Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear a Liberal member, after nine years, realize the Liberals have now also broken the CBC. They broke housing. They have broken the criminal justice system. I can go down the list of what they have broken over the last several years, including when the Prime Minister broke the English language by inventing the word “brokenist”, which was a treat for all of us to listen to just last week.
What came out of the committee is this: Given the job cuts announced at CBC/Radio-Canada for the year 2024, it would be inappropriate for the CBC to grant bonuses to the executive members. Because the Liberals broke the CBC so badly with terrible appointments and terrible management, a committee had to take the unprecedented step of telling the CBC not to give out bonuses when they had performed so poorly.
It is really unheard of. This has not happened in the history of the CBC, so I have to wonder how the government so incompetently managed the CBC through the people it appointed to run it. The Liberals have done an absolutely abysmal job. They have run the CBC into the ground.
Viewership at the CBC has collapsed by 50% since 2018. In any other environment, say, if I had declined my goal production in hockey by 50%, I am guessing my team would not be giving me a bonus. I have never run an NHL team, but I cannot imagine a player going to the owner and saying, “I scored 40 goals last year. This year I scored 20. I want to talk about my bonus.” It just would not happen. However, because the Liberals are just so incompetent with everything, everyone now thinks they can do whatever they want.
The CBC executives, because there is really no one running the ship over there, do not know what is going on. Their incompetence is spreading to every department. These people thought, “Let me think about this for a second. Viewership is down by 50%. We failed to meet 79% of our performance targets. Let me think of what we should do about that. I have an idea: let us cut 800 employees and give ourselves bonuses.”
This is the madness that is going on at the CBC, and it can only happen under the absolutely corrupt, bankrupt-of-ideas Liberal government. As we often say, a fish rots from the head down, and the rot from this government is spreading everywhere. It has spread so badly that Catherine Tait at the CBC thought this was a good idea. I can just see it now: They call everybody into the boardroom to pitch some ideas. Viewership is down 50%. They did not meet 79% of their KPIs. They go around the table to figure out the solution. They need to get things back on track. What if they cut 800 employees? “Oh yes, I like that.” What if they gave out $3.8 million in bonuses? “Oh yes, I like that. That is exactly the direction we need to go.” Then the Liberals stand here, do nothing and defend it.
How the CBC is behaving is offensive to average Canadians, so the committee had to take the unprecedented step of saying the CBC should not be paying out bonuses while laying off people. The government did not say anything. Its members just said, “Well, whatever,” as they do on most files. They are out of touch, asleep at the switch and making a mess of everything. They made a mess of this.
I want to go just on a bit more. Catherine Tait's salary is between $468,000 and $551,000 a year. That is a pretty good wage. Most Canadians would be really happy to make a wage like that. In fact, they would be happy to make a fifth of that. As the performance of the CBC was going into the tank, she decided bonuses were great and the bonuses could be up to 28%. She tanked viewership, they have not met any of their KPIs and missed 79% of them, and what she thought would really fix things up was giving herself a $154,000 bonus. I really cannot make this stuff up.
Any average Canadian hearing this would say it has to be a joke, an article in The Beaverton or something like that. No corporation would behave this way except if it was being run by a really incompetent Liberal government. The government appointed people to the green slush fund who just paid themselves and their companies whatever they wanted. There is now an RCMP investigation. As I said, a fish rots from the head down. This Crown corporation sees that Crown corporation making it rain by sending its money to all its buddies' companies, and it wants to get in on that action and gives itself some gigantic bonuses. It is absolutely reprehensible conduct by a Crown corporation that is running itself into the ground.
The CBC dished out $18.4 million in bonuses to non-union staff and, wait for this, $3.3 million in bonuses to 45 executives. That is more than $73,000 each. After the CBC had given itself this wonderful Christmas present, these gigantic bonuses, it decided to give some employees at the CBC a Christmas bonus as well: It sent pink slips to 800 employees. That is what it decided was a good thing to do as it made it rain for itself.
That is why a House of Commons committee took the unprecedented step to say this had to stop. We would think that if there was a decent minister over there, or a decent Prime Minister, the government would have put a stop to that, but no, absolutely not, just like it did not put a stop to all the corruption at the green slush fund. The government let it go on for years despite all the warnings and all the questions at committee. It said these people can run amok and do whatever they want, and that has spread. It has now spread to the CBC.
Then where did the CBC go? It realized it missed 79% of its KPIs and people were questioning its bonuses. It asked, “Does anybody have any ideas what we should do? Should we try to actually do content that people want? Should we make sure our local affiliates are getting some coverage?” No. Someone put up their hand and said, “What if we just changed the KPIs so we all reach them? Then we can keep getting our bonuses.”
Again, we cannot make this up. When the CBC realized it could not meet any of its own KPIs but still wanted to make it rain for itself, it just changed the KPIs. Why would it do that? I go back again to this: A fish rots from the head down. The corruption that the government has engaged in for the last nine years has spread out all over the place, and people feel like they can do whatever, as a former member said, the “H-E double hockey sticks” they want. This is what happened.
The committee had to get into it and say it had absolutely had enough. If we look at the CBC itself, the bonuses alone have cost taxpayers $132 million since 2015. Think about that, $132 million, all while the CBC is missing all of its performance metrics. This is a corporation that has completely lost its moral compass in dealing with people. Imagine sending out layoff notices to 800 employees just before Christmas after giving these bonuses. It is the epitome of disgusting. If anything, the CBC should have been taking care of those workers as opposed to making it rain for itself with these exorbitant bonuses.
However, it did not happen, and there was no condemnation from the Liberals. The Prime Minister did not say this was absolutely unacceptable and the CBC should reverse this decision—