Like many of us during these days of a frenetic, never-ending news cycle, I tend to watch a lot of news. But as of late, I’ve repeatedly noticed something that has left me scratching my gray head. Why is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) disproportionately focused on American news?

American stories dominate

Take, for example, the evening of September 23rd. After eating too much again at dinner, I was ensconced in the sofa and watching the evening news on CBC. The CBC is government-owned, primarily taxpayer-funded and serves as Canada’s national public broadcaster. The National is CBC’s and Canada’s flagship evening newscast. 

That particular evening, the opening story was on US President Donald Trump’s speech at the annual UN General Assembly in New York City. The second story was on Trump’s changing views on the war in Ukraine. The third story was about the reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel’s show on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), a major US commercial TV network. 

Meanwhile, news was also breaking in the rest of the world that day. Drone sightings had forced the closure of airports in Copenhagen and Oslo. Israeli strikes on Gaza had killed 38 Palestinians and injured a further 190. There were mass protests throughout Italy against Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza. France — along with Belgium, Luxembourg and several other countries — had recognized a Palestinian state. A super-typhoon had hit Taiwan, killing 14 people. The International Criminal Court had charged former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte with crimes against humanity.

There was Canadian news, as well. Following investigations by federal and provincial privacy commissioners, TikTok agreed to reforms to protect children and their information. Tension mounted in the final days before the scheduled cull of ostriches exposed to the avian flu on BC farms. And significantly, Prime Minister (PM) Mark Carney was also attending the annual UN General Assembly and had a full agenda — including a vital meeting with China’s Premier Li Qiang to smooth continuing trade talks over canola and electric vehicles. But none of this was deemed very important at CBC.

“Our moment” = America’s moment?

And CBC’s frequent looking to the US is not just limited to the top news stories of the day. The National finishes each newscast with a cute or inspiring human-interest story that the announcers affectionately refer to as “our moment”. On September 23, that segment covered how France’s PM Macron was inconvenienced by the traffic jams in New York City caused by Trump’s motorcade. Cute? October 6’s “moment” was how some National Air and Space Association (NASA) equipment had accidentally landed on some farmland in Texas. Inspiring? And not to be outdone, October 9’s “moment” was a spectator catching a home run ball at a stadium in Seattle; both the hitter and the catcher were American. Are these our moments?

Anything happening in the US — and in particular anything sensational — CBC seems to find riveting. Perhaps this has always been the case in the past, and that was okay. But now, when we are in the midst of frustrating trade negotiations with the US and when the US has threatened our sovereignty several times in recent months, our national public broadcaster’s fixation on American news is bewildering.

Is it because CBC thinks there aren’t enough newsworthy stories happening in Canada and that we, their audience, find America and American news more entertaining? Is Canada boring?

Is it because they think everything that happens in America has an effect on Canada — like the daily minutiae of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s court case?

Are they trying to appease the current US administration by not only focusing on US news but putting it first in the hopes that they will treat us well? Is it to humanize Americans and make us more sympathetic to their causes? Is it because they wish to continue pushing the outdated narrative that America and Canada are the best of friends? Or is it because they truly feel deep inside that Canada and the US — and therefore Canadians and Americans — are fundamentally the same, and the border is a formality?

Growing disillusionment

While CBC seems to be going out of its way to give us American content, it does not appear that the Americans are reciprocating. I periodically watch CNN, ABC and NBC — and I rarely see a story about Canada.

We should certainly know what is happening in the US; they are a superpower, we are small potatoes; they are our adjoining neighbors, and they’re threatening to eat our lunch. Indeed, many of us can and do easily watch US news channels on cable TV, get headlines on our phones and keep abreast of what’s happening across the border.

But right now, Canadians in general are not enamored of America. More than 50% of Canadians see the US as Canada’s top threat, and nearly two-thirds have “an unfavorable opinion of the US”.

CBC needs a reality check. America, under this current US administration, is not our friend or our big brother — and certainly not our “Daddy” as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) head Mark Rutte so obsequiously intimated. What it is is unpredictable and vaguely threatening. And while we need to understand it on strategic and actionable levels, there’s no need to give it so much oxygen and constant positive publicity.

Canada first

There’s no need to make America’s stories our stories, its perspectives our perspectives, nor its concerns our concerns — at least not if and until we become their 51st state. Canadians need to hear our own stories. We should have our own perspectives. And we certainly have more than enough of our own concerns — several of them brought on by this current US administration.

While maintaining friendly relations and a sound understanding, we also need to maintain a polite reserve and develop a healthy sense of self-reliance. We need independent reactions to events — both local and international — and our own agenda. And with some effort, we’ll be able to. We need to delink ourselves economically from the US, but perhaps, more importantly, and beforehand, culturally and mentally; CBC can help in that process.

When we Canadians are putting up Canadian flags on our lawns, abstaining from American products and avoiding visits to the US, the CBC simply saying “Elbows Up” on their ads while simultaneously flooding us with American news is not helpful. They should do some actual “elbows up” of their own.

First, they can give us more Canadian news and put it upfront. Second, when they provide international news, they can look beyond the US to give us news from other parts of the world; things are happening there, too, and we need to understand the world and play on a global field. Third, when they do give us American news, give us its context, its relevance to Canada and the reaction of Canadians. 

Finally, when The National ends its newscast with that traditional feel-good human-interest story, let it always be something that takes place in Canada; let it truly be our moment.

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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