Evidence of meeting #140 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was radio-canada.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
No, it is not a simple question at all. The answer has to be considerably qualified.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Not all that much, Ms. Tait. You said proudly that parliamentarians had founded it. So parliamentarians still have oversight of what becomes of the money spent, the money they manage on behalf of Canadians.
I have a question for you about the 1,100 employees among whom the $18 million in bonuses was divided up. Do those employees, those executives, get salary increases every year, Ms. Tait?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Madam Chair, I would like to point out that these were not only executives. We are talking about—
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
I am talking about the 1,100 employees to whom I referred.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Monsieur Berthold, will you allow Ms. Tait to answer your question, please? Thank you.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
We are talking about non-union employees. Okay.
What was the question?
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Do these people get salary increases from year to year?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
It depends.
I think that the increase for the last five years was about 1.5%. That is half of what the unionized employees got under our last collective agreement.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
So these people get wage increases as all or a majority of Canadians do. It all depends on what is bargained or on relations with the employer. Each of the groups or individuals still negotiates with their employer.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
No, you didn't understand.
November 25th, 2024 / 12:20 p.m.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The non-union employees are not entitled to negotiate their salary increases.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
So the CBC decides unilaterally what salary increases these people get.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
It depends on what we receive from Treasury Board.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
So they get a salary increase and on top of that they get bonuses that have totalled $18 million. We saw the figures earlier. Those figures seem exorbitant. On top of the bonuses—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
On average, it is $15,000 per employee.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
That is still a very attractive percentage of their pay, Ms. Tait. On top of the salary increases, they get bonuses.
Do you think it is reasonable that these people get bonuses that size on top of their salary increases, in times when the economic situation is so difficult both for the CBC and for Canadians?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
As I said earlier, Mr. Berthold, we are still below the average.
People earning $90,000 are earning less than people who work in a government department or for a corporation, for example.
You are giving the impression that these are huge salaries when they are no such thing. We still have trouble retaining people, attracting people to work for the CBC/Radio-Canada.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
How many of these employees earn more than $200,000 a year?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
I don't know. I don't have that figure in my head. I can send it to you after the meeting.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Right.
It would be good to have the number of employees in the $100,000 to $200,000, $200,000 to $300,000, $300,000 to $400,000 and $400,000 to $500,000 brackets, so the committee can compare that to what you have claimed.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Yes.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Ms. Tait, I have one more question for you.
Since the beginning, it has seemed that the CBC is the only one that can do a lot of things in Canada. My answer has to be that actually, at least in the Conservative Party of Canada, we do want to preserve Radio-Canada. I have read the document you showed us earlier, which is evidence of the failure of the CBC.
I say that because if we look at the declining audience numbers, the total number of hours of television that people are no longer watching and the number of hours when people are using the social networks that the CBC has set up, we see that this is a failure, unfortunately.
As well, what we need in Quebec is a strong public television network because we are in a francophone society surrounded by anglophones. I was looking at daily viewing times, and they have declined much more on the anglophone side than on the francophone side. Radio-Canada's good ratings raise the CBC/Radio-Canada average and drive the CBC up. I also do not share your opinion that by cutting the CBC we would not be able to maintain the quality of Radio-Canada.
I think there are experts and people at Radio-Canada who are very good and are capable of protecting francophone culture. I applaud them because I actually do not think there is a television network in North America that is as successful as Radio-Canada in the public sector. That is very much to the credit of Radio-Canada. Unfortunately, what we see on the CBC side is the complete opposite.
Does making it so that Radio-Canada is unable to do its full part and investing so much public money on the CBC side not amount to dragging Radio-Canada down?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
I have asked the question several times: Are we going to ask the Canadian public to support a federal national institution for 20% of the population? Personally, I find that a bit extreme, to be very frank.
We have 80% of the population who listen to the radio, for a total of 95,000 hours of local radio every year. People watch 45,000 hours of television, of audiovisual production. So to say that the CBC is a failure, you have to have ignored that.
When it comes to English-language television, you really seem to be living in the past. We know very well that in the anglophone market, the CBC is not the only one that has lost its television audience. People are migrating to YouTube, Connected TV services, and so on. That is very clear to see.
When I arrived, very few people were watching CBC Gem, and today, two million people do every week. That really is a major shift. There is a sea change happening, Mr. Berthold.