(Ottawa) The president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, does not rule out paying bonuses to executives even though she announced the day before that it will eliminate 800 positions across the country, the equivalent of 10% of its workforce. The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, avoided commenting on Tuesday, recalling the independence of the public broadcaster.
“It’s too early to say where we are this year,” she responded in an interview Monday on the show The National. We will review this as we will all of our budget items in the coming months. »
The host Adrienne Arsenault returned to the charge and Mme Tait responded that she was not going to “comment on something that hasn’t been discussed yet.”
Asked about the message that granting bonuses would send, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, did not want to comment.
“It is up to them to answer questions about internal remuneration,” she said in the press scrum. They have clear allocations, they have clear budgets. I invite you to ask these questions CBC/Radio-Canada. »
The state-owned company announced Monday afternoon the elimination of 600 jobs and the elimination of 200 vacant positions, or approximately 10% of its workforce. It faces “budgetary pressures” of 125 million due to inflation, competition from digital giants and the decline in advertising revenues generated by traditional television.
“The CBC says that it is still short of money and that it is laying off staff,” reacted the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, on the social network incompetent executives and liberal spokespersons. I bet none of Trudeau’s favorite spokespeople will be fired – they’ll just get more bonuses. »
He relied on figures compiled by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation last spring, according to which more than $99 million has been paid in bonuses by the Crown corporation to its employees since 2015. In 2022, the amount of premiums amounted to 16 million.
The Conservatives want to cut CBC funds by $1 billion if they form a government.
– With Charles-Éric Blais-Poulin, The Press