Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

If I understand correctly, Madam Chair, there is no further debate, your ruling has been upheld, and we can move on to something else. I would therefore like to move the following motion, which I submitted within the prescribed time frame in the last few days:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee invite the CEO of CBC/Radio‑Canada, Catherine Tait, to appear for a period of two hours to answer questions concerning: 1. The increase in funding to the public broadcaster of nearly one hundred million dollars per year; 2. The exemption granted by the government to CBC/Radio‑Canada to reduce its operating costs by 3.3%; 3. The payment of performance bonuses totalling nearly fifteen million dollars to CBC/Radio‑Canada executives. And that she explain the impact of these announcements on the announced elimination of eight hundred (800) positions, as well as on the continuation of high‑quality journalism in the regions of Quebec and Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Martin.

We now have a motion on the floor.

Mr. Noormohamed, I'm going to have to entertain discussion on this motion. If you're speaking to the motion, your hand will be recognized. I will ask anyone speaking to the motion or against the motion to please raise their hand.

Mrs. Thomas's hand is up, and then we have Mr. Lawrence.

Is this to the motion? That's what we're discussing.

Go ahead, Mrs. Thomas.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Chair, I would offer the following friendly amendment to the motion so that the motion would read, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee invite the CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, and the Minister of Heritage to appear for a period of two hours each within seven days of the adoption of this motion.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I might add that I don't think there is such a thing as a friendly amendment to a motion, unless you had discussed it with the person before the meeting and they had agreed to entertain it.

You are putting forward an amendment to the motion. Can you read just the piece that's the amendment, Mrs. Thomas?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm just trying to be kind. I'm offering an amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I know you are, but we have to vote on it. Please present the amendment.

You are adding the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and you're adding a timeline. Is that it?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That is correct.

I am adding “the Minister of Heritage”. She would also come. It would be Catherine Tait who would come for two hours, and the Minister of Heritage would also come for two hours.

Also, each of these witnesses would appear “within seven days of the adoption of this motion”.

I'm happy to provide copies of these changes to the committee members, should they wish to have them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. We have an amendment on the floor.

Is anyone speaking with regard to the amendment?

We have Philip and then Martin.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I believe I still have the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you had finished.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

I just want to confirm that the clerk does have the wording of the amendment.

We're good with it? Perfect. Thank you.

The amendment adds that the Minister of Heritage would come. The reason that I feel this is important is that there's evidence to suggest that the Minister of Heritage actually knew that these bonuses had been given out. The problem is not the fact that the bonuses had been given out in October; the problem is that the CEO of the CBC, Catherine Tait, came to this committee and seemingly misled us to believe that this wasn't the case, that bonuses were actually being withheld until a further decision could be made in March.

The Minister of Heritage ultimately is responsible for holding the CBC accountable. It seems appropriate that she would come to this committee and help us understand what happened here, so that's the reason for that amendment.

The second part of the amendment that I have added here is that they would come within seven days of the adoption of this motion. The reason this is important is that sometimes these types of motions can get punted down the line and not end up actually becoming a case for study here at this committee for quite some time. I do believe, as my honourable colleague Mr. Champoux has outlined, that this is of the essence. Important things need to be discussed. Accountability needs to be had. Questions need to be posed and answers need to be given. That's the reason for the timeline there.

If I may, my colleague Mr. Champoux didn't really speak to the essence of this motion. Perhaps he intends to do that in just a moment, but I'll speak to it from my side of things.

The overall motion calls for the CEO, Catherine Tait, to come to committee, and now I've added the Minister of Heritage, to answer with regard to bonuses that have come to light. Members of this committee will recall that just before Christmas, the president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Ms. Catherine Tait, announced that she would be cutting 800 positions. She said she was doing this because of what she called “chronic underfunding”.

It's important to remember that the CBC is given $1.3 billion annually and that the heritage minister actually increased that by another $100 million this spring. When asked whether or not millions in bonuses for top executives would be out of the picture based on this hardship, she said it was “too early to say”. In other words, she was reserving the right to give bonuses to top executives, but she was scrapping 800 jobs.

At the end of January, we asked Ms. Tait to come to this committee, where we had the opportunity to ask her questions with regard to the absurdity of this decision. During that time, she led us to believe that bonuses for 2023 had not yet been given and would be withheld until March. However, based on ATIP, access to information, we now find out that actually she had given $15 million in bonuses even before she had made the decision to scrap these 800 jobs. That means she put those bonuses ahead of those jobs. She put bonuses for executives ahead of 800 individuals who needed those positions.

Given that it seems she misled this committee, we have every right to bring her back and to ask her important questions. The reason this is so important is that at the end of the day, the CBC is a public broadcaster, paid for with public money, and it is our job at this committee to hold her accountable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have just a quick brief comment, with your indulgence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You will speak to the amendment.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes. I'll go off topic for, I promise, just 20 seconds.

I'm really kind of surprised and shocked that the previous motion was ruled inadmissible. Racism, the study of racism and fighting racism seem squarely within the heritage committee. Regardless of the funding—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Philip—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I apologize. I'll be just 10 more seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Philip, this is out of order. We're not dealing with that. We're dealing with an amendment at the moment. We want you to speak to the amendment and focus on that.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Okay. I will get to it.

I think you actually end up in a place where you can't study it in either committee, because innovation and industry isn't really normally the place where you study racism and anti-racism efforts.

That said, I'll move forward to the amendment.

Ministerial accountability is really a cornerstone of our democracy. It is absolutely critical. We've seen through the testimony from Ms. Tait that she appears unwilling or unable to make changes. With respect to the bonuses and letting 800 people go, I think we really need the minister in this committee to change the action.

I think the people of Canada, particularly in the province of Quebec, would want to see the minister of the federal government of Canada held accountable and responsible. I am very skeptical that Ms. Tait of her own accord will make decisions that positively affect the employment of the workers, particularly in Quebec at Radio-Canada. I am quite confident that the people of Quebec would want to have their representatives and the representatives of this Parliament ask the minister of the federal government of Canada those questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Philip.

Martin, you have your hand up. Then we'll have Taleeb.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank my colleague Mr. Lawrence for his concern about what Quebeckers want to see here in committee. I can say that Quebeckers increasingly want the federal government to stop meddling in their cultural and communication affairs. The way things are being managed and the cuts at CBC/Radio‑Canada, which will also affect CBC/Radio‑Canada's French services, are, for us, an injustice that doesn't go over very well.

That said, this is a matter for the management of CBC/Radio‑Canada. As we know—and as we've been told many times—the management of CBC/Radio‑Canada is not within the government's reach, nor should it be. If the government has anything important to do with the management of CBC/Radio‑Canada, it's to retool the mandate or renew the mandate of the president of CBC/Radio‑Canada. In fact, the minister has announced that work is under way to hire a new president.

The minister will appear here by May 31 if the motion moved by my colleague Mrs. Thomas is adopted. I think it is perfectly reasonable for the minister to come and talk about spending. I think it will be an excellent opportunity to ask her about that.

However, for the time being, I would like Ms. Tait to be seated at the end of the table. I want to ask her about what she told us in December. She came to justify the cuts of 800 positions and the budget cuts due to the chronic underfunding of CBC/Radio‑Canada. She explained that one of the reasons was that the government was going to impose budget cuts of 3.3% on all government agencies, including CBC/Radio‑Canada. She also explained to us that funding was a problem because it wasn't enough and that CBC/Radio‑Canada had to use more original funding strategies than others, particularly through advertising and sponsored content. However, a few weeks later, we learned that the government is increasing CBC/Radio‑Canada's operating budget by $100 million and that the corporation will be exempt from this 3.3% restriction, which remains mandatory for the other agencies and represents tens of millions of dollars.

So, at this time, I don't see what's going to justify CBC/Radio‑Canada maintaining the elimination of 800 positions, which will have a significant and probably irreversible impact on journalistic coverage in the regions, in Quebec and Canada, and an irreversible and extremely serious impact on the dissemination of culture—particularly francophone culture—in Quebec and Canada.

I think the decisions made by Catherine Tait about the end of her mandate are an insult to Quebeckers and Canadians. I would remind you that her mandate has been extended until January 2025. She needs to come and sit down here and explain to us the reasons that will justify maintaining her cutting millions of dollars and the positions of hundreds of workers who are essential to journalism and culture—particularly francophone culture—in Quebec and Canada.

I think the part of Mrs. Thomas's proposed amendment that deals with the time frame is interesting. As I said, we'll be able to question the minister when she comes to talk to us about the estimates. I have no problem with that, but I don't think it would be appropriate to hear from her at this time. However, setting a maximum time limit for the implementation of this motion, once it's adopted, is entirely reasonable.

Where I have a problem is with the seven‑day limit. According to the current schedule, a seven‑day deadline takes us to Tuesday of next week. That leaves just one meeting because the House isn't sitting next week. Either we meet with Ms. Tait on Thursday of this week, which seems a bit short notice to me and raises the risk that the president of CBC/Radio‑Canada won't be available for one reason or another, or the committee meets during the weeks when the House isn't sitting, and I'm wondering if we're in that much of a hurry.

I'm open to hearing my colleagues' arguments. I'm not at all closed to this issue. I wonder if it couldn't be done at the first meeting back after the two‑week break. Personally, I'm quite open to this compromise. As I said, I have nothing against the second part of Mrs. Thomas's amendment, which proposes setting a deadline for the meeting.

I'll stop there, because I want to hear what my colleagues have to say about this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Noormohamed on the amendment.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I think there are a couple of things here.

I think there are certainly challenges to the amendment. Right now we are speaking to the amendment, if I'm not mistaken.

I want to be very clear that we are focusing on the amendment right now, and then we're going to focus on the main motion thereafter.

I think the idea that we are starting to think about whether we want political interference into the world of the CBC and having the minister—any minister—come to speak to what is happening at CBC is hugely problematic.

We have seen time and again the politicization of the CBC, the idea that we hear from our Conservative friends day and night that they want to defund the CBC, that the CBC is somehow the government mouthpiece, while at the same time as they say to people in Quebec that they want to keep funding Radio-Canada.

I think the idea of bringing ministers into a conversation about the actions of CBC is hugely problematic unless we want to get into the business of having the political sphere tell the CBC what to do. That is neither the mandate of the CBC nor the way in which any reasonable Canadian and reasonable person would want the CBC to operate.

If we are to look at the merits of the amendment that Mrs. Thomas wants to make, I think the real question we have to ask is whether we are comfortable living in a world where politicians get to decide what's on the CBC, where the politicians get to decide what the CBC does, how the CBC works, so on and so forth.

I find that troubling. I am somebody who believes fiercely in an independent public broadcaster and a public broadcaster that is able to tell the stories of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, whatever those stories are, whether they are for or against what the government is doing, whether they support the government or not—and more often than not, they don't, because they're good-quality journalists and their job is to ask difficult questions regardless of who is in power. When we start bringing ministers to the table to start asking them questions about what the CBC is doing, I think we are going down a very slippery slope.

I think the amendment itself is fundamentally flawed in that regard. I think it is an opportunity that is being created to politicize the CBC. It's an opportunity again for Conservatives to talk about all the reasons the minister should defund the CBC, while in French they say they want to support Radio-Canada.

I think we need to be vigilant against that. I think it's important for all of us to remind ourselves that the political stripes of who is in power have changed in this country since Confederation. The hallmark and the standard of this country is a public broadcaster that has reported without fear or favour on what the government has done or what the government has not done.

Calling a minister to come and having the minister asked to justify actions of the CEO runs completely counter to the independence of the CBC. There is an independent board of the CBC that provides oversight. There is an executive team that is responsible for the function of CBC.

If we look at precedents of public broadcasters and the history of public broadcasting in this country, it is abundantly clear that we, regardless of who has been in the Prime Minister's office, have studiously avoided politicizing the CBC by holding ministers to account for what the CBC does. When we start to do that it does create, as I said before, a slippery slope.

I certainly don't think this is something that is going to be heard by the Conservatives, because they have whatever agenda they have, but I would encourage my colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP to really ask themselves if we want to go down a road of having the minister appear as an opportunity for the Conservatives to grandstand and simply browbeat the minister by asking why we are funding a public broadcaster.

Knowing the minister, I'm certain she would enjoy defending the CBC, as most Canadians would, but I think the fact that we would want to make this a circus about political interference into the actions of the CBC is hugely problematic.

I would encourage all of us to raise our voices against this amendment and to make sure, if there is an opportunity, to keep driving home the point that we will not stand for the politicization of the CBC, that we will not stand for this type of action. When it comes to creating a conversation in which ministers themselves are the ones opining on the function of the CBC, I think that is a real problem.

I'm seeing a note, Madam Chair, from the interpreters, so I'm just going to pause for a second. Are they having some challenges hearing me? The clerk might want to check in. I just got a note saying that they're able to translate, but that the quality is not good. Is that true? Is there something you want me to do to adjust that?

[The Clerk]

It's the microphone that doesn't seem to be selected.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Does that help them? Is that better for them now that I've done that? They just redid the setting of the microphone on the computer.