Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 20th, 2025

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I have no information with respect to what you're citing, so I'd have to look it up.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. Under your watch, starting in 2025, not a single temporary foreign worker currently works at or has worked at the CBC since you took over. Is that correct?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

That's the information I have, but I can double-check.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you. You'll report that back to the committee. Is that correct?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

Sure.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Perfect.

Will you also commit to this committee, given the rising unemployment numbers, that during your tenure as CEO you will not hire any future temporary foreign workers to fill positions?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

Honestly, we are in an environment where we are hiring the best talent we can. We are obviously hiring Canadians in a vast proportion. There might be incidents where, for very specific types of work, there's a requirement. If there is a process and it's approved by the authority, I don't exactly see what the issue is that you have with this process, but maybe I'm not familiar enough.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I guess my issue is the fact that unemployment rates in Canada are rising, and the CBC is looking elsewhere to find its talent, rather than right here at home.

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I don't think it's accurate to say that we're looking elsewhere—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

With all due respect—

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

If I could finish my answer, we're looking extensively—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

The last LMIA was filed for hiring a business management consultant. I think there are quite a few of them in Canada.

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

Again, I'm not familiar with the example that you're citing; I'd have to look it up. What I'm saying is that we are in constant interaction with universities and colleges and with job fairs. Our talent acquisition people work very hard to find talent and train them, and we are very much involved in a Canadian workforce environment.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

I'll hand it over to my colleague Mr. Diotte.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam President, I want to talk about media bias and balance again. The AllSides organization rates media bias. They rate The Atlantic, The Guardian and Huffington Post as left of centre. They rate Reuters, The Christian Science Monitor and Forbes as centrist. They rate Fox News, National Review and The Epoch Times as right of centre. I think most people would agree that this is fairly accurate. Is that correct?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

Well, I mean, that's their rating.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Right. Okay.

In 2022, the same organization rated CBC as left of centre. What will you do to try to bring CBC to the centre of the mix?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

Again, we were talking earlier about the divide between urban and rural. I think sometimes urban issues tend to be considered as potentially more centre or left, and rural issues are sometimes considered to be more centre or more right. I think having a wider span—

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

This organization didn't look at urban and rural, per se. They looked at straight-up bias.

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I understand. I was getting at—

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

They found that CBC has bias.

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

No, you were asking me what we'll do about it, and I was saying that redeploying in more locations, and being in contact with more people in a diversity of contexts, will improve our ability to accurately reflect the mood of the country and the various points of view. That's the plan.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I've seen a lot of speeches by Pierre Poilievre in Alberta. The biggest applause line, by far, is when he says, “Defund the CBC”. Why do you think Albertans are so upset at the CBC that it needs to be defunded?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I don't know exactly what the people attending those meetings have in their hearts. I've met with some Albertans—not everyone, obviously—and we've had frank conversations about what they feel is lacking in our coverage. I've also met people who feel that CBC is absolutely essential.

I think there's a diversity of feelings toward CBC. Can we do better? Always. We can always do better.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Ms. Royer, you have the floor for five minutes.