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Trudeau government wants to give CBC more money

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6 minute read

From the Canadian Taxpayers Association

By Kris Sims

The CBC used to air The Simpsons after school.

One of the best episodes was the Cape Fear homage where an FBI agent is trying to change Homer’s last name to Thompson.

After hours of explanation, the kids have fallen asleep, Marge has given up and the agent says, “When I step on your foot and say: ‘Hello Mr. Thompson,’ you nod your head! Got it?!”

Homer did not get it.

The Liberal members of Parliament on the heritage committee still don’t get it either.

The committee has sent a report to the House of Commons urging the government to give the CBC even more money.

“That the Government of Canada provide a substantial and lasting increase in the parliamentary appropriations for CBC/Radio-Canada, allowing it to eliminate its paid subscription services and gradually end its reliance on commercial advertising revenues,” reads the report.

Really? More money? The CBC already takes $1.4 billion year from taxpayers. And that’s not enough?

That amount of money could already cover the salaries of about 7,000 police officers and 7,000 paramedics.

If Trudeau’s MPs want to give the CBC more money so that it can get rid of its advertising and subscription funding, that means a huge cost for taxpayers.

According it’s latest annual report, the CBC collected about $493 million in revenue other than government funding in 2023-24, the bulk being subscription fees and advertising.

This means these Trudeau government MPs want taxpayers to fund the CBC to the tune of about $2 billion per year.

This is the opposite of what needs to happen.

The CBC should be defunded for three key reasons.

The CBC is a huge waste of money, nearly nobody is watching it and journalists should not be paid by the government.

The committee knows this.

And we know they know because the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told them to their faces in testimony before the committee.

CBC CEO Catherine Tait repeatedly testified at the committee and each time she inadvertently made a stronger case to defund the CBC, due to her entitlement and lack of accountability.

Tait refused to say if she will take a severance when she leaves the CBC next year, claiming it’s a personal matter.

It’s not personal if it’s taxpayers’ money.

Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show Tait is paid between $460,000 and $551,000 this year, with a bonus of up to 28 per cent.

That’s a bonus of up to $154,448. That’s more than the average Canadian family earns in a year.

Just before Christmas last year, Tait cried broke to the committee and afterwards the CBC announced lay offs in its newsrooms.

Documents obtained by the CTF show the CBC handed out big bonuses that year anyway, costing taxpayers $18 million.

As the CBC fan group Friends of Canadian Media put it: “This decision is deeply out of touch and unbefitting of our national public broadcaster.”

It gets worse because the state broadcaster isn’t even doing a good job.

According to the CBC’s latest quarterly report, CBC News Network’s national audience share is 1.7 per cent.

Documents obtained by the CTF show the CBC’s supper hour newscast drawing microscopic audiences, with 0.7 per cent of Toronto watching the six o’clock news on CBC.

Journalists should not be paid by the government because it’s an obvious conflict of interest.

You can’t hold the powerful government to account if you’re counting on that government for your paycheque.

Such government funding of media has contributed to the rapid erosion of trust in the news media, with 61 per cent of Canadians saying they think journalists are “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”

CBC’s entertainment programming barely fares better. The Murdoch Mysteries, which is not produced by the CBC, pulls in its biggest audience with about 1.9 per cent of the population watching.

The politicians on the committee know all of this, and yet, like Homer Simpson, they are not getting the message.

If the CBC needs money, it should earn that money itself.

Taxpayers can’t afford the state broadcast’s bill now, let alone hundreds of millions more.

It’s time to defund the CBC.

Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a former member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

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90% of Ukraine news outlets get funding from USAID: new report

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From LifeSiteNews

By Matt Lamb

USAID, targeted by Elon Musk and Donald Trump for cuts, is a heavy funder of news outlets in Ukraine, according to a new report. The agency has come under scrutiny for wasteful and ideological projects.

The United States Aid for International Development (USAID) provides funds to 90 percent of Ukrainian news outlets, according to a new report from the Columbia Journalism Review and Reporters Without Borders.

While much focus has been on USAID and other federal entities subscribing to news outlets such as Politico, a broader issue may be taxpayers paying for news coverage in foreign countries.

Working off data from Reporters Without Borders, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that “USAID had boasted of supporting more than six thousand journalists, around seven hundred independent newsrooms, and nearly three hundred media-focused civil society groups in thirty or so countries.”

The Trump administration reportedly froze $268 million for these endeavors.

“RSF also noted the harsh effect on journalism in Ukraine, where 90 percent of news organizations rely on USAID funding, some very heavily,” the Journalism Review reported.

The United States has spent nearly $66 billion on direct military assistance to Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia. Taxpayers have sent another $120 billion or so to the country in other foreign aid, according to an inspector general report current as of September 30, 2024.

The journalism groups released the reports ostensibly to defend U.S. funding of outlets.

On a related issue, the Trump administration is also cutting off taxpayer-funded subscriptions that government employees set up with news outlets.

“I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers’ dime will no longer be happening,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press conference yesterday.

“The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now,” she said.

She stated further:

Again, this is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal government’s books. And this president and his team are making decisions across the board on ‘Do these receipts serve the interests of the American people? Is this a good use of the American taxpayers’ money? If it is not, that funding will no longer be sent abroad and American taxpayers will be seeing significant savings because of that effort.

Conservatives celebrated the news.

“The Federal Government is not a good steward of your tax dollars,” Josh Tanner, an Idaho state representative, wrote on X. “They spent $8 Million on propaganda media. This is even more of a reason for Idaho tax dollars to be accounted for, applied appropriately, and reduced where necessary. The Fed has failed, our state must succeed.”

“Even if the govt money to Politico wasn’t an outright grant, providing $8 Million in taxpayers funds for ‘subscriptions’ to a super Lefty publication is just absurd and abusive to hard-working Americans!” conservative commentator Steve Cortes wrote.

payroll issue with Politico‘s payroll was initially blamed on the funding freeze, though the company said it was a “technical error” that created the problem.

USAID under scrutiny, uses tax dollars to promote DEI around the world

The Trump administration has closed, at least temporarily, USAID. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now the administrator of the agency, which has funded a variety of ideological projects across the globe.

“USAID has a history of ignoring [the national interest of the United States] and deciding that they’re a global charity. These are not donor dollars, these are taxpayer dollars,” Secretary Rubio said recently.

Leavitt highlighted some of the ideological and wasteful projects funded through this agency, including “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workforce.”

The agency has also been used to pressure conservative, poorer countries into adopting pro-abortion policies, as LifeSiteNews previously reported.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce highlighted other wasteful projects in a post on X.

She listed projects the freeze had stopped, including “$16 million in unjustified funding for institutional contractors in the gender development offices,” “$4 million to unjustified funding for the Center for Climate-Positive Development,” and “$600,000 to fund technical assistance for family planning in Latin America.”

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Improve competitiveness, end capital gains tax hike immediately

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By Franco Terrazzano 

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc to end the capital gains tax hike following Liberal leadership front-runner Mark Carney’s commitment to reverse the tax increase.

“The government’s capital gains tax hike is a big sign telling entrepreneurs to set up shop in other countries before next year,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Every candidate with a shot at becoming prime minister says they will scrap the capital gains tax hike, so LeBlanc needs to end it now.

“Especially with a looming trade war, the easiest way for the government to make Canada’s economy more competitive is by immediately ending the capital gains tax hike.”

LeBlanc announced that the government is postponing enforcement of the capital gains tax increase from June 25, 2024, to Jan. 1, 2026.

Today, Carney announced he would reverse the capital gains tax increase if he becomes prime minister. The other Liberal leadership front-runner, Chrystia Freeland, also promises to reverse the tax increase. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says he would reverse the capital gains tax increase.

A recent report from the C.D. Howe Institute shows the capital gains tax hike will result in more than 400,000 fewer jobs and shrink Canada’s GDP by nearly $90 billion.

The Tax Foundation’s 2024 International Tax Competitiveness Index ranked Canada 31st out 38 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries on individual tax competitiveness, and 26th on business tax competitiveness. Weaknesses of Canada’s tax system include taxing capital gains “well above” the OECD average.

“Canada couldn’t afford the capital gains tax hike before and we definitely can’t afford the $90-billion hole it will blow through Canada’s economy now,” Terrazzano said. “LeBlanc must improve Canada’s competitiveness by ending the capital gains tax hike now.”

The CTF launched a legal challenge to stop the Canada Revenue Agency from enforcing the tax hike without parliamentary approval. The CTF’s legal application argues that enforcing the tax increase violates the rule of law and is unconstitutional.

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