The Conservatives took President CEO of CBC Catehrine Tait to task after saying she should still be “entitled” to a bonus despite being at the helm during the Crown corporation’s staggering decline in viewership and revenue.
The organization has been in a steady freefall for some time, dropping in viewership by 50% and leading to Tait’s decision to slash 800 jobs last December.
However, the CEO told the House of Commons heritage committee that she should still be “entitled” to a bonus on Monday while asking the federal government for more money.
Tait was speaking before the committee hearing to ask for an increase in taxpayer funding, despite the CBC receiving an emergency top-up of $42 million in the Liberals’ 2024 budget.
Much of that previous money was quickly rerouted to be paid out in bonuses worth $18.4 million, with $3.3 million going straight into the pockets of its 45 executives, averaging $73,000 per person.
The bonuses were an issue that the Conservatives were quick to address at the hearing, noting that it’s “more money than the typical working Canadian will see in an entire year.”
While the CBC’s revenues continue to plummet, Tait remains the highest-paid executive in Canadian history, earning over $500,000 as her base salary.
During the hearing she admitted that “several” other CBC employees are raking in more than a half-million dollars annually as a direct result of these bonuses.
Conservative MP and House leader Andrew Scheer offered his tongue-in-cheek gratitude for all the work Tait has done helping advance the party’s plans to defund the CBC.
The Conservative party has been critical of the CBC for some time, with Leader Pierre Poilievre vowing to defund it if elected.
“I think outside of the Conservative caucus, you have been the most successful person in creating the demand to defund the CBC,” said Scheer.
He brought attention to how “out of touch the CBC can be with Canadians,” citing Tait’s decision to dish out executive and senior management bonuses during “an affordability crisis” while laying off its frontline workers as a prime example.
This was a move that “that even Peter Mansbridge called out the CBC for,” noted Scheer.
“When we look at all the metrics, all the key performance indicators, ad revenue overall, down. Trust is down,” said Scheer. “Independent third-party organizations that analyze this indicate that trust in the CBC fell 17% in just four years.”
This comes on the heels of Canada’s ethics commissioner launching an investigation into Tait regarding potential conflict of interest violations.
As required by the Conflict of Interest Act, Canada’s ethics commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein disclosed that he has fined Tait for failing to disclose a “material change” of her assets.
Another issue that Scheer addressed was Tait announcing that the number of “corrections” at the news organization was up, arguing that Tait had previously implied that this was somehow evidence that Canadians’ trust would increase alongside it.
“I look at it the other way, when you have a falsehood broadcast on the national news and then a correction that follows up a few days later,” said Scheer. “That doesn’t instill confidence in trust in the CBC, it points out that the CBC allows things to get to air before doing proper vetting, validation and fact checking.”
He went on to say to Tait that while it may be insulting to hear data surrounding plummeting public interest and revenue, it would be far worse to be a former employee laid off by the Crown corporation under the premise of insufficient funding for a complete workforce, only to find out later “that senior management and executives all got bonuses.”