The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has announced that it’s immediately pausing coverage of Indigenous communities, saying that it far exceeded yearly quotas for stories about First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples.
The quotas, in place for decades, allow for only a handful of Indigenous stories in the network’s daily news coverage and other programming.
“We were perhaps a little overzealous in our storytelling when it comes to Indigenous issues, what with reconciliation and inclusion and all that,” said CBC president Henry Lacrosse.
“So we’re just hitting pause for a few years until there’s a gap to be filled once again.”
As part of the pause, the Corporation’s Indigenous Unit will cease operations and its Indigenous reporters will be reassigned to sports and entertainment. The hit radio Indigenous current affairs program Unreserved will also be refocused to be about people who eat at restaurants without first making reservations.
CBC North, which serves regions where the population is almost entirely Indigenous, will now only re-air episodes of Anne of Green Gables — not the network’s modern version, Anne — as well as Tess of the D’Urbervilles and episodes of Dragon’s Den where Indigenous participants have been carefully edited out.
