Certainly having the CBC in our lives has helped us in being able to point out the minute differences between our culture and that of our friends to the South, though I suspect the NFB (National Film Board of Canada) has had more of an influence on what it is that makes Canadians Canadian. For the most part, we are a nation of observers. Many of the NFB’s early work focused on documentaries and it is through this lens that our media culture has mostly developed. Many of the early mythologies of our country have come from the NFB shorts that would play between programs and they all drew their subject matter from the things that were important to us.

I think that we would likely have lost any ability to portray our culture through televised media if it weren’t for the CBC and CanCon. One only need to look at the other Canadian networks in order to see this. While I haven’t looked into the amount of “Canadian” programming that other networks air, I’m sure they are doing the bare minimum as they see an easy way to make money by airing American shows on their networks. Still, these networks have come up with some great Canadian-made shows, some of which have been picked up in the States (or at the very least, garnered interest by American networks).

Still, most networks would rather piggyback on American TV than create original material. I was without cable (which has a different meaning up here) for a long time and when I got it again at the beginning of the year I was going to watch only Canadian TV. The first day of this experiment proved to be an exercise in futility. I first tuned into The Comedy Network only to see they were running MadTV reruns. I then switched the channel to the Outdoor Life Network, but they were running Dog the Bounty Hunter. I thought I’d be safe clicking over to CBC but found they were airing an old Simpsons episode! Though it was a bleak start, I did eventually start finding shows that were most certainly Canadian and not from the US. Still, I had to change my experiment to be that as long as the channel was a Canadian one, it would qualify.

I’m not sure if the CBC being the authority on what it means to be Canadian is the best option. Certainly, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where the CBC didn’t exist. After all, they were responsible for the image most other nations have of us, that of the hoser.

Ultimately, I think we Canadians know what it is that makes us Canadian and it’s something that can’t be accurately portrayed in a half hour sitcom or hour long drama. It’s simply knowing that we are all part of the same great experiment.