Alex Tsakumis: Rafe Mair & the CBC BS

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From AlexGTsakumis.com – Feb 2, 2011

I’ve always enjoyed the CBC. Even though I grew up a CJOR junkie and then an CKNW addict, I always enjoyed the CBC.

Now, listening to Stephen Quinn and Rick Cluff from time to time is
some very good radio, but the CBC, Canada’s media mothership–and often
the motherload of politically correct pabulum, can be a very trying
place to get some balance. They do, after all, feature a hypocritical
fruit fly biologist as the paragon of environmental nirvana and are a
notorious (mismanaged!) drain on our pockets.

But this bit of local rabble had me scratching my head.

Still does.

Rafe Mair has found himself in a bit of controversy, in my opinion,
for doing the right thing: Rafe, a friend and fan of this blog, was
asked by a CBC producer to find something nice and not so nice to say
about Gordon Campbell seeing as some testimonial was on its way.

Rafe, every bit the iconoclast, took the principled position of
telling the CBC that he could NOT find anything nice to say about
Campbell. In turn, the producer axed Rafe’s participation, for that day,
on the CBC panel that includes Erin Chutter and Moe Sihota.

Frankly, Mair is the only useful talkinghead on the damn thing.
Chutter’s opinions range from occasionally on to meteorically sophomoric
and Sihota has no business being there when he’s the President of the
NDP and collecting from unions to do so.

To say I’m disappointed in the mother ship is an understatement.

For shame. I, too, hope Rafe is back next week and survives this
not-so-quaint bit of censorship–because that’s exactly what it amounts
to. Otherwise, you can forget that panel–without Rafe its relevancy is
zilch.

For shame.

Read full article and Rafe’s statement

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About Damien Gillis

Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon - working with many environmental organizations in BC and around the world. He is the co-founder, along with Rafe Mair, of The Common Sense Canadian, and a board member of both the BC Environmental Network and the Haig-Brown Institute.