Follows Pascale St-Onge pledge
By Ahmad Hathout
Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday pledged $150 million to shore up the CBC/Radio-Canada and enshrine funding for the public broadcaster in the law if elected.
“Canada’s institutions and identity are under attack from foreign interference,” Carney said during a campaign stop in Montreal. “If elected, my government will take action to enshrine and protect and strengthen CBC/Radio-Canada for generations to come.
“We will not only increase CBC/Radio-Canada’s funding by $150 million, but we will also make this funding statutory, meaning Parliament as a whole will need to approve any future changes to its funding, not just the Cabinet,” he said, adding it will be part of his initiative to modernize the institution.
“By strengthening our public broadcaster, we’re protecting our identity and our culture and helping it to shine around the world,” he added. “We’re making Canada strong. Our plan will safeguard a reliable public square in a sea of misinformation and disinformation, so we can stay informed and tell our own stories in our own languages.”
Carney prefaced the pledge by attacking Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre for pre-campaign promises to defund the CBC. But at a campaign stop in Trois-Rivieres on Friday, Poilievre said his “approach won’t have an impact on Radio-Canada.” The Conservative leader said his party’s problem is Carney is pledging to spend “money we don’t have” at the risk of more inflation.
Independent producers welcomed Carney’s promise, citing rising trade tensions with the United States and noting CBC’s $400-million investment in independently produced content across Canada.
“Rising trade tensions with the United States and ongoing attacks on our national sovereignty underscore the need to protect longstanding national institutions, such as Canada’s public broadcaster,” Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO of the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), said in a press release. “A strong, well-funded national public broadcaster that serves all Canadians, invests in our stories, and reinforces national unity is something the entire country should support.”
In a set of proposed changes aimed to modernize the CBC, then-Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge pledged in February to secure “stable and predictable” funding for the broadcaster via a statutory appropriation based on an annual per capita formula. Part of the idea is for the CBC to be less reliant on advertising and subscription revenues that “risks compromising its objectives of public service, by favouring revenue-generating content to the detriment of the social, cultural and democratic benefits intended in its mandate.”
The government places Canada in sixth place out of the G7 countries with a per capital funding for the CBC at $33.66, below the average of those nations of $62.20.
St-Onge has since been replaced by Steven Guilbeault in a cabinet shuffle last month.
Private broadcasters have long argued that, so long as the CBC gets government funding, it shouldn’t be allowed to compete in the advertising market with them because it’s unfair that it can dip into two funding troughs while they struggle in a very competitive one.
“With $150 million a year in increased parliamentary appropriation and advertising representing a smaller portion of CBC/ Radio-Canada’s revenues than ever, this proceeding presents the perfect opportunity for the Commission to set out a timeline and process for establishing an ad-free CBC/ Radio-Canada,” Kevin Desjardins, president of the large broadcaster representative, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, told CRTC commissioners way back in 2021. “At minimum, CBC/ Radio-Canada should be prohibited from selling local TV and online advertising in markets where local private radio and TV stations are present.”
Screenshot of Mark Carney during campaign stop Friday
