Bob

See, I just don't follow that. I also was unaware that there were any territorial disputes over Canadian sovereignty in the far North? What you're saying here makes no sense to me. I agree that it's worth promoting, it's just that at times I have some difficulty grasping exactly what our Canadian identity is. This ambiguity makes it difficult for me to decide what should and shouldn't be sponsored by taxpayers (in whole or in part) with respect to promotion of media and arts. Should we just lower the criteria for eligibility of support to the lowest common denominator - that the content be produced mainly in Canada and/or by Canadians? I'm a huge fan of Trailer Park Boys, but I always found it strange that at the end of every episode there was an indication that the program had been sponsored by some Federal agency. Wasn't the show popular and profitable enough to stand on its own? If it wasn't popular or profitable enough, should it have received life support from Federal tax dollars? Does that show qualify as being a promotion of Canadian culture or identity? I guess the show did somewhat enhance Canada's esteem, in a mild way. Are you getting a sense of why this is confusing for me?

Actually, she does talk about what she sees as a lack of criticism among Muslims towards disturbing trends within the culture - specifically the movement of many young Muslims towards radicalization. I've not read her books (i.e. The Trouble With Islam), but I've seen quite few videos of her (long and short) discussing related subjects. She does hold the opinion that there isn't enough dissent within the mainstream Muslim community towards denouncing trends of violence and terrorism. She's also said that she sees too little dissent among Muslims towards those Muslim who are intolerant of differing viewpoints and those that subscribe to improper gender roles (primarily the mistreatment of women). Although Irshad Manji isn't alone (Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish come to mind), she's on a short list of critics of some components/trends of Islam who have "Muslim-credibility" by being Muslim themselves. She's also received quite a few threats against her and her family that she takes seriously.

So broadcasting Canadian-produced radio content to our fellow Arctic-dwelling Canadians is an example of "use it or lose it" territorial sovereignty? You've lost me... With respect to Canadian content and what I extrapolated to Canadian culture, I'm looking for some clarification from you when you stated that "...there isn't much Canadian about Sirius". What did you mean by that? Are you saying that Sirius doesn't carry a lot of Canadian-produced content (like music or talk shows, for example)? If that is what you're saying, is it worthwhile to heavily fund public programs to strengthen media content produced in Canada simply for the sake of it being produced here (in whole or in part)?

Just a quick observation about the article you linked... I cannot STAND this guy's prose. He writes like he's in middle-school, how does he have a writing career with the Globe and Mail? Does he think he's youthful or funny? He's annoying. Regarding the substance of his article, I reject his assertion that the CBC has made serious efforts towards achieving political balance. It's quite clearly a liberal (more ideologically liberal than partisan-Liberal) media outlet, but then, Canada is a pretty liberal country. Although I consider myself to the right of mainstream Canada, I hold no illusions about the political character of our country. I think the CBC, in many ways, reflects Canada's political culture in how it reports the news. This John Doyle person is also quite the armchair analyst with his suggestions that the Conservatives are attacking the CBC simply to silence the "vehicle for opposition" to its G8 anti-abortion-funding plan. I think the Conservative party and ordinary Canadians with conservative leanings have been critical of the CBC for many years. This isn't a new thing solely in response to some narrow policy dispute. That was a painful article to read. Please don't link anything written by that guy again.

Hi there jbg, I have another example of some oversensitive Jews that occurred recently, here's the article. To make a long story short, a national security advisor told a joke at the 25th anniversary of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Here's the joke: A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn't have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he's back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: "Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant I think it's actually pretty funny. I'm Jewish myself, and I like to think that we've got a good sense of humour! Some of us are alarmists, though. Even I'm guilty of using the metaphorical microscope to seek out anti-semitism, on occasion! On a serious note, it's too bad he was compelled to apologize, I'm certain the joke came from a good place in his heart and was meant to be taken in a somewhat-endearing manner. We (Jews) need to be better at discerning malice from good-natured humour in situations like these.

Hey there Smallc, I have a couple of questions for you regarding this statement. Perhaps it's already been discussed in other threads, but I'd like you to elaborate on how you define something as "Canadian". Does that simply mean content being produced in whole or in part within Canada and/or by Canadians? Do you have a more substantive definition of what is and isn't Canadian content? I think it's clear we're headed in the direction of defining what is Canadian culture and whether or not we should support it via taxes. Although I know culture is inherently subjective, and often ambiguous, I'd like some parameters to understand this better. Once it's somewhat defined, I guess then it's worth discussing to what degree we need to work towards reinforcing and promoting this Canadian culture. What are you talking about when you mention the promotion of "Northern sovereignty"?

For the sake of accuracy, let's at least say that vacationing CAN be educational, depending on the circumstances. It's quite inaccurate to say that "travelling is a form of education" as an absolute. I think, without question, the vast majority of people view travelling primarily as a form of leisure. I get the vibe that you actually think that this is a good idea? Although this is starting to get slightly off-topic into more broad themes, I reject your assertion that "Where the EU is, we need to be". I'm not sure what the size of EU's economy has to do with justifying this position. This is all irrelevant, though, considering that your logic seems to suggest that we should mirror other economies simply because they are larger (you're forgetting about proportions, per capita, and productivity). I also don't know where you're coming from with this statement that "...European companies have been slowly and very quietly eclipsing American ones in terms of supremacy in certain markets." Is that just another made up fact? I'm certain that some European companies have competed very well, but is this an accurate generalization of how things are going in a broad context? I think not. I'd advise against making sweeping generalizations and very broad statements without real support.

For the purpose of clarification, the term "goy" is not inherently disparaging. It depends on the tone or context within which it is said. The term is Yiddish and simply means "nation", so "goyim" (plural form of goy) refers to "the nations" (non-Jews). Of course we've all seen TV shows and/or movies showing an incident of Jews referring to non-Jews as goyim in a denigrating fashion, but that's because of the tone of the statement. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Greetings fellow Canadians, I'm surprised it hasn't been asked yet in this thread, but my initial response to this story was, "...perhaps this Gillian Duffy IS a bigot and Gordon Brown's candid comments about her to his aide(s) were justified?" So here's a video of the actual exchange between Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy, after which the PM described the lady as "bigoted". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14f3aOC929w It's a brief clip, but the only thing that this lady says that's somewhat questionable is her apparent questioning of the wisdom of the influx of Eastern Europeans into the UK. Now I agree that's getting close to painting an entire people with a broad brush... what brush she is using, however, isn't quite clear. She seems to be suggesting that the UK is absorbing more immigrants from Eastern Europe than it can handle, or that the immigrants coming in aren't valuable to the UK. Perhaps she has a point? I don't know the statistics, so I can't comment. If the UK is absorbing many immigrants that cannot successfully integrate economically and/or socially into its fabric, then this lady definitely has a point. Although he comment borders on becoming too big a negative generalization, she never out-and-out says anything denigrating about immigrants and doesn't come across as xenophobic or "bigoted". The PM's description of the lady as bigoted confirms her very own statement in the clip - "...you can't say about the immigrants, because you're saying..." (at 2:36 in the video), which suggests that she feels an overly-sensitive political discourse which intimidates UKers from voice opinions critical of immigration/immigrants. In other words, she feels the political discourse is far too politically correct - an opinion that seems to be confirmed by Brown's later description of this lady as "bigoted". Argus and Bonam both mentioned this same theme in their posts. Most obviously, and I'm sure we'll all agree on this, is the PM's blatant phoniness. Even if we didn't hear of his comments about the lady being "bigoted" (assuming he had disconnected his mic), he still feels really fake when schmoozing with this lady. Considering that we all now DO know about his disparaging comments about the lady after leaving this brief little "meet the people" event, his fakeness is just all that more pathetic. Although I'm not British, I'd have a lot of difficulty voting for this man after just learning about this story. Somewhat off-topic, I find Gordon Brown to be lacking in the charisma department. Also, I remember him being voted one of the (if not topping the list) worst-dressed men by some UK or European magazine.