The CBC owns nearly half a billion dollars in real estate holdings, according to recently released documents, with more than two-thirds of the value comprised of its expansive downtown Toronto broadcasting centre.
A response to a May 2023 order paper question submitted by Conservative MP Adam Chambers about the government-owned broadcaster lists 12 corporation-owned properties across the country, a portfolio worth $444,414,469.
The 13-floor, 1.7-million sq. ft. facility, opened in 1992, is the CBC’s primary broadcasting, production and master control facility for its national English-language operations.
The CBC’s corporate headquarters are located at its Ottawa production centre, occupying several floors of a leased building on Queen Street near O’Connor Street just steps from Parliament Hill.
The CBC’s broadcast centre in Vancouver ranks as the corporation’s second most valuable property. Built in 1975 and renovated 14 years ago, it is valued at $99 million.
The CBC Manitoba Broadcast Centre at 541 Portage Ave. in Winnipeg is valued at $11.7 million.
Other CBC facilities worth over $1 million include its facilities in St. John’s ($4.4 million), Yellowknife ($3.1 million), Fredericton ($2.8 million), Charlottetown ($2.6 million), Saguenay ($2.5 million) Whitehorse ($1.8 million) and a second facility in Winnipeg worth $1.5 million.
The CBC also leases space at 72 properties around the world, in addition to its leased Ottawa headquarters, that include regional offices, bureaus and studios across Canada. The lease values were redacted from the response on the basis of commercial confidentiality.
When asked about the leases and their value, CBC spokesperson Leon Mar maintained that the information needed to be kept private.
“As indicated in the document, the Government has withheld the information because lease payments are considered sensitive third-party commercial information,” Mar wrote in an email.
Data provided in the response list 67 actively leased properties across Canada and in five in other countries.
Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said that in the interests of transparency, the CBC should be more open about its leasing costs.
“It sure seems the CBC is spending way more on its buildings than competitors spend, but what value do taxpayers get for all these properties?” he said.
Internationally, the CBC leases two offices in the United States, one in the U.K., one in India and one in France.
The CBC’s New York bureau is located on 3rd Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Its Washington, D.C., bureau occupies leased office space at the National Press Building, just down the road from the White House.
The Paris bureau is located on Avenue de Wagram just down the road from the Arc de Triomphe, CBC’s India bureau is in western Mumbai, and its London bureau occupies space in the West End.
The response also noted the CBC’s two recently closed bureaus in Beijing and Moscow, but it provided no information on lease costs.
Here in Canada, most of the CBC’s regional offices are leased, including three separate facilities in Montreal.
CBC’s Maison Radio-Canada on René-Lévesque Boulevard East recently reopened in a smaller location in a leased building just west of its previous, much larger home.
According to the CBC’s most recent annual report, the broadcaster received $1.24 billion in funding from the federal government.
That’s in addition to the $42 million — paid out over two years in $21 million instalments — granted to the CBC to “offset revenues losses related to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic” announced in last year’s fall economic statement.
“Why does the CBC need to lease these properties in far-flung countries, let alone multiple properties in smaller Canadian towns, and how much is all of this costing taxpayers?” Terrazzano said.
“The CBC costs taxpayers more than $1 billion every year, so at the very least it owes Canadians full transparency.”
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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