Producer behind American citizenship reality show first pitched format to CBC with Jonathan Torrens

Of interest, less a survivor zero-sum approach than it first appeared:

Canadian-American producer Rob Worsoff has spent the past week being raked over the coals for pitching a reality TV show to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – one where immigrants would compete for a fast-track to American citizenship.

The British tabloid Daily Mail, which broke the story and reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was backing the idea, dubbed the concept “insane.”

American magazine The New Republic called Mr. Worsoff‘s idea “twisted” and “barbaric,” while a column in The Guardian declared: “We’ve entered the realm of the truly depraved.”

But Mr. Worsoff protests that The American, as his unproduced show is tentatively titled, is not a “Hunger Games for immigration.”

Instead, the Montreal-born producer, an American immigrant himself, says that he has long imagined a reality show that would humanize the immigration process – and, in fact, he first pitched the idea in a Canadian version to the CBC alongside TV personality Jonathan Torrens in 2006.

“The Canadian was a show that took place in every province and celebrated what it means to be Canadian,” recalls Mr. Worsoff, over the phone from Los Angeles, of the earlier unproduced version of the reality competition….

Source: Producer behind American citizenship reality show first pitched format to CBC with Jonathan Torrens