The Canadian Radio League was a public pressure group led by Graham Spry and

Alan Plaunt Alan Butterworth Plaunt (March 25, 1904 – September 12, 1941) was a Canadian broadcasting pioneer, journalist and activist. The son of a wealthy lumber family, Plaunt attended the University of Toronto and University of Oxford and was a keen obse ...

to mobilize support for the establishment of

public broadcasting Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. The League was founded in 1930 in order to lobby for the implementation of the 1929 Report of the

Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting The Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting, otherwise known as the Aird Commission, was chaired by John Aird and examined Canada's broadcasting industry. The report released its findings in 1929 when it concluded that Canada was in need of a publ ...

(Aird Commission) recommending the creation of a

Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC), also referred to as the Canadian Radio Commission (CRC), was Canada's first public broadcaster and the immediate precursor to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Origins The CRBC was establis ...

(the forerunner of the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the governmen ...

.) Prime Minister

William Lyon Mackenzie King William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was a Canadian statesman and politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A L ...

had delayed implementation of the Aird Commission's report until after the 1930 federal election. However, with the defeat of King's government and the election of a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

government led by R.B. Bennett, the future of public broadcasting become uncertain. Spry and Plaunt founded the League and used it to influence public opinion in support of public broadcasting making their case to

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

s, farm groups, business associations, churches, the

Royal Canadian Legion The Royal Canadian Legion is a non-profit Canadian ex-service organization (veterans' organization) founded in 1925. Membership includes people who have served as military, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, provincial and municipal police, Royal ...

, the

Canadian Club of Toronto The Canadian Club of Toronto, now known as Canadian Club Toronto, is a non-profit speakers' forum in Toronto, Ontario. It meets several times a month to hear speeches given by invited guests from diverse fields, including politics, law, business, ...

, newspapers, university presidents and other influential public figures. The Canadian parliament held public hearings into the future of broadcasting in Canada at which the League testified urging the creation of a national public broadcasting system that would reflect Canadians' identity and be free from the influence of private American interests. "The choice before the committee is clear," Spry affirmed during the hearings. "It is a choice between commercial interests and the people's interest. It is a choice between the state and the United States." Largely as a result of the CRL's efforts, the Bennett government introduced the

Canadian Broadcasting Act of 1932 Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...

creating the CRBC. In 1968 Spry revived the CRL as the 'Canadian Broadcasting League when the creation of a new Broadcast Act threatened the future of the CBC. For the next two decades it was active lobbying on the issue of public broadcasting and the

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

industry profits, funding for the CBC, educational broadcasting and legislation. It remained active until the late 1980s.Portman, Jamie, "Tories ready to shove Broadcast Act through", ''Toronto Star'', August 30, 1988

References

{{reflist Political advocacy groups in Canada Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Public radio in Canada Cultural promotion organizations Protectionism

See also

References