If Pierre Poilievre wants to defund the CBC while maintaining its French-language programming, he’ll have to overhaul the country’s broadcasting law in order to do it.
That’s according to the Crown corporation, which has found itself in a back-and-forth with the Opposition leader over his pledge to cut the roughly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars it receives annually.
Past Conservative leaders have also taken aim at the CBC, which receives its share of public money through Parliament when MPs vote on its federal budget.
Poilievre’s pitch to strip the CBC of its public funding is widely popular among Conservatives and earned loud cheers from the crowds who packed rooms to see him during last year’s leadership campaign.
But he has also suggested he supports Radio-Canada’s French services.
When asked for comment on how he reconciles those two things, his office pointed to a media interview he gave to Radio-Canada in March 2022, in which he suggested maintaining support for services tailored to francophone minorities.
In another sit-down interview last July with True North, Poilievre explained that the only justification for having a public broadcaster is to provide content the private market does not. He argued that is not the case for CBC’s English services.
“Almost everything the CBC does can be done in the marketplace these days because of technology,” he told host Andrew Lawton. “I would preserve a small amount for French-language minorities, linguistic minorities, because they, frankly, will not get news services provided by the market.”
He added he did not think the CBC’s English-language services on TV or online “provide anything that people can’t get from the marketplace.”
Making that happen, however, appears easier said than done.
CBC responds to defunding pledge
In a statement, CBC/Radio-Canada said funding only Radio-Canada “would change the very nature of how programs and services are funded in Canada to target public money at only one language group.”
A spokesman said doing so would require the Broadcasting Act, the law outlining its mandate, “to be rewritten.”
The law requires the corporation to provide programming in both French and English, and it does not give the government sway over how resources are allocated to accomplish that.
It also stipulates that the broadcaster maintain “creative and programming independence” and provide a range of both television and radio services.
“CBC/Radio-Canada is the country’s only media company that serves all Canadians, in both official languages (and eight Indigenous ones), from coast to coast to coast,” corporate spokesman Leon Mar said in a written statement.
It is the corporation’s board of directors that determines how the funding it receives is spent. In 2021-22, the CBC received more than $1.2 billion in government funding, a decrease from about $1.4 billion in 2020-21.
Peter Menzies, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, said reducing funding for the CBC is one thing, but prescribing how it can use the money would be difficult “unless you redo the legislation entirely.”
People walk into the CBC building in Toronto on April 4, 2012. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that his government will sell off CBC buildings. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)
He said a future government could provide the broadcaster with a new mandate specifying what kind of services and on what platforms and in what languages it provides them — but said that leads to the problem of “picking winners and losers.”
“I’m not sure politicians really want to go down the [road of] … ‘We are going to give francophones better service with public money than we’re going to give anglophones,”‘ he said.
Menzies added that while he believes changes should be made to the CBC, “it’s a lot more complicated than people think.”
“Preferring one piece of it over another piece, particularly linguistically, I think that opens a door you probably don’t really want to open.”
Accusations of bias
He also pointed out about 40 per cent of CBC’s revenue already flows to Radio-Canada, even though the proportion of French-speaking households in Canada is much smaller.
Poilievre touts that slashing CBC’s overall funding would equal savings for taxpayers, and has also suggested he has plans to sell off its buildings.
Speaking to a crowd gathered in Calgary last August, the then-leadership hopeful accused the corporation of putting “all the money into these big, gigantic temples they call headquarters in Toronto and Montreal.” Montreal is the home of its Radio-Canada headquarters.
“There’s some savings right there,” he added.
In a statement Thursday, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet said Poilievre’s proposal caters to the most devoted parts of his base and that Radio-Canada serves an essential role for Quebec and the French language in Canada. He accused the Tory leader of wanting to hamper those efforts.
A spokeswoman for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, Laura Scaffidi, added that both CBC and Radio-Canada are invaluable “in smaller and official language minority communities.”
While visiting Edmonton on Thursday, Poilievre was asked whether he was prepared to amend the federal broadcasting law as it pertains to the CBC and its French-language services. He did not answer, but instead called the CBC the “biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party.”
Relations between the federal Conservatives and the CBC further soured earlier this year when Catherine Tait, the broadcaster’s CEO, told the Globe and Mail in an interview that Poilievre’s criticisms amounted to a slogan the party used to raise money. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
It comes after he asked Twitter to add a “government-funded” label to accounts that promote “news-related” content from CBC English, but did not ask the same for its French counterpart.
The corporation contends that the description is inaccurate, saying its editorial independence is enshrined in law. It also draws a distinction between “government” and “public” funding, because of the fact that the money it receives is granted through a vote made in Parliament.
After such a label was applied to the BBC, the U.K. broadcaster pushed back, and Twitter eventually changed the tag to “publicly funded media.”
CBC CEO reached out to Poilievre
Relations between the federal Conservatives and the CBC further soured earlier this year when Catherine Tait, the broadcaster’s CEO, told the Globe and Mail in an interview that Poilievre’s criticisms of the CBC amounted to a slogan the Conservative Party used to raise money.
That is just what the party did following her comments. Poilievre said Tait’s words showed CBC had launched a partisan attack against him and that it could not be trusted.
The exchange followed an invitation Tait had made to Poilievre to meet just days after he was elected Conservative leader last September. By the end of November, Tait reached out again, expressing disappointment in a response she said she received back from his office that he would not be able to meet — despite the party continuing to attack CBC and its reporters as biased.
“These fundraising efforts do not acknowledge the scope and value that CBC/Radio-Canada actually delivers to Canadians, or the implications to this country and its economy were it to be ‘defunded,”‘ Tait wrote in a letter to Poilievre.
La Presse first reported on the letter, which it obtained with an access-to-information request. The Canadian Press also obtained a copy.
“As the head of the public broadcaster and as the leader of the Opposition,” Tait continued, “I think Canadians can rightly expect that the two of us have a responsibility to discuss the implications of your promise.”
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
