I am, we are, for quality public broadcasting (Je suis, nous sommes pour un service public de qualité).

That’s the slogan for the campaign to protect Radio-Canada launched last week by the union representing mainly French-speaking SRC employees in New Brunswick and Quebec as well as a number of well-known Quebec celebrities, including veteran SRC news reader Bernard Derome, respected actor and comic Yvon Deschamps, pop singer Marie-Hélène Thibault, former Parti Québécois minister Louise Harel, and talk-show host France Castel, who is the campaign’s official spokeswoman.

‘Radio-Canada is a distinct society. We need support, not just from the current government, but from those who hope to form the government. And we want a specific promise,’ said Derome in a online video. The newsreader was a fixture of the evening news in Quebec for decades until his recent retirement.

‘We want to send a strong message to decision makers,’ Guy Lapointe, spokesman for the Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada, tells Playback Daily. ‘This is only the start. We are laying the groundwork for a long-term campaign.’

The campaign’s key message echoes that of CBC’s top executives Sylvain Lafrance and Richard Stursberg: public broadcasting is important and needs stable funding. ‘We realize that we aren’t going to get refinancing tomorrow, especially during a recession. But we want to try to get the public onside,’ says the union spokesman.

Lapointe says the campaign will continue in earnest this fall with the launch of the fall TV season. ‘We wanted to start before everyone gets distracted with vacations. But we are really just laying the ground work for September, says Lapointe.

The campaign website is www.jesuisnoussommes.com.