In a way, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is doing Canadians a favor by stepping up his attacks on CBC/Radio-Canada. Not by taxing the news propagated by the English network of the public broadcaster of “pro-Trudeau propaganda”. Nor by implying that a Conservative government could cut funding to the CBC without the programming of Radio-Canada being affected. All this is just the wind from the mouth of a populist politician who, in order to mobilize his base, gets carried away a little too easily against these useful scarecrows of circumstance. Thanks to Mr. Poilievre, however, Canadians will be forced to engage in a real debate on the future of CBC/Radio-Canada for the first time in ages.
Every year, Ottawa pays $1.2 billion to the public broadcaster without asking whether Canadians are getting their money’s worth. CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate has not been reviewed since 1988, when the media environment in which the public broadcaster operates today bears little resemblance to that which existed at that time. In English Canada, CBC’s television market share fell to 4.4% in 2022, compared to 22.6% for Radio-Canada in Quebec.
It would not be catastrophic if the English network offered programming that stands out from its peers in the private sector because of its quality, its relevance or its fit in the fulfillment of its particular mandate. But under its current president, Catherine Tait, the CBC has stooped to offering a range of programming, each more insipid than the next. It was under his direction that the CBC embarked on the creation of a Canadian version of the American game show family feudproof if any of the redundancy of the public network in a media universe that is full of such nonsense.
The best drama series produced in English Canada, such as as Cardinal Or Transplant, can be found at CTV, owned by conglomerate BCE. This is not me saying it. With few exceptions, television critics in English Canada despair of the mediocrity of CBC programming.
While CBC/Radio-Canada remains an indispensable source of information for many Canadians, especially in Quebec, it is clear that the differences between its French and English services in the handling of certain files testify to the unease that has set in within the public broadcaster since Mme Tait has made diversity and inclusion issues his personal focus.
CBC/Radio-Canada’s credibility took a beating in the wake of the Wendy Mesley affair, the veteran journalist whose stormy retirement followed a work meeting where she uttered the n-word, much to the chagrin of some of his colleagues. Mme Tait, apparently seeing no conflict between journalism and activism, also invited employees of the CBC/Radio-Canada office in Ottawa to participate in a march in memory of the victims of residential schools in 2021.
Many English Canadians have left the CBC in recent years complaining of its often moralizing tone of reporting and display of an overtly progressive bias. It’s not just grassroots right-wingers who don’t identify with CBC’s current affairs programming. The ratings of The NationalEnglish-speaking counterpart of Newscastkeep falling, while CTV News is still gaining ground.
Mme Tait has been in the hot seat since coming out against Mr. Poilievre in the Globe and Mail, last February. She accused the Conservative leader of having fueled the denigration of the CBC with his crusade to defund the public broadcaster. The Press disclosed correspondence with Mr. Poilievre’s office in which Mr.me Tait had requested a meeting with the latter to discuss the “value” of the public network in “the era of increased cleavage in the country”.
After receiving a dismissal from Mr. Poilievre’s office, she continued with a subsequent missive: “Your party continues to send mass emails, advertise on Twitter and Facebook — falsely accusing CBC journalists to be biased — and to use the promise of “defunding” to raise funds. Certainly, she was not wrong. But it was not her responsibility, as president of CBC/Radio-Canada, to interfere in the political debate.
His political adventures will perhaps prove decisive for the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, who will soon have to decide whether or not to grant a second five-year term to Mr.me Tait, at the end of his current term in July. The bets are open.
No matter the fate of Mme Tait, a review of CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate is in order. Since coming to power in 2015, the Liberals have not had the political courage to undertake such an exercise for fear of alienating members of the cultural industries in Quebec and English Canada, who both depend on CBC/ Radio Canada. To prevent more English Canadians from starting to share the Conservative leader’s discontent with the public broadcaster, the Liberals should put on their pants and modernize his mandate. The very survival of CBC/Radio-Canada depends on it.