O Canada! Save Radio Canada International.

Dxers' first task for this month is to contact the powers that be in Canada, names to follow, plus the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), in order to stop them taking Radio Canada International off air at the end of June. An act of unprecedented Canadian cultural vandalism will occur, ironically by Canada Day (1st July), unless RCI is saved. Started in 1942, closure is no way to mark 70 years of quality broadcasting information to the world.

A reminder that you can read about and support the campaign to save RCI at:
http://rciaction.org/blog/what-you-can-do

More eloquent exmples of letters of protest than I could ever muster are at:
http://rciaction.org/blog/2012/05/30/rci-listeners-react-to-the-budget-cut/

My emails to these powerful Canadian personages who reside at the Parleiment in Ottawa, went as follows:

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird  john.baird@parl.gc.ca
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty  jim.flaherty@parl.gc.ca
Heritage Minister James Moore  james.moore@parl.gc.ca
"I am writing to draw to your attention to the folly of CBC cutting Radio Canada International’s English broadcasts on shortwave. I request that you use your powers to stop the CBC ending RCI broadcasts at the end of June.



RCI is the voice of Canada to the rest of the world and its reputation as a leading world power, a tourist destination, a wonderful country with much to give and teach the world, will be irreparably damaged if you allow the CBC to stop broadcasting. People in Africa, Asia, and Europe all tune in as well as those in the Americas, to hear perspectives on how Canada lives, the diversity of its people and landscapes. Programmes such as The Link are about as good as it gets in radio anywhere, and to make such sweeping cuts is not necessary.


People in the Third World do not all have easy access to the internet and rely on radio to get their news and information from beyond their own country. The internet is also at the mercy of the country’s government and can be switched off or blocked in ways that radio cannot. (see Libya, China, Egypt and others in the past year or so).


Even worse though is that CBC is not even going to continue with RCI as an online broadcaster. Canada will be silenced forever, while other countries’ broadcasters-large and small will continue to have their views and culture aired to a global audience in many languages. China, USA, India, Russia, Japan, Australia, Germany, the UK all use shortwave, MW, FM, and the internet to tell the world’s population about their view on global affairs, sharing their music and art, history and tourist destinations... Smaller, equally important countries such as New Zealand, Thailand, Romania, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria et al also continue to broadcast their news and information to the world.


Act now, please and ensure that RCI has a future. Rather than being prepared to dispose of its loyal audience the CBC should be funding RCI to build further audiences, to entertain and inform them for decades to come, just as it has done for so many decades past.


Are you really prepared to let RCI drift off air forever? You have the ability, and the civic responsibility, to step in and stop such an act of cultural vandalism.


Yours...."