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20 January 2005  

Ezra Levant for Prime Minister. If his views on media and government are any indication, anyway, he's got my vote. Excerpts from his testimony before a senate committe in November:

Senator Tkachuk: Do you think there is a role for the CRTC?
Mr. Levant: I do not think there is....

Senator Tkachuk: Should it be the role of the Competition Bureau or the CRTC to prevent monopolies in markets, or do we need either?
Mr. Levant: I do not believe we need either. I am hard-pressed to find a single example in history of a monopoly that has managed to keep its monopoly without government support in one way or another. In fact, if you look historically at Canada's greatest monopolies, they did not exist naturally. Some government intervention created them in the first place.

Senator Tkachuk: What role, then, should the CBC have as part of Canada's media family?
Mr. Levant:... I think that the CBC could be liberated from the government and put into private hands.... It may have had a place in the past, but I do not believe that it needs the government support....

Senator Munson: On another subject, you say you do not think there is a role for the CRTC. Reading all the regulatory business with the CRTC and saying there must be certain things — for example, Al-Jazeera cannot do live television and cannot come here, and so on — but you say eliminate the CRTC. Is it just people coming in here and building radio and television stations and newspapers without any regulation of any sort, just a free-for-all with foreign ownership, American stations...?
Mr. Levant: That sounds exciting to me.

10:40 PM |

Compassionate Conservatism: Take Two.The best and the worst in Bush's inauguration speech, according to Michael Hurd.

05:29 PM |