Today, December 5th, is the 20th anniversary of the day Gerard Veilleux, the president of our domestic radio-television service CBC/Radio-Canada, announced Radio Canada International would only continue if the Canadian government paid for it.
This decision set off two decades of vulnerability, questioning, and changing of mandates that continues.
It also set off reaction through letters and faxes from Canada and around the world from listeners and from other broadcasters, and three successful campaigns to block RCI’s closure in 1991, 1995 and 1996.