Once, when our Canadian readers were children, it’s likely that the voices of the CBC — the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — filled the kitchen as breakfast was prepared. Clear, northern vowels. Unhurried questions. The quiet dignity of a country talking to itself.

That voice — their voice — came dangerously close to being silenced.

In the run-up to Canada’s federal election last month  Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, vowed:  “I will shut down the CBC within 100 days of getting elected.”

He wasn’t joking.

The right-wing’s  plan was not merely to cut funding. It was to dismantle. Privatize. Erase. To turn over the CBC frequencies to private interests, billionaire backers, and right-wing “content creators” who masquerade as journalists. A familiar authoritarian playbook — used by Trump, Modi, Orban — was unfolding in Canada: defund the public square, discredit independent voices, then flood the airwaves with rage and disinformation.

But then two fundraisers — Harvey McKinnon and Kevin Wilson of Harvey McKinnon Associates   — decided to do something about it. They didn’t wait around for a nonprofit board meeting or the development and debate over some mission statement. They acted.

With a small pot of seed money and a massive sense of urgency, they launched the campaign to Save the CBC — not just to stop the cuts, but to protect the institution itself. Their goal wasn’t nostalgia. It was cultural survival.

Working from their fundraising shop, they brought together a team of film makers, copywriters, editors, TikTok strategists, Reddit organizers, celebrity wranglers, writers, and digital media specialists. Some were paid part-time. Many volunteered. Within two months they built a national campaign — bold, sharp, targeted. They made over 70 million impressions across social platforms in the short time leading up to the election on April 28^th and the Conservatives’ defeat.

They focused the public’s attention not on budget numbers, but on what would be lost: a shared cultural inheritance, an independent news source, a platform for emerging Canadian talent, and a mirror that reflected the whole of the country — its cities, its First Nations, its prairies, its poems.

The CBC is Canada’s PBS and NPR rolled into one, with a dash of the BBC and a distinctly northern soul. It airs more than 85 original shows a week, from national news and investigative programs to music specials, children’s programming, book reviews, Indigenous storytelling, and science documentaries. It is, quite literally, the voice of Canada.

And that is why the Conservative leadership wanted to kill it.

The Save the CBC campaign flipped the script. Instead of centering abstract budget figures, it lifted up stories. They released more than 40 videos from Canadian artists and celebrities — musicians, comedians, actors — talking about what the CBC had meant to them, how it had launched careers, supported the arts, and helped make Canada Canadian.

They focused on strategic ridings –electoral districts where a few thousand votes could swing an election. They urged voters to email candidates, ask for public commitments, and a vote for those who would protect the CBC. They did it without manipulative pop-ups, without “give-$3-by-midnight and your donation will be matched 7X” desperation, without gimmicks. No appeals to raise millions. Just a clear call to protect the public square.

They used TikTok. Reddit. Instagram. Facebook. One Reddit post alone reached 2 million people. A grassroots strategy, yes — but one informed by Harvey and his team’s decades of experience in fundraising, messaging, segmentation, and persuasion.

This wasn’t just a defense of a broadcaster. It was a defense of democracy.

As Harvey noted when we spoke, “the CBC was founded by a Conservative government in the 1930s because they were afraid of U.S. domination of media. And now the same party wants to sell it off, turn it into a right-wing megaphone, and silence dissent.”

He’s not exaggerating. The Conservatives’ plan — backed by figures connected to Trump and far-right billionaires — was to break up the CBC and let its pieces be bought and repurposed by private actors. The threat was real. But so was the resistance!

What Harvey McKinnon and Kevin Wilson did should be studied by every fundraiser everywhere there’s an authoritarian threat. They didn’t wait for permission. They didn’t form a committee. They used the skills they had — and built something fast and effective.

They didn’t ask for perfection. They asked for persistence.

And here’s where the story reaches across the Canadian border.

In a moment when democracy is under siege — in Canada, the United States, and around the world — this is what it means to show up. Use what you’ve learned. Use what you have.

In the words of Canadian singer/songwriter/poet Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

Roger