Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I will endeavour to be very quick.
With the revelation that the CBC awarded $18.4 million in bonuses last year but still cut hundreds of jobs across that organization, to learn in the last number of months that $3.3 million went to just 45 executives is astounding. To put that in perspective, that would be $73,000 in bonuses alone for each executive.
Therefore, Madam Chair, I would hope that I find support and that we can dispose of this quickly—this egregious abuse of tax dollars—to get answers, specifically when it comes to the CEO of CBC, Ms. Catherine Tait. In her previous testimony before this committee, she had made overtures and commitments that certainly she had no intention of following through on.
Madam Chair, as I mentioned, I hope this can be disposed of quickly and that there would be support from all parties to get to the bottom of this.
I would move:
Given that,
The CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses this year, including $3.3 million to top executives, after eliminating hundreds of jobs,
The committee immediately call the President and CEO of the CBC, Ms. Catherine Tait, to testify for no less than three hours, within 14 calendar days of the adoption of this motion, and
the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, to testify for no less than three hours, within 14 calendar days of the adoption of this motion, and that these two witnesses appear separately.