Alan Butterworth Plaunt was a Canadian broadcasting pioneer, journalist and activist.

The son of a wealthy lumber family, Plaunt attended the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 and University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and was a keen observer of the fledgling British Broadcasting Corporation while in Britain becoming a believer in John Reith

John Reith, 1st Baron Reith

John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom...

's approach to public broadcasting.

With Graham Spry

Graham Spry

- Further reading :*Babe, Robert. "Graham Spry" in Canadian Communications Thought: Ten Foundational Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-7949-0.*McChesney, Robert W. , Canadian Journal of Communication 24....

, he founded the Canadian Radio League

Canadian Radio League

The Canadian Radio League was a public pressure group led by Graham Spry and Alan Plaunt to mobilize support for the establishment of public broadcasting in Canada...

 in 1930 to mobilize political support for the creation of a public broadcasting

Public broadcasting

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...

 system, first in the form of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission

Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission

The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission was Canada's first public broadcaster and the immediate precursor to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.-Origins:...

 in 1932 and then with the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

 in 1936. Plaunt sat on the original CBC Board of Governors from 1936 until 1941, when he resigned to protest what he saw as increasing government direction of the CBC during the war.

He was also an active socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 as a member of the League for Social Reconstruction

League for Social Reconstruction

The League for Social Reconstruction was a circle of Canadian socialist intellectuals officially formed in 1932, though it had its beginnings during a camping retreat in 1931. These academics were advocating radical social and economic reforms and political education. Industrialization,...

 and helped write the Regina Manifesto

Regina Manifesto

The Regina Manifesto was the programme of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and was adopted at the first national convention of the CCF held in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1933. The primary goal of the "Regina Manifesto" was to eradicate the system of capitalism and replace it with a planned...

 which was the original program of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...

.

Plaunt founded the New Canada Movement in 1933, an agrarian youth movement that advocated a "new deal" for farmers and promoted its views in the Farmers' Sun, (renamed New Commonwealth) the former journal of the United Farmers

United Farmers of Canada

The United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association...

 movement which he and Spry owned from 1932 until 1935.

In the last years of his life, Plaunt helped organize the Neutrality League, a pacifist

Pacifism

Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...

 organization that opposed Canadian participation in the looming conflict in Europe

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

He died of cancer at the age of 37.