QUESTION PERIOD — Canadian Heritage
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
May 29, 2024
Senator Gold, I have some good news for you and your Liberal Party. We’ve actually found somebody who’s less popular than Justin Trudeau: your beloved CBC. Their ratings are actually lower than Justin Trudeau’s polling numbers. Despite that, Senator Gold, your government continues to throw good money after bad at the CBC.
Of course, you’re going to tell me that they produce great Canadian content and do great work, but the truth is that the only thing they do is try to make fat cats as rich as possible. We have just found out that $15 billion in bonuses for fiscal year 2023 has been paid to executives and managers — imagine that — for operating with low ratings and failing in terms of their mandate. Meanwhile, they’ve fired 346 people at the CBC who produce programming.
Senator Gold, does your government think this is a valuable use of taxpayer money? Do you think the CBC is producing what Canadians actually want? Are they getting value for their dollars, or are they just not worth the cost?
Thank you for your question and for your ongoing attacks on CBC/Radio-Canada. They are attacks, Senator Housakos.
Let me address your question. Yesterday, if you were listening, Senator Forest offered a very fair and balanced assessment of the importance of the CBC to many areas, communities and constituencies in this country. The Government of Canada continues to believe that a public broadcaster is in the best interests of Canadians, notwithstanding the challenges that it and all other broadcasters are facing as the digital age and people’s ways of consuming news evolve. It will continue to do what it can to support the CBC as it seeks to transition into this new age.
You keep fighting for the fat cats. I’ll keep fighting for the taxpayers.
Senator Gold, when CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait appeared before a parliamentary committee just three weeks ago, long after the fiscal year-end, she said that no bonus for 2023 had been paid out and that her own bonus wouldn’t be decided upon until a board meeting in June this year. She lied to a parliamentary committee, Senator Gold. If you’re not concerned enough about the millions going to executives instead of programming, are you at least concerned about the highly paid civil servant lying to a parliamentary committee about her bonus?
Senator, I think you are misrepresenting the situation yet again.
I will refer you to articles in the National Post, hardly a friend of this government, which explain more clearly the differences between what was said and what you are asserting.
