Madam Chair and committee members, thank you for inviting us to appear this morning.
Again, my name is Marla Boltman. I am the executive director of Friends of Canadian Media, a non-profit, non-partisan citizens movement that stands up for Canadian voices in Canadian media.
Joining me, again, is Sarah Andrews, our director of government and media relations, who will conclude our opening remarks in French.
For almost 40 years, our organization has proudly defended the CBC and the essential role it plays in Canadian public life. Our supporters fall into the 75% of Canadians who told pollsters either that they like the job the CBC is already doing or that they want to keep the CBC, but with improvements.
Let me offer you some straight talk. Like many of you, our organization was here for the big cuts to CBC under the Mulroney government. In fact, it's how we got our start. We were here for the Chrétien cuts; we were here for the Harper cuts, and we are still here waiting for the Trudeau government to provide the money it promised during the last election.
In real, inflation-adjusted dollars, these cuts and unfulfilled commitments have amounted to a 36% reduction in the CBC's parliamentary appropriation. In the meantime, expectations and demands have gone up. Indigenous programming has taken on a bigger role, and the need to improve French-language services has resulted in 44% of the parliamentary appropriation now going to Radio-Canada. All of these important improvements have meant less for English services.
Media technology has also changed. A much leaner CBC has had to follow its audiences onto the Internet while still serving them on television and radio. The money to do that had to come from somewhere. It was cannibalized from CBC English television.
Since 2013, we've seen a 40% reduction in real budget dollars for English TV. New spending is down from $212 million to $114 million in the last 10 years. Like you, we have stood witness to this decline and this shrinkflation, in which Canadians keep getting fed a smaller and smaller English television offering, and we've watched while the prime-time audience for our cash-starved English TV dropped from 6.8% to 5.2%, also in 10 years. Those are the numbers everyone cites, but in the meantime, audience ratings for CBC Radio One, cbcnews.ca and all Radio-Canada services remain top-notch.
The way to move all Canadians into the category of fully satisfied with CBC is going to require two things, adequate long-term funding and vision. We need these things now, because a strong national public broadcaster is especially vital at a time when our entire Canadian media sector and our national sovereignty are under great threat.
That's the message our supporters, your constituents, want us to bring to you. They don't want to talk about defunding the CBC, eliminating local news or silencing talented Canadian storytellers. What they do want to talk about is how the CBC can serve its audiences and their voices and values. They're looking to us and they're looking to you to help find solutions that lift everyone.