Imagine a service that anyone in the world can access for free. That not only provides accurate news about Canada but also world events and Canada’s reaction to them. That service is Radio Canada International (RCI). It has existed for 80 years. But lately its impact has been severely damaged by the lack of understanding at the CBC of what an international service is and should be.

So why have a public broadcast service conceived for people outside of Canada?

There’s the altruistic reason: In an age of misinformation, RCI is well placed to give accurate, honest, non-biased news and information programming. Canada is seen as a country of good people, perhaps a bit timid about self promotion, but trustworthy.

There’s the self interest: Unless it’s a cold front, or a tariff war, there’s little information about Canada that is consistently accessible to people around the world, particularly without a paywall. And as any sociologist, economist, artist, politician, or business person will tell you, the first step to a successful relationship with someone is knowing something about them.

That’s why RCI needs a major restructuring to get back to its roots. Right at the centre, there has to be a strong, professional newsroom of English and French journalists putting together regular timely newscasts and news copy clearly aimed at people outside of Canada. This would be the the foundation on which different language sections within RCI would build upon—not only translating, but adding the additional information needed for any specific country or region to which they provide programming.

But RCI’s role should not be limited to news.

In the past, RCI featured programs about art, culture, and music, on Canada’s role in international politics, and on the economy. In English and French, programs were conceived specifically for geographical areas, like Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and the United States. RCI provided monthly music packs of Canadian music to be broadcast by hundreds of stations around the world. For decades, it promoted music from Canada by recording artists, and released records on the RCI label, and distributed these records worldwide. It produced radio programs to teach English and French on local radio stations in many countries, co-hosted by hosts speaking the local language. And it produced live federal election night coverage in English, French and other languages.

All of this, and more is not only possible, but absolutely necessary for Canada to take its rightful place on the international stage. And this can be done for a nominal cost. Before major budget cuts that began in the 1990s, RCI, with resources only a fraction of that of the BBC World Service, was close behind the BBC in popularity.

In terms of how to get this programming to people outside of Canada, we are extremely lucky, thanks to all the recent technological advances. In the past, apart from shortwave broadcasts, RCI provided programming, first on vinyl records, then on cassettes, then on CDs. Now with the click of a button, newscasts, programs, and all the content produced by RCI can be sent via the Internet to any location for immediate broadcast, or streamed, or listened to on a podcast.

But we cannot only depend on the Internet and a website for RCI programming. Sharing our programming with broadcasters in other countries has worked in the past, and could be one alternative now. For countries where cooperation is difficult or impossible, RCI shortwave broadcasts can give access to news from Canada and the world to listeners who have limited access to outside uncensored news.

Any and all means of sharing RCI programming is possible and necessary because, with all due respect to Marshall McLuhan, in the case of Radio Canada International, the medium is not the message. The message is the message. What I mean by that is it is all about the programming content, content that is specifically designed for audiences outside of Canada who know little or nothing about Canada.

And to assure that this international mandate is respected, two things need to happen. Article 46(2) of the Broadcasting Act dealing with RCI has to clearly state the international mandate of RCI, the editorial independence of the service—not only from the government, but also from the CBC—by returning responsibility for the implementation and application of the RCI mandate to the RCI director. This, in fact, was the situation before budget issues with the CBC in the 1990s radically changed the independence of RCI to do its job.

This clear delineation of responsibility and independence is critical to the effectiveness of Radio Canada International. Obviously as a journalist, I would be against any government interference in the functioning of CBC or RCI. But at the same time, the CBC has obligations it must respect, among them is to provide a fully functioning, effective, and properly funded international service.

What that means is RCI needs to have a guaranteed budget that covers at least the basics: An English and French newsroom, English and French host-producers creating original programming for international audiences, language sections of host-producers in key foreign languages, technical and office personnel and resources, including an audience relations department.

CBC, Canada and the world need a reimagined Radio Canada International. RCI has survived for 80 years, it needs to be restored at this critical time in our society to play the important role  it can and should play as Canada’s world service.