I think I very large part of it is the ongoing perception of bias, irrespective of whether that bias exists. As Uzi pointed out above, there was a central Canada bias to CBC broadcasts for years, and arguably it was justifiably so, since that’s where the biggest chunk of the population lives. The politics, therefore, of southern Ontario have historically been presented as the politics of Canada. The hockey that matters to southern Ontario (ie. the Leafs) has been presented as the hockey that matters to Canada. While the ebb and flow of CBC’s content may have evolved from that, the perception that this is how they do business persists and, like most issues of perception among the masses, they don’t change easily, resulting in lots and lots of confirmation bias – when a westerner turns on the CBC and sees a story on the news criticizing PM Harper, he sees bias, whether the criticism is justified or not. When a westerner turns on HNIC and the early game, virtually without exception, is a fucking Leafs game, even though there are three other Canadian teams currently in the Eastern Conference that could be getting broadcast time, he sees bias (guess who’s on the early game tonight?).
The simple reality is that perception is more important than facts to the masses, because thinking is hard and critically assessing one’s own biases is harder still. There really aren’t a lot of open minds out there, which I think is sad.*
*Since most people would do well to throw out their own points of view and just accept mine as the correct one. 
Only one Chapters store though … grumble, grumble.