CBC DEMANDS more funding from struggling taxpayers
"We need in the $400 million to $500 million range," CEO Catherine Tait told the Commons heritage committee at a November 25 hearing.
A new Canadian Heritage report claims the CBC must receive more funding despite controversy over massive bonuses being awarded to executives after hundreds of employees were laid off.
The Trudeau government has weighed a new mandate for the state broadcaster for months, which may lead to more taxpayer handouts. The CBC’s main revenue source is a $1.4 billion annual parliamentary grant, up from $1 billion a decade ago.
Its current mandate hasn’t been changed since 1991 – before the advent of the internet.
Conservative MP Andrew Scheer told the outgoing head of the state broadcaster, Catherine Tait, that she was an integral part of the Conservatives' push to end the $1.5 billion in annual subsidies to the CBC.
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A committee report Future Of CBC: Challenges And Opportunities recommended “that the Government of Canada provide a substantial and lasting increase in the parliamentary appropriation for CBC.” That would remove dependency on paid subscriptions services and commercial advert revenues.
Figures show CBC commercial revenue fell from $767.8 million a year to $493.5 million over the past decade, revealed Blacklock’s. “Audiences are abandoning television in favour of digital platforms,” Carol Najm, chief financial officer, told the Senate national finance committee.
During the 2015/16 fiscal year, 438 full-time CBC employees took home six-figure salaries, costing taxpayers $59.5 million. That more than doubled ($119.5 million) to 949 staff during the 2021/22 fiscal year.
The CBC earlier testified that another half billion in subsidies should suffice, reported Blacklock’s. “We need in the $400 million to $500 million range,” CEO Catherine Tait told the Commons heritage committee at a November 25 hearing.
WATCH: @SheilaGunnReid explains how the CBC actually needs more "government-funded" labels placed on it following Elon Musk and Twitter's decision to brand CBC's account as 'government-funded media.'
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“All Canadian media organizations face serious challenges,” she said. About 450 newspapers have gone out of business since 2009, according to government data.
Rival broadcasters are cutting staff and programming costs to stay afloat. The CBC will cut at least 346 jobs this year. It promised to “reassess” future cuts after paying its managers millions in bonuses, which Najm defended.
Records show all 46 top network executives without exception received bonuses worth $3,020,021 this year. Another 1,140 managers shared $11.883,734 in bonuses.
“This disgraceful abuse of taxpayer dollars when Canadians are struggling for financial survival has contributed to the ‘defund the CBC’ movement,” said Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, who sits on the heritage committee.
“We continue to face financial challenges that impact the entire Canadian media industry,” Najm earlier testified.
"We want a strong public broadcaster for decades to come": Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge defends the Trudeau Liberals' decision to increase CBC's funding despite firing employees and doling out almost $15 million in bonuses last year.https://t.co/7sRrlShnQP pic.twitter.com/L4uRFGOLxN
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In a Dissenting Report from the Conservative Party, calls to defund the Crown corporation remain top of mind for officials. “Canadian taxpayer dollars are being abused,” it said.
MP Waugh lambasted hundreds of job cuts while awarding lavish bonuses to executives and other managers. New Democrats endorsed halting the practice.
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge defended CBC subsidies in 2023 testimony. “It is something I hold very dear,” she said.
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has several times proposed to cut CBC subsidies. Minister St-Onge has ignored those calls, and later stacked a CBC advisory panel with seven beneficiaries of federal funding.
“I want to ensure the CBC is well positioned to face the coming decades in a context where media have great difficulty,” St-Onge told reporters. In a February 29 Main Estimates, she raised CBC subsidies by $96.1 million to a record $1.38 billion this year.
Of $42 million in increased funding to CBC in last year's federal budget, $19 million was paid out in executive bonuses for job “performance.”
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The Forum for Research and Policy in Communications (FRPC) conducted an analysis of the broadcaster’s annual reports from 1937 to 2019, uncovering significant difficulties tracking the broadcaster's funding and performance outcomes.
The annual reports provide “little objective information” about fulfillment of its mandate and “so little consistent historical financial information” that Parliament's support for its operations “cannot be easily assessed.”
The FRPC estimates that CBC has cost taxpayers roughly $80 billion since 1937.
A 2017 Conservative bill to privatize the state broadcaster within three years failed in a 260-6 vote. Though the majority of Conservative MPs rejected the motion, its tenets became Conservative policy in 2020.
Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre says he'll cut the CBC's budget since "they waste an enormous amount of money."
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Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre maintains those sentiments by supporting cuts to English-language TV programming. “The CBC frankly is a biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party,” he told reporters last year.
On September 16, 2023, CEO Tait asked to meet with Poilievre to “make the case” for CBC “in a time of greater polarization in our country.” Tait sent Poilievre a follow-up letter on November 29, 2023 but did not receive a response.
Poilievre and the outgoing CBC executive had a heated tit-for-tat that February after the former accused the broadcaster of launching a partisan attack on him. He said Tait is “not even pretending to be unbiased.”
“We need a neutral and free media, not a propaganda arm for the Liberal Party,” Poilievre said at the time. “When I am Prime Minister we are going to have a free press where everyday Canadians decide what they think rather than having Liberal propaganda jammed down their throats.”
Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.
COMMENTS
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Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2024-12-16 23:39:26 -0500The CBC is the epitome of what’s known as a self-licking ice cream cone. It exists to exist. -
Bruce Atchison commented 2024-12-16 18:29:55 -0500CBC is a dead horse that the Liberals keep on flogging. Let the handful of people who watch and listen to it pay for it? CBC has long outlived its mandate to showcase Canada to Canadians. Almost every citizen has access to the Internet. Good talent survives because people love it. And many artists and film makers collaborate with people from other countries.
