Growing up on the West Coast of the country, radio drama was a huge part of my formation as an artist.  Listening to great actors read powerful plays on CBC Radio has been so important to me, as radio affects the imagination in such a unique way.  The loss of this service is a real blow to our collective identity.
                                                                                                      Atom Egoyan (writer/director)

Join prominent Canadians in supporting CBC radio drama.

Recently, because of the 10% cuts to the CBC by the Harper Government, CBC has decided to cut radio drama completely.  This is a heartbreaking moment for Canadian culture. Not only is this another blow to our cultural sector but also the death of an art form dedicated to telling Canadian stories in a unique and direct way.  Radio drama demands the participation of its audiences, as it works the mind and the imagination. Below you will find over forty quotes from prominent Canadians telling you what the cut of CBC radio drama means to them.  Now is your chance to let CBC and the Harper Government know what radio drama means to you!

Canadian radio drama has highlighted the work of our greatest creative talents: W.O. Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Jane Urquhart, Rohinton Mistry, Hannah Moscovitch, John Drainie, Gordon Pinsent, Christopher Plummer, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Saul Rubinek, Russell Peters - the list could go on and on.  For almost eighty years Canada has joined other English speaking countries (Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, United States, Hong Kong) in producing great dramas, free to all.  Thousands of original dramas have been produced at the CBC and they have been extremely popular with Canadians.  Soap operas, political thrillers, book dramatisations, comedies, histories, and mysteries: all genres have been explored.  From Young Bloods of Beaver Bend (1936) to Midnight Cab and Dead Dog Café, CBC radio drama series have had huge weekly audiences. Recently, the long-running show, Afghanada, which followed the stories of our soldiers in Afghanistan, attracted almost half a million listeners. 

Back to your support: We cannot let this moment pass without acknowledging the impact radio drama has on Canadians. Please contact the CBC and those in government, those who make decisions on your behalf, and tell them how you will miss CBC radio drama.

Here are some links to guide you.

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/contact/

Prime Minister Steven Harper: pm@pm.gc.ca

Minister of Canadian, The Hon. James Moore: james.moore@parl.gc.ca

Find your Member of Parliament: find MPs by postal code

Listen to Michael Enright and Eric Peterson talking about the history of radio drama at:

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Radio/The_Sunday_Edition/1478078805/ID=2222597041

For more information email Beverley Cooper at: ilovecbcradiodrama@gmail.com

Albert Schultz (actor/director/producer)

What is most disturbing about this loss of CBC Radio Drama is that it cuts so harshly into both our past and our future.  There is no other institution in the history of this country that has so well, and for so long, bonded our far-flung nation through the sharing of stories. As parents we know in our bones the importance of storytelling in the formation of our children.  So too, the nation-wide sharing of stories is vital in imagining and realizing Canada's future. The fact that radio drama is the most economical way to tell stories to a whole country, makes this loss both deeply painful and completely baffling.

Jim Cuddy (musician)

I have always been an avid listener of CBC radio drama. Having been to Afghanistan with Blue Rodeo I listened with a renewed interest to Afghanada. It was always a unique portrayal of the Canadian experience in a very unusual war. The cultivating of our story tellers and our actors seems a culturally significant achievement and I for one hope it continues.

Jane Urquhart  (Canadian Author)

To my mind there is little in our country that stimulates the imagination as much as CBC radio drama. The fact that it can be at the same time both intimate and inclusively collective already makes it utterly unique, but it is the landscapes, streetscapes, and human faces and gestures that it paints in each mind that, ironically, makes radio drama the most  visual media around. And because the listener is required to participate in this way in the act of building the fictional world, her reactions are more personal and therefore more visceral. Hearing my own work dramatized on CBC was a thrill and an honour. Listening to Afghanada affected me emotionally and brought a distant war so close to me I could almost taste the dust.

Scott Taylor (publisher, Esprit de Corps Magazine)

As a young boy growing up in London, UK, the masterful BBC radio dramas were very much a part of the Taylor family’s after dinner entertainment. Until I was asked to participate in the CBC Afghanada pilot project, I had thought that radio plays were a long forgotten thing of the past. Nevertheless the success of that show proved that Canadians are still willing to use their imaginations, even in this era of computer animation video at every turn. Of all the projects that I have embarked upon over the past two decades, be they books I have penned or documentaries I have produced etc, it was my minor involvement with Afghanada that has generated the most interest among my neighbours and friends. Canadians really felt connected to that show.

Sheila McCarthy (actor)

When I heard about the CBC Radio dramas being cut I felt as though I had lost a dear friend. Not only was this friend important to me as an employer but also a friend who kept me alive for twenty five years each time I crossed the 401 from home to Toronto. Miles and miles and hour and hours of important beautifully executed dramas that I listened to every week. The stories about US: Our wars, our losses, our satires, our people. CBC Radio Drama exemplified who we are, why we matter and why we care. This is an enormous loss for everyone.

Alice Munro (writer)

Here is a true story. When I was in High School I was glued to the radio every Sunday night to listen to CBC broadcasts of adapted classics. Vanity Fair, Wuthering Heights, etc. It was my lifeline to a world of nobody I knew. So - was this elitist? I don't care - it was salvation. Destroying such treasure now on CBC sounds to me like taking away some vital nourishment.

Don Gillmor (writer)

In the opening scene of Henry V, Shakespeare asks the audience to imagine two armies clashing. And for five centuries, audiences have, each member seeing a different battle, but each involved in the same experience. Radio drama asks us to imagine everything, and we are joined in our separate visions. Afghanada remains one of the most compelling glimpses into that war, in part because we helped paint those pictures. It is an imagined landscape, and Canada, more than most, is an imagined country. Radio drama is a binding force.

Saul Rubinek (actor/writer/director)

I'm astounded that CBC's reaction to budget cuts was to throw out radio drama; a decision as poorly conceived and as blandly insensitive as the Harper government's cynical and unjust cut. Throughout my life, I have had the extraordinary privilege to perform in CBC radio theatre - in comedies, mysteries, satires, adaptations of novels, new plays, classics, skits - every imaginable genre. I say 'privilege' because CBC radio has produced, throughout its history, much of the best radio theatre in the world - commercial free. Very un-Canadian, I know, to make such a boastful claim, but I'm not raising a patriotic flag, I'm saying we have produced and continue to produce world-class stuff and I find it impossible to believe that we might, with a sad sigh of reminiscence about past greatness, simply let it all go. Surely not. We don't need sadness, we need rage, and outrage.

Michael Healey (playwright/ actor)

It seems to me that if your goal is to shape the nation's imagination, the best way to do that is to exert control over the nation's media. If the national broadcaster has been shaping the nation's imagination for decades, the first thing to do would be to diminish that broadcaster. Ten per cent would be a good start -- not devastating, but it shows the base you're serious. And the resultant conversation surrounds which services are lost, so the philosophic intent behind that diminishment gets lost. But the question remains -- who will we allow to describe our collective inner life? 

Gordon House, Former Head of BBC Radio Drama

It's so sad how Radio Drama is being phased out throughout the world.  Such a great medium.  Such a relatively inexpensive medium.  And yet the ratings-obsessed newsmen who run all the big media companies think all the public want is news.  And of course, if that's all you give them, that's all they'll want. My (excellent) boss at World Service had a great mantra.  He'd get his audience research people to ask people what they listened to on radio - and, of course, news always came out as by far the most listened-to genre. As you'd expect. He then changed the question.  He asked them to ask "what particular radio program has stayed with you the last year as being particularly memorable/enjoyable/moving...?” And then the answer was never news.  It was always a feature, a concert, or - very often - a play…CBC won't realise the value of what they have lost until five years on, when they wonder why their output sounds so much the same. 

Christopher JR Davis
Lieutenant-General (ret'd)

Radio drama is unlike any other medium.  It uses our imaginations to their full capacity.  I have, with great enjoyment, listened to CBC radio dramas that have transported me completely to other worlds, lives, conflicts.  It's a shame it has been cut, it will be missed.

Michael Riley (actor)

After 28 years as a professional actor in this country, I can say unequivocally that many of my most satiating and enjoyable creative experiences have been performing in (and listening to...) radio drama at the CBC. It would indeed be a sad and unfortunate day if this were truly the end...

Cathy Marie Buchanan (writer)

Way back when I was a student who listened to the radio solely for music, I found myself flipping stations and coming upon a radio play.  The art form was new to me, powerful, and I was engaged.  After that I sought out radio plays, and I suppose they are what led me to becoming a dedicated consumer of high quality public broadcasting.  No doubt they contributed to the development of my writer’s psyche. 

Gordon Pinsent (actor/director/writer)

I had hoped the ‘axeman’ would have missed his mark, where the cutting of radio drama was concerned. Shame on them for hacking this service.  This ‘cutting and pasting’ of our history will affect us all where the telling of our stories is concerned, and where the loyal Canadian audiences are concerned. For decades our listening audiences have been linked by our Canadian voice, since the creation of public broadcasting.  This cutting has aimed its insult at those who had devoted their lives in this broadcasting venue, without which our stories would not have been told. And our ideas transmitted for the good of the country.  Did they listen to hear the axe fall, and the head hit the basket? If they were wise they would check again to see if the toes are wiggling so that we may get back to the business of keeping our connecting promise to our writing and performing artists, who had laid the sod for us; our Canadian writers, intimately and expertly voiced by the best radio performing talent known to broadcasting; looked to as the best in the field.

Hon. Flora MacDonald, (former Foreign Minister of Canada and former Minister of Culture and Communications)

Telling our stories enriches us, as individuals and as a country. Radio Drama is a wonderful way to tell those stories - it can engage and challenge us and, because we're using our imaginations, we become participants.

Des McAnuff (Artistic Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival)
The whole point of a publicly funded broadcaster is that it should be able to undertake work of artistic and national significance that lies beyond the scope of commercial broadcasters. The CBC has a major role to play in creating and nurturing the arts in Canada, and radio drama offers a unique and highly cost-effective way of bringing dramatic scripts vividly to life. Rather than abandoning this irreplaceable art form, the CBC should be investing far more extensively in producing not only the work of our own Canadian playwrights but also the plays of Shakespeare and the other great dramatists who are so central to any theatrical culture. I urge the CBC to reconsider this decision, and I urge the government of Canada to support to the utmost the corporation’s vital place in the creative and imaginative life of our country.

Marni Jackson (award-winning journalist and author)

Radio drama at the CBC has helped support and develop many of our finest writers, including the poet Al Purdy.  Please don't cut it!  Listeners and artists will both lose out.

Patricia Rozema (director, screenwriter, producer, editor)

Next to storytelling in a room full of family and friends, radio drama is the most communal, immediate and inexpensive way we have of experiencing what there is to delight in, cherish and fear in life. What could possibly be the value of losing that?

Jo Ledingham (Theatre Critic, The Vancouver Courier)

I am shocked and dismayed to hear that CBC Radio Drama has been cut and I have already contacted my MP, James Moore, to register my complete disgust. So many writers and performers built their careers via CBC's excellent radio drama. I ask, "What is the Harper Government afraid of?" It seems they are systematically dismantling the CBC as the most vital forum for Canadian voices. While I understand the belt-tightening, cuts to the CBC were 'way out of proportion to other cuts. I ask again, "What is the Harper Government afraid of?" Canadians?

Emma Donoghue (writer)

Radio drama is an art form that, in less than a century, has proved itself capable of taking listeners on the most extraordinary of journeys. It is also, as it happens, remarkably good value for money, because for a budget only a fraction that of television or film, it can bring scripts and performances by the best talents around to thousands more people than would see a play in a theatre.  For the CBC to be so gutted by the Harper Government's cuts that it has to abandon this vibrant art form is simply appalling. 

Gillian Deacon (author/broadcaster)

On more than one occasion I have had to pull my car over to the side of the road while listening to Afghanada on CBC radio.  The immediacy of that drama affects me so deeply every time I hear it. Empathetic characters and well-conceived plots connect me with the experience of Canada's combat mission soldiers in ways that no amount of news coverage about Afghanistan has ever managed. Parked on the shoulder with my hazard lights on, staring out the windshield at the passing traffic, I often weep, I may give thanks, I always reflect. Now that is powerful radio programming.  I will miss CBC radio drama terribly. I hope someone somewhere has the good sense to channel Donaldson, Chucky and Kinsella, and go to the wall to protect something worth fighting for.

Ann-Marie MacDonald (actor/writer/host)

With the end of CBC radio drama, another vital connection among Canadians is broken.

Elizabeth Ruth  (Canadian novelist)

Radio drama offers a profoundly intimate and democratic experience of 'story', engaging listeners' imaginations across all literacy levels.  Shame on the federal government for limiting access to this creative and egalitarian form of Canadian art and culture.

Linda Griffiths (actor/playwright)

A country must hear the voices of its citizens.  Actors imitate the sound and tenor of those voices and writers shape the sounds into tales. Radio gives expression to the imagination.  At a time when audio books are becoming more and more popular, why would we rob this country of the drama that is the root of all culture?  Travelling in Europe in the eighties, I was told by more than one person – Canada is the country of the future.  Who would say that now?

Thomas King (writer/professor)

Canada without CBC radio drama?  Did someone stop taking his medication?

Henry Czerny (actor)

Radio drama, the canary in the coal mine. Mining the unique richness of the Canadian experience. CBC Radio Drama, an internationally coveted species of canary we learned to breed exceptionally well and harness as an informer regarding our immediate environment - this Country we believe ourselves to have fathomed. Conscientious chirping, ricocheting off the facets of our home and native mine.  Reminding us to pay attention to our breathing as much as our cravings. But who has time for breathing?  These are hard times we have to dig through.  So let's just ditch our coveted canaries right here and use their water to cool our diamond bits. Their reflective 'songs of us' are only holding us back.  This is the only way to keep up. Dig lean for a few short years and our way of life will soon be  ... cough ...Gone.

Terry Fallis (writer)

For decades, radio dramas on CBC have told stories that reflect and define our country, while connecting Canadians across our land. We need these stories today more than ever.

Jacob Tierney (actor/writer/director)

I have been privileged to have worked at CBC radio as both an actor and a writer, on and off for over 20 years. I learned more about both of my crafts, became a better writer and actor, because of these experiences. From Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, through The Elliott Graves Mysteries, I know first hand how CBC Radio Drama has moved and entertained people. As another casualty in the Conservative government's ongoing war against culture, we should all take a moment to feel the enormity of this loss to our country's fabric. This is an outrage.

Patrick McKenna (actor)

The loss of CBC radio drama is a deep cut indeed.  Not just because we lose another arena in which to tell our Canadian stories – but also “how” we tell them.    We’ll miss the lyrical vocabulary of a maritime yarn and the slow picturesque choices of a Prairie storyteller. We’ll miss Quebec’s passion, Ontario’s corporate staccato and the vast dream like quality that shades every west coast tale.  Canada is an orchestra and orchestras need to be heard.

Radio drama allows us to talk, laugh, cry, dream and remember together.  Canada is our country; these are our stories, our voices, our tax dollars – our choice.

Marina Endicott (writer)

CBC radio has been my constant companion all my life—the one common denominator as I've travelled and lived in every region of Canada—and even more than intelligent talk, I've tuned in for radio drama. By turns heartening, enthralling, brilliant and exasperating, radio drama has never been perfect, but it's a living argument about our country, another way of speaking and thinking about the ways we live here. Drama and comedy insinuate themselves into our deepest minds, and make us examine ourselves and others in a different, more subtle way than the news or political commentary. It would be a devastating loss to have this idiom cut off. Please reinstate radio drama. 

Michael Redhill (writer)

The CBC was one of the last places in the world where a storied art form not only survived, but prospered. With coast-to-coast followings, CBC's radio dramas told Canadians their stories in another kind of way, a way that enriched their understanding of their world. And these were top-notch radio plays written by some of the country's best writers, and created by some of the country's best radio talent. It kept CBC Radio One on the cutting edge of programming and each episode had the potential to reach millions of listeners. Losing radio drama is genuinely tragic.

Hannah Moscovitch (playwright and writer on Afghanada)

Last night I was hanging out with some new people. I told them I'd worked on the CBC radio show Afghanada and their eyes went wide. They told me they loved the show. They said they were anti-war but the show made them like soldiers. As one of the writers on the show, that meant a lot to me, that the show helped them to connect to our soldiers. I was sorry to hear CBC radio drama was gone because, if I'm in Vancouver or Halifax or Regina, and I'm doing talkbacks for my work as a playwright, people ask me about my radio drama work.Afghanada was a radio show about Canadians that people across the country listened to. And what I learned from all the questions about Afghanada I've been asked over the years is that hearing stories about Canadians has meaning to people in this country. We hear a lot of stories about Americans and the British, and those are good stories too, but what I learned from talking to people pretty much everywhere in Canada is that they like hearing stories about themselves.

Seana McKenna (Actor)

Et tu, Brute? CBC Radio has fled its mandate, and like so many short-sighted budget-strapped schools, has cut the "frills": the programs that foster creativity, imagination and the culture CBC supposedly celebrates.  An avid listener to CBC radio for three decades, I loved hearing fiction come alive on the airwaves. The plays, poetry, novels and short-stories were a welcome and increasingly rare change from the steady diet of news, talk shows and occasional music. Where do we go now to hear the work of writers, actors and directors from the other side of the country, and the world?  I recently recognized a play on the radio, having been in its premiere in Toronto. It was Damien Atkins' "Lucy", on NPR. Lovely that I heard it; sad that I had to turn the dial south to do so. As an eternal optimist  for the arts in Canada, I kept hoping we would return to the glory days of CBC Radio and have more radio drama, not less. Am I sadly resigned that there is NONE now? No: I am angry that the current Federal government is succeeding in its slow but steady destruction of the CBC, aided by those at the CBC who think that feeding Radio Drama to the Minotaur will some how sate the beast's appetite, and keep them safe from harm.

Eric Coates (Artistic Director, Blyth Festival)

CBC Radio Drama has influenced me as an artist and as a Canadian citizen, in equal measure. As a listener, it has informed my view of Canada and the world. As an artist, it has offered me opportunities and challenges that have had an enormous impact on my professional development. Whether directing the comedy serial The Morning Scoop or broadcasting a special Sunday Showcase, live from Blyth Memorial Hall, the experience informed my approach to plot, character, and tension – all essential elements in any dramatic form. The end of CBC Radio Drama is a travesty.

Arlene Duncan (actor)

I've been lucky enough to have  spent several formative acting years performing in CBC radio drama. I cherish the opportunities I had to create and tell original Canadian stories written by some very experienced as well as newly developing writers. The medium of radio presents the story on a blank canvas and allows the audience to use their imagination to color in the details. One of my favourite episodes of the long-running radio drama The Old Guy had my character, Betty Parker, helping to solve a murder mystery from a float in the midst of a Caribbean carnival parade in downtown Toronto! The excitement & atmosphere was recreated by a talented crew of studio technicians and transported across Canada to the extent of CBC radio's reach bringing the country that much closer together. The loss of CBC radio is the loss of another opportunity for young actors and writers to hone their skills and us as Canadians to express the various aspects of our culture. 

Fiona Reid (actor)

What a terrible loss. Another vital way in which we tell each other our stories has been cut down. I think of the countless times I've caught a drama on my ipod, iphone or car radio and had to stop what I was doing just to drink it in. These dramas transported me and deepened my sense of the Canadian fabric. It's hard to believe it's actually happening. So foolish and catastrophic are these cuts. 'You don't know what you've got till it's gone' - Joni Mitchell…

Jenny Young (actor CBC, Shaw Festival, National Arts Centre)

As an actor on Afghanada for 6 years we received countless emails and letters explaining how peoples’ days revolved around hearing an episode of our drama. Most importantly these came from all walks of life, farmers and truck drivers, from govt. employees to fisherman, ad men and women to stockbrokers and most importantly family and friends of our Canadian troupes. Over and over we heard 'now I know what it really means to be a soldier in Afghanistan'.  My experience working on the very popular radio drama Afghanada showed me time and time again that Canadians not only want but NEED Canadian stories to identify with. My heart is broken that this medium is gone. One that reaches into tractors, fishing boats, commuting cars and living rooms alike.

Leah Pinsent (actor)

We Need To Fight To Keep Our Voice. Do we really want to be the first, if not the only industrialized country in the world without it's own national radio?  Canada already has a history of fractured unity and without CBC's voices we are doomed to be a country even less Canadian and more vulnerable to the "culture" of our neighbors to the south. Do we really not care that much?

Bonnie Green (Assistant producer, Stratford Festival)

Please reconsider your decision to slash your support of CBC’s radio drama program. CBC radio is a nation-builder and CBC radio drama is one of its most crucial components.  Radio drama of the caliber I have heard on CBC over the past decades has made me laugh and cry for my fellow planet-dweller.   It opens my ears – and eyes – to our evolving cultural landscape as well as our place in the world (Afghanada).  It makes me think.  It makes me patriotic.  It makes me happy.

Louise Pitre (actor)

I have not only performed on various CBC radio dramas over the years but have spent countless hours in the car listening to them.  It is a sad statement of affairs that our government would consider discarding one of the few remaining fuels to the imagination!!!!!!!What is next? Do away with books????? The effect would be identical.

Cathy Gildiner (author/psychologist)

I was shocked to hear of the cuts to CBC radio drama. That drama has sustained me through long drives, being housebound, and just lying in bed at night. It would be such a big loss to Canada and the arts world. I have particularly liked Afghanada. It was a really nuanced drama. I also know of many people in Buffalo who listened to it.  The history of the drama, from Lister Sinclair onward, has been stellar.  We loved it on family trips and after supper.  

Cutting it is a big mistake.

Adrienne Wong (actor/writer/producer/Artistic Producer, Neworld Theatre, Vancouver)

I listen to radio drama every day - mostly via podcast. As an artist, CBC radio drama provided mentorship, training and space to experiment and reach regular Canadians with important stories. Cutting radio drama at CBC is a huge loss of jobs, opportunities and exchange across our vast nation - none of these elements is easily replaced and each will be sorely missed.

Billy MacLellan

(Nominee-  2011 ACTRA Awards- Outstanding Performance Voice- Afghanada Winner-  2012 ACTRA Awards- Outstanding Performance Voice- Afghanada)

It's a sad time. Not because a show has had episodes cut from its season. Not because we've gone from three radio dramas to two or even one. It's sad because CBC has decided to terminate the entire genre. Done. Afghanada had a half million listeners. Awards and nominations at the Canadian Screenwriting Awards, Writers Guild of Canada, International Radio Festival of New York and the ACTRA Awards. It doesn't make any sense. I support Radio Drama. Radio Drama supported me.

Rachel Peake  (theatre director and dramaturge)

I grew up in an age of television and video games - I do not belong to "times past."  But I also grew up with parents who knew enough to turn off the television and engage our imaginations.  And radio dramas and other forms of audio storytelling were a huge part of that.  I now use my imagination for a living and share those imaginings with thousands of Canadians every year through the theatre I create.  With the loss of CBC's radio drama for many of Canadians that access to this particular depth of their imagination will be lost.  This is a sad day.

Linda Kash (actor)

I have no doubt that this latest Steven Harper move was based on some bottom line decision.  But here's the real bottom line: CBC radio drama has been the cultural highway that has connected us from coast to coast to coast since the early days of live radio. It not only celebrates great Canadian writers and actors.  But also our brilliant directors , engineers, composers and foley artists as well. As Canada continually struggles to compete in the film and television industry with our wealthier neighbours to the south and across the pond, there is no contest when it comes to the quality of our radio programming. We're known for it. Because even with our limited funding, we do it so well.

Rather than dismantling, I say we enhance marketing to reach an even wider international listening audience. And that's the bottom line.

Andrew Moodie (writer/actor)

As one of the creators of the radio drama Afghanada, I am truly saddened by the governments decision to cut funding to the CBC, and for the CBC to cut funding to all radio drama. As an avid listener of radio drama from childhood, I have always loved the format, from the Shadow, to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there have been many radio dramas that I hold as dearly to me as my favourite book, or movie. The magic of radio drama is that all of the storytelling happens in your head. That's why it's so powerful. The images are pulled from your own mind, your own history, your own life. And the best radio drama is one that comes from your own culture, your own collective unconscious.

CBC has done an amazing job, over the years with the resources that they were given. Translated, that means that the fact they were able to create radio drama at all is incredible considering the severe cuts that they had already suffered over the years.

The one thing that makes me the most angry is that the CBC is cutting radio drama at a time when new technologies are making it easier than ever to get and listen to radio content; satellite radio, internet radio, and I don't know about you, but I listen to podcasts more and more these days. Disseminating and downloading this content has become a trivial task, and one day there will be a ton of dramatic audio content, easily accessible on mobile devices. A kind of pod-opera, if you will. How do I know this, because people commute. People spend long hours at work, doing trivial tasks that are too demanding to watch visual content, but they are just perfect for audio content. The key will be making it as simple as possible so that my Mom can find it, download it, and enjoy it. Once that happens, this new 'radio drama' will reach a whole new audience. I listen to Q all the freaking time. When I miss an episode, I download the podcast. The CBC has a ton of archived excellent radio drama. Why not release them as podcasts? What the CBC 'could' have done is spearhead a whole new entertainment movement. But they were forced to make the cuts by a government that doesn't value what the CBC stands for.

I still believe in radio drama. I still believe in telling stories in sound. And I hope that one day, a new government, and a new CBC will agree with me.

Gale Zoe Garnett, Writer, Actor, Literary Critic

I’ve loved CBC radio drama since my teens, and am proud to be a part of it. As an actor, I’ve worked in a number of plays, my favourite being as Mottyl, the Cat in Timothy Findley’s “Not Wanted on the Voyage” (Directed by Damiano PietroPaulo). As a writer, I was honoured to have my short story, “Your Children are all Dead, Missus?” chosen for dramatized presentation by CBC’s Fall Festival of Fiction, As a listener, the superlative “Afghanada” gave me, along with all Canadians, a soldiers’-eye view of the Afghan war. Canada has long taken its place alongside BBC, Radio Sweden and NPR as a home for the best and best-beloved in radio drama. We must not lose this Canadian and international resource.

Clayton Ruby (lawyer)

Radio Drama worked.  Its cost was small, its reach enormous.  It was among the most democratic of cultural institutions.  What, exactly, did we "save"?

Joan MacLeod (playwright, Victoria, BC)

That Canada will lose radio drama’s main venue in one thoughtless cut is just incomprehensible.  Where else can this country’s writers change location in a heartbeat, make things blow up or talk so directly to their audience?  It is a beautiful and intimate artistic form that is wonderfully distinct and cherished by listeners and creators alike.  

Now it is time for you to act.  Write CBC.  Write your MP.  Pass this letter on.

 

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