Source: Waterloo Record

WATERLOO — Several thousand online and hundreds in person took part in the launch of “CBC We Want,” a virtual town hall and panel discussion about the future of the institution at Knox Presbyterian Church Thursday.

Hosted by former prima ballerina and director Veronica Tennant, the discussion took on a grave tone in light of this year’s budget cuts at the public broadcaster.

Tennant said that a part of the tour’s goal was to “ensure that the cuts don’t cause a slow death.”

She said she hopes the “national conversation” would help “move things forward” for the broadcaster in a changing political, technological and economic landscape.

The event was hosted by Friends of Public Broadcasting, an independent watchdog group focused on Canadian content, broadcast licensing and regulation.

Friends of Public Broadcasting spokesperson Ian Morrison said the decision to host the event in Waterloo Region came after organizers heard the Congress2012 social sciences conference was heading here also.

“We felt like Canada was coming to Waterloo.”

Morrison said that the fact that the region does not yet have a CBC affiliate also influenced them to host the event here.

“It’s the same number of Canadians as live in New Brunswick or on Vancouver Island. And it has diddly squat,” Morrison said. “They’re not getting what other Canadians get.”

While the room at Knox Presbyterian was packed, people all across Canada were able to live stream the event and have their tweets on the subject read aloud if they used the hash tag “cbcwewant.”

“The big audience today isn’t from Waterloo Region, it’s from the rest of the country,” Morrison said.

The panel included actor R.H. Thompson, Stratford radio host Ethan Rabidoux, former CBC Radio-Canada and Al Jazeera English editor Catherine Cano and several others, each with troves of insight into the CBC’s failures, successes and next steps.

The panellists, audience and those watching online proposed a myriad of options for the CBC, from developing more dramas and long lasting programming that could be exported to other countries, to further usage of the broadcaster as a history and civics tool.

The passion for the CBC among those in attendance was palpable.

“I have a niece that doesn’t even what the CBC is because she’s so mesmerized by American garbage,” attendee Ron Ward told the panel.

“How is the CBC going to compete with Snooki and the Situation? By not being like them,” Rabidoux replied.

The CBC faces licence renewal hearings at the CRTC beginning on November 19, 2012. The changes made to the institution’s mandate and service requirements during those hearings will greatly shape how the broadcaster will behave in the future.

© Waterloo Record