Our Priorities

Public Broadcasting

When the CBC was originally created, it was intended to be the nation’s public square – a place where we come together, to learn about each other, to share our tragedies and triumphs, our struggles, and our histories. For many decades, the CBC did just that and, in the process, became a world leader in broadcasting.

But after years of underfunding and neglect, the CBC’s ability to fulfil its public mandate is increasingly coming under threat.  That’s why we continue to call on the government to provide our national public broadcaster with the tools and resources it needs to properly serve the public. Canadians deserve a strong and vital CBC – one that they can be proud of for generations to come.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OTTAWA, MARCH 28, 2023 – Marla Boltman, Executive Director for FRIENDS, made the following statement:

“FRIENDS is frustrated that, once again, the government has failed to make good on its commitment to provide the CBC with more funding. During the last federal election, the Liberals promised to increase funding to our national public broadcaster to reduce its reliance on advertising dollars. Now, two budgets later, Canadians and, more to the point, the CBC, are still waiting.

In order to fulfill its mandate, our national public broadcaster needs sustainable and steadily rising funding over a 10-year term. Only a commitment of this magnitude will send the much-needed message to Canadians that our government believes in a strong national public broadcaster. Without it, there is little counter-voice in Ottawa to the ill-informed calls to defund the CBC.

There is still time in this government’s mandate to make good on its promise to Canadians. If they fail to do so, FRIENDS and Canadians across the country will be there to remind them come election time.”

For more information:

Sarah Andrews
Director of Government and Media Relations
sarah@friends.ca
613-808-7255

February 9, 2024

The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, P.C., M.P.
Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Finance
Finance Canada
James M. Flaherty Building
90 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G5

Dear Minister Freeland,

Thank you for this opportunity to provide recommendations in advance of the 2024 Federal Budget.

Friends of Canadian Media (formerly FRIENDS) is a non-partisan citizens’ movement that stands up for Canadian voices in Canadian media – from public broadcasting to news, culture, and online civil discourse – we work to protect and defend Canada’s rich cultural sovereignty and the healthy democracy it sustains. With the successful passing of the Online News Act and the Online Streaming Act, now is the time to turn our collective minds to CBC/Radio-Canada, one of our country’s most vital yet most underfinanced public institutions.

As you know, funding for CBC/Radio-Canada has consistently been slashed since the 1980s. Every prime minister from Brian Mulroney to Stephen Harper has left it worse off than did their predecessor. While your government began investing in our national public broadcaster at the beginning of its first mandate, in constant dollars, funding for CBC/Radio-Canada on a per capita basis has not been this low since 1961. At the same time, it faces increasing demands to provide more programming, in more languages, and on more platforms, all under extreme inflationary conditions.

To make matters worse, we are now seeing a wave of threats to our national public broadcaster’s very existence. Certain politicians would gladly see CBC/Radio-Canada defunded. At a time when misinformation and political tribalism threaten our democratic discourse and undermine the role of credible journalism in public life, Canadians need and want a strong CBC/Radio-Canada more than ever. In fact, research commissioned by Friends of Canadian Media shows that 55% of Canadians surveyed “absolutely trust CBC/Radio-Canada to be reliable and truthful” and a further 58% agreed that CBC/Radio-Canada should continue to receive government funding.

With Heritage Minister St-Onge committed to helping re-define the role of our national public broadcaster, these numbers will, no doubt, grow in the long term. But no matter how novel or enlightened the suggestions of the Heritage Minister’s expert advisory panel may be, more money will be required to move the needle in any meaningful way. And including CBC/Radio-Canada as one of the Crown Corporations required to reduce their annual spending by 3.33% is antithetical to this potential progress. With 800 job cuts already under way, these further reductions will play right into the hands of those who will jump at any opportunity to depict our national public broadcaster as outdated, ineffective, and irrelevant.

But perhaps most importantly, in this climate of recurrent and devasting private media layoffs, we run the risk of the local news deserts that we have seen in print now coming to broadcast news. CBC/Radio-Canada is the only Canadian broadcaster required under the Broadcasting Act to provide news and information programming in all regions across the country. As private broadcasters continue to abandon news, particularly local news, our national public broadcaster must be given the resources both to fill this void and fulfill its legislative mandate. Otherwise, these holes will be filled by more and more special interest groups, misinformation, and disinformation.

With all of the above in mind, we submit that you should exempt CBC/Radio-Canada from the 3.33% Crown Corporation budget freeze announced last year and that Budget 2024 should contain sustainable and steadily rising funding over a 10-year term for CBC/Radio-Canada, providing it with both the resources it needs to fulfill its evolving mandate, and the certainty that arises from stable finances. This kind of financial commitment will send a message to all Canadians that their government believes in CBC/Radio-Canada and the essential and trusted role it plays in Canadian public life.

As part of this process, Friends of Canadian Media would also like to lend its support to the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO) and the Black Screen Office (BSO). Through the passing of Bill C-11, the government has been unequivocal in its support for storytelling that reflects the viewpoints of Indigenous persons and Canadians from Black communities. We, therefore, submit that the ISO and BSO should be provided with a minimum of three years of stable and predictable operational funding to ensure the empowerment of Indigenous people and Black Canadians working in the cultural industries.

All of which is respectively submitted,

Marla Boltman, Executive Director

cc: The Honourable Pascale St-Onge, P.C., M.P., Minister of Canadian Heritage;
Ms. Rachel Bendayen, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance

Alongside sustainable funding, we need legislation to guard against a quiet, uncontested end to the CBC with the mere stroke of Prime Minister Poilievre’s pen or a reversal of budgetary priorities.

Pierre Poilievre says he wants to defund the CBC. We should believe him.

In fact, we should be moving now to put in place a plan to resist him, to defend the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from those who, like the would-be Conservative prime minister, seek to defund it.

Read the full op-ed in The Hill Times.

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