Democracy deserves its champions. And we’re running out of time |
Imagine a Canada where the weather forecast you depend on never arrives, the news never breaks, and your local radio station goes quiet. A Canada where Parliamentarians meet to debate bills that impact our lives, but there’s no record of their proceedings. A Canada where no one covers important press conferences or watches in on that critical committee meeting. A Canada where democracy operates in a vacuum, absent an engaged electorate. A Canada where decisions shaping our collective future unfold unseen, unheard, and unchallenged by the people they are meant to serve.
For more than 30 years, CPAC has served as this country’s public square. It’s the one place where any Canadian, anywhere, can witness the workings of our political system – unedited, unfiltered, without spin. It’s a service that all sides of the political spectrum rely on – every day, all year, and in real time.
But CPAC is facing a dark and challenging future. CPAC operates as a privately held, not-for-profit public service with no advertising, relying on only one meaningful source of revenue: a 13-cent per month fee per cable subscriber.
For less than the cost of a sip of coffee, CPAC brings Parliament into Canadians’ homes and hands, while preserving more than 75,000 hours of parliamentary history. That subscriber fee has remained unchanged since 2018. And as Canadians continue to cut the cord, CPAC’s revenue is down 19 percent from its peak in........