Mr. Speaker, 1,450 CBC staffers are taking home six-figure salaries. Since 2015, the number of CBC employees taking six-figure salaries has spiked by 231%, again, all the while, with absolutely declining viewership, not meeting any of their KPIs and giving themselves these lavish, gigantic bonuses. Catherine Tait has not ruled out taking more bonuses. It is really incredible.
In the face of all this, a responsible CEO would say they have made some serious mistakes, they are running the corporation into the ground, they are going to turn this thing around, and the first thing that is going to happen is they are not going to take any bonuses until the ship gets going in the right direction. However, that is not what is happening. In the real world, all these executives would lose their jobs for this terrible performance, but in the Liberal world, they give themselves gigantic bonuses, pat themselves on the back and then lay off the workers. That is the record of the Liberal government with the CBC, which is, again, why we are here today.
I have heard members from the Liberal government say how dare we take up valuable House time to discuss this. I think Canadians want to know what the government has done to the CBC, how it has run it into the ground. I understand, when we have a Prime Minister who says he admires the basic dictatorship of China, that he does not want debate in the House of Commons. That all tracks. I am sorry it is so inconvenient for Liberal members to have to try to get up and pathetically defend how they have run the CBC for the last nine years. I agree it is a hardship.
They actually have to stand up and defend their terrible record. However, they do not want to, so they say things like we are taking up House time. Parliament is here for a reason: to debate issues. If that is inconvenient for them, if they admire China's basic dictatorship so much, maybe there is somewhere they could go and and be dictators. There are lots of countries around the world they could move to with basic dictatorships, China being one of them.
We are going to debate this because it is important to Canadians to expose what they have done to the CBC, what the people at the CBC are doing to the workers at the CBC, and we are not going to stop. They can cry about it all they want. The facts are these: they cannot defend their management of the CBC; they cannot defend the bonuses the CBC has given to itself; they cannot defend that the CBC awarded itself these gigantic bonuses and then tried to lay off 800 workers; they cannot defend that viewership at the CBC is down 50%; they cannot defend that the CBC has not met 79% of its own KPIs and then gave itself bonuses; and they cannot defend the fact that, when the CBC realized how outrageous it was to give itself bonuses while missing 79% of its KPIs, it just changed the KPIs.
The CBC learned from the best. It learned from a corrupt Liberal government that says, “Just do whatever you want; everything will be fine.” That is how the CBC is being run under the Liberal government.
I would like to conclude with this. I move:
That the amendment be amended
(a) by adding, immediately after the word “including” the following: “how the Liberal threat to cut funding led to hundreds of CBC-Radio Canada job cuts”; and
(b) by adding the following at the end:
“, provided that it be a further instruction to the committee (a) that it report its findings to the House no later than December 17, 2024, (b) that, during this study, the following witnesses be ordered to appear, for no less than two hours each: (i) Catherine Tait, and (ii) Marie-Phillippe Bouchard; and (c) the Minister of Canadian Heritage be ordered to appear for at least one hour; and (d) that, in addition to the witnesses mentioned in paragraph (b), it hear at least three hours of additional expert testimony.”