Finance Committee on Feb. 9th, 2026

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I don't know. What do you think?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I would say that it's not something that government needs to subsidize.

There has also been, just to use a recent example, a CBC news story called, “I felt people would judge me for getting Botox. Then I realized I was judging myself”. I haven't read that. It may or may not be interesting. Is this so vital to the Canadian identity and cultural fabric that we must pay for it?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

You expect your public broadcaster to have shows that are relevant to the public. It doesn't necessarily have to be relevant to you or me. As an important aspect of that, I shouldn't be telling them what to do. I can have my view on it but, again, I shouldn't be telling them what to do.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

If CBC were not there, is the belief that there would be no one else to broadcast the Olympics? That's something that broadcasters around the world spend huge amounts of money for the rights to do. Why is a state broadcaster needed to galvanize what could be a money-maker for private media companies?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

You could probably debate it, but I think it makes sense. There could be, but also the CBC does a pretty good job of it, and why wouldn't it?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Do you believe that CBC's role should be to fill gaps that otherwise no one else would fill, or is it to do something even if it means competing with private players in the market?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Definitely, it's a lot of the former and perhaps some of the latter. We talked with my colleague Kent MacDonald about getting into remote regions. I think that CBC has a duty to get that information into remote regions where it isn't economically viable to do so.

Absolutely, maintaining the vitality of our official languages is key, especially in francophone communities outside Quebec, given the state of the language in those communities. There is—

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I don't know if the tomato spoke about colonialism in both official languages or not.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Maybe, maybe not, but I'm sure it did a great job of it.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I yield to Ms. Thomas.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

Minister, along those lines, your government has committed another $150 million to the CBC. There was already $1.4 billion that was committed. This is at a time when Canadians are struggling with affordability. They are the taxpayer. They are the ones who are ultimately paying for that increase that is going to the CBC.

Meanwhile, CBC viewership is down, and trust is down. Canadians just aren't there with you, Minister, and yet they're expected to foot the bill. I'm curious, on their behalf, about what accountability measures are being used to determine that this is in fact a wise use of dollars.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

When you look at the numbers—and the numbers are revealing, Ms. Thomas—CBC is not as well funded per capita as the broadcaster of any comparator country. Under us are only the U.S. and one other country, and we're pretty close to another.

There's general consensus that a robust publicly funded national broadcaster is important to democracies like ours. Do they get everything right? Certainly the answer is no, but it is important for them to be there to do exactly what they are supposed to do, which is to inform the public, for example, on issues of affordability.

Your party has been quite open about defunding the CBC, but I think that would undermine the trust of Canadians, who are relying on information from reliable providers to make those decisions as to who to vote for. They have been remarkably good at getting that information out, in my view.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

If I may, the question was around accountability, but rather than offering any metrics that you as a government are using to determine the success of the CBC and whether or not more money should be spent there, the only thing you've mentioned is comparing to other countries and what they're spending. You're more interested in keeping up with others—keeping up with the Joneses, if you will—than you are in holding the broadcaster accountable for actually producing what Canadians rely on.

Viewership is down. Trust is down. Canadians are not buying into this, but you're insisting that we need to spend more money because other countries are doing it. Why is that your metric? Why are you not holding the CBC to greater account?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas. That concludes the time for this round.

We'll continue with Mr. Sawatzky for five minutes, please.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Minister. It was so great to see you in British Columbia.

Thank you to everyone for coming today.

Minister, the Fraser Mills sawmill was built on the banks of the Fraser River, and it recruited 100 French Canadians as workers for the area. The workers themselves founded the French-speaking village of Maillardville, which is part of my riding. That became one of the largest French-speaking communities west of the Rockies in the 20th century. Today, Maillardville is an important historic site for the Franco-Columbian community. There are also some local organizations, such as the Société francophone de Maillardville, that are doing important work to preserve the French language there.

Of course, being the minister responsible for official languages, the protection and support of the French language is one of your responsibilities. Could you explain what's included in budget 2025 to ensure that we're supporting Canadian French language and content, both at home and abroad?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

As I mentioned to your colleague, Mr. Leitão, there are the supports that we've talked about at some length now for CBC/Radio-Canada, for Telefilm and for the Office national du film. Those are really important budgetary measures in the context of a budget that had a rationalization aspect to it as we looked at making some difficult choices as to what we were prioritizing. I think prioritizing institutions that continue to make us proud of our Canadian national identity, including the promotion of our official languages across Canada, is key. It includes penetrating into small communities like the one you mentioned.

I know you have made significant efforts to learn French yourself. I think that is laudable. There need to be more opportunities in that respect. We have been signing bilateral agreements with provinces—over $1 billion in education agreements for second-language learning. More often than not, that is French. There is also the action plan that saw significant investments into the French language across Canada, including in Quebec.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

On a separate note, I saw an article where you mentioned the show Heated Rivalry as a Canadian content triumph. It just happens to be the case that Hudson Williams also worked in my riding of New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, at The Old Spaghetti Factory, which is just behind my old constituency office.

I know that federal funding has helped this show. Would you like to explain or provide some examples of how federal funding has enabled Canadian stories to reach new audiences at home and abroad?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I don't think that's an exception. Hopefully, it would be a rule, seeing what Heated Rivalry is doing. It would not exist if the federal government had not invested about $4 million into the program. That's a quarter of the funding, and then you fold in some of the tax credits.

That show was pitched to American producers. They passed for a variety of reasons, even though they liked it. People were not willing to trust their instincts and embrace the risk. With the funds that were provided by the Canadian government, that show now is breaking all sorts of records and defying stereotypes in society, even in countries where views of the gay community and LGBT rights are not what they are here in Canada.

It's a great show and all that, but it's also spurring a lot of discussions, especially for young kids in locker rooms and in toxic environments who are questioning who they are. If they feel inspired by that, that's cool, too.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Absolutely.

It was a funny moment to see the Prime Minister say, “Do the leg thing.” That was quite a moment.

Giving Canadian children the opportunity to explore this beautiful country is definitely an important role for the government. What actions is the government taking to safeguard Canadian identity while promoting our culture through initiatives like the Canada Strong pass?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

That's a really cool pass. Perhaps people would ask why we are supporting museums in that way and whether we shouldn't be doing something else, but museums are a great place for kids to discover, in a healthy way, a whole ton of things, whether it's dinosaurs in Toronto or airplanes right here. There are cool things to discover. If the numbers are right, 500,000 kids saw or visited museums and benefited from the Canada Strong pass, which we are going to extend in 2026.

Over the Christmas period, we saw an uptick. We don't have the numbers on that, but clearly we're seeing more kids going there. It's not limited to kids; it's for all Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Minister.

We're going to have to conclude this round here.

I have to say that a Canadian show must have broken the cultural sound barrier when Heated Rivalry gets brought up in Parliament at the finance committee.

On that, Ms. Cobena, we're going to turn to you for five minutes.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you for joining us, Minister.

This is the first time I actually get to ask some questions.

My first question for you is this: Why do you need the power to exempt any person or corporation from almost any federal law, except for the Criminal Code, to do your job?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I don't necessarily. It's probably a useful tool to have. Those clauses that do find their way into legislation are often interpreted with a standard of reasonableness. To be quite clear, we don't necessarily need them, but they're a very useful tool to have.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Okay, you don't need them. Would you be open to removing it from this bill, then?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Do you mean from Bill C-15? No.