Canadian Heritage Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

You know what the recommendation is going forward to the board.

[Catherine Tait]

I think I've repeated myself enough to say that these are matters that concern the organization that operates at arm's length, like all Crown corporations, and I have to be respectful—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

You did confirm that you are the senior member of the management team which makes the decisions, and then those decisions get recommended to the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 16 seconds.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

—board. You are a member of the board. Therefore, you have access to information to the points and access to the decision-making.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, this question has been asked, I think, six times now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I was about to mention that I think the question has been clearly asked and the answers have been clearly given.

I think Mrs. Thomas has literally about two seconds left to finish.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Chair, I guess in response to the point of order, since you're ruling in favour of it, I just want to be sure then that no repeat questions are permitted at this table.

Is that the ruling of the Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I don't think that was what the member suggested. I think he suggested that the question had been repeated over and over—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay, so what is an appropriate number of times to repeat the question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

—and it was getting to be repetitious, because the question was the same and the answers were exactly the same.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

On a point of order, Chair, I'm just looking for a ruling. What would be the number of times that would be appropriate to repeat a question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

There is no set number of times—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay, thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

—but as a chair—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

—I may decide on how the meeting moves forward.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Allow me to finish speaking, Mrs. Thomas.

Thank you.

I'll now go to the next person with the Liberals, and it's Patricia Lattanzio.

Ms. Lattanzio, you have six minutes, please.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Monsieur Dubé and Ms. Tait, welcome to our committee.

Ms. Tait, I'm going to read off part of the motion that was adopted by this committee to be able to undergo this study:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee invite the CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, to appear for no less than two hours on April 9th to answer questions concerning:

1. The increase in funding to the public broadcaster of nearly one hundred million dollars per year;

Can you tell us, Ms. Tait, what the nearly $100 million noted in this motion represents?

[Catherine Tait]

This is the sum of money that was awarded in the main estimates, and it is from Treasury Board, a sum of money that corresponds to salary increases related to inflation. It's salary inflation funding, which all government departments and Crowns receive. It's not incremental new funding. This happens every two to three years.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Would the sum of $100 million be consistent with past years?

[Catherine Tait]

Yes.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

With regard to bonuses, I just want to have a clearer understanding.

In your opinion, is there a difference between the terms “bonus” and “performance pay”? Are they just the same or different? Is it that one just sounds fancier than the other?

Can you explain?

[Catherine Tait]

Thank you for the question.

It has been a point of great frustration that this committee, or some members of this committee, refer to performance pay as a bonus. A bonus, in my mind, is something that is given out on a discretionary basis. Performance pay is a part of the total compensation of an individual that is contracted or agreed upon at the beginning of their employment.

If I could give a very mathematical example, if you are earning $80,000 and your performance pay is 10% of your $80,000, that means you're paid $72,000 until the end of year, when we review targets, key performance indicators and your performance, at which point you're paid out that amount of money.

In the current environment, pretty well all federal agencies, departments, Crown corporations and certainly the private sector use this performance pay as a way to incentivize and retain talent. If we were to eliminate performance pay at CBC/Radio-Canada, we would no longer be competitive in attracting talent to the organization, so it would create quite an obstacle for us.