| RCI ACTION COMMITTEE Defending Radio Canada International - Canada's Voice to the World |
| Action Committee Letter to Heritage Minister Sheila Copps RCI ACTION COMMITTEE COMITÉ D’ACTION DE RCI May 9, 2001 Sheila Copps Minister, Canadian Heritage Madame, Having exhausted all other avenues, we turn to you, knowing your support for Radio Canada International, but also understanding your need to keep an arm’s length distance from the internal decision making within the CBC and RCI. As you have seen in the past, we are passionate programmers at RCI, concerned about our service, and determined to provide as good a service as possible. This is why we are appalled by planned cuts in programming services at the beginning of June. We know your ministry signed an accord at the end of March with CBC to maintain our service at its present level for the next year. Yet we are being told by RCI/CBC management that we must cut programming to save money because of a possible lack of money next year. Details about why this is necessary are scarce and contradictory. Since your ministry and RCI/CBC will be discussing the future of RCI, it seems to be crucial for a moratorium to be called on any program reductions until things are cleared up. To give you an idea of what will be affected: all RCI newscasts will be eliminated from Friday night to Monday morning. No personnel, in any language, will do live programming on the weekend. Our broadcast day will be shortened, and there will be reductions in different language services that will limit our audience reach. (Please see our press release.) These decisions do not respect CBC Corporate Policy No. 14 that RCI assure “daily shortwave broadcasts” “designed to attract an international audience.” Given the present confusion we respectfully request that you look into this troubling situation, and we would also request that you consider letting some representatives of the RCI Action Committee participate in the discussions about RCI’s future. Wojtek Gwiazda for the RCI Action Committee Back to Action Committee Press Release June 1, 2001 |