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OTTAWA, Ont. — The Conservative party’s public attacks on the CBC have been “wilfully destructive” and undermine its independence, says a newly uncovered letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper from the broadcaster’s Tory-appointed former chair.

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The sharply worded 2010 letter, released last month under the Access to Information Act, alleges that unwarranted attacks that year “disparaged the Crown Corporation in order to solicit political donations for the Conservative Party.”

The missive from then-CBC chair Tim Casgrain warns the party and government MPs against “intruding” on the broadcaster’s independence as they seek “to influence the content of programming.”

“While this may be fair game in partisan politics, the charges are unfounded in fact and wilfully destructive of an asset of the Crown.”

Casgrain’s dyspeptic dispatch was triggered by controversy over remarks by CBC pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research to a newspaper columnist, Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail.