Further cuts would be to the bone and make it impossible for the CBC to effectively fulfill its mandate, leaving our national broadcaster open to increased criticism that it's wasting taxpayer money, unfairly competing with private broadcasters for advertising dollars and calls for dismantling.  There is no more room for efficiency; every dollar has to come out of programming - off the air, off the screen.

The impact would be devastating:

• It would be impossible to implement CBC's recently rolled-out strategy to add new local radio stations and enhance regional services in locations such as the Kamloops, Waterloo and London regions. Instead local and regional services would have to be consolidated because it costs more to offer something in many places than to centralize in one or two locations.

• CBC Television has become less Canadian in recent years, primarily for economic reasons. A substantial cut would make it harder or impossible for CBC-TV to drop its dependence on US game shows.

• CBC has been moving away from cost-intensive programming such as full-edition documentaries (for example The Fifth Estate) towards cheaper programming such as reality shows (Dragon's Den, Battle of the Blades). Further cuts would build inexorable pressure to move to more cheap shows.

• Still more repeats on both Radio and Television, shorter seasons, fewer original episodes.

• No chance of CBC getting back into serious cultural programming, on either Radio or TV because it is costly to produce and does not attract the mass audiences needed to drive ad sales.

• Axing Radio Two.

• Even less of the more expensive kinds of journalism, e.g., original investigative pieces, foreign correspondents. More dumbing down of the news.

• Turning the CBC into a Toronto Broadcasting Corporation!