CBC Exposed: 2011

Last week, the CBC brought back an old war-horse named Mary Walsh to do a political attack on Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford.

Walsh used to be on the CBC’s low-rating comedy show called This Hour has 22 Minutes. It used to be funny back when Rick Mercer was on it, but it’s had a tough time since then.

The CBC said goodbye to Walsh a long time ago, and she spends her time doing the left-wing political protest circuit now. But last week, for some reason, they flew her in from Newfoundland for one last mission: Take a run at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Read the full story here.

I seemed to have ruffled a few feathers with CBC brass.

Alan Thorgeirson, managing director of CBC, responded to a recent column of mine in which I argued more public information should be available. His defense of CBC actions was so inane it would be hilarious if it was not costing you and me $1.1 billion a year in subsidies to the Corporation.

Putting aside the fact that he distorted my statements, his defense confirmed, without doubt, my suggestion that "CBC portrays themselves as the intellectually elite, and, as such, sees themselves as above the public in general and their right to information. They simply, in their view, operate at a higher level that is beyond reproach."

Read the full story here.

We’ve got the details on what the state broadcaster wants to spend your money on and I have to tell you – you might be underwhelmed – really underwhelmed. And maybe annoyed.

Not only did this party cost more than CBC claims, it appears that, one of the main goals was to generate Twitter traffic about George Stroumboulopolous.

A party for the glory of Strombo, the CBC and his Twitter feed. You paid for. Most Canadians will not earn in a year what this party cost for one night of getting celebrities boozed up at the fanciest hotel in Canada.

Was it worth it for you?

Read the full story here.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC’s budget is well over $1.5 billion with approximately $500 million coming from revenues. That means the taxpayers are providing the CBC with over $1 billion a year and after 75 years......well, you can do the math.

The Government of Canada should not be in the broadcasting business. In order to justify its support from the taxpayer, the CBC is mandated to provide a mixture of programming that caters to various small communities of Canadians and regions of the country. As a result, a lot of programming is neither cost effective nor of interest to the majority of Canadians. While the private sector would quickly rid themselves of programming liabilities, the CBC is faced with government agendas.

Read the full story here.

In recent days and weeks, several Conservative MPs have presented petitions calling for an end to the $1.1-billion government subsidy of the CBC. I concur.

The fact is, Canada no longer needs a public broadcaster in the digital age.

Government needs to get out of the business of broadcasting. They are bullying the private sector with their unfair subsidies, and the public they purport to serve won’t stand for it.

Read the full story here.

Wild Rose MP Blake Richards is looking for the opinions of his constituents in regards to the festering debate over taxpayer funding to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Richards is asking people to visit his website and cast their vote as to whether the CBC should be required to disclose how the news organization spends the $1.1 billion appropriation they receive each year.

Read the full story here.

Scouts Canada is keeping its options open when it comes to taking legal action against the CBC for a report alleging it kept a confidential list of suspected pedophiles within the organization.

Chief commissioner Steve Kent denied the allegation again Friday, saying the organization feels elements of The Fifth Estate report, which aired a few weeks ago, were misleading.

"The most unfortunate part is that some of the CBC coverage has left the impression that we’ve been hiding something," Kent said.

Read the full story here.

CBC paid more than one-and-a-half times the average income of a working Canadian for a one-night, celebrity-filled party last September.

Called the Hazelton Takeover, the event cost taxpayers more than $72,000, thousands more than CBC president Hubert Lacroix claimed when he appeared before a Commons committee.

The lavish event, held at "Canada's only 5 star hotel" in "the city's finest and most fashionable downtown district," brought CBC host George Stroumboulopoulos together with American and British celebrities during the Toronto International Film Festival.

Lacroix told MPs that the party cost $64,000, but a single invoice from Veritas Communications shows a charge of $72,372.

Other invoices, including one from the Hazelton Hotel, have had all the key information -- including charges -- removed.

Read the full story here.

PS - what do YOU think about this?

The problem the CBC faces is that whatever their motives might be, its antagonists are, on the whole, right (you should pardon the expression). They are right in terms of the immediate controversy, i.e., whether the corporation is obliged to comply with access to information requests, even from its competitors: clearly, under the law, it must. While the law makes exception for certain types of documents, it cannot be up to the CBC alone to decide which documents qualify for this exception, as a court has lately ruled.

Fast-forward five years from now, and it’s quite clear that television will no longer be delivered in the form of separate channels, each streaming a series of programs one after the other. Turn on your TV, rather, and you’ll see a screen full of icons representing the shows you subscribe to: the iTunes model. Indeed, that’s how many people watch TV now.

Put it all together, and there is simply no case for continuing to aim hundreds of millions of dollars every year at a single point on the dial. It’s not good for taxpayers. It’s not good for viewers. And it’s not good for the CBC itself, and the people who work there. The best television, as on HBO, emerges from a partnership between creative producers and a passionate, demanding, discerning audience.

So big change is coming. That much is certain. The question is whether the CBC will get out in front of it, or whether it will drag its heels, hankering after a world that has gone and isn’t coming back.

Read the full story here.

CBC refusing to disclose certain records to Commissioner because information relating to journalistic, creative, programming activities contained therein—CBC relying on words “[t]his Act does not apply” in s. 68.1 to support argument—Interpretation contrary to purpose of Act.

Read the full document here.

Why are we selling the broadcast rights to Canada Day?

Did you know this happens?

It’s true, the government sells the broadcast rights to our national celebration of Canadianess.

What’s even worse is that they sell it in a way that makes sure only one broadcaster can win the rights — you guessed it — the state broadcaster.

Read the full story here.

PS - what do YOU think about this?

The easy thing, the convenient thing, would be to shut up about the CBC and get on with living.

But in conscience, how can one do that when the CBC is counting on Canadian lethargy and weariness with the subject to enable them to carry on spending taxpayers’ money and maintaining an aura of secrecy about everything they can?

Information commissioner Suzanne Legault does what she can, and has won decisions from the courts. But the CBC still doesn’t get it. It seems to feel if it can procrastinate and delay, Legault will lose interest (as predecessors have) and let the sleeping hog sleep on.

Quebecor Media Inc. has taken aim at CBC secrecy, and that’s a wrinkle the CBC hierarchy hasn’t had to deal with in the past. The CBC lashes out to defend itself by implying that it’s a TV rival that provokes this fuss over how CBC spends our money.

Read the full story here.

The following graph is very interesting in that it shows that CBC salaries account for over 90% of the $1.1 Billion dollar annual subsidy that the CBC receives from Canadian taxpayers.

Maybe that's why the CBC is so adamant in keeping individual salaries so secret and fighting to keep the gravy train rolling. Canadian tax dollars are not going to cultural original Canadian content; they are instead being used to fund secret salaries!

Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland blasted a news segment which aired on CBC's The National July 7, saying the video wrongly portrayed the city as a racist community.

Copeland said the city has contacted the CBC to voice its displeasure over the news report and its portrayal of the city.

"The story should have been about the MD reversing their decision on the land sale. Playing the racist card ... just shows the level of ignorance on the level of reporting being done," Copeland said. "It's disheartening that this is supposed to be Canada's premier news organization."

Read the full story here.

Hubert Lacroix said the CBC's record on accountability and access to information has been lost in general confusion or distorted in coverage of its court case against Canada’s information commissioner. Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault on Wednesday won a Federal Court of Appeal case giving her the authority to review documents CBC doesn’t want to release because they deal with programming, creative or journalistic issues.

Read the full story here.

Considerable media attention in the past few weeks has been focused on the right of the public to know the compensation of political and other leaders, particularly when public funds are involved.

One such example is the Sun Media's crusade to reveal the salary and other expenses of CBC executives such as Peter Mansbridge. Another request involves the amount CBC paid for the rights to televise Canada Day celebrations.

CBC has refused to reveal any information citing competitive as well as journalistic needs for secrecy. While the need for keeping some information under wraps is understandable, including perhaps the amount spent on purchasing the Canada Day rights, other refusals are simply ridiculous. There is no sane rationale for hiding the salary and expenses of Peter Mansbridge and other senior executives.

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation is subsidized by you and me to the tune of $1.1 billion. As taxpayers, we have the right to basic information that does not jeopardize the Corporation's competitive position or journalistic sources. It seems that the courts agree.

Read the full story here.

The taxpayer-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is subject to the Access to Information Act, albeit with exemptions designed to protect their journalistic, creative and programming activities. These exemptions are designed to protect the broadcaster's journalistic sources and to safeguard the planning and design process of its programming.

But it is in the interpretation of what falls under the exemptions where the CBC and some Canadians are parting ways.

The CBC has received many requests under the Act from citizens who want more details on how the broadcaster spends its annual $1.1 Billion appropriation. Some taxpayers feel — legitimately, in my opinion — that any organization receiving such a large amount of tax dollars has a duty to be transparent about how it spends them.

Read the full story here.

Best known for his anti-Western, anti-Israel, and even anti-Semitic bias, Eric Margolis’ habitual myopic portrayal of the Mideast region, promulgation of unsubstantiated allegations, and promotion of 9/11 conspiracy theories have seen this journalist be discredited as an unreliable and biased interview source. But that didn't stop the CBC from giving him a national platform.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

QMI Agency has had only limited success in attempting to pry information out of the state-owned CBC as to how it spends taxpayers' money.

Journalistically, the CBC has done some wonderful stuff over the years, but that hasn't necessarily made me a fan because the conservative side of me has never been able to escape the nagging feeling that this country does not need a state-owned broadcaster.

I just can't see pumping $1.1 billion of taxpayer money a year into a corporation that goes head-to-head with the private sector in the marketplace.

I believe that at a time when this country is deep in debt and has no idea where the world financial crisis may take us, that we can't afford the luxury of being in the television and radio business.

Actually, even without our deep debt and world financial crisis, I don't believe we should be in such a business.
I don't believe any government-owned operation should ever be in direct competition with the private sector.

Read the full story here.

PS - What do YOU think?

When the CBC's Mary Walsh shows up unannounced with a camera crew at Toronto mayor Rob Ford's house, the state broadcaster considers it comedy.

When Sun News Network's Ezra Levant pops up in the lobby of the CBC's Toronto headquarters with a camera operator, it's a matter for police.

Access to information requests have revealed then-director of operations and contingency planning at the CBC, Julie McCambley, authorized a call to police on Aug. 19 to force Levant to leave the 13-floor tower.

Read the full story here.

The federal heritage minister has confirmed his department is in for some major sacrifices in the Conservatives' 2012 budget.

"The largest reduction in spending will be in my department," James Moore said during a committee appearance Thursday.

Read the full story here.

Unfortunately, the call for disclosure originates with the CBC’s rival, Quebecor. Quebecor is no friend of the CBC, and its demand to see their spending is a petty campaign to create scandal and to discredit. Quebecor’s obvious goal is to arm itself with proof that the CBC is irresponsibly wasting the money we give them- ammo for their argument that the CBC should therefore be deprived of funding completely.

Quebecor is probably half right–the CBC’s spending habits are likely shameful. The public broadcaster’s secrecy over the documents in question suggests that they do indeed have something to hide. Their rationale–that to disclose Strombo’s salary or the budget of their 75th anniversary self-promotion campaign would be a violation of journalistic sources–is ridiculous. If profligate executives are hiding behind journalistic ethics, then journalists themselves–CBC journos included–should be leading the charge to pry the documents from their fingers.

Read the full story here.

CBC bureaucrats, production people, and journalists are feeling a little cramped in their 23-storey broadcast palace in Montreal.

So, Crown Corporation executives are pushing for a $1.6 billion public-private redevelopment of the property, which would also provide its French operation with bigger headquarters through "a new construction on the existing site or a major retrofit of the current space."

Read the full story here.

PS - What do YOU think of this?

Unimpressed with the CBC’s explanations regarding its financial accountability and handling of access to information requests, Conservatives indicated Thursday they may look at amending a law that exempts the broadcaster from disclosing certain information — potentially even things like news anchor Peter Mansbridge’s salary.

Read the full story here.

The House of Commons could potentially find itself in another showdown over the right of Parliament to information if MPs aren’t satisfied with the answers the CBC and the government provide to questions such as how much the broadcaster spends on alcohol, and the salaries of high-profile personalities including Peter Mansbridge and Rick Mercer.

Read the full story here.

The CBC has put up the white flag in its legal battle against Canada’s information commissioner.

On Wednesday, a unanimous ruling upheld a 2010 decision from a federal court judge who ordered the network to provide secret documents to commissioner Suzanne Legault for review. CBC once threatened to fight its case all the way to Canada’s top court but it has opted to end its legal fight.

Read the full story here.

About 200 CBC fans gathered in Ottawa on Monday to listen to a panel discussion about the future of public broadcasting.

Ezra Levant, host of The Source on Sun News Network, was the lone voice calling for taxpayer dollars to stop flowing to the state broadcaster.

"You have a conceit that the CBC is somehow above partisanship and above the fray, and you're the holy ones keeping the country together and god forbid that you are not there," Levant said to the CBC Radio's Carol Off, co-host of As it Happens, who was also on the panel.

Levant said while many CBC reporters are talented, they are also all bureaucrats. "You're about snobbery, that you know better how to do radio than the commercially successful radio you hear because you think it's too sound bitey and your judgment deserves $1.1 billion in subsidies, as opposed to those grubby folks out there who have to pay for it themselves."

The CBC panellist had a solution to the common complaint that the broadcaster competes for private ad dollars -- give the corporation more tax dollars.

Read the full story here!

In justifying its corporate secrecy, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation says some secrets are necessary to maintain its independence and competitiveness.

But in the most fundamental sense, the CBC is not independent, and it is not competing on a level playing field. It if were, it wouldn't get $1.1 billion every year in public funding.

Since it is taxpayer-funded, it ought to be transparent. And its journalistic function - far from being a reason for extra secrecy - should spur the organization to do better than other Crown corporations in this regard. Journalists consistently call for publicly funded organizations to be more open. The CBC should lead the way.

Read the full story here.

In what can only be described as theatre of the absurd, CBC host Carol Off came to the quick defence of the Iranian regime by suggesting that Iran's nuclear weapons program was for "defensive" purposes and not as acts of "provocation".

On November 21, CBC Radio host Carol Off of the As It Happens program interviewed Chris Alexander; Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence on the IAEA report and Canada’s recently announced sanctions on Iran.

Read the story and listen to the program by clicking here.

New Democrats and Liberals are crying foul over government attempts to reveal what the CBC doesn't want the public to see - how it spends the $1.16 billion in taxpayer funds it receives annually from Heritage Canada.

Neither party said in their dueling releases why they object to Canadian taxpayers learning how their hard-earned money is being spent.

Read the full story here.

A Conservative backbencher is doing an end run around access laws to force the state broadcaster to sell out some its most sacred cows.

Edmonton MP Brent Rathgeber sent ripples through CBC headquarters Friday when he asked Parliament in writing for information on how much Peter Mansbridge, George Stroumboulopoulos and Rick Mercer earn.

The Commons committee on ethics has been investigating the CBC's spat with Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault and allegations it has been misusing Section 68.1 of the access act to reject requests.

CBC has lost two court cases over access to information in its fight with Legault, and is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Read the full story here.

The state broadcaster was ordered to play nice with the parliamentary officer it spurned in a court ruling that orders the CBC to produce access documents the network doesn't want anyone to see because they could shed light on wasteful spending.

The Federal Court of Appeal said Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault has the legal authority to determine whether access to information requests the CBC wants kept under wraps should be released.

Wednesday's unanimous three-judge ruling upheld a Federal Court judgment against the broadcaster.

Read the full story here.

The state broadcaster was ordered to play nice with the parliamentary officer it spurned in a court ruling that orders the CBC to produce access documents the network doesn't want anyone to see because they could shed light on wasteful spending.

The Federal Court of Appeal said Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault has the legal authority to determine whether access to information requests the CBC wants kept under wraps should be released.

Wednesday's unanimous three-judge ruling upheld a Federal Court judgment against the broadcaster.

Read the full story here.

House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer will follow precedent and for now stay out of a Commons committee dispute over the constitutionality of a government study into the CBC's handling of several access to information requests that are currently the subject of a court battle.

NDP House leader Joe Comartin asked the Speaker to intervene last week after a parliamentary law clerk said the government was wading into murky constitutional waters and "could be seen as interfering with and possibly undermining the judicial process."

Last Tuesday, the same day Comartin presented his pitch to the Speaker, the CBC released a series of documents "under protest" to the Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics.

Read the full story here.

A woman who was at the centre of the biggest cut to CBC's budget in Canadian history has said that any attack on the CBC is an attack on all Canadian culture.

Former Liberal MP and one time heritage minister Sheila Copps was part of Jean Chretien's cabinet when the government of the day chopped $400 million from the state broadcaster's budget.

Copps also said that CBC is essential to Canadian culture, implying that without a state broadcaster, and government money, Canada will have no culture.

Read the full story here.

Dr. Frans Leenen thought his professional reputation had been left in tatters when the CBC broadcast a public affairs program on the use of calcium-channel blockers in 1996. Four years later, the CBC knows exactly how he felt.

In the end, the hour-long broadcast may cost the CBC up to $5 million because of the Leenen ruling and an earlier judgement in favour of Toronto cardiologist Martin Myers, who was awarded $200 000 for defamation last November. The CBC must also pay his costs.

Read the full story here.

CBC bureaucrats, production people, and journalists are feeling a little cramped in their 23-storey broadcast palace in Montreal.

So, Crown Corporation executives are pushing for a $1.6 billion public-private redevelopment of the property, which would also provide its French operation with bigger headquarters through "a new construction on the existing site or a major retrofit of the current space."

Taxpayers subsidize the CBC to the tune of $1.1 billion annually.

Read the full story here.

The House of Commons ethics committee has demanded that the state broadcaster table documents detailing its spending of taxpayers' money - but the top parliamentary legal officer says the issue is dicey.

"(The committee's) demand for documents for assessing CBC's actions under section 68.1 of the act is comparable to a demand for a taxpayer's income tax returns," writes Robert Walsh, law clerk and parliamentary counsel in a letter to the NDP.

QMI Agency's parent company, Quebecor, wants to know how much cash is pumped into the CBC's vehicle fleet, while the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation is curious to know who funds the corporation's booster squad, called Friends of the CBC.

Tory MP Dean Del Mastro also wanted some answers from the state broadcaster, which gets more than $1 billion from taxpayers every year, so he pushed for a motion to be passed demanding the information. NDP members balked and the opposition boycotted the October vote.

Read the full story here.

They may be a government institution, but minutes from a CBC board meeting show the state broadcaster feels it is entitled to play by its own rules.

As CBC was coming under the Access to Information Act, the government-appointed board considered whether the broadcaster should follow the government’s standard policy or adopt its own, according to minutes from a November 2007 board meeting.

“The Committee considered whether CBC/Radio-Canada, a government institution for the purpose of the Access to Information Act, should be subject to the Access to Information policy promulgated by Treasury Board or should instead be governed by its own policy,” the minutes read.

A section of the minutes have been deleted from the released documents, claiming that the information removed is considered “advice or recommendations developed by or for a government institution.”

The CBC is engaged in an ongoing fight to keep its spending under wraps. Currently, it is fighting the federal information commissioner in court over the release of several documents.

A Commons committee has requested several documents be released to MPs behind closed doors. So far, the CBC has not agreed to comply with the request.

Read the full story here.

Turns out it’s not just This Hour Has 22 Minutes that’s the comedy show — but the whole CBC network.

Even though the journalistic community is laughing at them, there is nothing funny about the systematic and erroneous attacks on Mayor Rob Ford and an apparent lack of respect for the truth.

When you report sources saying the mayor “turned on the dispatcher, yelling: “You … bitches! Don’t you f---ing know? I’m Rob f---ing Ford, the mayor of this city!” and it’s not true, you had better get on your knees and beg for forgiveness.

Instead, the arrogant Mother Corp is digging itself in even deeper.

Read the full story here.

The CBC briefly considered using its This Hour has 22 Minutes comedy team as a "hit squad" to respond to Sun News talk show host Ezra Levant's summertime skirmish with security, access to information requests reveal.

Levant showed up in the lobby of the CBC's 13-storey Toronto headquarters in August demanding a meeting with president and CEO Hubert Lacroix or head of media relations, Jeff Keay.

He didn't get his meeting, but QMI Agency has seen email exchanged among the state broadcaster's bureaucrats as they struggled to formulate a response.

One CBC executive suggested a 22 Minutes crew launch a "counter attack" against Sun News Network.

Read the full story here.

The head of Canada's state broadcaster has a taste for fine hotel rooms and pricey lunches, according to a set of expense claims released to QMI Agency under the access to information system.

Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of the CBC, prefers the comfort of the tony Chataeu Laurier hotel when travelling to Ottawa on business. The Chateau, located next to the Parliament buildings, is a place to see and be seen for Ottawa's power brokers. It also charges rates at least $100 per night higher than many hotels in the same area that cater to business travellers.

Lacroix billed taxpayers for $24,505.29 worth of travel and hospitality expenses in the first six months of this year. That's compared to $17,292.13 in the first six months of 2010.

Among Lacroix's claims, a $242 lunch with CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, the chief regulator for the CBC and the rest of the broadcast industry.

Read the full story here.

Last week, the French CBC’s most prestigious investigative program, Enquete, dedicated its full show in an attempt to discredit one of its competitors in La Belle Province, Quebecor, owner of this paper.

They didn’t do any inquiries on Gesca, subsidiary of Power Corp., the other big provincial media player, even though it owns seven of the 10 daily papers in Quebec.

Why not? Maybe because the CBC has a secret deal with Gesca, which was revealed through an access-to-information request. Together, the CBC and Gesca represent the greatest share of all the information consumed in Quebec, and present the most serious threat in terms of concentration of the press.

The CBC, however, preferred targeting only Quebecor. Its investigators’ shocking discovery? They “reveal” that in a list of provincial celebrities ranked by popularity, chosen by a panel and first published in Journal de Quebec, the chain’s Journal de Montreal swapped out the name of a radio host for Celine Dion. Wow! That’s it?

Read the full story here.

The battle between Quebecor and CBC heated up Friday with legal notice being served upon the state broadcaster's head honcho Hubert Lacroix.

The letter of notice from Bernard Pageau, director of legal affairs for Quebecor Media, claims information posted on CBC's website under the heading "Get The Facts," is anything but factual.

"The information is false, incomplete and defamatory," the letter reads.

Earlier this week, CBC responded to a series of stories about problems the state broadcaster has with the access to information system by lashing out at Quebecor and Sun Media.

In a statement posted to their website, CBC claimed Quebecor had "received more than half a billion dollars in direct and indirect subsidies and benefits from Canadian taxpayers over the past three years."

Pageau writes this false information was "distributed with the obvious intention by CBC-Radio Canada of harming the reputation of Quebecor."

Read the full story here.

A Commons committee investigating allegations of subterfuge at the state broadcaster learned Tuesday the CBC is denying access requests on a whim.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault – the subject of a court case initiated by the broadcaster – caught MPs off guard when she testified she just learned the CBC is denying requests based on the wording of the request.

“And if that’s the case and they do this without retrieving the records and without processing all the records and without applying appropriate severances under the legislation then I am seriously concerned,” she said in an interview.

“I think it’s mistaken and misguided if they are doing that,” she testified.

Read the full story here.

Federal access laws should be strengthened to prevent the CBC from hiding behind vague wording that allows it to flout the rules, a Commons committee was told Tuesday.

Both the CRTC - the federal broadcast regulator - and the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation (CTF) said if the rules were clear, the state broadcaster wouldn't be spending public funds to fight federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault in court.

The ethics committee is investigating the CBC's failed record on releasing information on how it spends the $1.16 billion a year it receives from Heritage Canada.

Read the full story here.

We are firmly convinced that asking for the costs of a multimillion-dollar IT project, for the planning budget for CBC's 75th anniversary celebrations or for the size of its fleet of cars is not only legitimate, but firmly in the public interest and in keeping with the spirit of the Access to Information Act.

What we got in return from the CBC is a series of highly redacted documents, containing not a single fact or figure that could help taxpayers understand how the state broadcaster is spending its annual $1.1-billion subsidy. It is ironic, considering that CBC reporters would never accept this kind of response from any other government entity. They would justifiably fight back.

Read the full story here.

You may pay the bill for harassment complaints filed against the CBC by their employees, but the state broadcaster has decided taxpayers don`t need to know how much money is being used to settle these complaints.

A request filed through the Access to Information system seeking the amount of money CBC paid out for harassment claims in the first six months of this year returned several pages of invoices - some completely blank - but no details on what was paid out.

Read the full story here.

Occupy Wall Street - Chris Hedges shuts down CBC Kevin O'Leary

A Commons committee has been holding hearings into CBC's refusal to release information to the public and the federal information commissioner. As a recipient of an annual subsidy of more than $1.1 billion, CBC is subject to the Access to Information Act and is required to be open and transparent.

This week, CBC appealed a decision of the Federal Court of Canada ordering that it release a set of documents to the information commissioner. CBC president Hurbert Lacroix has said he will take his fight to the Supreme Court to keep the state broadcaster's sensitive data from public eyes.

Read the full story here.

Not only has the Canadian taxpayer a fundamental right to demand access to information from the CBC, but we also expect full accountability from an agency we, the taxpayers, support to the tune of $1.1 billion annually.

When an organization fights against the release of information, it is usually because it has something unflattering to hide.

Unfortunately, by the CBC not coming clean, that is the only conclusion the Canadian public can arrive at.

Isn't it about time to do the taxpayers a big favour and simply let the CBC quietly fade away and die an honourable death?

Read the full story in the Sudbury Star here.

Over the years, a lot of us have questioned CBC arrogance and methods. To little avail.

Apart from the CBC’s penchant for secrecy on how it spends the $1.1 billion of taxpayers’ money it gets from the government, what I find unacceptable and disgraceful is the CBC bidding on programs that the private sector would run but can’t match CBC funding, which is given to them, rather than earned by them.

I’m thinking of NHL games, Olympic coverage, the Grey Cup. Instead of Masterpiece Theatre, the CBC bids on Jeopardy!, which is more suited to private-sector TV. CBC bidding raises the price — surely not the intent of those who started the CBC 75 years ago.

Read the full story here.

The Biases of the CBC
November 13, 2011, 2 PM
Library & Archives Canada
395 Wellington
Ottawa

Part of the 2nd Annual Free Thinking Film festival 2011

Please join us for our first self-produced documentary which examines whether the CBC is biased against Israel and biased against conservatives.

After the film, we will have a panel discussion with:

Mike Fegelman of HonestReporting Canada.
Stephen Taylor of the NCC.
Brian Lilley of Sun News.
Eric Duhaime from the Le Journal de Montreal.
David Krayden from the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.

This event is part of the 2nd Annual Free Thinking Film Festival which runs between November 11-13th, 2011.

For more information, please visit www.freethinkingfilmfest.ca

Admission to this event is just $15! Or you can buy a festival pass for $75 and see all the events in the Festival.

This event is co-sponsored by Le Réseau Liberté-Québec.

The CBC is a money-losing state broadcaster that should be stripped of $1.16 billion in public handouts, says a new report.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Studies argues the broadcaster fails to deliver true dollar value to taxpayers, and it lacks neutrality in its news reporting and accountability.

“The CBC is a world-class broadcaster,” says the report written by David Krayden. “It is for that very reason that we believe that the CBC can survive without a yearly infusion of unearned income.”

Read the full story here.

CBC running scared: State broadcaster's false attack ads demonstrate how financial probe is desperately needed.

On the eve of the Parliamentary inquiry, it used part of its $1.1 billion — money that is supposed to go to journalism — to launch a crazy, personal attack on the president of Quebecor and QMI Agency, Pierre Karl Peladeau, one of Canada’s most successful private-sector media entrepreneurs.

Unlike the CBC, Peladeau built his company honestly and with his own efforts. He took a newspaper company started by his father, Pierre Peladeau, and turned it into Quebec’s most successful media company, Quebecor — and then joined with English-Canada’s biggest newspaper company, Sun Media Corp. And then he built the Sun News Network.

All without a billion-dollar-a-year bailout.

Read the full story here.

Canadian Centre for Policy Studies Executive Director David Krayden discusses privatizing the CBC with host Ron Corbett on Ottawa radio station CFRA.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Best feature at taxpayer-funded TIFF party for ‘cool people’ — riot gates to keep non-cool folks at bay

The CBC — and the more than 10 government unions who live off it — are having a party while the rest of the economy has been under stress.

Literally, a party. A month ago, the CBC threw a luxurious party at the Hazelton, Canada’s most exquisite hotel, during the Toronto International Film Festival. They blocked off the street, and had stars like the band U2 on their red carpet.

The CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos hosted the party. But he isn’t in any film. He just wanted to — in his words — party with “cool people.” That’s what he said.

One of the things that made the party expensive was the police-style riot gates to keep ordinary taxpayers at bay. Remember, they had to block off the city streets to really party hard. But that might have meant some non-cool taxpayers might have wandered in.
Read the full story here.

Lacroix recently replied to such an angry email, including me in the loop.

The original email concerned a complaint that has been circulating in TV industry circles for some time, Kirstine Stewart, the woman who heads up English Television for CBC is now engaged to a star of the network, one who is now also getting production contracts with the state broadcaster.

Stewart’s fiancé is Zaib Shaikh the star of Little Mosque on the Prairie and head of his own production company. Turns out, according to this email and others I have received in the past…..members of the TV industry are griping about favouritism and conflict of interest at the CBC.

According to the original email complaining, Zaib Shaikh, who is slated to be the executive producer of a big 75^th anniversary broadcast but due to griping, people inside the state broadcaster want his name pulled.

Read the full story here.

Longtime CBC exec Sylvain Lafrance is leaving the public broadcaster this fall, CBC/Radio-Canada president Hubert Lacroix announced in a release late Thursday.

The announcement follows the recent settlement of a lawsuit filed against Lafrance by Quebecor head Pierre Karl Péladeau regarding a comment Lafrance made in a 2007 interview in which he called Péladeau a voyou, a derogatory French term meaning “thug” or “delinquent.”

Read the full story here.

The Conservatives are calling on some of the CBC's harshest critics to testify about the broadcaster at a parliamentary hearing on access to information.

The Commons committee is studying the CBC's current battle in the courts to keep some of its records exempt from access-to-information laws.

The Tories say they are concerned about the fact taxpayers are on the hook for both sides of a court battle pitting the CBC against the information commissioner.

Read the full story here.

Quebec’s highest court has suspended Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau's defamation case against a CBC French executive while Quebecor tries to have the presiding judge removed for alleged bias.

Peladeau, owner of QMI Agency, is suing CBC French vice-president Sylvain Lafrance for $700,000 for calling Peladeau a “punk” in a 2007 newspaper interview.

Read the full story by clicking here.

A CBC audit of a computer system that went $30 million over budget has been released, but it is mostly blank pages.

Project Vision, an internal CBC project to replace as many as 45 different computer systems, was started in 2002 and was supposed to cost $33 million. When Auditor General Sheila Fraser sounded the alarm in 2005 costs had already reached $51 million.

According to previously released documents the final tally was just shy of $63 million.
Currently, CBC is fighting the federal information commissioner in court to prevent the release of information. Lacroix has indicated that he will take this fight to Supreme Court in order to keep CBC's documents under wraps.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

The CBC overstepped the boundaries of federal access laws when it refused to release information to the public, an expert in access law told MPs Thursday.

“It appears the CBC went above and beyond simply protecting its journalistic integrity,” Michel Drapeau testified before the House committee on access to information, privacy and ethics.

He criticized the CBC for its “blatant and ill-disguised” attempts to delay information release.

Read the full story here.

Canada's public broadcaster will not get an audience with the country's top court to challenge costly defamation judgments against its investigative program the fifth estate.

The Supreme Court of Canada gave no reasons Thursday for refusing to hear the case, as is usual in high-court appeal applications.

The CBC was ordered in 2000 to pay nearly $1-million in defamation damages to medical scientist Dr. Frans Leenen of the University of Ottawa and $200,000 to Dr. Martin Myers, a Toronto cardiologist.

The award damages are among the largest ever imposed on a Canadian media outlet.

Read the full story here.

Taxpayers footed the bill for bottles of wine over lingering lunches and business-class trips to Paris by a top CBC executive, documents obtained under the Access to Information Act show.

Claims submitted by Sylvain Lafrance in 2007 and 2008 also show the executive vice-president of CBC’s French services did not publicly disclose all of his expenses, including pricey meals with other CBC managers, on the public broadcaster’s website.

He flew first class across the country, spending $1,109.43 a return flight from Montreal to Toronto and $2,620.07 on a trip to St. John’s, N.L., as well as international destinations such as New York and Paris, where he attends TV5 board meetings.
Flights for a 48-hour stopover in Paris cost $4,821.09; airfare for another three-day trip cost $5,802.70.
CBC’s travel policy states “the standard for air travel is economy” and the “lowest logical airfares available” should be sought.

Read the full story here.

The federal government has demanded that the CBC explain its use of exemptions to the Access to Information Act to shield details of its financial activities from curious eyes. The act is a piece of federal legislation that, in theory, grants the public the right to review most of the information available to government-owned institutions. There are reasonable limits, of course — privacy of citizens is protected, as are sensitive intelligence, military, police and diplomatic records (as they should be). But the CBC also has a specific exemption — it is not required to divulge information related to its “journalistic, creative or programming activities.”

But there is suspicion among some vocal CBC critics that the broadcaster is using those exemptions, on pretexts that are flimsy at best, to conceal potentially embarrassing details of spending on executive travel and hospitality charges.

Read the full story here.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Studies today released a discussion paper calling on the federal government to privatize the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

"Selling the CBC will not only save taxpayers $1.16 billion per annum (3.6% of the projected deficit in fiscal 2011-2012) it will also raise revenue that can be applied to the debt," said the paper's author and executive director of the CCPS, David Krayden.

Read the full story here.

It is now official ... the CBC and the Liberal Party of Canada are in bed together.

See the "Hands Off Our CBC" petition sponsored by the Liberal Party by clicking here. Pretty evident isn't it?

OUR website is not sponsored by any Party ... we are just ordinary Canadians concerned with how our tax dollars are being wasted ... especially by the CBC.

Read our blog ... we are just trying to show that the CBC is not accountable and is wasting taxpayer money.

We ask you and everyone you know to sign our petition ... be a part of the solution!

The federal Liberals are trying to tap a well of potential support by positioning themselves as defenders of the CBC.

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae sent out a letter on Thursday announcing a campaign and online petition called “Hands Off our CBC.” People on the party distribution list are asked to tweet about the petition or post it to their Facebook page.

Read the full story here.

While the evolving media landscape poses new challenges, the CBC remains entangled in a balancing act it has faced since its inception.

As the CBC celebrates its 75th birthday this year, it faces huge challenges. Like all conventional broadcasters, its audiences are being whittled away and diverted by the new media. And, like many public broadcasters, it is suffering from the fragmentation of the market and the drying up of government support and revenues.

Read the full story here.

CBC/Radio-Canada should “come clean” and give up its fight against the release of records under the Access to Information Act, former TV news producer Howard Bernstein told the House of Commons ethics committee Thursday.

The CBC's battle to keep records under wraps gives Quebecor Media Inc. more ammunition to target the broadcaster, he said.

“I cannot agree with the CBC when they say that the release of this information would put them at a disadvantage,” Bernstein told the committee.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is used to criticizing others — often, quite viciously. But it sure doesn’t react well when it is the mega-corporation being scrutinized.

Last week their president, Hubert Lacroix, lashed out at critics who are asking basic accountability questions about the CBC.

To Lacroix, having to answer for the CBC’s mismanagement, luxurious perks and wasteful spending isn’t acceptable. In a new conspiracy theory he shared with a friendly reporter, Lacroix says questions about CBC’s secrecy and lack of accountability are just attempts to “weaken” the CBC. He says it’s a scheme cooked up by his competitors — and he mentions the Sun specifically.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is bracing for upwards of $100 million in service cuts from their $1.1 billion annual budget. The expected move has many people questioning the government's commitment to public broadcasting.

The difference is stark between the post-election Heritage Minister who spoke out in support of maintaining funding levels for the CBC, and the Heritage Minister of today who argues the CBC deserves no special treatment.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

OTTAWA -- A Canadian radio and TV watchdog is accusing the taxpayer-funded CBC of blocking e-mail complaints sent by listeners to the broadcaster's president and chairman.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, which launched a campaign Saturday against the format overhaul of CBC's Radio 2, says complaints sent to CBC president Hubert Lacroix and the executive assistant to CBC chairman Timothy Casgrain were rejected. Each e-mail was bounced back with an automatic message saying the system sending the e-mails -- a message transfer agent or MTA -- has a "poor reputation."

Read the full story here.

A prominent Quebec broadcast journalist has been suspended by Radio-Canada for comments he made on Facebook about another journalist.

Pierre Sormany heads the investigative journalism department at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s French-language arm. Last week, he posted comments on the Facebook page of another journalist referring to claims by Quebec’s anti-collusion boss that some of the news media were trying to intimidate him ....

Read the full story here.

The CBC's top boss says one of its major competitors is determined to damage the reputation of the public broadcaster in order to weaken it and he's determined to set the record straight on Parliament Hill.

MPs will be examining the CBC's current court battle with the Information Commissioner over access to information beginning Thursday. The Conservatives pushed for the study this fall, saying Canadians were concerned that the taxpayer was funding both sides of a case that hits the Federal Court of Appeals on Oct. 18.

At the same time, the Conservative Party of Canada is polling its members on the value of the CBC, the National Citizens Coalition has mounted a campaign to defund the CBC, and the Sun Media chain has published a months-long series of articles and editorials targeting the Crown Corporation for its refusal to provide expense information requested under access to information.

Read the full story here.

By functioning on government subsidies of (at least) $1.1 BILLION annually, the CBC has an obligation to let the public know how this money is spent. This is so obvious that an opinion poll is redundant.

By keeping salaries secret, gratuities secret, entertainment costs secret, travel costs secret, absentee costs secret, the CBC is violating its mandate and should be an embarrassment for every CBC employee.

The CBC is not a private company. We all have a right to know how it spends the money taxpayers provide.

Read the full story here.

Heritage Minister James Moore wants to slash CBC’s budget by 10 per cent, The Huffington Post has learned.

Although a government decision is far from complete, Moore has discussed his wish to see the public broadcaster’s $1.1-billion allocation cut by ten per cent, sources said. Moore had earlier this summer suggested the CBC could face a cut of "at least 5 per cent."

Read the full story here.

Ever wonder where your tax dollars really go? Some of it apparently goes to the tax payer-funded CBC, who in turn uses it to rack up $80,000 in theatre tickets, meals and travel.

Read the full story here.

The Conservatives are calling on some of the CBC's harshest critics and competitors to testify about the broadcaster at a parliamentary hearing on access to information.

Tory MPs on the Commons access to information, privacy and ethics committee successfully pushed for a study of the use of taxpayers' funds in the CBC's court battle with the information commissioner. The Crown Corporation is fighting to keep records involving its creative, journalistic and programming activities completely exempt from the Access to Information Act.

Read the full story here.

The Conservatives are hauling the CBC onto the carpet this fall to explain why it is fighting the access to information law in the courts, part of increased scrutiny of the public broadcaster’s spending and practices by the new majority government.

The move comes at the same time as the Conservative party surveys its members on whether CBC funding is good value for the taxpayer.

One Tory MP has a website petition to cut funding to the broadcaster, and the party’s spokesperson recently referred to “extravagant spending” by the CBC in an Ottawa newspaper.

Read the full story here.

This video says it all!!! What do YOU think?

In “Quebecor survey just another attempt to tear down CBC” (Opinion, Sept. 13), CBC/Radio-Canada’s vice-president of brand, communications and corporate affairs, Bill Chambers, offers taxpayers the same half-truths that the state broadcaster has been throwing around for years to mask its misguided attempts at avoiding accountability.

Putting forward one of his employer’s favourite lines of defence, Mr. Chambers asserts that CBC/Radio-Canada should have the right to withhold certain types of information requested under the Access to Information Act, on the basis that this information could provide a competitive advantage to the private broadcasters with which the CBC/Radio-Canada competes for programming rights, talent and advertising revenues.Any way you slice it, CBC/Radio-Canada has a $1.1-billion head start over any of its supposed competitors. Of course, whether it is CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate to compete with private broadcasters is another debate.

Read the full story here.

CBC paid as much as $43,000 in 2010 for a survey of "stakeholders" which revealed that people who like the state broadcaster like it a lot.

What remains are two cost estimates and an invoice. The initial estimate pegged the cost of the survey at $19,850, while another estimate came in at $43,870.

Government rules allow contracts under $25,000 to be awarded without seeking competing bids. Phoenix SPI, which conducted the survey for CBC, has conducted similar surveys for the broadcaster, including one in 2008.

Read the full story here.

CBC's ombudsman says a TV broadcast last December on CBC's flagship newscast The National, that accused the Harper government of bending to pressure by the tobacco lobby, missed its mark.

The item, reported by Diana Swain, concluded that the government had "shelved" plans for tough new labels on cigarette packages because tobacco company lobbyists pressured the government.

Read the full story here.

Absenteeism is one of the biggest issues facing employers across Canada, but just how much of a problem employee absences were at CBC last year will remain a mystery.

One recent report showed the number of uncertified sick days in the public service rose by 74% from 4.1 to 7.1 days per employee between 2001 and 2009. The average number of official sick days for public servants during that time rose from 12.1 to 16.9.

QMI Agency requested records of absenteeism presented to the CBC's board of directors for the 2009-2010 fiscal year that ended in March. So far, the response has been mostly blank pages.

Read the full story here.

CBC may demand accountability from the government but Canada's taxpayer-funded broadcaster is going to court once again in order to keep its own affairs secret.

It's not the first run in between the state broadcaster and the Access to Information Act. The CBC became subject to the act in 2007, since then close to 900 complaints have been filed. While some of those cases were resolved and a small number were found to be without merit, as of June the information commissioner had 498 active complaints against CBC.

Read the full story here.

Is the CBC relevant? Does it meet the needs of Canadians? What kind of programming should the CBC provide, and what should it do differently?

If you've got a gripe or something good to say, now's your chance.

And it's a rare chance at that for Canadians to stand up for, or sound off against the public broadcaster that receives $1.1 billion from taxpayers every year.

Read the full story here.

Canadians are not monolithic in their views on the state broadcaster.

Most feel it is wrong for the CBC to spend tax dollars fighting to keep its secrets from an independent officer of Parliament, the federal information commissioner.

Most don’t know how much money CBC receives — $1.1 billion — and when told, most (60%) found that amount to be too much.

CBC executives think they don’t get enough money, Canadians think otherwise.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

When the Access to Information Act was passed in 1985, it was obvious to some that its terms could be used to hide, as well as to disclose, information.

So access to information legislation is not only no guarantee for increased openness and transparency by government, but also can be misused as a formula for concealing or obscuring information.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than within the CBC.

By keeping salaries secret, gratuities secret, entertainment costs secret, travel costs secret, absentee costs secret, the CBC is violating its mandate and should be an embarrassment for every CBC employee.

The CBC is not a private company. We all have a right to know how it spends the money taxpayers provide.

Read the full story by clicking here.

Why did the CBC throw the biggest party at TIFF using taxpayers' dollars?

Watch this video and see your tax dollars at work. Click here!

All three opposition leaders forcefully demanded Wednesday that Mr. Harper fire the International Co-operation Minister, who ordered an official document to be altered and then allegedly misled a parliamentary committee about the matter.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday that Ms. Oda has apologized and that should be the end of it. When pressed by The Canadian Press on whether that was enough after misleading the House of Commons, Mr. Kenney shot back: “The CBC lies all the time. What media are you with?”

Read the full story here.

The CBC must pay one of the largest defamation penalties ever imposed on a Canadian media outlet after being denied its final avenue of appeal.
The CBC was ordered to pay close to $1 million in damages to medical scientist Dr. Frans Leenen of the University of Ottawa because of a story that ran on the investigative program the fifth estate. It was also told to pay another $200,000 in damages to a Toronto cardiologist, Dr. Martin Myers.

The two doctors had sued the CBC over a story about the safety of heart medication that had been broadcast in 1996.

They accused the investigative report of being malicious, unfair, defamatory and sensationalized.

It's not clear how much the CBC will have to pay in the end, because the corporation is still adding up court-ordered damages, legal fees, and other costs. The total is expected to be several million dollars.

Read the full story here.

A documentary by the CBC's "Fifth Estate" is about to make new and startling claims about what brought down Swissair Flight 111 off the South Shore in 1998.

The program, scheduled to air on September 16, will suggest that terrorists were responsible and that the fire on the plane wasn't accidental, but instead was caused by an incendiary device or a failed bomb.

Read the full story here.

Most Canadians would like to see the CBC reformed to operate as a non-for-profit broadcaster like PBS, according to a new poll completed for QMI Agency.

CBC/Radio-Canada receives $1.1 billion in federal funding annual, even though a majority of Canadians surveyed had no clue about how much money the broadcaster receives.

Read the full story here.

The CBC isn’t getting taken to the woodshed for airing vote results to western Canada on election night.

Elections Canada strictly monitors and polices election night results, banning journalists from reporting results on TV and radio airwaves and online through social media until polls are closed in all time zones, to prevent influencing votes.

Read the full story here.

The verdict is in: after 75 years of government handouts to the CBC, Canadians want to take the training wheels off, and let the state broadcaster fend for itself without its $1.1-billion annual cheque from taxpayers.

That's the word from a major new public opinion survey conducted by Abacus Data Inc. Funny enough, the hundreds of polls paid for by the CBC never asked those questions - or if they did, the results were never made public.

Perhaps this poll will put some steel in the spine of those cabinet ministers who think the idea of a state broadcaster is a holdover from an earlier age of big government.

One thing's for sure, though: the consensus groupthink in Canadian media - everyone agreeing how wonderful the CBC is - is not shared by grassroots Canadians.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

Canadians vastly underestimate the amount of money the federal government gives to the CBC each year and most say it's too much money, according to a new poll done exclusively for QMI Agency.

More than 80% of a group surveyed by research firm Abacus Data did not know the CBC will get $1.1 billion from the federal government this year. Only one-quarter believe the CBC get only about one-tenth of what the broadcaster actually receives.

Most Canadians - 60% - also thought the CBC gets too much money, including a majority of participants who vote Conservative or NDP. Abacus Data conducted a poll online with 1,003 Canadians from Aug. 12 to 15.

Read the full story here.

Do you agree?

A majority of Canadians - 64% - believe the CBC should not spend tax dollars to fight its legal battle with Canada's independent ombudsman, who investigates transparency complaints, according to a poll by the research firm Abacus Data.

"Sixty-four percent of Canadians say it is wrong, only 10% say it is right. I think on this issue, the CBC is clearly on the wrong side of public opinion," Dr. David Coletto, who leads Abacus Data's team of consultants and strategists, said.

In 2010, a federal court judge ordered the CBC to provide fiscal information to the commissioner for review.

The CBC appealed that decision and has threatened to fight its case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

The CBC is hoping the federal broadcast regulator will once again allow it to bend the rules and avoid spending money on television signal improvements its private sector rivals have already made.

Despite getting $1 billion dollars a year from taxpayers, CBC executives say they can't afford the cost of replacing about 22 analog transmitters with digital television transmitters.

Read the full story here.

Thanks for this story L ...

A member of the legislative assembly has launched two separate complaints against a CBC Television reporter for what she believes were inappropriate comments made about her by the reporter.

Cynthia Dunsford, the MLA for Stratford-Kinlock, is also refusing to do interviews with the reporter, CBC Television journalist John Jeffery.

The issue came to light Friday when Dunsford refused to do an interview with the veteran CBC reporter.

Read the full story here.

The parents of Vancouver Canucks winger Alex Burrows have written a letter of complaint to the CBC regarding Ron MacLean’s story on their son.

“I thought it was a verbal assassination,” Alex’s father Rodney said in a telephone interview from his Montreal home. “There was no journalistic balance whatsoever. It was just a verbal assassination. There was no chance for Alex to defend himself.”

Read the full story here.

A Conservative government gave and a Conservative government must take away.

Like the proverbial child who refuses to leave the security of mom and dad's house, the CBC has shown a definite reluctance to move from state sponsorship to the real world of paying your own bills.

Sometimes it's tough to tell the kids to move out and start earning their own way in life. Stephen Harper needs to be the Conservative prime minister who did this.

Read the full story here.

CBC takes $1.1 billion from the taxpayers and moonlights on the side to earn extra cash, but the state broadcaster isn't willing to say what it makes from its various business ventures.

A 77-page report on CBC's revenue-generating activities shows the broadcaster rents out space, sells the rights to its programming and is involved in several other business ventures to make extra cash, but CBC doesn't release how much money it earns.

Full story here.

A slim majority of CBC employees and a larger majority of CBC stakeholders do not believe the state broadcaster has a clear vision for the future, according to CBC's own internal polling.

Read the full story here.

A taxpayer advocacy group is calling on CBC to be as open about the salaries for their top executives as executives of some of Canada's top companies are.

"If disclosure of executive compensation for publicly traded companies serves the public interest, then we as coerced shareholders of the state-funded broadcaster are certainly concerned by the culture of secrecy that refuses similar disclosure by executives at the CBC," said Stephen Taylor, director at the National Citizen Coalition.

CBC has repeatedly refused to disclose the salaries or bonuses of their top executives unlike many publicly traded companies.

Read the full story here.

The CRTC has postponed licence renewal hearings for the CBC until next June - a delay that will allow the state broadcaster to plead its case for more money from Heritage Minister James Moore and Canadian taxpayers.

CBC hasn't had a licence renewal in 12 years, and argues it needs a fistful of new dollars to keep Coronation Street, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and other shows on the dial.

Private broadcasters, including Sun News Network, rely on advertising revenues and are at a disadvantage when it comes to budget forecasts because they can't count on guaranteed taxpayer handouts.

Read the full story here.

The CBC supposedly exists to tell Canadians their story in ways for-profit networks would not. But the state broadcaster is anything but an old-style, non-commercial public radio and television company. Its tentacles now extend everywhere in the media universe except perhaps print, and it uses its huge public subsidy to compete unfairly in countless areas where the government has no excuse for intruding.

Indeed, it has always been unfair that the CBC airs American shows, bidding up their cost to private Canadian networks with whom it also competes for advertising dollars. But the problem goes far beyond such obvious injustices.

Read the full story here.

Despite having a team of 20 in-house lawyers on their payroll, the CBC has been spending more than $3.3 million each year for legal services from private law firms.

Documents obtained through Access to Information laws — to which the CBC has been subject to for just two years — revealed that the public broadcaster spent more than $23 million in legal contracts with private firms between 2000-01 and 2006-07. That averages out to $3.3 million annually, with a peak of $4.7 million in 2003-04.

Read the full story here.

Why, has the CBC steadily erased just about all - CBC English local programming in Montreal and Quebec: when in fact their 'supposed mandate', is to grow English Quebecers programming in Quebec ... because, we are the OFFICIAL Minority population in Quebec, and recognized as such by Canada.

And - given, CBC's responsibility is, to concentrate on growing - French local programming -OUTSIDE- Quebec, NOT inside Quebec, because Francophones are Officially a Minority group, as we all know - in the rest of Canada, and the MAJORITY in Quebec; why has CBC spent so much of its budget, over the past few decades, on French programming IN Quebec - and yet NOTHING on English programming IN Quebec?

Read the full story here.

Duceppe-CBC 'misunderstanding' a joke.

Even during the dog days of summer, Canadians from coast to coast were roused from their slumber — and they expressed honest-to-goodness outrage. Outrage that untold thousands of their tax dollars would go to a separatist who is entitled to collect a $140,000 annual MP’s pension. Outrage that the CBC would hire someone who had been repudiated by millions of Quebec voters, and only a few weeks ago, too. Even leading francophone voices, like the Toronto Star’s Chantal Hebert, called the situation intolerable.

Read the full story here.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is not behaving like an independent media company in this (recent) election campaign.

They're not even acting like a left-wing state broadcaster anymore.

No: They are looking like a partisan advocacy group, determined to shape the outcome of the election campaign, not just report it.

That is unacceptable.

The full story here.

Former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe has resigned from his new job as a commentator for Radio-Canada before ever making it to air.

"We understand Mr. Duceppe's decision, and we regret that he wasn't told right from the start about the constraints imposed by our standards and practices," said Anne Sérode, who oversees Radio-Canada's Première Chaine, the equivalent of CBC Radio One.

Read the full story here.

After spending nearly 20 years in Parliament fighting to break up Canada and getting a gold-plated pension of $140,765 a year for his efforts, Duceppe is sucking from the public trough again as a new voice on the state broadcaster. Radio-Canada – the French radio arm of the CBC – hired the defeated Bloc leader, 64, to contribute weekly to a two-hour daily morning show to chat about sports, culture, science and social issues.

“I don’t think that would sit well with Canadians no matter what political party they happen to support,” CTF national director Gregory Thomas said about the double-dipping.

Thomas also raised concerns over whether the hiring of a separatist violated the section of the Broadcasting Act that directs the CBC to be predominantly and distinctively Canadian.

“It brings into question whether the state has a role in broadcasting at all.”

Read the full story and watch the video here.

On February 10, CBC journaliste Brigitte Bureau launched into a 30-minute documentary that claimed to show how some evangelical Christians have undue influence in Ottawa, particularly when it comes to Conservative MPs and Senators. To call the documentary "reporting" would be an insult to all first-year journalism students across Canada.

Read the full story here.

A safety inspector in the Yukon is suing the CBC for publishing what he says is a malicious and professionally damaging attack on its web comment board.

According to The Canadian Press, Robert Scott's weight, his competence and his credibility all come under fire in the post, which he says in his statement of claim clearly breaks the national broadcaster's own guidelines.

Read the full story here.

The Harper government’s initial refusal to release the names and photos of suspected war criminals living in Canada was puzzling.

The ongoing decision of the CBC not to show the now-released names and photos is mind-boggling.

It was through stories, columns and editorials in newspapers like this one and broadcasts on Sun News Network that pressure built on Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to change his mind and release the identity of the suspects Canada wants to deport.

A CBC spokesman has said the state broadcaster will not release the names and faces because of their journalistic standards.

Despite getting their $1.1-billion taxpayer subsidy from the Harper government and even an extra $60 million in the most recent budget, the CBC disagrees with the government’s positions on crime and immigration.

Read the full story here.

This action alleges that CBC breached the terms of a Surplus Allocation Agreement with Plan members, pursuant to which surplus in the Plan was historically apportioned between CBC, active employees and CBC Pensioners.

Read more here.

The CBC, as every taxpayer should know, loses $1.2 billion a year. If it didn't lose $1.2 billion a year, then there would be no need for the taxpayer to prop it up every year with $1.2 billion of its money.

So why then is the CBC, funded by the government, paying the same government some $600,000 for the television rights to our Canada Day celebrations when a private sector broadcaster purchasing the rights could actually put money in our pockets?

Read the full story here.

A cable from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to officials in Washington says CBC, "the state-owned" broadcaster, "has long gone to great pains to highlight the distinction between Americans and Canadians."

Read the full story here.

The CBC said the Jewish Defence League (JDL) is a terrorist group.

The Canadian government has an official list of about 50 terrorist groups. You can see them on the website of the department of Public Safety. The JDL isn’t on them.

It’s slander. But it’s standard operating procedure at the CBC. These are the same folks that led the witch hunt accusing our Canadian Forces of being war criminals in Afghanistan.

Read the full story here.

Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams is refusing to speak to the CBC after someone mentioned his marital problems on a live radio panel discussion on the station.

Read the full story here.

You may be paying for CBC to celebrate its 75th anniversary but don’t expect the state broadcaster to tell you what it is spending on the celebrations.

CBC cites several reasons for refusing to release costs, including that to do so would be against the economic interests of Canada and that the information is “advice or recommendations developed by or for a government institution or a minister of the Crown” and so, apparently, not accessible.

CBC president Hubert Lacroix has told MPs that “only a judge” - not an officer of Parliament - can tell his organization what to release.

Read the full story by clicking here.

A senior Conservative cabinet minister has blasted the CBC for refusing to publish the photos and names of 30 suspected war criminals living in Canada illegally.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews sounded off against the CBC during a Winnipeg radio show on CJOB Tuesday.

Read the full story here.

CBC anchor Tom Murphy peered sternly into the camera during the six o’clock TV news on Tuesday to deliver the day’s top story: “Confirmation tonight of what many Nova Scotians have long suspected,” Murphy said with a knowing shake of his head. “We pay more in taxes than anywhere else in the country.”

Yet the report also says: “Within Canada, Nova Scotia’s average total effective tax rate is third highest among the provinces.”

Read the full story here.

It's been a week now since I blasted the CBC for web-printing an appalling Heather Mallick column that — among other charming riffs — compared Sarah Palin to a "porn actress," and speculated witlessly on the manner of copulation of Palin's underage daughter.

Read the full story here.

Speaking to CBC's Q talk show -- where else? -- Moore said CBC was not outside Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's pronouncement that all government departments would be subject to finding a minimum of 5% in budget cuts.

But then, lo and behold, the latest federal budget quietly gave the CBC an extra $60 million in welfare.
That pushes its annual stipend to almost $1.2 billion.

Now, for all you math geniuses who didn't go to school just for recess, what's 5% of $1.2 billion?
Right you are. It's exactly $60 million.

Heritage Minister Moore gives the CBC $60 million with no specific earmark so all it has to do is hand the cheque back to meet Flaherty's demand for a 5% cut.

Read the full story here.

What the CBC is doing regarding their asinine phony policy on the 30 suspected war criminals hiding in Canada defies all logic.

The CBC refused to publish the names and pictures of those wanted by federal authorities and they re-stated this “policy” in the same article featuring one suspect picked up due to tips from the public.

Read the full discussion here.