VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

WHICH COUNTRY IS THIS?

I have long been a defender of the CBC, and I think they should play an important part in contributing to, and reporting on the fabric of our country.

Although not a hard-and-fast monarchist, I was looking forward to seeing the pageantry of the arrival of Canada’s next head of state and his wife at St. John’s on May 17, as well as witnessing the joy in the faces of the expectant crowd outside the Confederation Building, the inspection of the guard of honour, and the salute to the Canadian flag — the sort of thing that contributes to the definition of our country.

So I turned on my television and tuned in to CBC News Network, only to find that before the Royal couple had even arrived at their official welcome to Canada, CBC decided to cut away to a speech by the American president in Buffalo, N.Y., and to carry the remainder of their coverage of the ceremonies in St. John’s as an inset on the screen, with no commentary.

The mass shooting in Buffalo earlier in the week was a horrific episode, and it calls for the sympathy of us all. What the president of the United States had to say was important.

But did our national broadcaster have to carry it live, in preference to an important Canadian occasion? Couldn’t it have been recorded and broadcast later in the day? After all, it is sad, but the U.S. president has in the past, and no doubt will in the future, be making similar speeches.

But these terrible events are happening in a foreign country, and should surely not trump our own significant occasions. Can you ever imagine a speech by our prime minister, no matter how important, being carried on American TV in preference to, say, the release of a Supreme Court decision?

Who is making the news production decisions at CBC News Network?

Dick Pentland, Halifax