CBC Lockout Watch, Day 47

Antonia Zerbisias has figured out why the lockout has dragged on for seven weeks: management has no incentive to end it!

Think about CBC. Top management has absolutely no incentive to end the dispute because there is no financial penalty in continuing it.

In a private company, losses would pile up as assembly lines ground to a halt and inventories dried up. Executive bonuses would shrink. Shareholders would scream and yell.

But CBC managers are getting paid extra to cover for the locked-out workers. There will be more money for them to play with after this is all over. There's no financial downside.

Think of it this way: It's as if striking workers were being paid their full salaries and benefits to walk the picket line.

The Parliamentary Heritage Committee has requested the attendance of the top four CBC executives to answer two simple questions: what are you going to do to end the lockout, and what did you do with the money you saved during it?

Bill Brioux notes that even if the CBC settles the lockout quickly, it's ruined the season premieres, and locked itself out of the ratings war.

Yet another plaintive letter from the dispossessed:

CBC unites our country from coast to coast. It gives us the ability to speak to each other, share our lives, dreams and visions of what our country should and shouldn't be. It promotes, protects and projects our culture to the world.

This is not your broadcasting company, this is our broadcasting company, paid for with our tax dollars. We should be part of these negotiations.

I can't get enough of these people who keep reciting the mantra that CBC alone allows Canadians to share their stories with each other and the world. Did we all just stumble around in dumb incomprehension before CBC?

Was British Columbia terra incognita to Nova Scotians, an exotic land of legend and mystery like Cathay or the Kingdom of Prester John?

One wonders how the Fathers of Confederation and builders of the CPR ever managed to unite this fair dominion without the guiding hand of CBC, to hear their fans speak of it.

If the CBC is all that's holding this country together, then Canada is not long for this world.