Co-Op Radio Under the Gun

Imagine the dumbest possible reason the CRTC could crack down on Co-Op Radio (or the dumbest pretext they could offer for doing the same, if you prefer). Take a minute on it.

Did you get it?

Bear in mind that Co-Op Radio is one of the only radio stations in Vancouver that actually is accessible to the community, and that they genuinely play a role in supporting the arts and culture of Vancouver - whereas commercial stations like CFOX are more or less just corporate monoliths whose primary function is to find ways to get money from advertising, by pandering to the middlebrow desire for entertainment (or traffic reports or whatever). Co-Op is radio by the people, for the people, reaching into all sorts of different communities in Vancouver and giving them a voice, a forum, a means of staying connected, and, to the extent that they venture into playin' songs, supporting and strengthening the members of the musical or cultural communities they speak to - Canadian communities that are deprived of any media presence at all in corporate-radio-land, from ethnic minorities to lesbians to radical punks to Rastas to what-have-you. (Check their programming schedule for an example of the wide range of Vancouver communities Co-Op serves - I mean, find me a "Kurdish Voice" program on CFOX). Their politics might sometimes be a tad hostile to the status quo - and might attract the wrath of the suits - but their programming is very much an expression of the values and needs of a very large portion of Vancouver's populus - people who are not reached at all by your standard rock station.

So what's the dumbest reason you can think of for calling their license into question?

That's right: they don't play enough Canadian content. Which is presumably defined as Yankee-wannabee pop music. (Kurds, obviously, are not Canadians. Or Iranian women, or Palestinians, or "former Yugoslavians," howevermany of them live here; multicultural as Canada is supposed to be, "Canadian content" means pop songs by and for white people).

Co-Op Radio doesn't play enough CanCon. Is that not the stupidest fucking thing you've heard this week?

They better break out the Bryan Adams, and fast.