Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The CBC announced last week that it plans to cut 657 jobs over the next two years.
The CBC (Radio-Canada in Quebec) had to drastically cut the amount of money it can spend (its budget). Because it had to cut more than $130 million, it had to let go of many people’s jobs because it would not be able to afford to pay their salaries.
Neil Young is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is internationally famous.
He has been called “one of the most important figures in rock music.”
In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Young is an activist and many of his songs are political.
Now, Young is doing a four-city tour of Canada to protest what he feels is massive damage to the environment being done in the oil sands in Alberta.
In 2017, Canada turns 150.
That’s a “milestone” birthday–known as a sesquicentennial–and the government will be doing a lot of special things to celebrate that year.
In anticipation of 2017, the government tested five different logos to decide which one would best represent the country’s 150th.
The logos were designed by the Department of Canadian Heritage, a department in the Canadian government that is responsible for programs relating to the arts, culture, official languages and multiculturalism.
Each logo features the colour red and has a maple leaf, like the Canadian flag.
And each logo features the number 150 and the word Canada.
Radio-Canada, the French-language branch of the CBC, announced on June 5 that it was changing its name to “ICI”.
So many people objected to the change, however, that on June 10 the president of the CBC said the broadcaster would keep the name Radio-Canada after all.
The organization uses the tagline “Ici Radio-Canada” on its TV and radio news stories. It wanted to “rebrand” itself with a name that could be used for all of its services – television, radio, satellite and website – so it planned to drop “Radio-Canada” from its name and be known simply as “ICI.”
But many Canadians were very upset about the name change. They objected to removing the word “Canada” from the name because the organization is part of Canada’s heritage, and because it is paid for with money from Canadian taxpayers.
CBC/Radio-Canada was created by the government in 1936 to be Canada’s national public broadcaster. The organization gets most of the money it needs to operate – about 60 per cent, or $1-billion a year – from the government.
Its official purpose is to provide programming that is “predominantly and distinctively Canadian,” and to “contribute to shared national consciousness and identity.”
Federal Heritage Minister James Moore, who is in charge of giving money to CBC/Radio-Canada, also opposed to new name. He said taxpayers would only be willing to pay for the broadcaster if it was Canadian in content and in name.
Hundreds of people can walk by your front door every day.
The only time you may notice someone, however, is when they knock. Last week, the universe knocked on Earth’s door.
Thousands of asteroids and meteoroids streak pass planet Earth every year. Some of them enter Earth’s atmosphere where most of them simply burn up—those are called meteors. Any that land on Earth are called meteorites.
When a meteorite landed in the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia last Friday, the world took notice. That’s because it was a particularly large meteorite; one chunk was about the size of a van.
Before he left for the International Space Station, Hadfield wrote a song with singer Ed Robertson.
It’s called I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing?). ISS can also stand for “International Space Station,” which is fitting since the song is about what it’s like to leave the Earth and go into space.
Hadfield has done some incredible things during his time on the ISS. He has made his experience in space accessible to the people on Earth.
He has tweeted messages, conducted live media conferences, sent photos and kept people up-to-date on what the astronauts on the Space Station are doing.
What Hadfield is doing is unique. No astronaut has ever brought space so close to Earth before.
