The CBC needs to start Pierre-proofing itself

The CBC is facing an existential crisis unlike anything it’s ever seen. The Conservative Party of Canada, which holds a commanding lead in the polls over the Trudeau Liberals, is vowing to defund the public broadcaster. Given that, the CBC's leaders should be devoting all their time and energy to defend the corporation against what looks to be Pierre Poilievre's inevitable attack. Instead, its CEO just handed Poilievre some extra ammunition.

On Monday, after the CBC announced it will eliminate as many as 600 positions in order to address a $125-million budget shortfall, Catherine Tait joined veteran journalist Adrienne Arsenault for an interview. After the usual questions about the CBC’s economic viability and cultural relevance, Arsenault threw Tait a curveball: Would the CBC still pay out the millions of dollars in annual bonuses to its executives that it did last year?

“It’s too early to say where we are for this year,” Tait offered. When that non-answer didn’t satisfy Arsenault, Tait tried an even more obviously bogus one. “I’m not going to comment on something that hasn’t been discussed at this point.” Her answers were so tone-deaf and so bias-confirming, that you could practically hear Poilievre celebrating in the background.

Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, must have been shaking his head. By extending Tait’s term until 2025 rather than replacing her with someone capable of defending the CBC’s interests, his government has done Canada’s public broadcaster and those who support it no favours. Despite being pressed on the fact that the CBC is stretched increasingly thin, both in terms of its budget (which has been declining on a per-capita basis since the mid-1980s) and responsibilities, Tait seems to think changes to the broadcaster’s areas of focus and coverage aren’t necessary. “We clearly need an improvement to the ecosystem,” she said. “We know that a healthy democracy benefits from the presence of a public broadcaster.”

An “improvement to the ecosystem” almost certainly means “more money” and the federal government’s recent deal with Google will help in that regard. But it’s not nearly enough to save the CBC in its current form, which feels increasingly listless and confused at a time when public broadcasters around the world are under growing pressure from populist politicians. That’s especially true, of course, if a future government slashes its funding.

The CBC’s traditional role as the cultural glue in our country is clearly declining, both because of the rise of technologies like the internet and social media and the growing number of outlets serving different cultural and ideological communities. For as long as I’ve been alive, the CBC has been an important part of my cultural landscape as a Canadian. But I struggle to see how it would, or even could, play the same role in my young son’s life.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe wholeheartedly in the importance of a national public broadcaster, and I think we need reliable and trustworthy sources of information more than ever. The fact that Arsenault was able to gut her own boss on live television speaks to the corporation’s enduring journalistic integrity — a virtue increasingly rare in the modern media landscape. I’ve said before that the CBC needs to stand and fight, and I’ll say it again here.

But so far, I’ve yet to see much in the way of fight. Maybe the Liberal political calculus here is that by letting the CBC put itself in danger, they can use its fate to rally progressives behind them in the next election. That assumes a level of loyalty to the CBC among Canadians I’m not sure still exists, and a willingness on the part of voters to prioritize its existence over their other concerns.

It’s possible Poilievre will back down from his pledge to purge the organization, just as Stephen Harper did before him. But Harper had to govern for two terms in a minority Parliament, and he always seemed laser-focused on the longer game of building toward a durable Conservative majority. Poilievre is different. If he gets a majority, it will almost certainly be in his first term, not any subsequent ones. That’s in large part because he’s a breaker, not a builder. Betting on his better angels winning out seems like a good way to lose money — $1.3 billion to be precise.

Rather than hoping for the best, the CBC’s leadership needs to prepare for the worst. That means battle-testing their own assumptions and blind spots and bracing for a political environment where their own existence will be called into question. It means presenting a coherent case for its contributions to Canadian life that acknowledges the rapidly shifting landscape and adjusts the corporation’s aims accordingly. And it means gathering as many allies as possible in order to mount a vigorous defence.

As to what a renewed CBC might look like? It could focus on news coverage in smaller communities and rural parts of the country, where private-sector options have all but vanished. It could retreat from over-covered subjects like sports and politics for areas of Canadian culture — book reviews, performance arts, and other more esoteric pursuits — that aren’t getting attention from online upstarts and other new media alternatives. And it could include a renewed investment in international news bureaus, which have been mostly abandoned by the remaining mainstream media companies in Canada. We still have a need to understand Canada’s unique place in the world, and the CBC is better suited than anyone to take on the challenge of meeting that.

Whatever it means, though, it can’t mean the status quo. Everything has to be on the table, and that should include its mandate and current leadership. If it isn’t, the entire organization could soon become a thing of our political past.