The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) continues to bite the hands that feed it and to take unfair advantage of the arms-length relationships it has through involuntary taxpayer contributions to the public trough at which it feeds. We appreciate the work done by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), which continues its good work of digging up information that Catherine Tait, the CBC’s President, is trying to hide from beleaguered taxpayers. Strange that a corporation claiming to be a source of news tries its best to keep this bad news from the public.

It turns out that 1450 CBC employees had annual salaries over $100,000 each last year; their average salary was $125,000. In addition, 45 CBC executives received bonuses averaging $73,000 . . . a total of $3.3 million. The total of bonuses paid to all CBC employees and executives was $18.4 million.

The justification for the bonuses? Nowhere to be found. Viewership and audience continues to shrink. And they were paid out while most Canadians are struggling to pay their bills.

The most startling figure was—of course—the salary and bonuses paid out to CBC President, Catherine Tait. Her annual salary, bonuses and benefits total somewhere between $472,900 and $623,900. Basically, half a million dollars. For what? First of all, the range itself is disturbing. Why is there not a single dollar figure instead of a range of $151,000? Do these people not sign binding contracts? Secondly, why on earth would we pay a CBC executive this kind of obscene figure? Thirdly, since when were bonuses seen as a predictable and expected part of your annual salary? I thought a bonus was a rare and unexpected reward for exceptional performance, not a routine part of your pay package.

And it’s not as if the CBC were performing a valuable function in helping to guide Canadians toward higher moral standards. For decades, their reporting and opinion pieces (often indistinguishable to the unsuspecting listener) have tended to promote abortion, gender confusion and climate alarmism. During the Covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates, truckers’ convoy and related issues, the CBC parroted and magnified government talking points. Their commentary dripped with disparaging remarks about those who resisted the “safe and effective” narrative. For Canadian taxpayers, who have managed to find the truth about many of these issues, it adds insult to injury that we have to pay out of our own pockets $1.4 billion every year to propagandize our fellow citizens with misinformation, bias and innuendo that will result in poor choices at the ballot box and poorer policies and legislation coming from Parliament and the PMO.

I believe most Canadians—if they knew how much CBC was wasting on executive pay and bonuses . . . and how badly the news has been distorted to promote anti-life, anti-family, anti-freedom policies—would demand an end to taxpayer funding of this colossal propaganda machine. You can sign CTF’s petition to end taxpayer funding of CBC here.

The Christian Heritage Party, (CHP Canada) has long called for the defunding of the CBC and the end of media bailouts. Besides the horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars, we object to government propaganda being imposed on generations of future voters and taxpayers who are being deliberately deceived and misinformed by overpaid and biased media activists. Cutting media funding would be one key to achieving our goal of balanced budgets and might—as a beneficial side-effect—lead to higher journalistic standards . . . no more passing off shabby opinion pieces as news reporting. Visit chp.ca to learn more.