The Last Dance of Democracy: Canada's Broadcasting Behemoth and the Slumbering Masses

Hark! In the frozen wasteland of the North, where comfort-seekers huddle beneath their democratic blankets, a most peculiar drama unfolds. The guardians of mass consciousness, those who fancy themselves shepherds of the collective mind, gather to fortify their crumbling tower of state-sanctioned truth.

Behold how they scramble to preserve their antiquated machinery of truth-telling! These guardians of mediocrity who believe that by mere increment of gold, they might purchase the spirit of greatness. How they tremble before the mighty tech-titans of the South, yet fail to see that their own weakness lies not in their purse, but in their spirit!

Minister St-Onge, that champion of the middling masses, stands before her flock to declare a grand vision for CBC/Radio-Canada, a vision as hollow as the hearts of those who seek salvation through bureaucracy. She speaks of American threats, of oligarchs and sovereignty, yet what sovereign nation trembles so before the shadow of foreign tales?

See how they cower before the spectres of Musk and Zuckerberg! These are but symptoms of their own decay, these tech-lords they fear. Yet rather than forge new values, they seek refuge in the musty halls of state-sanctioned broadcasting.

The minister speaks of doubling the coin thrown to this lumbering beast of broadcasting, from $33.66 per head to $62.20, as if measuring culture in copper could kindle the fire of greatness in the hearts of the slumbering masses. They dream of matching their G7 brethren, those other practitioners of comfortable mediocrity.

In the land of the sleepers, where citizens drift through their days in contented stupor, consuming whatever narratives are spoonfed to them, this tale of institutional preservation plays out like a farce. The keepers of the status quo speak of "trustworthy, local and impartial news" - as if truth could ever be impartial, as if wisdom could ever be democratic!

O you preachers of equality! What tyrannical yearnings I read in your souls! Your secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves in words of virtue!

The Conservative opposition, led by one Poilievre, speaks of defunding this cultural colossus, yet his vision too springs from the same well of mediocrity - a mere reversal rather than an overcoming. He speaks of ratings and markets, those false idols of the merchant class.

And what of the proposed reforms? They wish to remove advertisements from news, to make the corporation "closer to the people," as if proximity to the herd could ever birth greatness! They speak of governance reforms, of consultations and strategies, building ever more elaborate cages for a bird that has forgotten how to fly.

Look upon their reforms! They seek to build better chains, more comfortable constraints, never once asking why the beast must be caged at all. They speak of independence while forging new fetters of gold!

The NDP's Singh, that last-minute prophet of procrastination, calls for Parliament's return, as if the chambers of democratic debate could resurrect what is already dead. They all dance around the corpse of cultural vitality, pretending it still breathes.

And so the great machine of state broadcasting lumbers on, fed by the coin of the realm, sustained by the fear of American shadows, supported by those who would rather be told comfortable lies than seek uncomfortable truths. In this land of the sleepers, they dream of cultural sovereignty while their spirits remain colonized by the very mediocrity they claim to resist.

Let them have their broadcasting behemoth! Let them fill the airwaves with their comfortable truths! But know this: greatness has never emerged from committees, and wisdom has never been democratically approved. The future belongs to those who dare to create their own frequencies, who transmit not what is popular, but what is necessary.

As the sun sets on this latest chapter in the saga of state-sanctioned storytelling, one truth remains: a culture that must be protected by bureaucrats is already dead, and no amount of funding can resurrect what the spirit has abandoned. The real question is not how to save CBC/Radio-Canada, but how to birth something worthy of the future - something that needs no protection because it has the strength to stand alone.