Heritage minister pitches CBC/Radio-Canada overhaul and a major funding hike
Pascale St-Onge says a CBC funding boost will protect Canada's cultural 'sovereignty'
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge announced Thursday a plan to overhaul CBC/Radio-Canada to shore up an institution she said is "at a critical crossroads" but one that is necessary as the country faces American threats to its sovereignty.
While pitching a program that is unlikely to be enacted by the current government given the likelihood of a federal election sometime soon, St-Onge said American "billionaire tech oligarchs" are tightening their grip on the flow of information and Canada needs to revive its nearly century-old public broadcaster to "tell our own stories," saying it's a "national security issue" that so much of what Canadians consume is generated elsewhere.
"More than ever it's important to rely on our own sources of information — made by and for Canadians," she said.
"CBC will never be controlled by Musk or Zuckerberg. It will never belong to billionaire tech oligarchs. It will always belong to the people of Canada," she said, referencing Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
"It's not a Liberal or a Conservative issue. It's a commitment to ourselves, our culture and our independence," she added, saying the CBC was first formed in 1936 to give Canadians a homegrown source for news and entertainment when much of that content was American.
To improve the quality of the corporation's programming in both English and French, boost the availability of "trustworthy, local and impartial news" and make the broadcaster a more reliable source of information during emergencies, St-Onge is pitching a funding increase that could nearly double its yearly appropriation.
She said per capita funding for CBC/Radio-Canada is about $33.66, the second lowest in the developed world ahead of only the U.S.
That funding level has been roughly the same for years and has not been meaningfully adjusted for inflation, St-Onge said.
The minister said the public broadcaster's parliamentary appropriation should be closer to the $62.20 per capita funding average of the other G7 countries.
She said the exact level of funding will be determined by a future prime minister or finance minister, but proposed it should rise over time as the broadcaster's mandate evolves.
The minister said, citing government research, there is a direct link between a public broadcaster's level of funding and its performance — suggesting a cash infusion would bring more eyeballs to the broadcaster's content, boosting market share and citizens' trust.
In addition to an appropriation hike, St-Onge is proposing to take the public broadcaster's funding out of the normal budgetary process, which is subject to the political whims of the day, and embed the funding formula in a separate act of Parliament so that the money is preset based on population levels.
St-Onge said that would offer the broadcaster "stable and predictable funding," and reduce the risk of political tinkering.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has long promised to defund CBC but keep its French-language service, Radio-Canada. He has said there's no need for English-language content because other broadcasters can fill the void, pointing to conventional TV ratings that show CBC is a laggard.
It's a message he delivered again Thursday in Toronto when asked about the minister's proposal.
"We're going to cut wasteful spending, not just there but across the government to bring down inflation, deficits and taxes," he said.
St-Onge, who has not endorsed a Liberal leadership candidate in the race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said she expects the people vying for the top job to take on some of these proposals. She said she would back the candidate who has the best plan to build up the CBC.
CBC/Radio-Canada received about $1.4 billion in funding from the government last year, according to the company's annual report.
If a future government were to boost funding to the G7 average, as St-Onge is proposing, the corporation's funding could rise to about $2.5 billion a year.
In return, St-Onge wants to make more of what CBC/Radio-Canada offers ad-free and fee-free so that "Canadians don't have to pay twice," she said.
The corporation's English streaming service, Gem, offers a premium, commercial-free option for a fee. CBC's podcast division also sometimes charges a fee for early access to some of its programs.
St-Onge said, in exchange for a boost in funding, she will require there be no ads around news, public affairs and "information" programming — on TV, radio or online.
St-Onge said making the CBC ad-free would give other embattled news outlets a leg-up because those ad dollars would flow from the Crown corporation to commercial broadcasters, newspapers, other streaming platforms, podcasters and the like. CBC Radio is already ad-free.
If the government does away with ads around news, CBC would lose a portion of the revenue it generates on its own. The company earned about $493.5 million last year, largely from TV advertising and subscriber fees from cable channels like CBC News Network.
The minister also wants the corporation to be more responsive to what Canadians want out of their public broadcaster and she's pitching amendments to the Broadcasting Act, which governs the corporation, to force CBC to do more public consultations "on issues related to its priorities and strategies."
That would bring the broadcaster "closer to the people," and address frequent claims CBC is "not receptive to hearing different points of view."
St-Onge is also proposing governance reform to tamp down accusations that the broadcaster is somehow controlled by the political party in power.
Instead of the federal cabinet directly appointing the broadcaster's CEO, St-Onge is proposing the CBC's board of directors pick the person to lead the corporation to insulate them from claims they are doing the government's bidding.
After facing pointed criticism over the corporation's decision to hand out management bonuses while also announcing a plan to cut workers, St-Onge said the CEO's salary should be set by the board, not by a cabinet order-in-council, as it is now.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the Liberal government had nine years to reform the CBC and give it more money, and it didn't get it done.
"I can't imagine more last minute than potentially weeks before an election. But, if they're serious, if they actually want to do something, call Parliament back," he said.
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