.

Three

Two other books I would add to Edwin's bibliography on mysticism are Colin Wilson's Poetry and Mysticism (1969) and R.M. Bucke's Cosmic Consciousnmess (1901). Colin Wilson writes about individual poets, for instance Wordsworth, and discusses examples of mystical experience in specific poems.  R.M. Bucke describes cosmic consciousness as a mystical experience that he claims all great poets and artists experience, including his personal friend Walt Whitman; Bucke's book is a compendium of poets and artists whose work has been an expression of cosmic consciousness and how it finds its expression in their creative work. For Bucke this is part of the evolution of consciousness, moving away from an isolated consciousness to unity with life, nature, other people, and even the universe. Anyone interested in this subject might read all of the books Edwin lists in his bibliography.

Four

Another book, of less importance but still interesting, and not for inclusion in Edwin's "Selected Bibliography About Mysticism", is Timothy Leary's The Politics of Ecstasy (1998); Leary's book is about the LSD experience and I mention it because psychedelic drugs seem to offer some promise for healing psychological problems; psychedelic pharmaceuticals offer a analogous mystical perception of life, but it is not a mystical experience.

 

And then on to Meadowbrook Golf Course

We had the Polar Vortex two weeks ago, -28 C and a wind chill of -39 C, but the rest of February is supposed to be mild, as it was on February 13 and the rest of this week. It's a good walk on the hidden trail and then to continue to Meadowbrook Golf Course and home along Cote St-Luc Road. You don't want to waste this mild weather since most of the rest of the day is spent in-doors. This isn't walking just to enjoy being out-doors, to hear birds singing, to feel that spring is in the air, to feel the sun on one's face, to see the neighbourhood, it's walking to stay alive. 

A good day to walk on the hidden trail

It was a sunny morning and a blue sky, it was +2 C, it felt like spring was in the air, so what better to do than walk on the hidden trail? Good news, only thirty days to the first day of spring.

13 February 2023

Meeting Reg (RR) Skinner, late August 1974

Here I am with my old friend Reg (RR) Skinner (left) in the backyard of his home, "Boisville", at 7 Sandhurst Lane, Blackwater, Camberley, Surrey, England. It was late August 1974. I believe his German shepherd was named Czar. 

"The Mysterious Naked Man" by Alden Nowlan

 

A mysterious naked man has been reported
on Cranston Avenue. The police are performing
the usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
 excitedly
as they do during disasters when their involvement is
 peripheral.

'What did he look like?' the lieutenant is asking.
'I don't know,' says the witness. 'He was naked.'
There is talk of dogs—this is no ordinary case
of indecent exposure, the man has been seen
a dozen times since the milkman spotted him and now
the sky is turning purple and voices
carry a long way and the children
have gone a little crazy as they often do at dusk
and cars are arriving
from other sections of the city.

And the mysterious naked man
is kneeling behind a garbage can or lying on his belly
in somebody's garden
or maybe even hiding in the branches of a tree,
where the wind from the harbour
whips at his naked body,
and by now he's probably done
whatever it was he wanted to do
and wishes he could go to sleep
or die
or take to the air like Superman.

What you lose you will never get back

The Rose Garden at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver

 

1.

The thing to remember about giving up old values and accepting new values is that you are changing to the unknown and giving up what has sustained us for hundreds or thousands of years. The values you throw away create a vacuum and you don't really know what will fill that vacuum. You might think that change is for the better, and sometimes it is, but did we expect that we'd end up with the fragmented society that we now have? What we have is a world gone wrong, it's a society in decline. 

2.

The Industrial Revolution, World War One, and the Great Depression were turning points in history, another turning point is Covid-19. People were sequestered during Covid, possibly needlessly sequestered, and people are social beings, we need contact with other people. We were mandated into social isolation and what amounted to a kind of solitary confinement; the truth is, people need to be with people. Sensory deprivation starves the brain for sensory input; how long would any of us last in a sensory deprivation chamber? It is not long before the brain manufactures images, thoughts, and your emotions become unstable, extreme, and negative. 

3.

Covid-19 will have long-term consequences; as an example, and there are others, some children are suffering intellectual, emotional, and psychological problems from their time in Covid lock-down, but other people have also suffered. Some re-opened schools have become more violent;  hospitals have an increased number of children as patients for emotional and psychological problems; there is random violence on public transportation in Toronto and New York City; meanwhile, homeless encampments are in every city;  incidents of random violence have increased; sexual identity is under attack. Society is in decline and we won't get back what we have lost. But have we also lost our humanity?  

4.

We have traditional values, for instance honesty, faith, and family; but these are being cancelled and replaced with gender fluidity, diversity, and climate change. The adherents of these other values don't want to live in peaceful coincidence with the older values, they want to cancel these older values. And that is what is happening to society. One day good people will wonder what happened, how did they allow their core values to be destroyed, how did they allow these changes to occur that they never agreed to? But what we lose we will never get back. 

5.

What we give up, what is taken from us because we have amnesia and assume all will be well . . .  but we haven't agreed to these changes; we wake up one day and find we've been stripped of our older values. Change crept up on us and we weren't watching, we didn't let it happen, it just happened and in retrospect it was an enormous mistake. There they are in the streets or in television studios, the media, movie actors--entertainers seem to originate new values and the public follow them--and the educated middle class, consumers of the media, they've also made the conversion to the system of new values. And the politicians are along for the ride, and always out for more power. We are surrounded by displays of these new values and a new mentality that goes along with it; and if we don't agree with them we are cancelled, you can lose your employment, your friends, even your family. 

6.

What you lose you will never get back. There were great social changes in the 1960s and some people celebrated these changes but what if we were wrong and these counter culture values have only made life worse and not better? Back then, students occupied administration offices in universities, some people were marching in the streets, other people were smoking dope, there were changes in moral values, changes in every aspect of society, and now sixty years later we are living with the consequences of these changes; they did not create a more creative, loving, or free society, it is the opposite of this that has happened. We surrendered, we gave up, we acquiesced. What you lose you will never get back; change is not always for the better, it may end up being change for the worst. And are the people supporting change the best people, the most intelligent people, or are they out for themselves, politicians, intransigent moralists, ideologues? We know the answer to that question. 

Note: This has been revised and edited several times for clarity. I am a compulsive editor, I edit until I've said exactly what I mean. 

"The Unknown Citizen" by W. H. Auden

 

Photographs of the Robert Burns' Pub from 2020

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Somewhere on Mount Royal

It was the end of April 2011; I was walking on Mount Royal, the mountain at the center of Montreal and a very popular park. The spirit of trees is not only in the tree, it's in the shadow of the trees, it's in the roots and branches and the seasonal change of leaves, from green to fall's variety of colours to these bare branches and the carpet of leaves on the ground. 

Snow removal in Montreal

I thought this was a mild winter, but it's not. It's -25 C this morning and getting colder, the furnace runs and runs and runs but the house doesn't warm up. The other night the city removed 25 - 30 cm of snow that they had ploughed to the side of the streets, and then it snowed again, and it snowed last night, not a lot but a white covering on everything. We're a northern people, more northern that anything else because that is our geography and geography affects who and what we are, our attitude to life, our relationship to the world. Living here, even if you are from the Islands or South America, you will become like us, a northern people. Geography has dictated it. Seven weeks to the end of winter, the days are getting longer, and we're Canadians, we'll get through this, we have no other choice. 

On defunding the CBC

 

On the CBC:

The jaded public wants to be amused; journalists have to eat well. Reducing issues to personalities is useful to the ruling class. The "news" now functions to legitimize power, not to convey information. The politics of personalities helps the legitimizers to divert attention from issues that might upset the status quo. (7)

The Conservatives also justifiably felt that the CBC, then as today, gave too great prominence to the Liberal view of Canada. (19)

                                                        --George Grant, Lament for a Nation (1965) 

1.  That was then

For many years I listened to CBC radio; I was proud to be Canadian and the CBC was a part of what made me a proud Canadian. In the early-1970s I listened to Anthology on CBC radio on Saturday evenings; I listened to Morley Callaghan, Kildare Dobbs, Hugh Garner, Al Purdy, bill bissett, and other poets, novelists, and playwrights. I listened to Ideas, founded by Phyllis Webb, and heard talks given by Northrop Frye and Louis Dudek, among others; I first heard of John Glassco's Memoirs of Montparnasse on CBC radio. After hearing interviews with Ivan Illich I read his books and was introduced to a fascinating thinker and writer. I listened to Music and Metaphor weeknights at midnight, they combined poems with music and some years later I listened to a French language version of this same show on Radio Canada.  For many years when I drove to work and when I returned home from work I listened to CBC radio, they were great companions during this daily drive, the programme hosts felt like friends. This was excellent broadcasting.

2.  this is now

I rarely listen to CBC radio and, as for CBC television, I was never a fan and now even less so; this is because their dramas and news shows are often based on an assumption of the correctness of woke values. Whether it is television drama or the news, the CBC filters what they broadcast through climate change, diversity, and gender fluidity. Of course, this does not apply to all of the news items, but their bias is always ready to be included in some news item. As a part of this, they are contemptuous of anyone not woke or who disagrees with them. They don't seem to care that most Canadians don't follow their preconceptions about contemporary society. They do not support Canadian values, they do not represent Canada's history or traditions, it is usually propaganda for Justin Trudeau. 

3.  AIH

Lately, while eating supper, I've begun to listen to As it Happens, on CBC radio; in the past it was always entertaining, it aimed for some humour with interviews of different people. But AIH today is nothing like the old AIH, it's become annoying and woke and it isn't interesting or entertaining; even the new host sounds bored; maybe it's now intended to be educational . . . Gone are the days of Barbara Frum and the announcers who followed her; Frum was always entertaining, intelligent, and humourous; recently Frum's interview with HowardBallard, who owned the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, was replayed decades after it was first broadcast, this was in response to Jason Priestly's documentary on Ballard; Ballard wouldn't even be interviewed today, he would have been cancelled long before his passing. 

4.  Morningside

I used to listen to Morningside, broadcast every day from 9 to 12 noon; that programme ended years ago but it was a great format and it was always great radio; gone are the days of Peter Gzowski and other hosts (like Don Harron or Judy LaMarsh); there is no place in the present CBC for intelligent people like Barbara Frum or Peter Gzowski. Or Wendy Mesley who was driven out of the CBC by the zealously politically correct at the CBC. These announcers and programmes were a part of my life and I remember them with fondness and affection. Just think, they got rid of Morningside with its various intelligent hosts who interviewed equally intelligent guests and they gave us "Q" and something called "Commotion". The level of intelligence and ability to entertain has plummeted. No, it's beyond "plummeted", it is no longer the CBC we used to listen to and love, no longer the CBC that built a relationship with listeners; this new manifestation of the CBC is some new manifestation of mostly white, woke, people living in the GTA who know nothing about Canada and don't like Canadians. 

5.  bloated 

My values, not the CBC's, include frugality and being careful with money, including with somebody else's money; the CBC's values include profligacy and actual contempt for the tax payers who pay their way. Just recently the CBC was given $40M dollars in Covid relief; they get $1.2B dollars in subsidy a year and when necessary it is topped up to keep them going. They cannot pay their own way, they were never self-supporting in the past and Canadians never expected them to be self-supporting, they had a mission, to inform, educate, and entertain Canadians; they are now indecently bloated and obese, they have a woke bias, and there is no effort to economize when the national debt is out of control; how can we feel we're all in this together when both the Federal government and their representative, the CBC, continue to spend our tax money when the country is deeper and deeper in debt? While Canadians struggle, the CBC spends.

6.   and obese

Think about the following for bloated: there are two radio networks, Radio One and CBC Music, in every region and city in Canada, which means several dozen radio stations across the country and each broadcasting some original content; CBC television produces most of its own content and has television stations, fully staffed, across the country; CBC News Network, on 24 hours a day, on cable television, with its cohort of announcers and reporters; CBC Gem which streams CBC content and some new programmes that are too woke to be on mainstream CBC and would not be acceptable to most Canadians; CBC News Explore, a new manifestation of waste, is a part of Gem, it's the latest extravagance and its difficult to see why it exists but we are encouraged to watch it because it's "free" (this is especially galling to taxpayers who know it's not "free", we're paying for this); there are CBC podcasts, made at our expense and advertised on CBC television; and there is CBC on the internet which includes CBC News, CBC Listen, and CBC on YouTube. There is also Radio Canada, the French language radio, television, and internet broadcasting network paid for by taxpayers. Radio Canada International was popular on short wave radio and later on the internet but it was jettisoned; and, increasingly, there are broadcasts in indigenous languages. Each of these manifestations of CBC has numerous employees; in fact, you can see these employees in the background when we see a broadcast from one of their numerous regional news offices. Radio Canada has a limited presence across the country. 

7.   Biased

CBC's biased reporting can slip over into being reporting of even greater dubious value; that is, news has become interpretation, bias, and even falsehood. An example: the second day of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, in January 2022, CBC announcers would mention that two monuments in Ottawa had been "desecrated" by the demonstrators and they've kept repeating this story; among other things, it effectively cowed people they were interviewing into opposing the Freedom Convoy. It was ammo they could use against the Freedom Convoy. But the CBC has a double standard, it has never referred to beheading, toppling, or throwing paint on statues of our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, or Queen Victoria, or Egerton Ryerson as "desecrating" these statues because the CBC sympathizes and agrees with the demonstrators who defaced, destroyed, and desecrated statues of these historical figures. The use of the word "desecrate" is also interesting, it is loaded with innuendo and exaggerates the demonstrators' action which was to drape a Canadian flag on the shoulders of the statue of Terry Fox. The CBC assumes an agreement in values between itself and its audience but I suggest that most Canadians are good and fair-minded people who don't identify as much with the values CBC promotes as the CBC thinks. The CBC wasn't always this way; the CBC used to help unify the country and be known for excellence in broadcasting. Now it's come to the point that the sooner they are defunded the better for the country.

In yesterday's Montreal Gazette (30 March 2023) it was reported that a synagogue in the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal had been "defaced", note the word "defaced" which is used to describe that swastikas were painted on the front of the synagogue, Congregation Temple Solomon. This is more than defacement, this is desecration. The CBC used the word "desecrate" to describe draping a Canadian flag on the statue of a secular figure and have misused the word "desecration" in order to convince the public that the alleged crime was more serious than it actually was and to demonize the Freedom Convoy demonstrators. But by appropriating and misusing the word "desecrate" they have lowered its value, all in the name of their own bias. The synagogue was both desecrated and it was defaced, it is a hate crime. What was done to the statue was minor; but I heard, on day two of the demonstration, on CBC television, one elderly man who was being interviewed by the CBC regarding this incident, he wavered in condemning the Freedom Convoy and then, after hearing that the statue was "desecrated", he opposed the Freedom Convoy. Who could possibly be in favour of "desecrating" a statue of Terry Fox? 

Yet another reason this alleged "desecration" is bogus is that there was no public outcry against the Freedom Convoy for having draped a Canadian flag on the Terry Fox statue. No one cared. Draping a flag on a statue is not to desecrate that statue; there was no outpouring of anger against the Freedom Convoy after this act was reported by the CBC, it was minor. Swastikas painted on a synagogue is to desecrate that religious building. 

 

8.

These people at CBC are so biased and entitled they can't comprehend any criticism, they can't understand that the public no longer supports their biased reporting. They have taken a public broadcaster and turned it into their little fiefdom, given themselves raises, enjoyed their special status and assumed it is the norm and what they deserve; they assume they can do no wrong, but they have lost all connection to the basic tenets of news broadcasting. Had anything been wrong they would have reported it and since criticism of the CBC doesn't appear on their website or in what they broadcast, then it doesn't exist. There are exceptions, excellent exceptions, and their presence makes the CBC News Network worth watching. 

"A 2017 survey of Canadians suggested that CBC TV was the most biased national news media outlet (perceived biased by 50% of Canadians overall, tied with The Globe and Mail) followed closely by CBC Radio (perceived biased by 49% of Canadians overall)." From "CBC News" on Wikipedia.

9.

Google these newspaper articles: "CBC Paid its Employees $16M in Bonuses in 2022: Documents". (10 March 2023)

"Plenty of sunshine for CBC employees". (23 February 2023)

There is something repulsive about people getting bonuses when the rest of the population gets impoverished. As I said, "bloated and obese".

10. Twitter 

Thomas Mulcair, former leader of the Federal NDP, states that the CBC is biased in its reporting, biased in favour of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is not a secret, it is common knowledge.

Refer to George Grant's statement above, that Conservatives felt the CBC "gave too great prominence to the Liberal view of Canada." Even in 1965 this was obvious. It is preposterous to think that the CBC ever gave too much prominence to the Conservative view of Canada. They never did and they never will. Entitled people tend to be smug and not consider that anyone might not agree with how great they are . . . 

Considering that the present NDP has a third party status and buoys up the Liberals, it is curious how many interviews and press conferences feature Jagmeet Singh (talk about over exposure!), the leader of the NDP, and how seldom we see or even hear from Pierre Poilievre; maybe Poilievre doesn't give press conferences (his mistake), but that Singh is interviewed as often as he is, when he has so little to say, and he supports the Liberals, it seems obvious that the CBC's Liberal bias extends to those who support the Liberal Party. This should be embarrassing for Singh because it denies his independence as a politician. (18.04.2023)

11.

Compare CTV's news website to that of the CBC; one (CTV) is straight reporting of the news; the other, that of the CBC, is a combination of opinion and news, some of it biased news, news promoting the causes of the CBC -- climate change, diversity, inclusion -- as well as other news. Seeing the CBC's reporting of Twitter's labeling of the CBC as "government funded news" is to see a bloated and obese corporation defending itself for being bloated and obese, and denying the obvious, that it is government funded. 

12.

My God, even the CBC news panels are usually comprised of people associated with the Liberals, hold liberal biases, are related to people who are prominent Liberals, or have worked for the Trudeau Foundation. The assumption of the panels is that their liberal position is commonly held and self-evident. These are panels of informed journalists and experts commenting on the Liberal Party; they are well-informed, intelligent, and inclined to agreeing with a liberal bias. 

13.

When defunding the CBC is mentioned by the CBC it is with a gasp, as in how could anyone think of such a thing? The CBC is perfect as it is and Poilievre began this crazed mania to defund the state sponsored corporation, but he didn't. The CBC's bias, if not in everything they say, is present in the way they say it. 

13.

Watch the CBC News Network from, let's say, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., and it's an almost all woman network; the host is a woman and she refers to women reporters; an example: a murder occurs in Montreal and this is mentioned by the host who then goes to another reporter, a woman somewhere in darkest Toronto, and this second woman reporter reads what happened in Montreal, but she obviously knows nothing about Montreal and all she knows about the murder is what she is reading. Why not have the announcer read this news and save the cost of a second reporter? It is also cringe worthy to have what is basically an all woman news network like this. Their bias isn't necessarily only in what they say but is present in the way they say it and in who says it. Is the mostly woman network payback on the men from when there were mainly men running the news rooms? It is no longer this way but these CBC announcers act as though this is still the case. 

14.

Does anyone watch the new CBC News Explore channel? There must be stats on how many people watch this new station since it's only online. Basically, the main problem with CBC News Explore is that it is boring and irrelevant. CBC News Explore was never needed or wanted except by the CBC. I want to know the ratings for CBC News Explore and I suggest that it is very low, daily in the hundreds. CBC News Explore is like CBC's podcasts, the talent pool is running dry but they continue to expand, and it shows in the quality of production. 

15.

The CBC is doing so much that is wrong, beginning by going woke. They have ditched popular shows, like Randy Bachman's, and replaced it with popular music that anyone can hear on privately-run FM stations. BTW, the BBC has the same type of show as Randy Bachman had, it is hosted by Iggy Pop on Radio Three and, like Bachman's, it is very popular. But the CBC is smug, too smug for their own good and Randy Bachman is an old white man, which means he had to go. The CBC should also listen to Walter Parker's daily five hours of classical music on Vermont Public radio, an excellent programme; they should learn something about their audience and radio. 

16.

But they're too entitled and full of themselves. They seem to think the world revolves around a few blocks in downtown Toronto. The problem is that the psyche of an organization or an individual comes across very clearly to other people and the psyche of the CBC is no longer attractive, no longer interesting, no longer of creative people with a desire to communicate something important to their audience. It is of people who think they know better than everyone else. Yes, there is some excellent journalism at the CBC but the psyche is present in other ways, it is a bloated and obese psyche. It is the psyche of people who think they know better than everyone else and no one is permitted to question what they say or their self-belief. Did you see the At Issue panel last night (20 April 2023) when the question of Twitter and the CBC came up? When one panelist suggested that all was not well with the CBC the face of the host was displeased, stony, and because the psyche is always exposed, she was not happy, she appeared angry. Sometimes organizations need to be shaken up and renewed. It's that time for the CBC. Get rid of Catherine Tait who complained about Pierre Poilievre, she has no business commenting on political parties. (21 April 2023)

17.

I could go on and on. The CBC is just not worth $1.2B. 

Note: this has been edited and added, and updated, since it was first posted. (26.04.2023)