The number of CBC staff who take home a six-figure salary has more than doubled since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office.
According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which obtained records through an access-to-information request, 1,450 CBC staff took home more than $100,000 in base salary in 2023.
Those with six-figure salaries cost taxpayers more than $181 million last year, with an average of $125,000 for each six-figure employee.
According to CTF, from separate records obtained through access-to-information requests, the CBC gave $11.5 million in pay raises last year to 87% of its workforce.
According to the report, the CBC has accumulated more than $132 million in bonuses since 2015 and over $97 million in raises in that time, amounting to $229 million in bonuses and raises since Trudeau took office.
“The CBC will take more than $1.4 billion from taxpayers in 2024-25,” the report said. “That’s enough money to pay the annual grocery bill for roughly 86,000 Canadian families of four.”
Franco Terrazzano, CTF’s federal director, thinks that its time to derail the “CBC gravy train.”
“The CBC’s taxpayer-funded bonuses and six-figure salaries have exploded under the Trudeau government,” Terrazzano told True North. “It’s easy to understand why Canadians may not trust the CBC to hold a government accountable when that government is giving the CBC more than $1 billion every year.”
Eric Wright, a media representative for the CBC, told True North that the salaries reflect the rates that are seen across the media sector.
“For non-unionized employees, CBC/Radio-Canada engages outside monitoring to ensure that its salary levels remain in the middle range of what is available in the media sector. For unionized employees, collective agreements are negotiated and reflect guidance from the Federal Treasury Board on salary increases,” he said in an email.
He said its approach ensures that workers receive compensation commensurate with the middle range of what comparable Canadian companies offer from the entertainment, publishing and telecom industries.
“The reality is that CBC/Radio-Canada competes for talent with a competitive private sector while also operating as a federal Crown corporation. The Corporation needs to ensure that it can attract, recruit and retain talented people who create programming for Canadians,” Wright said.
When asked how the CBC can remain impartial while receiving an increase in funds under the Liberal government while the official opposition campaigns to decrease its funding, Wright said the majority of Canadians believe the CBC to be a reliable news source.
He noted that the CBC and Radio-Canada keep themselves in check using their journalistic standards and practices. He pointed to a blog post earlier in the year in which the organization stated that it doesn’t negotiate or discuss news coverage with the government.
A recent poll commissioned by True North and conducted by One Persuasion found that 55% of Canadians either moderately or strongly agree that news media companies dependent on taxpayer funding are incapable of impartially reporting on the government.
Terrazzano thinks that an incentive exists for the CBC to hold a bias towards a party that increases funding and against one who threatens to take it away, which is enough for many Canadians to distrust the state broadcaster.
“Even the perception of bias can ruin the media’s credibility with the public,” Terrazzano said. “Poilievre has rightly promised to defund the CBC and end the bonuses for failing government authorities, including the CBC. Taxpayers expect Poilievre to keep those promises if he becomes prime minister.”