The word “defund” is a verb which means to stop providing money, or as much money, to pay for something.   The word has been used in relation to the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, that was founded in 1936 as a crown corporation and is accountable to  Parliament.  It is the national radio and TV public broadcaster offering programming in English, French, and eight indigenous languages on its domestic radio service.   The CBC receives well over a Billion dollars annually from Canadian taxpayers and generates extra revenue from television advertising.  The federal Conservatives have been talking about defunding the CBC if they form government in the next election.  They talk about maintaining services for Francophones, but they say most of what CBC English Services offer is already provided by the private market.  I’m obviously in the radio private market and my observation is that if they wanted to stop providing as much taxpayer money to the CBC they could start with their radio stations whose programming formats are music based.  I’ve never liked it when seeing a billboard that’s been paid for with my tax money promoting listening to CBC radio to compete with our stations whose only source of revenue is selling advertising campaigns.  I have no problem with having three Canadian tv networks to choose from, Global, CTV and CBC.  CBC TV sells advertising and would have to live off that revenue just like the other two.   If we get a Conservative government next year, we’ll see what happens. 

That’s Coffeetalk.  I’m Vic Dubois.