The Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-onge, announced on Thursday a plan to review CBC/Radio-Canadá to underpin an institution that, according to her, is “at a critical crossroads”, but which is necessary since the country faces US threats to his sovereignty.
By launching a program that is unlikely to be promulgated by the current government given the probability of a federal choice at some point, St-Juge said that the “US multimillion-dollar technological oligarchs are squeezing their control over the flow of information and Canada You need to revive its almost almost the centenary public broadcaster of “telling our own stories”, saying that it is a “national security problem” that much of what the consume the Canadians is generated elsewhere.
“More than ever it is important to trust our own sources of information, made by and for Canadians,” he said.
“CBC will never be controlled by Musk or Zuckerberg. It will never belong to multi -million dollar technological oligarch Meta, Facebook and Instagram owner.
“It is not a liberal or conservative problem. It is a commitment to ourselves, our culture and our independence,” he added, saying that the CBC was formed for the first time in 1936 to give the Canadians a source of news and entertainment of their own harvest When it was much of that content. American.
To improve the quality of the programming of the corporation in both English and French, the availability of “reliable, local and impartial news” increases and make the station a more reliable source of information during emergencies, ST-ANGE is launching an increase in funds that could almost double its annual appropriation.
She said that per capita financing for CBC/Radio-Canada is approximately $ 33.66, the second lowest in the world developed ahead of the United States.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-onge said his vision for the public broadcaster “should be included in any type of plan that the next government present when it comes to protecting Canada against the current global context.” ST-ANGE says that the amount of exact financing will be decided by the next prime minister.
This level of financing has been approximately the same for years and has not been significantly adjusted by inflation, said St-onge.
The minister said that the parliamentary appropriation of the public broadcaster should be closer to the average per capita financing of $ 62.20 of the other G7 countries.
She said that the exact level of financing will be determined by a future prime minister or finance minister, but proposed that she should increase over time as the emission mandate evolves.
The minister said that citing government investigation, there is a direct link between the level of financing of a public broadcaster and its performance, which suggests that an infusion in cash would bring more ocular to the content of the station, promoting the quota of market and the trust of citizens.
In addition to an increase in appropriation, ST-ONGE proposes to get the financing of the public broadcaster from the normal budget process, which is subject to the political whims of the day, and embeds the financing formula in a separate act of the Parliament so that The money is pre -established based on population levels.
St-Juge said he would offer the station “stable and predictable funds” and reduce the risk of political touch-ups.
The conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has promised for a long time to define CBC, but maintain his service in French, Radio-Canadá. He has said that there is no need for English content because other stations can fill the void, pointing out conventional television classifications that show that CBC is a lag.
It is a message that he delivered again on Thursday in Toronto when asked about the government’s proposal.
“We are going to reduce the wasteful expense, not only there, but throughout the government to reduce inflation, deficits and taxes,” he said.
ST-ANGE, who has not backed a liberal leadership candidate in the race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said he hopes that people compete for the main work that some of these proposals assume. She said she would support the candidate who has the best plan to build the CBC.
CBC/Radio-Canada received around $ 1.4 billion in government funds last year, according to the annual report of the company.
If a future government promotes financing to the G7 average, as proposed by ST-ANGE, the corporation funds could increase to around $ 2.5 billion a year.
In return, St-Juge wants to do more than CBC/Radio-channel offers without ads and without rates so that “Canadians do not have to pay twice,” he said.
The English transmission service of the Corporation, GEM, offers a premium option without commercial for a rate. The CBC podcast division also sometimes charges a rate for early access to some of its programs.
St-Juge said that, in exchange for an impulse in financing, it will require that there are no advertisements on news, public issues and programming of “information”, on television, radio or online.
St-Juge said that making the announcement of CBC without ads would give other media in conflict because those dollars of ads would flow from the corona corporation to commercial issuers, newspapers, other transmission platforms, podcasters and the like. CBC Radio is already advertisement.
The minister also wants the corporation to respond more to what the Canadians want of their public broadcaster and is presenting amendments to the Broadería Law, which governs the corporation, to force CBC to make more public consultations “on related issues With their priorities and strategies.
That would approach the station “closer to people” and address CBC’s frequent statements “is not receptive to listening to different points of view.”
ST-ANGE is also proposing governance reform to reduce accusations that the station is controlled by the political party in power.
Instead that the federal cabinet directly designates the Iso station CEO, ST-ANGE proposes that the CBC board of directors choose the person so that the corporation isolates them from the statements that the government offers are making.
After facing pointed criticisms about the corporation of the corporation to deliver management bonds and at the same time announce a plan to cut workers, ST-ANGE said that the CEO’s salary should be established by the Board, not by an order Cabinet on the Council, since it is now.
