To: ombudsman@cbc.ca

Dear Mr Carlin,

All my adult life I have listened to nothing but the CBC, both A.M. and F.M., and if I had TV I would probably watch CBC TV. I have a great fondness for the CBC.

But I have to turn it off when it starts gushing about cruelty to animals. In Vancouver the live food Asian markets are gushed over, even though the cruelty of those markets ought to make a feeling human's stomach turn and heart feel sick. At these markets pieces of turtles are hacked off so that they go on living so that more live pieces can be hacked off.

Food programs still gush over veal, though it hardly seems possible that anyone bright enough to work at the CBC isn't aware of how these baby calves are made to suffer horribly. And foie gras is boasted of, though again, it hardly seems possible that anyone doesn't know of the piteous suffering and pain of the caged geese whose throats are jammed literally to bursting.

Dog sled races and rodeos are gushed over even though most thoughtful people are repelled by them.

I have heard the argument that these things are a part of Canada's cultural heritage. So are residential schools. How sad that even the CBC would use such an intellectually vacant excuse to laud cultural practices which one day will be widely despised.

But until they are, the CBC acts as an animal cruelty sideshow-barker for a type of person who seldom listens to the CBC, while driving away in disgust its faithful audience.

Judy Stone
West Vancouver, BC