Last Wednesday, the president and general manager of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, was invited by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal to deliver a conference. The one, who has been at the head of the state-owned company since July 2018, took the opportunity to boast of an ambition dear to Radio-Canada: “to bring people together in a polarized world”.
This discourse borrows certain traits from the absurd. The fact is that for the past few years, Radio-Canada seems to be failing miserably in this mission.
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Systemic racism
Take the example of systemic racism theory. In the name of diversity and reconciliation, this theory is presented by Radio-Canada – on its television, but also on its radio or online – in the manner of a phenomenon observable with the naked eye, a bit like the boiling water or lightning.
This editorial line is however foreign to the ambition of wanting to “bring people together” since not only is the theory highly questionable, but not all Canadians adhere to it.
Academics, but also members of the political class and even artists have thought about this question and would like to be heard for years. Instead, Radio-Canada orchestrates a kind of consensus and develops an extremely rigid discourse that refuses any form of dialogue.
This rejection of dialogue can be observed on a regular basis in Tout le monde en parle, which in the past was nevertheless a warm place allowing fruitful meetings, rich exchanges and even sometimes debates. Today, Sunday evening mass is more like a carousel of virtue, a cold and undermined territory where the stars of the day strut around and refrain above all from expressing an opinion that could undermine the progressive catechism. […]
Keep yourself a little embarrassed
If we are looking for even more conclusive proof that in the name of the ambition to “bring people together”, Radio-Canada is actually excluding them, we only have to reread the inflammatory letter published by the former journalist Tara Hanley at the very beginning of the year.
In order to justify her resignation, she had notably revealed that “to work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most important thing in a person and that certain races are more relevant than others to the public conversation. »
Does CBC/Radio-Canada President and CEO Catherine Tait really believe that the racialization of public affairs serves the ambition of “bringing Canadians together”?
By compartmentalising individuals according to the color of their skin and refusing to allow progressive ideas to be questioned, how does Radio-Canada position itself in the balancing act of polarization?
If it wishes to continue in this direction, the company Radio-Canada should keep a little embarrassment. For now, it is doing anything but “bringing” Canadians together.
Remi Villemure, Master’s student in history