Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has renewed his pledge to “defund the CBC” after the board of directors for CBC and Radio-Canada has approved bonuses for some staff for work they did in the most recent fiscal year.
The move, which was confirmed Monday, came amid outcry that 1,194 eligible employees working for the public broadcaster would receive bonuses in a year when 141 employees were laid off and 205 vacant positions were eliminated.
Poilievre’s post generated over 23,000 likes and hundreds of supportive comments. “This is the best thing you’ve ever said,” one fan wrote, with another cheering on, “We can’t wait!”
“The board and the senior executive team acknowledge the views expressed by some that performance pay should not be awarded at CBC/Radio-Canada in times of financial pressures and associated workforce reductions,” the board said in a letter dated June 25.
In response, the board, which would not comment on how much money was being paid to the 1,194 eligible employees, said it would be assessing future compensation arrangements.
“This review will be conducted by a third-party human resources consulting firm, and recommendations to the board will be shared with the public,” the board promised.
Last December, the CBC said it planned to cut 600 jobs, eliminate 200 vacancies and slash $40 million from its production budget to help mitigate a projected $125-million shortfall. This despite the Liberals handing over $1.38-billion to the public broadcaster in 2024-25 (which is a significant uptick from the $1.29 billion the CBC got for 2023-24).
But CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Catherine Tait, whose annual compensation ranges between $472,900 and $623,900, cried poor saying the public broadcaster was woefully underfunded, even though it shelled out $14.9 million in bonuses in 2022-23.
“At $33 per Canadian — a dime a day — CBC/Radio-Canada is one of the worst-funded public broadcasters in the world, with four times less funding than the U.K. and France and eight times less than Germany,” Tait said. “Until that situation changes, we must continue to manage with what we have and do our very best to stretch limited resources to meet our mandate.”
Poilievre has long maintained that if elected prime minister, he will end funding to the CBC.
“Almost everything the CBC does can be done in the marketplace these days because of technology,” he told True North host Andrew Lawton last year, while offering to keep funding in place for some French-language content.
“I would preserve a small amount for French-language minorities, linguistic minorities, because they, frankly, will not get news services provided by the market,” Poilievre said at the time.
“We’re going to sell off 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build, build, build,” he said. “And you know something, it warms my heart to think of a beautiful family pulling up in their U-Haul to move into their wonderful new home in the former headquarters of the CBC.”
With a federal election still over a year away, Poilievre is making the defunding of the CBC a main selling point.