“Defund The CBC” has become our aural Rorschach test. The three words mean what you want them to mean, and raise expectations of what they will mean.

The person making the most of this, our likeliest next prime minister, is letting us hear what we want to hear without straightening us away on which meaning he might pursue.

After all this time, after all this implied threat, Pierre Poilievre still gets the loudest cheer from his rallies when he calls for defunding. His Conservative Party still experiences a nice fund bump when that three-word call goes out. It’s a political winner for the time being, but perhaps not over time.

We’re most likely inside a year now to the federal election, and what should be a major plank in what a Conservative government would do remains blurry—it appears its best possible purpose is to be left vague.

We know that the day after the swearing-in, the screen won’t go black, the radio stations won’t be silenced, and the website won’t yield a 404 error. But what? What exactly is Defund The CBC going to really be?

Is it about withdrawing the total $1.4 billion in annual public funds for the service?

Is it the most obvious surgery, eliminating CBC’s English services but not the French Canadian Radio-Canada?

Is it about cutting English-language TV, but not CBC Radio or CBC North?

Is it about cutting CBC News, but nothing else?

Is it to kill The National but leave local news alone?

Is it a forceful nudge of the public broadcaster into becoming a subscription service, like its News Network and ICI RDI, rather than largely taxpayer-funded?

Is it a vow to privatize it?

Is it to require its television services to be commercial-free to assist private-sector TV desperate for advertisers?

The time has come to tell us, Mr. Poilievre; to bring substance to an election issue about which many will want to debate—from those who hold it dear to those who hold it in contempt.

Many Canadians appear to have two jobs: our own and that of being president of the CBC. We think we know what it needs: news that validates our opinions, (intentionally) funnier comedies, dramas to rival the BBC or PBS Masterpiece theatre, sports to complement the private networks, mind-blowing culture—really, almost anything we’re not getting now. When we get a whiff of the impoverished ratings, we play CBC president for a few minutes to administer our medicine we’re convinced would mend the ailing public broadcaster patient. We know we could do a better job.

I’ve worked there twice, as a host on the News Network for six years and as ombudsman for a couple of years. And to imitate the snappy parlance of the Conservative leader, I’m more of a “fix it, don’t nix it” person.

One of my former bosses at CBC had a line: “Trouble has a way of finding the CBC. You don’t need to go looking for it.” That helps frame its internal culture—one part believing it invented journalism and Canadian serial programming that no one has improved upon since, another part defensive,  protective, and allergic to criticism.

But, having managed CTV News for a bit and local media for a longer bit, and having kept up with the crews in the newsrooms, CBC’s journalism is generally—but not always—considered in rival newsrooms the most substantial and reflective broadcasting Canadians have in their markets. It generally—but not always—makes its competitors grudgingly better, even as the private broadcasters grouse about the galling gulf between their newsroom resources and the public broadcaster’s, even as their tax dollars are used against them. Taking this away is needlessly high-risk.

My own interpretation of “Defund The CBC” leads me to believe there are only two targets for the Conservative leader—English-language news and Canadian entertainment programming. These elements ignite the biggest charge. Neither is beyond remediation.  Neither’s problems should be the reasons for snuffing the place. But, admittedly, it would take some work, and anyone who has never liked the CBC probably doesn’t think it’s worth it to try.

If I can put on my CBC presidential hat for a few paragraphs. I have a couple of ideas to curtail the most visceral complaints.

First, let’s turn CBC into the only national broadcaster of Canadian entertainment content. But let’s finance that content differently.

Private broadcasters view their license requirements for Canadian content as a cost of complying, not a cost of commitment. Here’s one proposal: strip their Canadian content broadcasting requirements and let them run what they wish, from anywhere. However, sustain their Canadian content spending requirements and make them produce Canadian content to run it on CBC, which would become a fully Canadian carrier. (I’m agnostic on grandfathering Coronation Street.)

If you’re concerned about tanking—that terrible Canadian shows would emerge when there isn’t advertising revenue as skin in the game for the private stations—send the commercial cash back to the privates. Find an incentive in there for them for quality, and keep the door open for the streaming services to be the first window and CBC the second, rather than the other way around.

Presumably tax dollars are saved when CBC is no longer a direct entertainment producer, just a distributor, and presumably this improves the private-sector business model by permitting CTV and Global to run more profitable foreign programming, and shifting the domestic shows elsewhere, principally to the public channel.

Now the second piece. The news dilemma is more complex because it’s not only about ratings—although they are horrid on TV—but about a subjective animus from conservatives about CBC’s editorial menu. They do have a point, but shuttering CBC News would be a major mistake for the country without first exhausting efforts to address their concerns.

CBC Radio, in particular, remains popular in major markets in this country. It beats the pants off the private stations. We won’t improve our discourse by removing a major actor, and we won’t improve the Canadian information environment if we take away a comparably well-resourced outlet in a time of news deserts and flimsy local media.

We should be wary that survival of a news organization would be in the hands of partisans from the government of the day. One reason we have a public broadcaster at all is to create an independent institution that runs clear of politicization. There is no legitimacy to the killing of a nearly 90-year institution in your first 90 days, or because the slogan worked at 90 rallies. Worse, it’s not great politics; it would be an unnecessary irritant to far too many Canadians and it hands an election issue of some value to opponents.

There are many possible remedies to be tried before throwing in the towel: an oversight body to strengthen and enforce news standards (as there are in other countries successfully), a tougher mandate for its ombudsperson to respond to the public (as there also are in other countries successfully), and a demonstrable recruiting commitment to diversity in perspectives of its journalists. Like many media, CBC can suffer from affinity bias; it ought to be the only place where we can count on ideologies commingling.

Now, while I’m against Defund The CBC, I’m not altogether for Defend The CBC. CBC has never been perfect.  It makes mistakes. Its current state might be its hottest mess, and it leans far too heavily on its history at times as its principal defence. So I ask myself: Would we create it from scratch today? Given what we are seeing now from private-sector broadcasters, whose business models are rupturing as they jettison creative talent, I think it could occupy a valuable space, particularly as a streaming service.

Despite its basket of problems, it has a bushel of benefits to help Canadians  understand and argue with one another. Its parliamentary appropriation amounts to less than a dollar a week per person. When it works, it’s a bargain.

Even if my ideas aren’t useful, CBC needs to find some useful forms of renewal from the government of the day, not be removed from the public sphere. It also deserves a first-rate cabinet minister, not the waystation indifference of the current administration’s appointment.

The Conservatives created the CBC in 1936 as an instrument for Canadians to appreciate each other and the wider world. For a large cohort that remains the case. Simply defunding it or axing it in full without trying to right the ship might momentarily satisfy some anger about its direction, but ultimately is a fuzzy dismissal that dishonours its accomplishments. The CBC’s place in Canada deserves a lively debate before it bears a fatal directive.

In his latest article, The Hub’s BC correspondent Kirk LaPointe asks an important question: What do the Conservatives mean when they say that they will “Defund the CBC”?

There are many possible answers that fit broadly within quite a spectrum: Cut the public broadcaster’s public appropriation gradually or swiftly on one end, or wind it down altogether on the other. LaPointe is of course right that at some point Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre will need to bring greater definition to what precisely he intends to do.

He’s wrong however that the solution lies outside of this spectrum in favour of mere reforms to the CBC. The source of our disagreement is rooted in the basic question: what should the government do (or not do)? If one starts from this fundamental basis, the case for CBC is rather weak.

LaPointe zeroes in on Canadian entertainment and national news as the two issues that most provoke Canadian Conservatives and make “Defund the CBC” among Poilievre’s most popular applause lines when speaking to his core supporters. He’s no doubt right that for many conservatives, the principal motivation for getting rid of the public broadcaster is the perception that its news entity is too left-wing. But that’s not the proper reason to defund the CBC. The real reason is far more boring and straightforward: there’s no longer a strong public policy case to support it.

Governments face virtually unlimited demands to intervene in the economy. A lot of these demands stem from the explicit (or more often implicit) assumption that there’s a so-called “market failure” which is econ-speak to describe a circumstance in which markets alone won’t produce enough of good or service that’s economically or socially optimal. National defence is the prime example. There aren’t sufficient market incentives for businesses or individuals to maintain a national military, so the government has to step in and do it.

LaPointe’s article assumes that the ongoing case for the CBC derives from two market failures: (1) the need to support Canadian entertainment content and (2) its national news capacity.

On (1), he argues that the government should eliminate the CanCon quotas on private broadcasters but maintain the financial levies and redirect them to the CBC, which would then become the sole (or at least the main) platform by which the Canadian government supports Canadian content.

I disagree on two counts. First, if we’re going to have a federal policy supporting Canadian content it should be shot through with expansionary ambitions rather than defensive parochialism. Instead of limiting public funding to Canadian content creators to be broadcast on the CBC (which a small fraction of the Canadian population actually watches), it should come with far greater flexibility such that individual creators can negotiate distribution deals with foreign streaming services like Netflix, Apple, and so on.

Thomas Friedman’s thesis about a “flattening world” may have proven wrong in many respects, but cultural content is a major exception. Canadian cultural creators are making huge gains in global markets and any federal cultural policy should raise its horizons far beyond the CBC’s paltry viewership. The overriding goal of a modern cultural policy should be more success stories like PAW Patrol, not navel-gazing creations like The Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Second, if there’s a public policy case for supporting cultural content—if it’s a public good, to use econ-speak again—then it should be funded out of general revenues rather than levies on private broadcasters. If Canadians aren’t prepared to pay for the Canada Media Fund (or a possible successor program) through their general tax dollars, it’s probably a sign that it’s not actually a public good.

As for (2), LaPointe argues that the CBC’s national news capacity is too important to lose, so Conservatives should come up with options to address its “affinity bias” rather than defund it altogether. But, as set out above, the biggest problem with CBC news isn’t its left-wing disposition; it’s the weak case that there’s a market failure in the first place.

Consider the following: if the CBC’s national news didn’t exist, would most Canadians notice? The evidence suggests no. Most nights its flagship news show, The National, draws fewer than 500,000 viewers. The rest of us get by relying on the growing panoply of alternative news and information sources to stay informed about the country.

But what about local news? This is a common argument that one hears. Yet, as I’ve written elsewhere, the case that the CBC is providing bread-and-butter local news—particularly outside of major centres—belies the facts. Its local footprint in rural and peripheral communities is quite small. And even as policymakers have grappled with how to support local news, the public broadcaster has done virtually nothing to make itself relevant to Canadians in places where there may indeed be a market failure for journalism.

Let me return to LaPointe’s original question. Poilievre and the Conservatives will soon need to tell Canadians how they intend to bring to life their commitment to defund the CBC. It’s a major decision that’s likely to consume a lot of political attention and capital for a prospective Poilievre-led government. LaPointe’s article is therefore hopefully a useful catalyst for discussion and debate about what it ultimately means to defund the CBC.

But the Conservatives would be wrong to follow his advice to tinker on the margins, rather than significantly reduce the size and scope of the CBC, up to and including winding it down altogether. The strongest case for defunding the public broadcaster isn’t ideological at all—it’s about what government does (or doesn’t do). The government shouldn’t “do” the CBC anymore.