Updated: Wed Aug. 17 2005 3:40:21 PM

Canadian Press

TORONTO — A plan by CBC-TV to carry this Saturday's Toronto-at-Edmonton CFL game without play-by-play commentary has been nixed by the league.

"We are not supportive of a silent or no-commentary broadcast of the games,'' Chris McCracken, the CFL's senior director of broadcasting, said Wednesday. "We're yet to be satisfied by a CBC plan that ensures our broadcast is not compromised in any way.''

But McCracken said "good talks'' continue with the CBC -- which is without unionized on-air staff due to its current lockout of employees -- and that there are no plans to hand off the telecast to TSN or another broadcaster.

"The game will be on the CBC,'' he said flatly.

McCracken hadn't heard about one rumoured proposal that commentary could be provided by a U.S. announcer watching the action on a TV monitor from an undisclosed location. But he declined to elaborate on what options were on the table.

"There's a number of things but we'll keep those confidential for the moment,'' he said.

Meanwhile, CTV reports that in light of the CBC situation, it will carry Sunday's Rogers Cup women's tennis final instead of the CBC and that Saturday's semi-final will air on TSN with Rod Black, Robert Bettauer and analyst Tracy Austin calling the tournament action.

And APTN, the aboriginal network, says it has been asked to distribute nationally Saturday's closing ceremonies of the 2005 Canada Games from Regina, in producer partnership with Saskatchewan's Access Communications, CTV and SCN.

The ceremonies will feature a Medicine Wheel theme -- a taste of aboriginal culture -- as well as the handing off of the torch to the Whitehorse 2007 Games society.

Since early Monday, the CBC has shut out its 5,500 unionized workers after contract negotiations collapsed over the broadcaster's demand for more flexibility in the hiring of contract and part-time workers.

With everyone from journalists to technicians off the job, most of the original programming, and news in particular, has ground to a halt with the radio and TV airwaves filled with repeats and imported content.

Canadian Media Guild negotiator Arnold Amber said there are no talks under way. But he added two federal mediators did run something past both parties Tuesday but that it was rejected by management.

"This was some sort of proposal the mediators brought to both parties and the CBC said that they were not interested.''

CBC spokesman Jason MacDonald was not immediately available for comment.

In other developments:

• The United Steelworkers said the lockout is foolish and jeopardizes Canadian cultural sovereignty. In a news release, the union referred three times to the funding of "scab labour'' on the CBC's part. But when pressed to cite examples, spokesperson Pat Van Horne conceded they may have been using the term loosely. "It's extra compensation to management to do bargaining unit work and as far as we're concerned that's scabbing.'' But a Canadian Media Guild member said there's been no evidence yet that the CBC has been using non-union workers to keep its networks on the air.
• ACTRA, the actors' union, in expressing its support to the CMG, declared that its members were instructed not to perform any struck work at the CBC. But the issue may be moot since very little production actually takes place at the CBC anymore, with most work co-productions with the private sector. The new Colin Mochrie sitcom Getting Along Famously, to air on CBC in the coming season, began filming this week in Ottawa but the actors' contracts are with the production company Canadian Accents, not with the broadcaster. And in-house productions like Rick Mercer's Report and Royal Canadian Air Farce are not in production at this time.
• CUPE, the huge union representing Canada's public workers, said it's throwing its weight behind the CMG, pledging support on picket lines. In a letter to the CBC president, CUPE national president Paul Moist called the lockout "an aggressive and desperate action to force its outsourcing scheme'' that will only weaken the CBC and damage labour-management relations overall.
• On the orders of the Sergeant At Arms, security staff at the Ontario Legislature has reversed an earlier decision to comply with a CBC management request. Locks that had been changed on CBC reporters' offices at Queen's Park have been returned following a protest by the legislature press gallery.
• Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty weighed in with some rhetoric, declaring to reporters that he was a huge fan of the CBC. "I know it's always been fashionable in many quarters to criticize the CBC,'' he said Wednesday. "I like the CBC. I think it's important to our country, and I think it's in the interest of all Canadians that both sides come together and resolve their differences. We need those people back on the job.''
• In Prince Rupert, B.C., the Daily News says CBC workers came to work Monday morning and found that their keys didn't work in the door. "I guess the advantage of (contract work) as far as the CBC is concerned is they don't have to pay pension benefits down the road,'' said Russell Bowers. Workers there predict a settlement by late September so as not to jeopardize televising of the new NHL hockey season.
• The guild said the lockout left CBC Middle Eastern correspondents Adrienne Arsenault and Margaret Evans cooling their heels while the Israeli settler pullout proceeded in Gaza. The event was covered on CBC Tuesday by reports from the BBC. Both reporters hitched rides back to Jerusalem without filing.