Nearly seven in ten Canadians oppose the recent bonuses dolled out to CBC executives and nonunion staff this year, according to a new poll by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The taxpayer watchdog group commissioned polling firm Leger to survey what Canadians thought of the recently approved $18.4 million in CBC bonuses for 2024 and found that the majority of respondents were opposed to the decision.
“The results of the poll are crystal clear: the vast majority of Canadians don’t support the CBC paying out bonuses with our tax dollars,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano in a press release.
“This poll should be a wake-up call for CBC President Catherine Tait and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that these taxpayer-funded bonuses must end.”
The survey asked Canadians whether they supported or opposed the CBC paying out the $18.4 million in bonuses for this year and 69% of respondents said they were opposed.
A small cohort of 16% said that they supported the bonuses, while the remaining 15% said they didn’t know.
Among those who said that they were decided on the issue, 81% said they were opposed to it.
The Crown corporation will cost taxpayers $1.4 billion this year and the state broadcaster has doled out $132 million in bonuses since 2015.
The Liberal government refuses to address whether it approved a bonus for Tait, which would have had to first be approved by the federal government, following a review of her annual performance and on recommendation from the CBC/Radio-Canada’s board of directors.
True North asked the CBC earlier this month who approved the bonus but the question was deferred to the federal government.
Media outlets asked Canadian Heritage, the department responsible for overseeing the Crown corporation, who then kicked the question over to the Privy Council Office.
However, the Privy Council Office wouldn’t answer either, citing privacy laws as the reason, despite disclosing such information to the public in the past.
Tait herself was summoned before the House of Commons heritage committee in May to discuss her bonus pay, however, the meeting was shut down by Liberal MPs after she refused to do so.
“Canadians don’t support the government wasting our money paying out big bonuses to CBC executives,” said Terrazzano.
“If Tait isn’t willing to do the right thing and cancel the bonuses, then the heritage minister, finance minister or Trudeau must step in and end the CBC’s taxpayer-funded bonuses.”
The bonuses have also been criticized by the independent advocacy group Friends of Canadian Media, which has stated that “Canadians deserve a strong and vital CBC” but viewed the recent bonuses as being “deeply out of touch.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard about CBC/Radio-Canada’s decision to award $18 million in bonuses, just months after the announcement of significant job cuts,” said the group’s executive director Marla Boltman in a recent newsletter.
“This decision is deeply out of touch and unbefitting of our national public broadcaster.”
CBC’s director of media relations told True North in July that “decisions about performance pay are taken every year in June” and are based on the state broadcaster “exceeding its digital engagement targets in its annual review.”
According to the performance review, “on average, each unique visitor to our sites spends 37.6 minutes every month with CBC/Radio-Canada digital services.”
That averages to about less than 90 seconds per day by those who visit the CBC’s website, appearing to be a modest threshold to exceed past.
However, it’s not just the bonuses which have been met with criticism in recent years, but also the number of CBC staff who take home six-figure salaries, which has more than doubled since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office.
The CTF obtained records through an access-to-information request which revealed that 1,450 CBC staff took home more than $100,000 in base salary last year.
Those with six-figure salaries cost taxpayers more than $181 million last year, with an average of $125,000 for each six-figure employee.