JOHNSON – The CBC Part 1: Pierre Poilievre and his ‘defunding’ promise

This is the first installment of a three-part column revolving around the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s desire to ‘defund the CBC’.
These three parts will be published in this space one per week for three weeks.

• The CBC – Part 1 – Pierre Poilievre ‘defunding’. (below) revolves around recent news and stories surrounding what Poilievre is saying and what he is not, what he can legally do, and what he can not do, to the CBC.
• The CBC – Part 2 – Liberal or liberal. Discusses big and small L liberalism, the Liberal party and the CBC.  Is there collusion?  Is the CBC actually the ‘propaganda arm of the Liberals’.  How much is real and how much is misunderstood hyperbole?
• The CBC – Part 3 – is this writers Hot Take on CBC TV vs CBC Radio – is there a difference? And an opinion what to do moving forward if the CBC does have to change.

Part 1 – The CBC – and Pierre Poilievre ‘defunding the CBC’.

A WHILE BACK, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was loudly barking up the defund CBC tree, a common Conservative Party leader bit of rhetoric since even before Stephen Harper’s days, who tried his best to slash its funding, and stuffed the CBC board with Conservative cronies.

Oh, the glory days of a majority government … when we learned what prorogue really means.

Poilievre’s pitch to ‘defund the CBC’ earned cheers during last year’s leadership campaign.

He also says he supports Radio-Canada’s French speaking radio services in Quebec.

When asked how he reconciles those two things, he suggested maintaining support for services tailored to francophone minorities.  He explained that the only justification for a public broadcaster is to provide content the private market does not, the French market being under-served.

In his view, this is not the case for CBC’s English services, because “the news is available across the country by private English-speaking broadcasters.” He does not comment at all when asked about non news CBC broadcasts, which is over 90% of actual programming.

When asked about radio stations in indigenous languages on the CBC, he didn’t answer.

To better understand the background, we need to discuss the CBC funding model.
The CBC is funded directly from Parliament as an annual budget line for national radio and TV services, and the budget as a whole, is voted on by Parliament.

‘Publicly funded’ is how the CBC is defined, which by definition means the sitting government has no editorial or otherwise control of these services.

‘Government funded’ means a media service, funded by the actual government in power, without acquiescence of Parliament or any elected body, and can be therefore under budgetary and in many cases editorial control, by the government of the day.

‘Government run’ media are common in more dictatorial led countries like China and Russia, where media are specifically under full editorial control by government.

The CBC by law, via the Broadcasting Act, operates as an independent media organization, even if it receives its funding from the public purse.  This is how public broadcasting works in Canada, the UK, Australia and many democratic countries with an independent media provider that the elected body or government financially supports.

How that monetary resource is spent is determined by the CBC’s mandate within the Broadcasting Act, and uses population ratios and programming directives to serve as many people as it can, using the funds it is given.  The government can not determine how those dollars are allocated, and by law the government of the day can not influence the work done by the CBC.

It is specifically illegal for any sitting government in Canada to call up the CBC and require the CBC to editorialize in any way; positive to the aims and goals of government or not. 

Without a doubt some people will read that line and think ‘ya … right’, but it is an operational fact, and since the Act’s inception, no government has succeeded in even trying to influence the CBC … as the CBC would have announced it as a great news piece to lead off the National News, and government knows that.

Can Poilievre do what he claims he wants to do?

Poilievre’s plan to drop all of the CBC except for French Radio services, would force the CBC to target public money at only one very specific cultural language group. That is fundamentally illegal under the Broadcasting Act, because the Act must conform with the Charter of Rights, by law. All laws must conform with the Charter.

The Act requires the CBC to provide programming in both French and English as well as eight indigenous languages, and the government does not have input as to how resources are allocated to accomplish that.

Peter Menzies, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former vice-chair of the CRTC, said that government prescribing how the CBC can use the money, requires a redo of the legislation entirely, adding, “I’m not sure politicians really want to go down the road of giving francophones better service with public money than we’re going to give anglophones.  Preferring one piece of society over another, particularly linguistically, opens a door you probably don’t really want to open.”

A salient observation.

About 40 per cent of CBC’s total funding flows to the French Radio-Canada.

That means Poilievre’s plan will only cut 60% of the budget … so when he says “defund”, he proves he is using an easy word for us unwashed masses to absorb.

While visiting Edmonton recently, Poilievre was asked whether he was prepared to amend the Federal Broadcasting Act as it pertains to the CBC and its French-language services. He did not answer, but instead sidestepped; “the CBC is the biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party.” He has never answered this legal question, which means he is avoiding anything that derails his intended rhetoric.

He is likely unable to make such legislation amendments once in power and he knows that, which means his actual “defund the CBC” and “just keep French services” rhetoric is all just pre-election fly-paper attractant.

The Quebec ploy is obvious; allowing French CBC programming to continue is simply to satisfy as much Quebec support as possible in the next election.  In fact, it appears this is only a carefully designed angle to use the CBC to steal a couple Montreal ridings from the Bloc and Liberals.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has commented that Poilievre’s proposal caters to the most devoted parts of Blanchet’s own base, and that Radio-Canada serves an essential role for Quebec and the French language in Canada.

Do we really think Poilievre has any vested interest in the listening habits of Quebecers?

So … what else is Poilievre doing?

It appears he is succeeding at feeding noise to the head-bobbing anglophone, western F-Trudeau masses, without ostracizing urban Montreal voters, all while adding this to the endless list of anti Liberal bell ringing, and his little crusade to ‘defund the CBC’ has little to do with genuine concerns about journalistic integrity.

The reality is, Poilievre publicly begrudges the CBC yet in the same breath leaves the French radio services alone, and will not answer any questions about it, nor any questions about CBC indigenous services, nor discuss any relevant laws that he has to abide by.

These are the details that would confuse any short soundbite-lightbulb-moth attracting vote;

Keep it simple …
keep it clean …
“defund the CBC, except for Quebec votes” …
don’t answer questions about quirky things like the law …
… … … cue mic drop.

Today’s politics is about the 10-word soundbite, accuracy, even the law, be damned.

This is also his primary fundraising tactic to promoting base conservatism whenever near a microphone, and the CBC is just another bit of subject fodder.  Poilievre knows he can’t change the law and defund the CBC like he says he will, but if talking about it gets him elected, then it’s fair game.

Trudeau is unfortunately helping the Tories build their election war chest by accusing the Conservatives of “constantly attacking independent media organizations and journalists who are working hard to keep Canadians informed and support our democracy.”

Does he not realize that his praise for the CBC helps make the Tory Leader’s point for him?

Besides, it is a bit rich for Mr. Trudeau to criticize Mr. Poilievre for attacking the public broadcaster when his own father wrote the book on CBC-bashing. Pierre Trudeau’s ire was usually directed at Radio-Canada, which he lambasted as “a nest of separatists” and Parti Québécois sympathizers.

Those were the days, eh?

Legally, to “defund the CBC’ entirely, Poilievre will have to try to ram a bill through the House that may be contrary to the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by treating English, Indigenous and French peoples unequally … in other words, create illegal legislation, an act of which in itself … is illegal.

No government may make law, by way of a bill that contravenes any existing law, or the Charter.

The scam is … Poilievre knows that but he doesn’t care; the election is more than two years away.  Nothing he says now means anything. The only goal is to attract easily gotten votes and fundraise.  It’s all about the long game.  It’s all about the election.

What he COULD do, should he attain office, is seriously cut the CBC’s overall federal funding.
It would be his budget to create.  That was Harper’s approach.

The question to be asked is why would he do this?  Would doing so follow a basic Conservative belief against publicly funded social structures … or is it a political attempt to lessen the importance of progressivism or societal liberal (small L) ideologies?

Poilievre’s target here, is to brand the CBC as the ‘biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party’ at the very least, and at worst, the mouthpiece of Trudeau and big L Liberal Party ideology.

For now, when Pierre Poilievre is speaking to an issue, hear him from the perspective of a guy whose only goal is to win an election two years from now, and will say anything he has to.

 Next Week; The CBC – Part 2 – Liberal or liberal.  Discusses big and small L liberalism, the Liberal party and the CBC.  Is there collusion?  Is the CBC the ‘propaganda arm of the Liberals’. How much is real and how much is rhetorical redirection?

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.