Everyone in Canadian TV talk about issues but never offer a solution, so here's a solution for growth and diversity:

Some background, Canada doesn't have a legitimate scripted TV industry as a result of living next to the United States (unlike the UK and Australia) and CBC's current and longstanding unwillingness to hold high standards on Canadian viewership and compete with the private broadcasters (Bell, Rogers and Corus) to grow Canadian TV all while championing Canadian artists (including visible minority and Indigenous Canadians) who can entertain Canadians in the masses.

Entertainment is a fickle, ambitious pursuit for anyone and no one group of people in Canada should feel entitled to it (the way they currently are). So this evens the playing field for everyone.

In order to finally grow scripted Canadian TV, it starts with CBC because you can't force Bell, Rogers and Corus to do something that's currently not profitable. It's their money. CBC is mostly our Canadian tax payer money.

So you need to set high standards that are ambitious but still achievable. The high standard will be to shoot for every scripted CBC show to average at least 1 million Canadian viewers in 1 season. CBC executives (currently Catherine Tait, Barbara Williams, Sally Catto, Trish Williams, Sandra Picheca, Zach Feldberg and Jennifer Shin for comedy, Sarah Adams and Lea Marin for drama) will be held accountable to work with new creators and non-writing producers with different approaches to entertainment to hit those Canadian viewership numbers and if they can't achieve those numbers with at least 3 seasons of Canadian TV within a 3 year window they must be replaced with people who can. This doesn't mean that they cannot renew scripted shows under a 1 million season average for another season but if they do, time will be ticking for them to produce 3 seasons of Canadian TV that does average 1 million Canadian viewers.

This way it isn't the CBC executives who are deciding something as subjective as "emerging talent", the Canadian people decide. It negates any corrupt practices.

CBC executives might say that averaging 1 million Canadian viewers on traditional television is not possible in the 2020s but that's not true. A recent CBC sitcom called "Son of a Critch" came close to doing so when it launched in 2022.

Numeris must also begin to make these numbers public again which they ceased doing in August of 2022 and expand the research to include the demographics of CBC shows amongst different groups in Canada's diverse population.

Many things happen when this is done. The first thing that happens is that Canadian TV is less about being for a select few well-connected white Canadians and minorities well-connected with those white Canadians who always get work without being judged by any real metric. That old Canadian TV way of working with the same people has never produced results throughout history because they have the same general creative approach and Canadians have largely never watched what they have to offer.

It's currently "an industry for the sake of having an industry". As one Rogers scripted exec told me "Canadian shows make no money". And when I spoke to Barbara Williams, she would say "we have to have some white shows". That's a colonizer mindset. Canadian TV only grows when a scripted show is able to entertain different kinds of Canadians.

The second thing that happens is Canada's national entertainment becomes sustainable without international partners. It becomes a legitimate national industry that is based on content that resonates with Canadians in the masses. Something that has never existed in Canada and is more necessary than ever with the American streamers making their way into Canada. 

The third thing that happens is that diverse artists grow organically. The CRTC "diversity quota" mandate doesn't work because the minorities often championed are selected and vetted by largely the same white Canadians in places of power. If the CRTC at the very minimum supported this petition to keep CBC executives on their toes to have at least 3 CBC scripted shows that average at least 1 million Canadian viewers in a season within a 3 year window, surely that content would have to be entertaining and diverse enough for such an unusually large number of Canadians to tune in. And then CBC can begin to build from there including building on the viewers that watch on their online platform CBC Gem and doing more expensive serialized content.

Look at the UK and BBC for example, they have a thriving small industry because they work with different creative people with different approaches to entertainment who are not connected with each other and diverse artists are able to entertain Brits even though the UK is more white demographically than Canada. This is because the emphasis on success is placed on viewership. White Canadians will watch diversity if it's also entertaining with the UK as proof. The same goes for Australia where they only have about 25 million people. With a population significantly less than Canada's 38 million, a hit ABC (Australia) show averages 500,000 Australians. Unlike the UK and Australia, Canada lives next to the US and we speak the same language with the same general accent. That's why these high standards are necessary for Canada.

Last but not least, when you put these high standards in place, the country becomes less divided on the use of Canadian tax dollars. If the strict emphasis is placed on content that gets a lot of Canadian eyes, Canadian TV is less dependent on tax dollars and becomes more dependent on ad revenue. If Canadians know their viewership determines what scripted content stays and goes, the numbers will rise and will thereby compete with American imports from Bell, Rogers and Corus for Canadian viewership. The private Canadian broadcasters will then be compelled to compete by doing more homegrown scripted Canadian content to take Canadians away from CBC. Thereby it creates a competitive national Canadian industry that benefits the creators, the broadcasters and most importantly the Canadian public whom it's supposed to serve.