This article supplied by Troy Media.

 By Kris Sims

The CBC is draining taxpayer money while Canadians tune out. It’s time to stop funding a media giant that’s become a political pawn

The CBC is a taxpayer-funded failure, and it’s time to pull the plug. Yet during the election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to pump another $150 million into the broadcaster, even as the CBC was covering his campaign. That’s a blatant conflict of interest, and it underlines why government-funded journalism must end.

The CBC even reported on that announcement, running a headline calling itself “underfunded.” Think about that. Imagine being a CBC employee asking Carney questions at a campaign news conference, while knowing that if he wins, your employer gets a bigger cheque. Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to defund the CBC. The broadcaster is literally covering a story that determines its future funding—and pretending there’s no conflict.

This kind of entanglement isn’t journalism. It’s political theatre. When reporters’ paycheques depend on who wins the election, public trust is shattered.

And the rot goes even deeper. In the Throne Speech, the Carney government vowed to “protect the institutions that bring these cultures and this identity to the world, like CBC/RadioCanada.” Before the election, a federal report recommended nearly doubling the CBC’s annual funding. Former heritage minister Pascale St-Onge said Canada should match the G7 average of $62 per person per year—a move that would balloon the CBC’s budget to $2.5 billion annually. That would nearly double the CBC’s current public funding, which already exceeds $1.2 billion per year.

To put that in perspective, $2.5 billion could cover the annual grocery bill for more than 150,000 Canadian families. But Ottawa wants to shovel more cash at an organization most Canadians don’t even watch.

St-Onge also proposed expanding the CBC’s mandate to “fight disinformation,” suggesting it should play a formal role in “helping the Canadian population understand fact-based information.” The federal government says this is about countering false or misleading information online—so-called “disinformation.” But the Carney platform took it further, pledging to “fully equip” the CBC to combat disinformation so Canadians “have a news source
they know they can trust.”

That raises troubling questions. Will the CBC become an official state fact-checker? Who decides what qualifies as “disinformation”? This isn’t about journalism anymore—it’s about control.

Meanwhile, accountability is nonexistent. Despite years of public backlash over lavish executive compensation, the CBC hasn’t cleaned up its act. Former CEO Catherine Tait earned nearly half a million dollars annually. Her successor, Marie Philippe Bouchard, will rake in up to $562,700. Bonuses were scrapped after criticism—but base salaries were quietly hiked instead. Canadians struggling with inflation and rising costs are footing the bill for bloated executive pay at a broadcaster few of them even watch.

The CBC’s flagship English-language prime-time news show draws just 1.8 per cent of available viewers. That means more than 98 per cent of TV-viewing Canadians are tuning out. The public isn’t buying what the CBC is selling—but they’re being forced to pay for it anyway.

Government-funded journalism is a conflict of interest by design. The CBC is expensive, unpopular, and unaccountable. It doesn’t need more money. It needs to stand on its own—or not at all.

Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

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