TORONTO, May 26 (UPI) -- A majority of Canadians see their Conservative government as hostile to the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corp., a poll published Tuesday indicated.
The independent and non-partisan broadcast watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting commissioned the Pollara survey of 3,361 Canadians last month. The poll found 63 percent agree "Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative government are hostile to the CBC and would like to diminish public broadcasting in Canada."
Further, 51 percent agreed "the Harper government has a hidden agenda that favors private corporate broadcasters." The remainder was split evenly among those who disagreed or said they didn't know, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting release said.
The government cut the broadcaster's funding by $170 million for this year and warned of another $56 million cutback. The CBC announced as many as 800 jobs would be eliminated as a result.
The poll found 47 percent of respondents favored increasing CBC funding from current levels, 31 percent favored maintaining funding as is and 9 percent would counsel a funding cut.
The survey had a 1.69 percent margin of error, the release said.
