Self Importance at the CBC

I'm not surprised at all to find out that the CBC has been blowing tax payer funded money on luxuries.

CBC's ritzy retreats

CBC's top executives spent more than $60,000 over six months holding meetings in luxury hotels and resorts and expensing such items as sparkling wine and limousine rides.

Documents released under Access to Information show the CBC spent at least $61,500 on nine meetings between January and June 2006.

The meetings were held according to CBC/Radio-Canada guidelines, CBC spokesman Marco Dube wrote in an e-mail. When face-to-face meetings are required, "off-site meetings are usually better to avoid disruptions."

Stays in expensive resorts topped the bill. More than $21,600 was spent sending 21 CBC and Radio-Canada human resources managers and senior executives to the ritzy Chateau Beauvallon in Mont-Tremblant, Que., for two days. The limo costs alone for one vice-president amounted to $1,009.94.

The sense of entitlement is ingrained in these people. They need a wake up call.

Hat tip: Pat who says: Another reason to hate the CBC.

The Race For Victimhood

With the contruction of the The Canadian Museum for Human Rights underway, controversy has already begun. We should have seen this coming:

Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, was worried gay and lesbian human rights would be ignored because the group was "totally omitted" from the museum's promotional materials.

(Helen Kennedy and Egale, you'll recall, were the ones who objected to Hockey Night in Canada airing the term "pansification" that Mike Milbury used to describe new anti-fighting initiatives. It was considered homophobic. Appallingly, HNIC caved in and Milbury is not allowed to use the word anymore. This gives you an idea of the kind of people we're dealing with.)

There were more groups lining up for victimhood as well.

"It needs to be inclusive and equitable. If it focuses disproportionate attention to some cases over other cases, then what it is actually teaching us is that there is a hierarchy of human suffering, and that some human suffering is more important than other cases of human suffering; and on that basis, the museum would not be teaching us anything about human rights, it would be teaching us about racism," Kafieh said.

It's the Oprahfication of our culture. It's a contest between groups for who is the biggest victim. The prize for victimhood is political capital.