Mr. Speaker, I move that the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, presented on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, be concurred in.

It will be interesting to talk today about the concurrence motion coming out of the heritage committee. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

I have been on the heritage committee for years now, but last month I asked my constituents of Saskatoon—Grasswood for their views on the public broadcaster, the CBC. It was in response to the CBC paying out bonuses that added up to over $18 million, which were approved by the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Privy Council. Of that sum, $3.3 million went directly to CBC executives. Forty-five executives had their hands in the pocket of that $3.3 million, and it averaged out to $73,000 each for one year in bonuses. I could not believe the number. I see that even some Liberals are shaking their heads. They cannot believe that number either just for the executives.

I asked in a mail-out what we should do going forward with the CBC. Should we do nothing or keep it as is? Should we keep the CBC but make some changes, or simply defund it? Defunding the CBC has been the narrative of this party for months, if not a year and a half now, and for very good reason. I had literally hundreds of responses. It was probably the best response I have had in the nine years I have been a member of Parliament. Some 86.5% were in support of overhauling or even defunding the entire operation of the CBC.

CBC CEO Catherine Tait admitted recently, about two weeks ago, that Canadians want to defund the CBC entirely. She was caught off guard that Canadians were talking about defunding her operation. She said that maybe she should have responded sooner to the public's outcry on how the corporation is compensated by the federal government.

In its corporate plan summary, tabled in the House of Commons, the CBC said viewers are leaving television, especially young people. They are going to streaming devices and have been doing so for many years. That is certainly not a surprise. However, a big surprise to me was the ad revenue. It has dropped another 9.6% in the last 12 months, which is a concern. I think trust in the CBC News organization, as we have seen across this country, has also dropped.

Here we have trust, viewership and revenue dropping, but what did not drop? The bonuses did not drop, surprise, surprise. In the last year, $18 million was handed out, and when Ms. Tait came before the heritage committee for the third time, she talked about the key performance indicators, better known as KPIs. She said that those determine the bonus structure. Amazingly, despite viewership, revenue and trust dropping, the bonuses remained. Why? Well, the CBC honchos, in their wisdom, decided to lower the key standards from a year ago so they could justify the rich bonuses. Only CBC executives would huddle up and determine that despite everything going down, they needed to protect their bonuses. They agreed to this and the Liberals bought in, agreeing to $18 million for the top-up.

Since 2018, CBC viewership has collapsed nearly 50% and the CBC has failed to meet 79% of its key performance targets. Did I mention that the executives who got these bonuses were the same ones responsible a little over a year ago for cutting 800 jobs? These cuts amounted to about 10% of the entire workforce of CBC/Radio-Canada. The federal government, as we know, compensates the CBC. It gives the CBC about $1.3 billion a year, so the public broadcaster, to me, already has a head start over the private broadcasters in this country.

It does not stop there. It is even worse, believe it or not. The CBC was given millions in last year's fall economic statement. It was 21 million gift dollars last year, and another $21 million this year. On top of that, it generates about $400 million in ads, even though, as I just talked about, ad revenue is going down. Canadians need to understand that their government is choosing to give more than $1.3 billion to a company that already makes $400 million in advertising. Canadians are tired of their money being spent on bonuses for absolutely dismal performance.

I questioned CBC/Radio-Canada's CEO at the Canadian heritage committee. Hundreds wrote in to us and others and took to social media to express their dismay about the arrogance and entitlement at a time when so many are hurting in this country. It is astonishing. One person said, “These elites live in their own bubble, protected from us by their entitlements and their social status. They simply do not care what we think, and are shocked that we would speak up against them. It is time to clean out the corrupt federal bureaucracy the Liberals have built.”

Broadcasters need to have accountability and fairness for people to have trust in them. How can Canadians possibly have any faith in an institution that rewards its executives after cutting hundreds of jobs in the last year? Canadians are tired of seeing their taxpayer funds mismanaged by the Prime Minister and his cabinet. It is no wonder nobody trusts the government anymore with their money.

The Liberals fail to see that Canadians are struggling in every aspect of their lives. Their response is that they will give $18 million to the CBC, to their corporate buddies, at a time when a record number of Canadians are heading to food banks. In my city of Saskatoon, there was an outcry yesterday by the Saskatoon Food Bank, which is asking the public for help, as it is running out of the most essential items it gives out.

The Saskatoon Food Bank has seen a 40% increase since 2019, in five short years, yet the CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada believes it is appropriate to ask for millions of dollars in bonuses for executives after letting hundreds go. It is arrogance and is absolute tone-deafness. The CBC was failing to deliver all along on its key performance indicators, so it just changed the indicators. It lowered them from the year before and thought nobody would notice. Well, we noticed, and obviously Canadians have noticed.

The government has no remorse about giving out massive amounts of money, simply handing it out no questions asked. It is handing money over to the public broadcaster rather than supporting small and medium-sized newspapers. That was the issue with Bill C-18, some may recall. It was a bill designed to help the newspaper industry, but telcos and the CBC, the public broadcaster, took it over. They thought they were going to get millions of dollars. It ended up that Google said it would give them under $100 million and they could disburse it, but there we go again. It was the CBC with its hands out; it was right there. The Liberal government is absolutely out of touch and the CBC is out of touch

That leads me to its CEO, Catherine Tait, who was appointed by the government in 2018. Since taking over, viewership, as I mentioned, has been cut in half. What worries me now is that Catherine Tait has not had a bonus in 2022-23—

Kevin Waugh

$540,517.00