Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 21st, 2024

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

That “stretch” is a new word, and there certainly seems to be some stretching taking place here.

Mr. Goldbloom, can you commit to release to this committee the information related to recommendations that you have made for Ms. Tait's bonus and recommendations that you would make to the government when it comes to severance?

[Michael Goldbloom]

As I said before, to my understanding, our communications with the government around the performance recommendations for the CEO are governed by privacy—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

I do have one last question—

[Michael Goldbloom]

—but I do want to say that we will make public the report done by the independent organization that's going to look at our compensation, and we'd be pleased to share those recommendations with you.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you. Please do.

Ms. Tait, the CBC stopped broadcasting the Calgary Stampede a number of years ago. Why?

[Catherine Tait]

I wasn't at the organization at that time, so I can't comment on the specifics of that decision.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Are western heritage and frontier culture important to the CBC?

[Catherine Tait]

Absolutely they are. It's why we're rolling out more journalist positions in the west, disproportionately to anywhere else in the country.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I want to nail down specifically—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I think, Mr. Kurek, your five minutes are up.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Could you provide information related to the specifics around the Calgary Stampede to this committee, please?

[Catherine Tait]

I'm happy to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Lattanzio for five minutes, please.

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

One of the first things that the Harper government did when it got into office was boost the performance pay for executives, including those at the CBC. Reports at the time said that “The main reason cited for the latest raises at the top in Ottawa is to prevent senior government executives from jumping to even more lucrative positions in the private sector”, that “Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet quietly approved the pay hikes behind the scenes - in the summer doldrums - obviously hoping to keep political flak to a minimum”, and that “In the case of CEOs of crown corporations such as the CBC and Canada Post, the value of the raises (and bonuses) rivals the total amount that a minimum wage earner would earn in an entire year.”

Let me quote another investigative report from August 2015: “Spending on bonuses and performance pay for the public service executives who implement the government's orders has jumped by more than 65 per cent since Stephen Harper came to power.” It also says, “The average executive performance pay envelope has also risen under the Conservative government.”

The government Poilievre was part of famously gave historic levels of performance pay to CEO-level public servants, including the CBC CEO right before leaving. Is that correct?

[Catherine Tait]

I am afraid I can't comment on decisions that were made during a different period. If there are details that we can provide afterwards to the committee, I'll take advice from my staff on that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I'm sorry. Give me just a minute, Ms. Lattanzio.

If you have any details you can share with us, Ms. Tait, please do so. You can forward them to the clerk and we'll distribute them to everyone else. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's exactly what I was going to suggest.

I want to pursue the financing with Mr. Goldbloom, as we were doing earlier.

You say that more than 20 million Canadians are using those digital services, which are now making up for the rest. Also, the government has given CBC/Radio-Canada an additional $21 million over the past three years. How has that helped address your financial situation?

[Michael Goldbloom]

Like every organization in the country, private or public, the public broadcaster has been challenged with inflation, which has significantly increased expenses. We also talked before about a decline in revenue, so the support in government funding has been critical to allow the public broadcaster to continue to fulfill its mandate to Canadians to inform them, enlighten them and provide entertainment to them.

This is a challenge that Canadians have faced for almost 90 years now. As technology has changed, each generation has had to determine how to best ensure that Canadians still get to hear their own stories, report on their own news and celebrate their own culture, so the government support has been critical.

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

Can you also provide us with details on the additional $42 million the government invested in the last budget? What are you doing with that additional revenue?

[Catherine Tait]

If I may answer that, Madam Chair, the additional $42 million allowed us to put a pause on further job cuts.

As you'll remember, we were looking at an additional 420 jobs, and as I said, we were able to put a pause on that and re-engage with some of the independent production commissioning we had also put a pause on.

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

Are you out of the woods? Should there be more cuts coming if the budget shortfalls continue in this challenging commercial revenue situation? What happens then?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Catherine Tait]

The $42 million we received allowed us to balance our budget for this year. Without further funding in the next fiscal year, we will have to look at additional job reductions, as well as other operational cuts, in order to balance our budget.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I have been asked by the members to go for another round. We have very little time and I have business for this committee, which should take five minutes, but I think we'll go with a two-minute round for everyone.

We will begin with Mr. Gourde for two minutes.