In the fine dining restaurants in Toronto, a standard wine mark up is around two and a half times, or 250%. So, a bottle of wine that cost the house $30 might appear on its list at $75 (or maybe rounded up to $80), and the one listed for $100 would likely have cost $40. This isn’t chicanery; it’s how restaurants are able to make money, pay their staff and keep the lights on.

I want a world where there are fancy restaurants, especially small ones that can’t compete on economies of scale. If this is the economic model that keeps them open, I am okay with that, since going out for a posh meal is an occasional treat. What I am not okay with is the constant premiumization of the wine trade.

When I am at home, or at the pub, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to order a decent bottle of wine for under $50 ($10 a glass), or pick up a bottle off the shelf for $15 to $20. And for the last two years or so this has become increasingly difficult. I have noticed more than a few wines that were $20 a few years ago settle at around $24 retail, an inflation of 20%.

I don’t drink wine every day, but I do want access to good ordinary every day wine.

When the venerable London wine traders Berry Brothers and Rudd launched their ‘Good Ordinary Claret’ label of Bordeaux red wine in the 1970s, Christopher Berry Green, the Managing Director of the firm at the time, was told by a marketing expert that no one would every buy a bottle of wine advertised as ‘ordinary’. Au contraire, it quickly became one of their most popular brands.

Berry Green had come up with the name by reading through 19th century BB&R catalogues, where Claret (which a certain kind of Englishman or woman still calls red Bordeaux) was sold by the three levels: ordinary, good or better. The combination of good and ordinary still appeals to consumers. To paraphrase Berry Green, who is quoted on the BB&R website, the name evokes British understatement and an assurance that at least the wine won’t be disappointing.

For all my complaining, I do see some light at the end of the tunnel, and I don’t think it’s a train. Every day I receive easily a dozen wine offers from local importers and producers, to whom I subscribe simply to see what’s out in the marketplace. It can be a rather depressing business reading about bottles of wine that I am sure are delicious, but are priced way out of my ready-to-drink rack in the cellar. If a restaurant buys them, they’ll be listed at $100 or more.

Starting in the summer, I noticed an increase in offers of mixed cases. This is how one sells expensive bottles, that otherwise won’t move. A mixed case that features four bottles each of $50, $30, and $20 will average out at $33 a bottle. In the past few weeks I see more offers for wines at around $25, so maybe the market is catching-up with my wishes.

I see this as well at the Liquor Control Board Ontario retail outlet that I regularly shop at. I shop mostly in the “Vintages” section, which features limited quantities of wines that come through the provincial near monopoly every week or two. A year ago, it was hard to find anything, for instance, in the Burgundy section for under $30. Lately the LCBO has brought in a number of reasonably priced (under $25) whites from the Mâcon in the south of the region.

If there’s good news about the Canadian economy lately, I haven’t heard it. As mortgages that were set five years ago at low continue to roll over into high ones, the amount of personal debt and payments to the bank continue to rise. The amount of discretionary income that households can a lot to the pleasures in life, like a good bottle of wine, or night out at a good restaurant is shrinking as exponentially as the anxiety of those in the wine trade and hospitality businesses rise.

When I was in Paris earlier this year for a few days, there was a mini-supermarket on the same street of my hotel. There were two big shelves of wine that offered no less than four affordable Mâconais or equivalent whites, as well as a number of $20 or so wines from the Loire or Languedoc. When I crossed the Channel over to the UK, the equivalent supermarkets in England offered more less the same selection, but complemented by wines from the rest of Europe and beyond.

In the UK, the supermarkets also featured their own “white label” wines, with which they competed directly with their rivals. Like the assurance of Berry Brothers and Rudd’s promise ‘of Good Ordinary’, the assurance of the supermarkets’ brand towards relatively exotic and interesting affordable wines, like white Verdejo from Rueda in Galicia in the Northwest of Spain, or red Madiran from Gascony in Southwestern France.

The Madiran appellation is something of a wino secret. It must be made with at least 60 percent of the grape Tannat, which is unsurprisingly tannic. Made gently, blended with Cabernet Franc or Sauvignon, after a few years a good ordinary Madiran can make an excellent contest against a good ordinary black fruited Claret. Easy enough drinking, but with a bit of tension and structure, which hints at some seriousness behind affable first impressions.

Andrew Jefford writes that Madiran “perfectly echoes autumn, mimicking the aromatic messiness and textural litter of the natural world a everything sets about falling and decaying…” As the nights get longer and cooler, I have been enjoying the 2020 Château Peyros Héritage Madiran lately, which I would like to think has at least slowed down some mental and spiritual decay.

Peyros exports widely to Canadian markets, and their every day Héritage red, which is $17.95 right now in Ontario, pairs very well with good ordinary food, like the top sirloin I grilled on charcoal Sunday evening. You can’t filet mignon every day, and even if you could, you wouldn’t because to appreciate the special you need the regular, the good, and the ordinary.

“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.