Donald Trump trolling us about being annexed.

Now at the beginning, it all looked like a joke. The old Trump trick of teasing while shoving the knife into someone he’s never liked – Justin Trudeau. But it’s all gone so much further than that. Charts, maps, funny tax calculations, even one of the Trump sons predicting how well the two countries together would dominate the Olympics. Still a joke? Maybe, but it’s starting to get on some Canadians’ nerves, and they’re looking for someone to stand up and say … “Take off, eh?”

I found that person. It’s Pete McMartin in the Vancouver Sun:

Why the U.S. should be Canada's 11th province Read >

Okay then, here’s something different to think about: 2024 probably signalled the end of television as most of us have known it.

The landscape has changed. Traditional TV has cratered, and people are abandoning cable and so-called legacy television, with streaming services winning the day. The last refuge for the old way has been live sports action but even that is now slowly drifting - it’s rapidly drifting, actually - to streaming. On Christmas Day, Netflix spent most of its broadcast schedule with its first-ever NFL action televising two games plus a spectacular halftime performance with Beyonce and a cast of dancers, marching bands and horses. Yes, horses right there on the football field. And you could watch it anywhere Netflix is available – so we’re talking over 200 countries. If not the most-watched network in one day ever, it must have been very close.

Hidden in the entrails of that story is the answer perhaps to why no one seems to be saying boo in defence of the CBC, or even the idea of a remodelled, publicly funded national broadcaster. Or why Pierre Poilievre gets wall-to-wall applause whenever he delivers his “defund the CBC” rant to rallies across the country. The CBC’s problems go beyond the changing television landscape … an outgoing CBC President’s decision to hand out bonuses to management buddies while laying off those actually doing the broadcasting tops the list. But network programming few are watching, and a reluctance, for the most part, to accept that younger people have very different tastes than those who still believe there was a golden era in the past and that it can be recreated.

If you think that Poilievre is just talking bluster and he’ll forget about gutting the CBC just like some of his predecessors did when they won elections, think again. I watched him being massaged on some right-wing TV show the other day and he made it very clear: he’ll defund CBC English television and radio by a billion dollars right away if he wins the next election like every poll suggests he will, easily. Radio Canada not so much, after all, most French Canadians love RadCan and there are seats to be won in Quebec.

All this is likely leading to a CBC that was created by a Conservative prime minister in the 1930’s, to a CBC killed by a Conservative prime minister almost a hundred years later. Thousands of CBC’ers could be out of work in the not-too-distant future.

And guess what? Do you see anyone standing up and defending the CBC? In the past, even just a few years ago, “Save the CBC” lawn signs and protest rallies were fairly common sights. Not today. The usual suspects seem to have headed for the hills.

Now, you won’t be surprised to know that as someone who spent almost half a century at the CBC, someone who is enormously proud of the work accomplished by some of the finest journalists in the world (there’s a reason other networks across the planet are constantly wooing CBC’ers – they’re very good), I’d be awfully sad, and angry, to see the end of the CBC. But I get it. It’s a lot of public money at a time when other areas need funding. It would have helped if senior executives had been listening and not feathering their own beds with bonuses, listening instead to what their audiences (and some of their own younger staff) were saying, doing and wanting. It may be too late now, and if so, it’s a damn shame.

When that staunch Conservative R. B. Bennet created the beginnings of the CBC in 1932, it was to protect Canada’s culture and identity from the influence of US broadcasters. Now what do we have? An incoming US president with daily taunts that we are just some hick 51st state desperately in need of his leadership and protection.

I don’t blame him for his antics, and I don’t blame Poilievre for his promises. I blame us for letting it happen. We’ve created a vacuum that gives them life.

Enough from me on the CBC. Try this from Konrad Yakabuski in The Globe:

🔒 Burying the corpse: Who needs the CBC any more? Read >

Now for those who are wondering why I don’t offer a sterling defence of the CBC, I look at it this way. As I said in what I’ve just written, I believe in the need for public broadcasting and I think those who work there are some of the finest people in the business of broadcasting - journalism especially. But the case for a revitalized CBC today shouldn’t come from a former employee living on a CBC pension. It should come from those who feel they can benefit from public broadcasting or those who see a way forward for public broadcasting in what is a very new landscape. But I fear that if those people exist, they are not willing in a climate of trashing national institutions to stand up and fight for what might be possible. I say to them, prove me wrong.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes, I was leading to this Washington Post piece about the state of television in the United States. It’s into fundamental change too and it too is going to likely mean a whole world of hurt for some:

At CNN, lower TV ratings and heightened anxieties about what’s ahead Read >

Did you know there are more than a million foreign students in Canada right now?

More than a million. It’s a staggering number and it’s at the root of, among other things, some of our housing problems. At the same time reducing that number is going to be at the root of a financial crisis in Canadian universities and colleges. My colleague and co-author of a number of our books, Mark Bulgutch, has a great piece in the Toronto Star this week which will make you wonder how it ever got to this:

The international student crisis was an open secret. Why did no-one do anything to prevent it? Read >

It must be tough being King.

I mean once a year you have to give a Christmas message which is available around the world in all the countries where royalty used to be important. Your mother was a big hit with her message. She turned those moments into a real part of Christmas and many if not most people tuned in.

Not so sure about you, though.

Charles has basically been trashed for his turn on TV this year. “Boring” was the most common description. Here’s how the Daily Star put it:

King Charles' Christmas Day speech dubbed 'boring, unengaging, predictable and uninspiring' by AI Read >