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 de-fund 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 has handed Pierre 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 towards 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.
Danielle Smith’s methane meltdown
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when all you know how to do is attack the federal government, every issue looks like an opportunity to strike. So it is with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s predictably strident opposition to the methane reduction target set by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault at COP 28 that aims to reduce those emissions from oil and gas by 75 per cent in 2030 from 2012 levels. In a joint statement with Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, Smith said, “Instead of building on Alberta’s award-winning approach, Ottawa wants to replace it with costly, dangerous and unconstitutional new federal regulations that won’t benefit anyone beyond Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault’s post-office career.”
Never mind, for the moment, that said awards were won in 2005 and 2015, under different governments and for different policies. What’s more interesting is that Smith’s own “Emissions Reduction and Energy Development Plan,” which her government released in April, commits to assessing “potential pathways to achieve a provincial 75 to 80 per cent methane emission reduction target from the conventional oil and gas sector by 2030.” The federal government’s press release included a deliberately cheeky mention of this, saying “the Government of Canada notes the commitments by British Columbia and Alberta to explore ways to achieve a similar reduction target.”
This time, at least, the oil and gas industry Smith loves to defend doesn’t seem to want the help. Rhona DelFrari, the chief sustainability officer at oilsands giant Cenovus Energy, noted her company has already cut its methane emissions by 59 per cent over the last three years and has a goal of reducing them by 80 per cent by 2028 compared to 2019 levels. Tristin Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, told the Calgary Herald’s Chris Varcoe that “if this is implemented correctly, it is a manageable cost that industry was likely moving toward already. . . It actually is achievable.”
Alberta has no real choice here but to play along. If the Smith government tries to keep kicking and screaming about the Constitution while other major oil producers get on with the relatively easy business of reducing their methane emissions, companies in Alberta will fall further behind them. At COP, 50 oil companies including Saudi Aramco, Petrobras, Shell and BP pledged to end routine flaring and reduce their methane emissions to near zero by 2030. Oh, and if Alberta has any hope of exporting LNG to Europe, as Smith and other conservatives never tire of talking about? Well, it will need to meet their standards on methane emissions, which are currently far more stringent than Alberta’s.
Smith’s instinctive opposition to a policy she’s already endorsed and that her preferred industry has said repeatedly it welcomes is a tell. She’s effectively calling her own bluff when it comes to the emissions reduction targets she endorses, including Alberta’s entirely theoretical goal of reaching net zero by 2050. Her rhetoric around Alberta’s oil and gas industry being the cleanest in the world is inevitably undermined by her reaction to any policy or program that might actually get it there. And when the federal government announces its oil and gas emissions cap today, she’ll do it all over again.
As a certain Trudeau might say: Just watch her.
Sorry, Rupa: You’re not being censored
I’m always reluctant to cast my gaze south of our border, given how predictably dispiriting the political view tends to be. But I had a good chuckle about not-a-journalist Rupa Subramanya’s testimony in front of Jim Jordan’s “Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee,” where she attested to the supposed erosion of free speech rights under the Trudeau government.
“I’d like all of you to think of me as a time traveller from the not-too-distant future,” she said, “coming back to the present to offer you a glimpse of what could lie ahead for America.” That glimpse comes from Canada, of course, where her formative experiences during the occupation of Ottawa continue to shape her impression of the country’s character. “What is happening in Canada is the gradual suffocation of free expression,” she said. “It is draped in a cloak of niceness, inclusivity, and justice, but it’s regressive, authoritarian, and illiberal.”
Sure, Jan.
I find it hard to believe that free expression is being suffocated, gradually or otherwise, when Rebel Media’s Ezra Levant is still running around doing his thing. The Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley, who was in a relationship with a key staffer in Doug Ford’s government, kept his column when that news came to light. And the National Post will apparently publish any semi-coherent thought Jordan Peterson or Conrad Black decide to send its way.
The dreaded Trudeau government, meanwhile, is providing a growing stream of cash injections to Postmedia, thereby enabling its most vociferous critics. It has left True North’s dubiously-attained charitable status intact, despite the fact it clearly operates as a proxy for conservative partisan interests in Canada. We are so far from anything even remotely resembling state censorship that using that term in a non-ironic way is an insult to anyone who’s ever lived under it.
If there’s any consolation here, it’s that Subramanya’s testimony doesn’t appear to have gotten much traction outside the conservative media bubble. “It’s striking that not a single Canadian media house has reached out,” she tweeted a few days after her appearance. “Not a single Canadian journalist has even privately shared their views with me whether to agree or disagree. This perfectly exemplifies my point that large sections of the Canadian legacy media have basically become a handmaiden of the state that provides them financial succor.”
It’s worth noting these supposed handmaidens must include Postmedia, which benefits disproportionately from federal largesse — and routinely publishes Subramanya’s work. Perhaps, in fairness, she isn’t actually getting paid for it, so her point can stand without looking so deeply ironic.
But while her comments may not have attracted any attention from her peers, we can’t completely ignore them. By portraying Canada as a threat to free speech and liberty, she is painting a target on our back. I suspect the Trump cultists on Jordan’s committee would be more than willing to weaponize the powers of their government against Canada if it suited their political needs under a second Trump presidency. Tucker Carlson has already mused about the need to invade Canada and liberate it from its socialist oppressors, and there are many well-armed Americans inclined to believe him.
Feeding this fire is dangerous, in other words. We should look very, very carefully at anyone who does it in order to advance their own agenda.
Mike Harcourt jumps the shark on housing
I’m not sure if former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt is a fan of the Batman series, but there’s a line in The Dark Knight that he might find fitting right now. “You either die a hero,” Harvey Dent says, “or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” The good news is that Harcourt, who had a near-death experience at his Pender Island home a few years back, is still very much alive. But based on his recent op-ed in the Vancouver Sun, he may have become that villian for pro-housing British Columbians.
In it, the former premier (along with Darlene Marzari, his former minister of municipal affairs) takes aim at the Eby government’s new housing measures, which require municipalities to eliminate single-family zoning bylaws and other supply-constraining regulations. “We need all hands on deck for this crisis,” Harcourt and Marzari write, “but the problem right now is that the federal and provincial hands are running around the deck promoting a blizzard of arbitrary measures. They are showing insufficient regard for the responsibilities of local and regional governments for community planning and the provision of infrastructure for water supply, sewage treatment, stormwater systems, transportation and other services that new development requires.”
With all due respect, this is nonsense. For housing-starved British Columbians, the Eby government is the first one they’ve ever had that is actually taking this issue seriously. If anything, local and regional governments have shown insufficient regard for the housing needs of younger residents, preferring instead to prioritize the comforts and concerns of single-family homeowners. Yes, the changes to zoning and other pro-supply measures being driven by federal and provincial policy will require infrastructure investments but using those requirements as a way to slow-roll the addition of housing supply is just a sophisticated form of NIMBYism.
“Applying the province’s blunt policy framework would provide incentives for eight- to 12-storey buildings in areas that are already congested,” Harcourt and Marzari write, “have heritage assets or have stable older affordable rental buildings in preference to areas where municipalities are striving to create more complete communities with diverse housing choices.” Translation? New housing supply shouldn’t get built in existing or established neighbourhoods. You know, NIBMYism.
This call to slow down and direct development into certain channels and corridors is a curious change of heart for Harcourt, whose previous statements on the matter seemed much more aligned with the pro-supply crowd. As he said back in 2018, “It is not a crisis, it is a permanent condition. You have to address supply. You have to speed up approvals.” And how might that be done? “I would get rid of single-family zoning,” he said. In Metro Vancouver, “the age of the single-family home is over.”
He was right. One wonders what changed in the years that passed since, or why he’s suddenly resisting the very change he was advocating for back then. Either way, it’s unlikely that Premier David Eby is about to back down from his government’s wonderfully aggressive pro-housing agenda. Yes, it’s important to respect your elders. But sometimes it’s just as important to know when to ignore them.
The Wrap
On Tuesday, I wrote about the Trudeau Liberals and their increasingly dismal polling numbers among young people. Housing is driving that, I think, and while Housing Minister Sean Fraser has been doing his level best to improve their fortunes on this front, it’s going to take time — time they may not have.
I know it’s tempting for some people to believe that the polling data is wrong, or that it’s actually driving the anti-Trudeau sentiment among young people. Having written about the polling industry at length (and studied it from afar for years), I think this is dangerously naive. As my friend Evan Scrimshaw wrote (with, I should warn you, plenty of f-bombs), the polls aren’t wrong just because they don’t tell you what you want to hear. The polls are showing the BC NDP heading towards a historical landslide victory, after all. Are they also wrong?
And no, the existence of polling data between elections isn’t a threat to democracy — it’s the addition of information that people can use as they see fit. “The argument that polling should be in some way banned or curtailed is conspiratorial, because it alleges a fundamental conspiracy,” Scrimshaw writes. “It alleges that the point of polling is not to inform people what we think, but to change it, on either fraudulent or incorrect grounds.”
This just isn’t how it works in Canada. The constant barrage of poll data may annoy or frustrate you, but I suspect that has more to do with its contents than its existence. Either way, more data is rarely a bad thing.
Because it’s my birthday today and my little family is in the midst of a mini-childcare desert, I’m going to wrap it up here. But please, share this as you see fit and remember that a subscription to Canada’s National Observer makes a great gift. We’re also in the midst of a fundraising campaign to support our work, and would appreciate any support you can offer.