On May 1, 2013, the director of Radio Canada International (RCI) Hélène Parent and her boss Hubert Lacroix, the president of Canada’s national radio and television public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada were before a Canadian senate committee to explain the 80% budget cut to RCI.
Lacroix made the opening statement before the Senate Standing Committee [...]
“It pains me to hear that RCI will be leaving SW in June. Over the years I’ve counted on RCI to keep me connected with home, be it during my travels in Europe, Asia, and even the depths of the Amazon. Most of those areas have no access to [...]
In 2002 the Association of North American Radio Clubs (ANARC) awarded the RCI Action Committee with a Certificate of Recognition for our work in defending Radio Canada International. Here’s the text of the certificate:
Certificate of Recognition for the RCI Action Committee
The Association of North American Radio Clubs proudly presents a group Certificate of Recognition to [...]
From the CBC Archives:
Broadcast Date: Feb. 25, 1945
The Second World War is winding down in Europe, but Canada’s new international shortwave radio service is just getting started. From its studios in Montreal and a web of shortwave transmission towers in Sackville, N.B., the service targets both Canadian and [...]
February 2008 – Action Committee spokesperson suspended!
Radio Canada International tries to “muzzle” communications union which represents RCI employees
The Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada (FNC-CSN) is outraged by and condemns the three day suspension without pay of one of its union stewards, Wojtek Gwiazda. For years he has defended the international mandate of Canada’s Voice to [...]
On March 26, 1982 RCI inaugurated its Ottawa bureau. RCI Director Betty Zimmerman (fourth from left) with staff: three English and three French journalists. At the time, they were all kept very busy covering the nation’s capital. In 2010, one of the two (!) journalists of our reduced Ottawa bureau was [...]
Study says RCI should not be integrated into the domestic service, the CBC/Radio-Canada
In October 1996, the Canadian component of KPMG, a accounting, tax and professional firm, released a report on RCI commissioned by the domestic radio and television service, CBC. The report came out at a time when RCI’s financial [...]
An overview of the issues involved in RCI’s international mandate.
November/December, 2007 – Questions about the international mandate of Radio Canada International (RCI) were once again raised at a parliamentary committee as it prepares to issue a report on Canada’s public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada. The public broadcaster is responsible for RCI. And [...]
Ottawa, 11 June 2003 – In a massive report on broadcasting in Canada called “Our Cultural Sovereignty”, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage described RCI as “an essential international service.”
Among its 97 recommendations the Committee called on the “appropriate department [to] review [...]
Below is what our Committee submitted to the Canadian Heritage Committee in 2001 in an attempt to protect the international mandate of Radio Canada International. (You can see the Standing Committee’s response here.)
Radio Canada International and the Broadcasting Act:
The Need to Protect RCI’s International Mandate and its Operational Autonomy
A submission to [...]
The administrators of RCI and our domestic service CBC/Radio-Canada make the decisions, but they are also responsible to Canadians through Parliament and the ruling Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
We need for these administrators, politicians and the media in Canada and in [...]
It’s hard to believe it’s so long: March 22, 1991 when our reality at RCI changed so radically. In December of 1990, our parent company the public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada announced that the international service would be eliminated unless the federal government paid for it (CBC actually had up until then budgeted [...]
On February 2, 2004 we had another “briefing meeting” about what was about to happen at RCI. Here’s a portion of what I wrote back then on the RCI Action Committee web site:
The briefing meeting is over. We’ve been told about the “repositioning”, feels more like shuffling the chairs on the Titanic. A [...]
From the beginning of June till mid October 2001, the RCI newsroom was empty on weekends…….no journalist and no announcer producer was permitted to work at keeping the world up to date on Canadian news on the weekend. All RCI produced newscasts, and all live programming were cut as part [...]
On May 25, 2007, the union representing most of RCI’s employees (Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada) called on parliament’s Canadian Heritage committee to protect RCI’s mandate saying “there will be nothing preventing the CBC from changing its international service” unless “the Broadcasting Act has been amended to protect RCI’s Mandate.” [...]
En français ici
Does the new “major transformation” of Radio Canada International respect the international mandate of RCI? The short answer is no.
At the moment the obligations of CBC/Radio-Canada in the Broadcasting Act and the Order in Council of 2012 are as follows:
Broadcasting Act of 1991
International service
46 (2) The Corporation shall, within the conditions of any [...]
In English here
La nouvelle «transformation majeure» de Radio Canada International respecte-t-elle le mandat international de RCI? La réponse courte est non.
Pour le moment les obligations de Radio-Canada / CBC dans le Loi sur la radiodiffusion et le décret de 2012 :
Loi sur la radiodiffusion 1991
Service international
46 (2) La Société fournit, dans le cadre [...]
En français ici
The RCI Action Committee started as the Coalition to Restore Full RCI Funding in 1991, just after it was announced that RCI would lose half its budget and half of its language sections.
I was one of 93 employees whose jobs were eliminated. During a break of a human resources meeting with us, we [...]
In English here
Le Comité d’action de RCI a débuté en tant que Coalition pour restaurer le financement intégral de RCI en 1991, juste après l’annonce que RCI perdrait la moitié de son budget et la moitié de ses sections linguistiques.
J’étais l’un des 93 employés dont les emplois ont été supprimés. Lors d’une pause pendant une [...]
In English here
Le 3 décembre 2020, le radiodiffuseur public national canadien de radio et de télévision Radio-Canada/CBC a annoncé «une transformation majeure» de Radio Canada International (RCI) intitulée « Radio Canada International se modernise pour le XXIE siècle ». Et si vous ne saviez rien de la relation toxique entre les deux, vous penseriez vraiment [...]
Ceci est simplement inacceptable. Il s’agit d’un coup mortel et non d’une modernisation! En plus, donner ce coup de masse en pleine pandémie est irresponsable.
Tous les expatriés, soldats, diplomates comptent sur RC international pour avoir de nouvelles de leur patrie. Les premières informations que j’ai eu au sujet du Québec et [...]
CBC/Radio Canadá anunció nuevos recortes en Radio Canada International (RCI) lo que provocará una reducción en el servicio y producción de contenidos propios en español.
Fundada en 1945, RCI es el servicio de transmisión internacional de la Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) y la división de español es considerada como una de las [...]
Seventy-five years is a long time, so it’s not surprising that most people don’t know what Radio Canada International (RCI) has done since its inauguration in 1945. Obviously, it’s impossible to list all its achievements and awards, but let’s try to look at a few of these.
Radio Canada International (RCI) was a highly respected medium [...]
Ingrid Betancourt, a Columbian politician held captive for six years in her own country, was awarded the Quebec National Assembly’s medal of honour in 2009 for her commitment to human rights.
In a Montreal Gazette article, dated September 24, 2009, she describes her love for Canada, and how during her captivity she tuned into Radio Canada [...]
Voici des extraits d’un article rédigé par Hugo Prevost sur le site de la chaîne nationale Radio-Canada à propos des coupures à Radio Canada International:
Du côté du Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs de Radio-Canada (STTRC), on s’insurge contre cette nouvelle réduction des effectifs chez RCI.
Du côté du Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs [...]
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