Canadian Heritage Committee on May 7th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 24 seconds.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

For a federally funded journalism organization to abuse journalists and spend public funds on high-powered lawyers to fine them and then gag them through NDAs is unacceptable. Canadians deserve better. CBC employees deserve better. Canadian communities deserve better. We all deserve better.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

I will now go to the Conservatives for five minutes.

Ms. Thomas.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Tait, you confirmed that under Trudeau, you've been granted another $140 million. Just over $96 million was part of the main estimates and then another $42 million was part of budget 2024. That's a total of $140 million.

Is this additional funding that is coming your way contingent on no more bonuses for executives?

[Catherine Tait]

First of all, the funding from Treasury Board in the main estimates is not incremental funding. That is the salary inflation funding that all government departments and Crowns get. What we have received is $42 million, and it is not contingent on performance pay. As we are operating as an arm's-length organization, we have a certain amount of discretion. Obviously, in this case, those funds will be applied to ensure no further job cuts and to ensure reinvestment in the independent production sector.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm sorry. Just to confirm, then, it is contingent on no further job cuts...?

[Catherine Tait]

I have assumed that it is. There is no direction when the government assigns dollars in the way that it does. There was nothing written in the decision.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. Are you committing today, then, that during the year of 2024-25, there will be no more job cuts at the CBC?

[Catherine Tait]

There will be no significant job cuts related to balancing our budget. We are an organization that constantly, as you heard earlier, has people coming and going. We are constantly adjusting programming. I will never make a decision on behalf of the newsroom on a program that they may or may not decide to cut.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

On December 4, you announced that 800 jobs were going to be cut from the CBC. So far, close to 400 of those jobs have been cut. Meanwhile, the government has granted $140 million in new dollars, taxpayer dollars, to the CBC. You continue to contend for your own executive bonus and the executive bonus of—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Look, I respect Ms. Thomas' right to tweet whatever she wants, but now she's making accusations here, and now the committee will witness, and basically that they're saying that—

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

Madam Chair, this is not a point of order.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Can I get to my point, please?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I need to listen to the point before I can rule on it, Philip.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

They're basically saying that their testimony is not factually accurate. She knows that she's the one misrepresenting what the witness said when she appeared on January 20. I have copies of the transcripts of what was said at that meeting where she verbally attacked the witness with the clear intention of trying to get a clip that she thought she might be able to use for whatever purpose. The records show that the witness and her team clarified this issue.

I don't know what the member was doing—

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

This is still not a point of order.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

—but I would like to point to the fact of that testimony, and unless my colleague can point to an alternative set of facts, I'd like to ask her—

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

This is not a point of order, Madam Chair.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

—to withdraw the accusations that Ms. Tait is not representing the truth.

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

This is not a point of order. That's not a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm afraid it isn't, Mr. Noormohamed.

Go ahead, Mrs. Thomas.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'm sorry, Madam Chair. My request is that she withdraw the accusation that the witness is lying.

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

You don't have the floor.