Hon. Andrew Cardozo rose pursuant to notice of May 7, 2024:
That he will call the attention of the Senate to the future of the CBC/Radio-Canada.
He said: Honourable senators, thank you for staying to hear my speech despite the late hour. Colleagues, today I’m launching an inquiry, a debate on the future of the CBC/Radio-Canada. From its inception, the national public broadcaster has played a key role in developing who we are as Canadians.
This topic goes to the heart of how we communicate and who we are as a country.
In 1936, when the Conservative prime minister R.B. Bennett created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, or CRBC, the Crown corporation became that vital link that connected all Canadians. Here is the interesting point: Back then, the CBC was created because of the growing presence of a plethora of American radio and television services such that Canadian culture and character were being hampered. Hence, the CRBC was created to provide a platform that would be quintessentially Canadian — radio and television that were by Canadians, about Canadians and for Canadians.
I would argue that today, in 2024, almost a century later, with the huge increase of traditional American and other broadcasters, plus the massive growth of American online platforms and social media, the need for CBC/Radio-Canada is, in fact, far greater than it was in 1936.
The enormous fragmentation of news media presents a challenge for the nation state, seriously undermining the ability to maintain any semblance of a national Canadian narrative or a national community. As people retract into their various echo chambers in this new media world, the very essence of every country is under the most serious threat it has ever faced. This is where the idea of a Canadian public broadcaster becomes more important than ever.
That said, it is worth noting that since its inception, there have always been a variety of views about it. It has had millions of supporters, critics who believe that it is not doing enough and those who believe it is doing too much. There are those who think that CBC/Radio-Canada is too White or too diverse or too Indigenous, too English or too French or too separatist, too left or too right, too Conservative or too Liberal, too woke or too mainstream and outdated. It has sometimes been called the “Caucasian Broadcasting Corporation.”
In 2024, CBC and Radio-Canada are still deeply rooted in communities, with locations across the country, including 27 television stations and 88 radio stations that offer diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. Radio Canada International also delivers programming in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi, Tagalog and, of course, both official languages.
Radio-Canada and the CBC are the link that connects Canadians in rural regions and small towns to the rest of our vast country. The local news highlights the stories of these residents and communities, and keeps them connected and informed by a trusted broadcaster.
In this world of growing division and polarization, we need to find every way possible to increase communication between people and between communities. CBC/Radio-Canada must be called on to do better than it has. Failing to do that drives large-scale isolation and, ultimately, political instability.
As the national broadcaster, it has the difficult distinction of having to report to many bosses, many of whom may have different priorities. First, the independent Crown corporation has to report to Parliament — a multi-party platform, each party with a different set of requirements and expectations — through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Second, it reports to the CRTC for its licence condition and licence renewals. Third, a myriad of unions and guilds rightfully watch its every move. Fourth, CBC/Radio-Canada has to report to the general public, all of whom have a view of what it should or should not do.
It is not surprising that its competitors will suggest that CBC and Radio-Canada have an unfair competitive advantage. However, as demonstrated by the huge layoffs at CTV despite Bell’s lucrative situation, this is crying wolf a little too much. The private sector arguments should be taken with a grain of salt. They need to show more dedication to the cultural imperatives of broadcasting.
One thing CBC/Radio-Canada does successfully is to maintain a high standard of news and current affairs programming, which puts pressure on its competitors to do likewise. One has only to look at the U.S. television and radio scene to see how a system without high standards works. Clearly, CBC/Radio-Canada has a massive mandate, and oftentimes it is virtually impossible to satisfy all its masters at the same time.
Why have a discussion about the CBC at this time? I suggest there are two compelling reasons: first, because the enormous fragmentation of the media landscape over recent decades and the disappearance of many private sector media — really, a crisis in news media in Canada — requires a rethink of the public broadcaster’s role. A new plan and strategy going into the decades ahead is what we need.
The second reason is that because now — for the first time in the history of CBC/Radio-Canada — a major political party is calling for an end of the service, albeit in a form yet to be announced. It is the biggest political threat to this Canadian icon. To be frank, let me paraphrase Mark Twain: Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of being hanged after the next election.
Looking back with sentimentality has its place, and so does listing the various complaints that each of us may have about this huge and multi-faceted national service. In this busy world and hyper information age, I would like to focus on what CBC/Radio-Canada should be doing going forward. Where do we go from here, and what a great opportunity this is to think about that future?
First, let me quickly set out what we’re talking about. We’re talking about 12 services essentially, but I’m not going to go through all 12. I’ll break it down to six English and six French. We have two radio networks — one for news and one for music; two television networks — one for general entertainment and one for news; a robust website with everything from written articles to various video content; and digital platforms — its own as well as its presence on social media — all of that twice for English and French.
The CBC will receive $1.38 billion for 2024-25 in annual subsidy from the federal government, some 70% of its budget, and earn the rest through advertising and fees for service. It is important to note that Canada ranks seventeenth out of 20 Western countries in terms of funding for its national broadcaster. When you break it down, the parliamentary appropriation to the CBC amounts to about $33 per person per year. The only services which are not funded by the government are the television news networks for which consumers pay a separate fee, like all the specialty channels such as sports and movie channels.
The corporation has set about becoming increasingly digital, so they go to where and when Canadians are going, rather than waiting for customers to come to them. Here are a couple of viewership figures that are relevant to this discussion. About 21.3 million Canadians use CBC digital services each month. In addition, CBC local radio programs are the most listened to radio programs in 21 out of 30 markets across the country. In the other nine, they are a close second.
An important issue is that the French language Radio-Canada is more popular than its English counterpart and also plays a more important role culturally in Quebec than the Canadian francophone world. The reasons for this are at least twofold.
In the North American content that is primarily anglophone, French programming has a high viewership among francophone viewers, while English CBC faces a massive number of competitors. English-speaking Canadians have a massive amount of choice from Canada and the United States, while there are comparatively fewer French networks that appeal to a Quebec and Canadian audience. Indeed, Radio-Canada is known for the high standard of programming it provides.
If defunding is the objective, the questions that have to be asked are as follows: Will both English and French services be cut similarly? If French services are kept while the English ones are defunded, will English-speaking taxpayers still be subsidizing the French services but be denied access to similar English services? Will it be news or entertainment that will face the axe? Indeed, proponents of defunding need to be clear on this.
While some will attack CBC/Radio-Canada for a particular story on the network from time to time and will call on the federal government to correct things, they do so knowing that the public broadcaster is independent of the elected government, which can neither tell them what to say or not to say. That would make it a state broadcaster as opposed to an independent public broadcaster, which it is. Complaints go to the ombudsman at the CBC and to the leadership of the corporation.
The elected government should never, ever be called upon to interfere with the news coverage of an independent broadcaster.
As I wind up — I know you’re waiting for those words — here are a few ideas: divest CBC Radio 2 and return the licences to the CRTC; drastically increase programming that advances dialogue, such as “Tout le monde en parle” and “Cross Country Checkup,” so that Canadians can hear each other and from each other; include at least one news story — a national and regional newscast — about local news in various areas in the country; increase the ability for all political parties and supporters to have substantial and unfiltered airtime; increase the number of small-town bureaus, whether using small studios or part-time stringers; consider the world as the oyster, with world-class programming that brings in the best and brightest from around the world to talk about topical issues, and do this a lot more — programming that will be sought the world over; lastly, develop a five-year digitization plan to make all programming digital and, importantly, create programming that will be primarily for the digital world.
I want to close with one thought: In today’s world — the hyper-information world; the social media world; an increasingly polarized world, both internally in many countries and between countries — we need to seek ways to bring people together. Cancelling the CBC is easy. Cancel culture is easy. Cancelling our culture is easy. I challenge you, colleagues, to focus on putting forward new and bold ideas that will help build up our country in the new hyper-information age that we live in and face in the years ahead. Thank you.
Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.