“Mr. Del Mastro was responding to a claim from NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa-South, Ont.) on Monday that the Conservatives are attacking the CBC because the Crown corporation—as with the federal long-gun registry—is a lightning rod that motivates hardline Conservative supporters into digging deep to contribute to the Conservative Party when it is being attacked in Parliament.

“Killing the long gun registry, we know that was a money maker for the Conservative Party,” Mr. Dewar told The Hill Times.

“What actually has out-done that, the long gun registry, in terms of bringing in money, was when they would put out financial appeals on the CBC, either to cut its funding or come up with some reason to get people irritated about the CBC. That always brought in money,” he said.

“Clearly this is politically motivated by Harper, to put Del Mastro on the file so to speak, because it generates funds for the Conservative Party,” Mr. Dewar said. “This isn’t about strengthening Canadian culture, it’s about attacking Canadian institutions that they don’t like. And it turns out that it’s a money maker for them.”

Asked why he has that view, Mr. Dewar replied: “If you ask Conservative Party officials what raises the most money for them when they do appeals, number one is CBC, followed by the long-gun registry, so this is about making money for the Conservative Party, it’s not about transparency at the CBC.

“It’s a little too cute by half when these guys, the Conservatives go after the CBC for transparency, the only media corporation that has to submit to the overview of the auditor general, and submit their budgets and has an open policy of transparency is the CBC. No other media corporation has to go through that kind of scrutiny.”

Mr. Del Mastro rejected Mr. Dewar’s claim.

“He’s making it up as he goes along, there is not truth to that, you know that’s absolutely false,” Mr. Del Mastro said. “The bottom line is we have a situation where the CBC and the information commissioner are locked in what the Information Commissioner calls a long and protracted battle.””

Excerpt - “CBC in contempt of Parliament if it doesn’t produce documents Access Committee requests: Del Mastro” The Hill Times

by Tim Naumetz

Nov. 7, 2011