Can This Woman Save the CBC? Why Kirstine Stewart is banking on Canadian TV shows like Mr. D, Arctic Air, and Dragons' Den to justify the network's $800 million price tag

Kirstine Stewart, the CBCs executive vice-president in charge of English programming, has the most difficult job in Canadian media. Up against huge budget cuts, the Internet, corporate media giants, and millions of taxpaying critics, she is fighting back with an array of mass-appeal reality TV and sitcoms such as Dragons' Den and Little Mosque on the Prairie . Ratings have never been higher; nevertheless, the CBC is on increasingly tenuous ground. Jason McBride went behind the scenes with Stewart to write a feature profile for the May 2012 issue of Toronto Life that gets to the heart of the national drama.