Tax Money for CBC. No Money For Seniors. Where's the Justice?

In a March 25, 2009 press release (full release here) discussing the CBC/Radio-Canada 2009-2010 business plan and the then current financial crisis, CBC President and CEO Hubert Lacroix said that "people are the foundation of our success.  We've done and will continue to do everything we can to minimize the impact on our staff.  But in a company where 60 per cent of the overall budget goes to salaries, it's simply impossible to bridge a gap of this magnitude without having a major impact on people" Documents released (here) by the CBC show that executives at the vice-president level (of which there are 8) earn between $173,000 and $375,000.  It's now being reported (here) that 730 employees at the taxpayer funded CBC are earning more than $100,000 a year.  It is a fact that the "people (who) are at the foundation of our success" are being looked after.  But at what cost to the Canadian Taxpayer? Prime Minister Harper is at a crossroads.  When Mr Harper was asked by a CBC reporter in Winnipeg in 2004 to comment on his plans for the CBC he stated: "I've suggested that government subsidies in support of CBC's services should be to those things that are not ... do not have commercial alternatives". Today, as there were then, there are commercial alternatives to public broadcasting.  There are many private broadcasters in Canada that are doing this job today and they don't need another competitor (that is subsidized) bidding against them to bring programming to Canadian viewers. In a universe of 500 plus channels, having the CBC paying hundreds of employees hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with taxpayer money (to the tune of 1.2 billion a year) makes absolutely no sense at all.  With the debates going on in Parliament today about taking money away from seniors who have planned their retirement, Prime Minister Harper should remember his musings from years ago.  1.2 billion dollars a year would help these Canadian Seniors and finally put a plug in the CBC Money Drain. Where's the Justice?

730 CBC employees make over $100,000 a year ...

How much does Peter Mansbridge make?  How about Rick Mercer?

While we don't know exact figures, you can bet those two gentlemen are among the 730 CBC employees who earn more than $100,000 a year.

While the CBC did disclose that approximately 730 employees are paid more than $100,000 a year, the taxpayer funded corporation won't tell Parliament who they are and exactly how much they earn.

The only employee whose salary range and expenses the broadcaster was willing to divulge was CBC/Radio-Canada President Hubert Lacroix. The CBC said Lacroix's salary, set by the Governor in Council, was between $358,400 and $421,600 in 2011.

Lacroix is also provided with a 2011 Ford Taurus and a driver who earns between $34,000 and $56,500, according to the iPolitics report.

Read the full story here.

730 CBC employees make over $100,000 a year?

What do you think of this?  This is YOUR tax money!

CBC taking bite out of ... Apple?!

The Canadian government has decided to start a new business, and go head-to-head with Apple’s phenomenally successful iTunes online music store.

Others have tried to take on Apple. Canada’s most successful hi-tech company, Research in Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, is having a tough time battling Apple’s iPhone.

It’s not surprising — Apple has a growing army of loyal customers and a constant stream of new products.

They made a $26 billion profit last year, and are sitting on $98 billion in cash. The only people more fanatic than Apple customers are Apple employees.

This is the market the Conservative government has set its sights on. The government’s Crown corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, announced last week it’s going to jump into the online music business.

Let’s compare the two competitors. The CBC is creaking under the weight of no fewer than 10 different labour unions; its corporate culture is a toxic mix of entitlement and work-to-rule sullenness; it’s run by political appointees, not real business executives. And they’re going to take a run at Apple’s iTunes, which has 88% of the legal online market for music sales. Apple has sold more than 10 billion songs online and now sells TV shows, movies and computer applications online.

The CBC is a failure at what it does now. It blows through $1.1 billion a year, and it has been made irrelevant by the 500-channel universe. It no longer has a rationale, other than inertia. It’s less relevant than ever, but more arrogant than ever.

Read the full story here.

PS - What do YOU think?

Star and CBC are Fordophobic

The CBC is no better. They reported Ford dialed 911, called the operators “bitches” and said, “I am Rob (Bleeping) Ford, the mayor of this city.”

Police Chief Bill Blair says he has heard the 911 tape and the CBC story is wrong.

After CBC Ombudsman Kirk Lapointe said Blair’s statement was not reliable as he was an interested party, Blair asked Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Chris Lewis to listen to the tape.

Lewis said Blair’s report of the tape’s contents is accurate.

The CBC has never heard the tape and yet stands by its story.

What happened to journalism at the CBC?

Read the full story here.

CBC feels free to ignore its own ombudsman ...

Kirk LaPointe has been busy. The former television executive and parapetictic newspaper editor — he helped launch the National Post in 1998 — is churning out reports for CBC, where he now serves as ombudsman, responsible for investigating public complaints about perceived violations of the corporation’s “journalistic policies and standards.”

He has just completed five reviews. Six more are underway. Good that he takes his job seriously and is diligent. One has to wonder, though: What’s the point of keeping an ombudsman if the CBC just ignores his work?

Mr. LaPointe could be asking himself the same question after what happened last week, when he released findings on a touchy conflict of interest complaint that involves a CBC reporter, his wife, and his wife’s boss, B.C. Premier Christy Clark.

Read the full story here.

Judges are above politics, Council says ...

The CBC was taken to court by Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault for restricting her ability to examine documents to determine if they can be released through the open-records law.

Boivin ruled in Legault’s favour, but the CBC has appealed his decision.

The Tories are angry about what they say is the use of taxpayers’ money — the CBC gets about $1 billion from the federal government annually — to fund the litigation against a taxpayer-funded official.

 Boivin was named on the list of witnesses submitted by Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, who is also Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Del Mastro told the committee he felt it was “entirely appropriate” to invite Boivin to discuss his ruling.

“Judges are servants of the public. They uphold our laws,” he said. “This specific judge has looked at all the evidence before him, and he has rendered a decision. I think it’s important that the committee hears about that decision and why he came to it.

Read the full story here.

Two federal government departments in legal war with information czar ...

As Conservative MPs denounce the CBC for wasting taxpayers' money by fighting the Information Commissioner in Federal Court, two federal departments are quietly conducting their own legal battles against her.

Tory MPs on the Commons Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee are conducting a study of what one on Tuesday described as an outrageous waste of money in CBC's litigation in Federal Court against Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault.

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wanted the committee to study the case because "my concern is that we have a public entity, the CBC, in court against the Information Commissioner of this House spending millions of dollars fighting each other," he said at a committee hearing last month.

"I think a lot of Canadians would be really troubled to know that we are spending an awful lot of taxpayers' money on a court case where in fact they're funding both sides of it."

Read the full story here.

CBC's Comedy of Errors ...

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 Happy Gang revisited: charting the future of the CBC ...

Back in 1936, every Canadian wanted a radio set. And as prices finally dropped as low as $30 ($500 in today’s currency), one million households welcomed the new technology into the living room, mainly tuning in to American stations with such shows as the beloved Amos ’n’ Andy.

That wasn’t quite what Ottawa had in mind when it founded a national radio network a few years earlier. So on Nov. 2 of that mid-Depression year, the government decided to rechristen its on-air effort the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, granting the network its independence and a mandate to provide Canadians with Canadian entertainment. The new broadcaster cheerfully picked up the competition (Amos ’n’ Andy as well as various American soap operas) but also added The Happy Gang variety show and hockey games to the mix.

These days – as the CBC gets ready for a 75-day countdown to its 75th anniversary – what Canadians want is any gadget that streams content from the Internet. Three-quarters of us have broadband access at home and increasingly we use it not simply to read e-mail or surf the Web but to watch high-quality video programming: Almost one million Canadians have already subscribed to Netflix to stream Hollywood movies and TV shows.

Read the full story here and let us know what you think.

CBC denies, then admits to hiring back retirees ...

CBC hires back dozens of retirees each year as contractors or consultants.


Documents obtained through access to information show that between 2005 and 2007 the state broadcaster hired 125 people who were also receiving an annuity or pension from CBC.

The records took three years to obtain and required the intervention of the federal information commissioner. At first CBC refused to release any records, claiming all records were considered personal information and not subject to the access law.

Read the full story here.

CBC should open up about exec pay: taxpayer group ...

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.

Fifth Estate film found at fault for unfounded facts and false impressions ...

After winning his case in Ontario’s Superior Court, Dr. Leenen said, ‘Four years ago we proposed to settle this law suit for $10,000 and an on-air apology. It was refused…The Fifth Estate persisted and took me through 10 weeks of trial.’

The trial judge awarded very high damages for libel against The Fifth Estate and the CBC as well as individual reporters and producers. The CBC appealed. Ontario’s Court of Appeal disagreed with the CBC, and ruled that Dr. Leenen had been libelled. Finally, the CBC tried to take the case to Canada’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court ruled against the CBC in February, with yet another costs award. Dr. Leenen’s long legal journey is over. The case should be a lesson for documentary producers and journalists everywhere.

What went wrong?

Read the full story here.

Downsized, decentralized CBC remains key goal for Tories: Heritage Minister James Moore ...

Heritage Minister James Moore, at the helm of a federal department mandated to cement Canadian unity by promoting the arts, culture and pride in national history, is surprisingly blunt about what kinds of institutions will thrive and which will suffer in 2012 and beyond under a tight-fisted Conservative government.


“I think those institutions that have broad-based support, who have brought in the private sector, who have an approach to business that doesn’t just entirely depend on taxpayers’ money, are the institutions that are going to be the strongest,” Moore told Postmedia News in a year-end interview.


“But I think those organizations that have been stagnant in the way in which they’ve built themselves are organizations that are not going to have a very happy future.”

Read the full story here.

CBC’s 75th-birthday celebrations cost at least $6.6-million ...

The CBC spent at least $6.6-million to celebrate its 75th birthday, including $300,000 on a CD box set and $590,000 on corporate communications, although the overall budget for anniversary programming is still being kept secret, documents show.

The Crown corporation earmarked a budget of $1.5-million for the celebrations, to be shared between its English- and French-language services for matters such as advertising and various partnerships with federal agencies.

Additional funds came out of the CBC’s existing annual budgets, including $5-million on jubilee-related programming for a series of broadcasts on its French-language radio and television channels.

However, documents released under Access to Information did not include English-language production costs, and a spokesman said on Wednesday that the information is not publicly available at this time.

Read the full story here.

Ivory-tower thinking rampant at the CBC ...

A report that the CBC spent at least $6.6 million to celebrate its 75th birthday highlights a couple of the problems plaguing the high and mighty Mother Corp.

One is that the public broadcaster is allowed to hide the overall budget for the anniversary programming from the taxpayers who fund it.

The other problem is the spending itself. At a time when most private media companies are trying to find nickels under sofas, is it wise for an artificially padded, public media corporation to be spending the better part of $7 million — or whatever the real figure is — on a birthday bash?

Read the full story here.

Why the CBC should be more like HBO ...

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.

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.
Perhaps the present controversy will clinch the case. So long as the CBC is dependent on the public purse, it will always be vulnerable to political pressure and the vagaries of budget cuts. Freed from that dependence, it would be free to chart its own course, accountable neither to advertisers nor to backbenchers, but to those best and wisest of judges, its viewers.

Read the full story here.

CBC boss bills taxpayers for private lunches and fancy hotels ...

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.

The hotel bills itself as "a magnificent limestone edifice with turrets and masonry reminiscent of a French chateau. This luxury hotel in Ottawa enchants guests with its charm and stateliness."

Read the full story here.

Poll blasts CBC use of tax dollars in court ...

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.

Abacus conducted a series of online polls Aug. 12-15 and asked 1,003 people if it is right or wrong for the broadcaster to spend tax dollars on a court battle with the federal information commissioner.

Read the full story here.

What do YOU think?

'Scum_TV' tweeter defends CBC ...

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is gaining some colourful social media friends.

@Scum_TV is a Twitter account followed by at least five CBC employees, including, it appears, their executive vice president.

The accounts aren't verified users by the blue check mark used on Twitter.

Some Sun News Network employees follow the account as well, since they are often targeted in Scum_TV's posts.

Read the full story here.

CBC out of control in Quebec ...

For those of you who are shocked when the English CBC lets its slip show to expose its left-leaning bias, it’s probably because you don’t know the French CBC, which doesn’t even bother wearing anything over its slip.

Over the past few weeks, one of my friends, Frederick Tetu, has been doing a weekly feature called Radio-Canada Watch for a Quebec City radio show, in which he airs a few of the most revealing excerpts illustrating how anti-Conservative the French wing of that Crown corporation has become.

He doesn’t have to look very hard or for very long to find them.

Read the full story here.

It's our party: Fix is in as CBC scoops rights to taxpayer-funded Canada Day celebrations ...

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.