Source : Globe & Mail

To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not all that worried about CBC Radio 2 reducing the amount of classical music it airs.

I don't write about radio. This is a TV column. And, while I'm at it, it's not a CBC column. A rather large number of readers have written to me recently about the classical music flap. They assume that, because I chronicled R.H. Thomson's pitch to a CBC exec for more CBC-TV emphasis on Canadian culture, I'm angry about CBC's plans for less classical music on Radio 2 this fall.

No. Frankly, I ain't bothered. But the matter is relevant as an example of tunnel-vision about our culture.

Pick your battles, I say. The minority Conservative government's plan to tamper with the tax-credit funding of Canadian film and television is a far more urgent and profoundly disturbing issue. As each week goes by, it appears that Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner is ever more intransigent on the matter.

The other day, while answering questions from a Senate committee, Verner declared that the proposed legislation "reasserts the principle that there is audiovisual material which may not be illegal but which taxpayers should simply not be expected to pay for." Apparently, the existing legislation that deals with pornography and hate crimes is not enough. This government intends to make "other types of content" ineligible for tax credits. That is, content that the public might find "unacceptable."

This is mad. It centralizes the perception of unacceptable content in the office of a government minister. (By the way, I'm no expert analyst of immigration policy but it seems to me that the controversial changes to immigration policy fall into the same category - the Immigration Minister is given more discretionary power over who is allowed into Canada, just as the Heritage Minister is to be given more power over what gets made in Canadian film and television.) What disturbs many people is the possibility that such discretionary powers reflect one political party's position, not the position reached by consensus and outlined in our laws.

The potential censorship resulting from Bill C-10 is a rather more significant issue for the culture than the continued emanation of day-long classical music on a CBC radio network. There is hardly a shortage of classical music for consumption. The stuff is everywhere. You want Canadian film and television? That's a tad more difficult to find in the marketplace. No offence, classical-music devotees, but there's a whiff of self-absorption and pomposity in the tone and tenor of complaints about changes to Radio 2's schedule. And there's an ugly undercurrent of disdain for popular culture.

The way we measure outrage these days is to look at Facebook groups formed to protest such matters. As of Friday, the group called "Save Classical Music at the CBC" has a little less than 12,000 members.

The online discussion makes for interesting reading. The disdain for Canadian pop, rock and country music is crystal clear. It seems that a potential reduction of the cozy comfort zone that Radio 2 provides is making some people so mad they could just spit at popular culture. And what's the big plan to counter the CBC's strategy? A newspaper ad, that's what. Right, that'll show 'em. Honestly, people, just get over yourselves.

It's a relief to see that the Facebook group "Keep your censoring hands off of Canadian film and TV! No to Bill C-10!" had, as of Friday, 37,882 members.

Let's be direct about the impact this bill would have. If enacted, it would allow the Heritage Minister to withhold certification of a film or television production for federal tax-credit purposes if it was not consistent with "public policy." This is about imposing a very specific perspective on which film and television projects should get made in Canada. It's about weeding out the provocative, the challenging, the satirical and the iconoclastic by creating a chill.

It's about diminishing a culture that allows artistic expression, including those expressions that upset some people. It's about the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work to tell Canadian stories in film and television. And it's a tad more frightening than the prospect of a few hours less classical music on the radio.

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