I'm not surprised at the voices I hear. While not predictable, they are not unexpected. In listening to CBC, I was often surprised. It was as though an effort was being made to bring onto the air the views of the widest cross-section of Canadians possible. The result was a richness not only of viewpoints, but also of dialects and experiences that seemed most unusual to these American ears.
CBC television delivers much of the same richness in Canadian culture and perspectives.
During a month in Ontario, I discovered Sundays with CBC television, and I truly regretted there was only one Sunday a week. I have found nothing that compares with it on U.S. television. Then there are the newspapers. As with many U.S. cities, there is only one daily newspaper in town, and it most likely is part of a large newspaper chain or group. They run the gamut from intellectually grounded, high-quality newspapers such as the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette, to a number of more sensationalistic tabloids, seemingly transplants of the British tabloids, only more responsible.