Silly Little Country

No, please, not Wendy Crewson!

Oh dear. She has got time on CTV's Canada AM. The usual prattle about 'telling stories to ourselves' and 'telling our own stories' being pulled out purely for lobbying for your own industry. She wants it to be an election issue that more funding is needed for Canadian drama. Even worse, she is lobbying for Canadian 'drama' against the shows that I find so entertaining now - Canadian gardening and restaurant makeover shows.
It sickens me that she can get away with this when CTV would never grant time on Canada AM to a manufacturer of nails who came on to argue that we should ban the use of foreign nails, or set quotas for them, in the building of Canadian houses. Rent-seeking gone mad as usual.
Funnier yet, she talks about allowing us a choice - but presumes we would not want to watch other than our stories. Apparently it is unthinkable I might prefer reading Ian McEwan to Margaret Atwood. Or watching 'Law and Order' rather than 'Da Vinci's Inquest'. And to be honest, it seems to me I have lots of choice - there are several Canadian dramas I love, 'This is Wonderland' prime among them these days. Bring back more of 'The Newsroom'. We have so many channels it seems to me an audience could draw any show really wanted onto our airwaves.
Anyway you can go vote on this on CTV's web site (link above) and I am about to!
I think she should be ashamed of herself. (OK just voted - and it is running 77%-23% against her now.)
I may make a resolution now to watch her only in American dramas (to which she has devoted a good whack of her career, and she might object if Hollywood bought into her stupid ideas and permitted only Californian stories to be told there).

UPDATE: I have checked the CanadaAM poll and the results are now 64% in favour of Wendy's self-seeking views, and 36% against. This is quite a turnaround since the time I voted and it would be interesting to know what this means. Those supportive of her views are slower-moving, or just a lot more mellow?

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:45 AM