Source : Toronto Star

by William Walker

OTTAWA – The federal government has blinked over proposed legislation that would have given it greater control over the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Treasury Board President Marcel Massé announced suddenly yesterday that the government is amending Bill C-44 to remove controversial new controls over the CBC's board of directors and president.

"The government has backed down for the right reasons, and I'm happy they have backed off,'' said Ian Morrison of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, a lobby group that fought the bill.

The government introduced Bill C-44 last summer, and critics immediately branded it an attempt to turn the CBC into a state broadcaster.

Controversy over government meddling in the CBC escalated in recent weeks after a complaint by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's communications director Peter Donolo to the CBC ombudsman over Vancouver TV reporter Terry Milewski's coverage of the Asia Pacific summit pepper-spraying controversy.

Donolo criticized Milewski, who has since been pulled off the story, for unfair reporting, following the public disclosure of E-mails the CBC reporter sent and received from student protester Craig Jones.

Bill C-44 would have given the federal cabinet more direct control over the CBC than ever before.

The bill would have authorized "remedial and disciplinary measures'' against CBC board members and president Perrin Beatty, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister.

The bill would also have allowed the government to terminate CBC board members or the president at the "pleasure'' of the cabinet rather than for "cause.''

"I'm delighted. I couldn't be more pleased,'' Beatty said in an interview last night. "It gives an assurance to our audience that the decisions we make about what we put on the air and what we do journalistically will be made independent of the government.''

Recently, 21 prominent Canadian journalists sent an open letter to Chrétien opposing the bill, and some Liberal backbenchers began to waver.

Beatty singled out Toronto MP Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale-High Park) for praise for her efforts to oppose it.

"I don't think (the CBC was) the intended target,'' he said of the bill, which also affects about 150 other public agency boards.

Beatty said he doesn't think the government decision had anything to do with a growing backlash against the Prime Minister Office's handling of the Milewski complaint.

Morrison said his lobby group's Web site was flooded with positive responses to the campaign against the bill and that hundreds of E-mails were sent to Chrétien's office.

Morrison was also unsure of the Milewski affair's impact on the government's decision, but felt it might have been a factor.

Bill C-44 will require two more ballots before becoming law. Massé said yesterday it will be amended to remove the sections regarding control of the CBC before a second-reading vote.

© The Toronto Star