
The CBC exploits its unfair advantage
Not satisfied with its $1.5-billion annual taxpayer subsidy, the Crown corporation is pilfering money from a fund that should be reserved for private publishers
Have you heard the good news, Fort Mac? The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is expanding its bureau in the northern Alberta city, to peddle its anti-fossil fuel, pro-Liberal agenda in an area that produces the majority of Canada’s oil and hasn’t elected a Grit since Elvis Presley topped the charts.
The public broadcaster announced on Wednesday that it will hire up to 30 journalists to work in “underserved communities” throughout Canada. Expanding local news coverage is, of course, a good thing, but the only reason the CBC is able to do this is because it is pilfering an estimated $7 million a year from the $100 million that Google agreed to pay Canadian news publishers on an annual basis to remain exempted from the Online News Act.
In making the announcement, CBC editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon said the public broadcaster decided to “dedicate the new funding to the hiring of local journalists in underserved communities.” But if that’s true, it means that each new hire will be paid $228,666 a year (once admin fees are subtracted from the total payout) — 340 per cent more than what the average Canadian journalist makes, according to glassdoor.ca.
Or perhaps some of the money will be set aside to fund the $18.4 million in bonuses the CBC paid its executives last year, after laying off 800 workers throughout the country, or to underwrite more CanCon that few people have any interest in watching. Some of it will surely go toward beefing up vanity projects like its Gem streaming service, which the broadcaster says will be adding more local news streams.
Either way, Canadians should be outraged that a Crown corporation that already receives around $1.5 billion a year in taxpayer funds would be included in a deal intended to compensate news organizations for Google’s use of their intellectual property.