Hey, did you hear?

Oh, I thought not.

I’ll have a column in THIS Magazine later this month, but feel moved to take a moment and write a bit more about how Canada is supposed to survive without news media.

And no, I don’t mean Facebook or Twitter.

Right now a large proportion of the Canadian population no longer has a local newspaper. If they’re lucky there might be some kind of an on-line news site, but even that is a maybe.

Although publishers and owners will claim over and over that the big, bad Internet is to blame, the real truth is that they’ve been chopping jobs and pages at random since way back in the days of Conrad Black. The goal has never really been about survival, or even efficiency, it has been about scraping every last penny out of the papers to line the pockets of the very rich.

Broadcasting has been much the same, especially commercial radio. What had traditionally been another essential local news source began to be cut back way back in the 1980s as licence hearings began to include arguments why a 90 second hourly newscast was just as good as a five minute one. These were the days when the CRTC was force to be reckoned with, and when commissioners actually took the job seriously, and weren’t afraid to irritate a radio station owner.

Sadly it became another case when free-market ideology (aka the Conservatives under many names) trumped any notion of the public good, or the responsible use of the media airwaves. Now you’re hard pressed to find radio stations that even have real people selecting music, much less a full-fledged newsroom.

This week we saw the announcement that the CBC is about to chop 10% of its workforce. The Great Mother Corp used to win global awards for the quality and breadth of it’s news reporting - especially documentary production. It was recognised around the world for creating information programming that was the standard to which other places aspired.

Now days it just feels sad and uninspired, with lacklustre entertainment shows, rehashes of American ideas, and repeats after repeats of one program or the other. There was a time when CBC created new ideas that you had to listen to just because they were so exciting and innovative. Those days are long gone, killed off by the teamwork between bean-counters and soulless programming bosses that are more focused on their pensions than what is broadcast.

If Justin Trudeau had a an ounce of sense, or dignity, he would be stepping up right now to say “NO. The CBC is an essential part of our national heritage and culture, and I will not allow it to be attacked in this manner.”

That won’t happen. When I think about this I have to accept that there is now literally nothing in Canada that our government feels deserves to be preserved or encouraged. There’s no sense any longer that national identity and national pride are things that make us stronger and better people.

It saddens me that the last time I can recall a broadcast that really united Canadians in a feeling of patriotism, it was a beer commercial.