Taxpayer burden set to soar as Liberal MPs push for $2 billion in CBC funding
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The CBC used to air The Simpsons after school. One of the most memorable episodes is the Cape Fear homage where an FBI agent is trying to change Homer’s last name to Thompson. After hours of frustration, the agent says, “When I step on your foot and say: ‘Hello, Mr. Thompson,’ you nod your head! Got it?!” Homer, of course, doesn’t get it.
Just like Homer, the Liberal MPs on the heritage committee still don’t get it.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the CBC is out of touch and failing Canadians, the committee has sent a report to the House of Commons urging the government to give the CBC even more taxpayer money.
The report reads: “That the Government of Canada provide a substantial and lasting increase in the parliamentary appropriations for CBC/Radio-Canada, allowing it to eliminate its paid subscription services and gradually end its reliance on commercial advertising revenues.”
 Really? More money? |
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Really? More money? The CBC already drains $1.4 billion a year from taxpayers, and now they want even more. That kind of funding could pay the salaries of roughly 7,000 police officers and 7,000 paramedics.
But these Liberal MPs want to push taxpayers even harder to fund the CBC’s elimination of advertising and subscription fees. According to its latest annual report, the CBC collected $493 million in 2023-24 from these sources. Adding that to its government funding would push its taxpayer burden to a staggering $2 billion annually.
This is the exact opposite of what should happen. The CBC should be defunded for three simple reasons: it is a colossal waste of money, it fails to attract viewers, and the government should not pay journalists.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation made this clear during testimony before the committee. Even CBC CEO Catherine Tait repeatedly proved the case for defunding through her own entitled and evasive behaviour.
Tait refused to disclose whether she’ll take a severance package when her term ends, claiming it’s a “personal matter.” It’s not personal when taxpayers are footing the bill. Documents show Tait’s salary for 2023-24 was between $460,000 and $551,000, with a potential bonus of up to 28 per cent – an extra $154,448. That bonus alone is more than the average Canadian family earns in a year.
Last year, Tait cried broke before the committee just before the CBC announced newsroom layoffs. Meanwhile, documents show the CBC still handed out $18 million in bonuses. Even the pro-CBC group Friends of Canadian Media called this move “deeply out of touch and unbefitting of our national public broadcaster.”
The CBC’s audience figures show how far it’s fallen. According to its latest quarterly report, CBC News Network has a national audience share of just 1.7 per cent. Its six o’clock supper-hour newscast in Toronto attracts a microscopic 0.7 per cent of viewers.
And it’s not just the news. CBC’s entertainment programming fares no better. Its biggest draw, Murdoch Mysteries (which isn’t even produced by the CBC), reaches just 1.9 per cent of the population.
The problem goes deeper than wasted taxpayer dollars or poor ratings. Journalists funded by the government face an obvious conflict of interest: you can’t hold a government accountable when your paycheque depends on it. This has eroded public trust in the media, with 61 per cent of Canadians believing journalists are “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”
The Liberal MPs on the committee know all this, yet they refuse to see the reality. Like Homer Simpson failing to grasp the FBI agent’s instructions, they just don’t get it.
If the CBC needs more money, it should earn it like every other media outlet. Taxpayers can’t afford to keep subsidizing a state broadcaster that delivers so little value. It’s time to defund the CBC and put Canadians first.
Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a former member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
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