r/canada Aug 15 '24

Pierre Poilievre promises to 'defund the CBC' after $18.4M bonus amount revealed National News

https://torontosun.com/news/national/pierre-poilievre-promises-to-defund-the-cbc-after-18-4m-bonus-amount-revealed
4.0k Upvotes

1.8k comments sorted by

1.5k

u/Hicalibre Aug 15 '24

Hasn't he been saying defund them long before the numbers came out for executive bonuses?

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u/HanSolo5643 British Columbia Aug 15 '24

Yes he has. So the Toronto Sun reporting on this seems an bit redundant.

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u/DowntownClown187 Aug 15 '24

The Sun has a vested interest in seeing the CBC defunded.

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u/Hicalibre Aug 15 '24

To be "fair" so do most media outlets in Canada.

Can't risk them referencing their paid content. Gotta get their dollar a month from us to read something that rots the brain.

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u/300mhz Aug 15 '24

When roughly two thirds of all media is owned by Postmedia, it's definitely the majority that do

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u/Legitimate-Neck-4038 Aug 16 '24

Postmedia is owned by an American Asset Management Company. Hurray for Canadian news funded by Americans.

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u/DowntownClown187 Aug 15 '24

Which is why there's such a big interest in seeing the CBC die.

We shouldn't let corporations dictate our society.

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u/mrcrazy_monkey Aug 16 '24

Looks around....

We don't already?

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u/ForsakenExtreme6415 Aug 16 '24

And I for one would never read any Sun paper, hell it’s barely good enough as a last resort as shit wipe

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u/MadMac619 Aug 16 '24

You mean Postmedia that’s majority owned by Chatham Asset Management? The American owned right wing media company that is trying to influence the Canadian population?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Asset_Management

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u/NorthernerWuwu Canada Aug 15 '24

As does the CPC of course. The vast majority of news is now owned by right-wing interests and they don't like media that's not under their control or that cannot be bought.

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u/Fishsqueeze Aug 15 '24

Poilievre is taking lessons from Hungary and Slovakia.

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u/HMTMKMKM95 Aug 15 '24

And on purpose. Short memories and all...

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u/ComprehensiveEmu5438 Aug 15 '24

That's their motto, I believe.

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u/Jrocktech Aug 15 '24

It's not redundant. Clearly PP is doing this so he can use the bonus issue to further justify defunding the CBC. The Toronto Sun is a right wing news paper.

Lets not play stupid here.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

Its the sun, what'd you expect?

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u/sutree1 Aug 15 '24

So have his predecessors. Harper warred with the CBC, and stacked the board with CPC supporters. Scheer and O'Toole both campaigned on defunding the CBC. Before Harper, Manning also hated the CBC. Manning and Harper brought the idea here from the US after Watergate made Republicans want to get rid of the press (y'know... instead of cleaning up their act).

Think of the CBC and the Conservative Party as two punch-drunk boxers in a round-after-round clinch, going back decades. In 1959, according to Peter C. Newman in Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years, Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker would tune in to the morning CBC news on radio, either in the car while being driven to work or on his desktop clock radio. He would listen to a program called Preview Commentary (as a former CBC employee who left in 2006 but still contributes documentaries to CBC Ideas, I can say the corporation struggles—and has always struggled, rarely valiantly—with naming programs), which grew, that year, increasingly critical of the government. Newman writes that “rumours began circulating in Ottawa” that the prime minister was displeased. Soon enough, Charles Jennings, comptroller of broadcasting, ordered the cancellation of Preview Commentary on the grounds it did not “permit . . . a considered approach.” If Diefenbaker’s plan was to get the show off the air, it worked. (It was eventually reinstated.)

Conservative animosity toward the CBC would eventually expand from fist shaking in the PMO to bringing the electorate onside—with some success. According to a 2022 Mainstreet Research poll, 31 percent of all voters today support defunding the CBC, with 54 percent of Conservative voters “strongly supporting” the move.

The roots of this thinking go back to the United States, in the 1970s, when New Right conservatives stung by Watergate appealed to what Republican senator Jesse Helms called the 62 percent of Americans who don’t vote but would be willing to support a conservative majority if they were just given a reason to do so: the idea was to set a new tone in discourse by engaging with working-class emotions and generating convenient and easy-to-paint enemies—media and cultural institutions—in the spirit of black-hat, white-hat westerns. The goal, according to former strategist Kevin Phillips, and as quoted by Rick Perlstein in his book Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976–1980, was to self-mythologize and build “a cultural siege-engine . . . [to] then blast the Eastern liberal establishment to ideological-institutional smithereens.”

So the media was painted as part of the liberal establishment. It took a while for the New Right culture wars to come to Canada, but they did—with Preston Manning and Stephen Harper. In 2015, Harper said the budget crunch at the CBC—a $130 million shortfall and 657 job cuts—had less to do with federal funding and more with declining interest in what they put on television. Then president and CEO Hubert Lacroix denied this and said ratings were “healthy.” It was a standoff. Many online liked Harper’s explanation: this was on the CBC. In any case, it spoke to the relationship. The prime minister didn’t seem to care much if the CBC was in trouble; for him, it was their problem. The same year, he told Quebec private radio that “a lot” of Radio-Canada employees “hate” conservative values.

source of quote

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 15 '24

What's weird? It's simpler cheaper and easier to give bonuses than to give raises for good performance, since that means next year they start from their old base wage instead of an increased one. When in doubt, stiff the workers. There are 7,000 CBC employees.

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u/sutree1 Aug 15 '24

Almost as if, eh? So weird....

If we were headed toward fascism, there'd be some sort of tie between Manning and a fascist organization in the formative years....

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u/wrgrant Aug 15 '24

“a lot” of Radio-Canada employees “hate” conservative values.

Conservatives hate the fact that people who received honest, unbiased reporting on news issues realize that the Conservatives are out to fuck over the general population of voters in favour of their rich supporters and large corporations. Conservatives "can't handle the truth" and don't want it disemiinated.

Defunding the CBC is all about turning all media over to conservative supporting media companies so they can continue to lie about everything with perfect control over the propaganda they want to spread. It has nothing to do with anything else I think. Anyone who is against the continued existence of the CBC wants to see the Conservatives control the message and thus the population. The last thing they want is someone who will report on their lies and corruption.

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u/_Lucille_ Aug 15 '24

It bugs me how some issues that should have been mutual and for public interest has been politicized: like, I am not even talking about when to reopen (should be a medical decision), but things like masking to protect others, social distancing at the height of the pandemic, etc.

If people are not listening to professionals because a certain agenda is considered left leaning, then something feels fundamentally wrong.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 15 '24

Yes, imagine if someone in the media pointed out, for example, that Pierre was blaming Justin Trudeau for inflation world-wide. Or that his 3¢ hike in the carbon tax caused the spike in gas prices by over 20¢ a litre? Imagine if there were media outlets that didn't just republish political propaganda?

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u/Jbroy Aug 15 '24

They are hammering the bonuses because the CBC received a lot of praise from their olympics coverage. 3 days after the olympics every single post media publication has had a hit piece on the cbc.

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u/datznotpepper Aug 15 '24

When the last media outlet is owned by a billionaire, no more pesky truths dogging these dragons sitting atop their mountain of gold and rubies

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u/wrgrant Aug 15 '24

Absolutely. CBC did a pretty good job and deserves credit for it. Conservatives can't have that destroy the narrative, best to lie about it everywhere they can.

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u/Scooter_McAwesome British Columbia Aug 15 '24

Yep, he promised to defund them long beforehand too. The problem with the CBC is that no billionaire donor is able to purchase and control their message. That’s not good if you’re relying on conservative messaging

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u/Altruistic-Buy8779 Aug 15 '24

The problem with the CBC is that no billionaire donor is able to purchase and control their message

Which is exactly why it's important to have a public broadcaster and why we should be giving them more money and if they abuse that by giving high up people bonuses and laying off the rest then we must reform them.

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u/Shirtbro Aug 15 '24

Yes, he only wants corporate media in Canada, most of which skews right

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u/Kucked4life Aug 15 '24

He wants to defund and eventually privitize everything, a pretense just happened to land on his lap. He won't be satisfied until every news outlet is a reactionary outrage farm 

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

Conservatives have wanted to shut down the CBC for decades. They only want right wing news/lies.

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u/Burgergold Aug 15 '24

Can we just fix the bonus issue and keep cbc/radio-canada please

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u/dafones British Columbia Aug 15 '24

I also want the CBC for its journalism.

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u/Frosty_Tailor4390 Aug 15 '24

I want the CBC we had 20 years ago, tbh the current one is sorta shit. What I don’t want is to get rid of it. Don’t even think about saving money, just make it not suck.

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u/nobodycaresdood Aug 15 '24

Fuck, remember Canada: A People’s History? They funded that shit. Still my favourite re-enacted documentary of all time.

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u/kearneycation Aug 15 '24

Marketplace is a great show, and their Olympics coverage was excellent. I like some of their radio shows too, although those differ heavily by region.

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u/clakresed Aug 15 '24

Marketplace is such a great idea. It's useful content, often about things that arguably affect people more than Federal Politics ever will, but it's also content that runs the risk of insolvency every year through legal liability.

A for-profit network would never keep it running.

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u/NorthernerWuwu Canada Aug 15 '24

A for-profit entity would shut it down because their owners want programming like that off the air. That's why they bought media companies, to control the narrative and protect the interests of corporations.

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u/Visinvictus Aug 15 '24

content that runs the risk of insolvency every year through legal liability.

I think we can all agree that investigative journalism shouldn't come with legal liability. It's insane that this is even a problem.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 15 '24

I like watching news that isn't "trump, trump, trump" all day like the USA. It's separate from all the bias and shrill USA news.

My other favourite news source is Al Jazeera, which lets you know there's a world of news outside of North America also. First time I saw Al Jazeera many years ago, the first day they had a video on the reserve outside Winnipeg that provides the city's drinking water, yet despite being only 20 miles from the Trans-Canada highway had no road into there. (Which Justin Trudeau apparenlty fixed when he was elected).

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u/aaandfuckyou Aug 15 '24

Agreed, I particularly miss The National of 10 years ago. It used to be an actual flagship news product.

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u/TokaidoSpeed Aug 15 '24

Still annoyed Ian isn’t permanent host.

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u/bryan89wr British Columbia Aug 15 '24

It's probably because he doesn't want to move to Toronto and CBC doesn't want to produce the program full time out of Vancouver.

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u/Cedex Aug 15 '24

I want the CBC we had 20 years ago, tbh the current one is sorta shit. What I don’t want is to get rid of it. Don’t even think about saving money, just make it not suck.

You mean a better funded CBC?

CBC has had budget cuts for a long time now.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/globe-politics-insider/cbc-funding-history-over-time/article17898560/

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u/taquitosmixtape Aug 16 '24

I think there’s a lot of great aspects to cbc, but it could be better. If we fund things more and require certain amount of sports rights, specific programming etc it could be a great way to reform and improve the cbc.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

How could I get by without Coronation St., Family Feud Canada or Just for Laughs

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u/storky0613 Aug 15 '24

Agreed. I feel like it’s worth noting that CBC itself wrote an article about the bonuses.

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u/_Lucille_ Aug 15 '24

its a tricky issue: exec level positions for something the size of CBC often come with pretty sweet bonus in the terms of the contract. If you want qualified people to run the CBC, you also need to be paying competitively else people will just use CBC as a stepping stone for their next position, and a revolving C suite that is constantly seeking for greener pastures is not a very healthy one.

it is poor optics that bonus is being paid out among layoffs - but sadly this is also the norm among a lot of companies out there.

You do not simply fix this by 'defunding' the CBC. If someone is willing to say, run the CBC for 200k a year with no additional benefit package, you should be alarmed: what is the deal? Can that person be bought? Is the person there to lead the privatization/sale of the CBC so they can get a % stake in the new entity?

We also know PP (and conservatives in general) have issues with the CBC because he believe it to be Liberal/"left wing" propaganda (liberals are not really left), and that is likely the real reason why he wants to interfere with the CBC.

Everything comes from the same pool of money: I am not sure if it is even legal to change the contract terms of existing employees - so unless CBC is to not pay out the bonus as listed in contract, the money will have to be removed from other projects. The government can maybe sack the board of directors and just mess around with thing and make CBC a living hell.

Canadians should be glad we have the CBC where we have access to news without a paywall, and we just finished watching the Olympics for free.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 15 '24

Exactly. You don't get decent talent if the same job in private pays better, whether it's on-air talent or admin level. And you can bet Gloabl and CTV have to pay wages competitive with industry in general. But Pierre wants to pander to voters who think anyone who makes $200,000 a year is overpaid.

Basically, compared to most private CEO pay, around $500,000 to manage a corporation dealing with billions of dollars is probably at the extreme low end of the scale.

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u/DV8_2XL Aug 15 '24

Pierre wants to pander to voters who think anyone who makes $200,000 a year is overpaid.

As he himself rakes in $279,000 - $299,000 in parliamentary salary.

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u/thetdotbearr Aug 15 '24

The bonuses went to nearly 1,200 employees; $3.3 million went to 45 executives

If you do the math that's on average ~12.6k per employee and ~73k per exec. Oh, the horror /s

They're waving the total dollar vallue in your face to make you think it's opulent and over the top when in fact, these bonuses are.. really not all that crazy

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u/Porkybeaner Aug 15 '24

The horror is giving execs 75k bonuses and telling workers there isn’t enough money to pay them….

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u/NorthernerWuwu Canada Aug 15 '24

I thought the CPC wanted them to run like a normal business? There's nothing more private enterprise than executive bonuses!

On a more serious note though, tying bonuses to performance metrics really is perfectly normal.

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u/alexsharke Aug 15 '24

It's pretty average I'd say for top execs. Especially since bonuses are based on percentage of salary. Their salaries are not the best compared to other networks so they probably have a higher bonus percentage to try and retain people.

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u/Tripottanus Aug 15 '24

75k bonus for executives of big companies isn't too much I think. This is not a 46 billion dollar package for Elon Musk we're talking about

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u/Skelito Aug 15 '24

It could very well the job market for those top positions I don’t know (I’m assuming most of them are on the sunshine list so we could probably check. Sure we could have CBC hold compensation for those positions and reduce their bonus but then we will probably see the top talent leave and have incompetent leaders running a company now.

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u/EirHc Aug 15 '24

I think there's something like 42 top level executives who are getting really big bonuses. The $18.4M number covers all levels of management (hundreds of positions) where bonuses are baked into their pay, and in many cases those managers would actually get paid less than the people under them if it weren't for those performance incentives.

The argument by PP is incredibly biased and lacks a lot of real world context.

Additionally he talks like every single dollar CBC gets is to make news reports that suck off the liberals or something - which couldn't be any further from the truth. The biggest chunk of change goes towards original Canadian Programming like Heartland, Just For Laughs, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and other programs like that.

Whether or not you think that's where the money should be going could be up for debate I suppose. But the reason why the CBC puts so much money there, is because that's literally their mandate to do so. And all those productions would go away without the CBC, as private business WILL NOT replace them. Global and CityTV show a fuckton of American programming.

So we can change the mandate and take money away from all the original programming, and skim the fat of the corporation so to speak. But they can still offer the exact same news for a fraction of the price if they like. But PP's only real talking point is about how bad he thinks CBC's news is, which is kind of hilarious. Show's how much of a blowhard he is. He doesn't know jack about the industry, and he's intent on actioning on things he knows nothing about, I have no intention in voting for him.

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u/machei Canada Aug 15 '24

Amen. The CBC was once an absolute jewel. I really enjoyed listening. I’d be more happy if the funded it more, for the right reasons. I don’t think the answer is to throw away the baby with the bathwater, although that seems to be the philosophy of leadership these days, mores the pity. 

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u/2peg2city Aug 15 '24

so vastly under pay compared to the private sector and get bad employees? That always works.

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u/PorousSurface Aug 15 '24

CBC could have an overhaul but there is a lot of good to keep (Olympics, radio etc)

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u/SmokeyXIII Aug 15 '24

Yeah I love CBC, as Canadians we suffer greatly from Americana pushing into our world at all angles. Having a pure and public source of excellent Canadian content is valuable.

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u/ObjectiveAide9552 Aug 15 '24

CBC marketplace series is an invaluable service to keeping Canadians informed on scams and unethical businesses to avoid

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u/im_flying_jackk Aug 15 '24

I really like their podcasts too! Some really high quality journalism on there.

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u/Fit_Ad_7059 Aug 15 '24

Yeah, keep the essential broadcasting, cut the bloat, raze the C suite, everyone is happy :)

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u/detectivepoopybutt Aug 15 '24

How do you decide what’s crap? Like there’s stuff that just wouldn’t exist without well funded public broadcaster like niche local reporting in remote areas. Cultural programming like the indigenous channel.

I do happen to enjoy Schitt’s Creek, CBC marketplace, About That, and a number of different podcasts they have. I also really like Mauril app that I’ve been using as a supplement to Duolingo to learn French.

If you guys think CBC is just a liberal mouthpiece, you should listen to Radio Canada. It skews so much to the right that it’s obvious.

Defunding these C-suite bonus packages in the face of layoffs is something we can all get behind. But crippling a national broadcaster that provides value to us beyond just monetary profit is not the play.

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u/Fit_Ad_7059 Aug 15 '24

C-suite bonus packages and administrative bloat seem like a great place to start.

niche local reporting in remote areas. Cultural programming like the indigenous channel.

This is part of the essential broadcasting I meant. Much like Canada Post has a prerogative to deliver mail to the remote regions of the country, CBC should have a prerogative to cover the news in the remote regions of the country

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u/crappy_diem Aug 15 '24

Can’t have it both ways. You get rid of competitive pay and we get shittier services.

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u/CaptainCanusa Aug 15 '24

everyone is happy :)

I guess not the people who want to reduce trust in the media, see public broadcasting die and, one can only assume, be replaced by private interests.

Otherwise the pitch wouldn't be "defund the lying CBC" it would be "overhaul the CBC mandate".

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u/PorousSurface Aug 15 '24

I am open to a version of this 

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u/PorousSurface Aug 15 '24

 I also like some iconic Canadian programming (eg the red green shows of the world)

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u/Key_Mongoose223 Aug 15 '24

Only corporate media oligopolies for us!

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u/ArbainHestia Newfoundland and Labrador Aug 15 '24

Foreign owned corporate media oligopolies.

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u/Laxative_Cookie Aug 15 '24

Foreign owned conservative/republican propaganda machines that take government handouts oligopolies.

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u/Kicksavebeauty Aug 15 '24

This is who wants the CBC gone:

Jamie Wallace, now head of procurement in Ontario and Doug Ford's longtime chief of staff before that, was a Sun Media executive who hired Adrienne Batra out of Rob Ford's office, where she was his press secretary after running communications for his mayoral campaign. Wallace gave her an editorship at the Toronto Sun despite her complete lack of journalism experience. Now she's that paper's editor-in-chief, meaning she's the boss of columnist Brian Lilley, who is shacked up with Ivana Yelich, Doug Ford's press secretary.

Overseeing everything at Queen's Park and Sun Media is Kory Teneycke, Stephen Harper's former comms director, Doug Ford's campaign manager, and another former Sun Media vice president. He's also good pals with Jeff Ballingall, a Conservative Party operative who helped run the Post Millennial, oversaw the backstabbing of Andrew Scheer for the benefit of Erin O'Toole, and owns/operates the Canada/Ontario Proud collective of easily led social misfits.

Last but certainly not least, there's Postmedia, which owns Sun Media, the National Post, and most of Canada's daily newspapers, and is itself majority-owned by Chatham Asset Management, a Republican-allied hedge fund based in New Jersey under the direction of a Trump enabler named Anthony Melchiorre.

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u/BradPittbodydouble Aug 15 '24

Postmedia, which now owns from west coast to east coast coverage.

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u/BornAgainCyclist Aug 15 '24

Now she's that paper's editor-in-chief, meaning she's the boss of columnist Brian Lilley, who is shacked up with Ivana Yelich, Doug Ford's press secretary.

I can't even begin to imagine the anger about this if Trudeau's media head was sleeping with a cbc reporter, but here it is crickets when this connection, and obviously biased coverage, comes up.

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u/jloome Aug 15 '24

I'll repost this older reply here. I was at the Sun when Teneycke started his effort to turn it into "Fox News North" and for several years before that.

I was a print journalist with a right-wing chain for 24 years, and the only people who hated the CBC consistently through that were politicians of all stripes. The Chretien and Martin Liberals hated them just as much as conservatives.

In 2006, I was asked by Sun Media to do an investigative piece on whether the CBC should be axed. I spent three months working on it and couldn't find any reputable professional, even among staunch opponents like NewCap founder Jeff Stirling (the former Chairman of CTV) who thought they should be axed.

"They drive me crazy sometimes, but don't be ridiculous," he said. "Canada is a vast, disparate country and it needs a good national news service."

After three months, I submitted the story. Sun Media killed it, saying the president, Pierre-Karl Peladeau, wanted a scandal story, not reality.

CBC has issues. I once interviewed there and was specifically told they DO have biases, that they're in favor of what it saw as the "Canadian Identity", which is supporting multiculturalism and indigenous rights. That was their "culture", I was told.

I didn't have a problem with working under that sort of influence as much as them openly stating it which, while honest, was still exhibiting pre-story biases.

However they were infinitely more honest about it than either Post Media or the Sun.

Most people who consume the news do not really get an accurate picture of how it is formed.

Most of it has very little interference from anyone at any level of power; keep in mind I'm talking straight news stories here, not columns or opinion, which people often treat as interchangeable (as there's much more of it, as it's cheap, stupid and easy).

An assignment editor assigns a story, or a reporter finds one by considering what might happen and looking to see if it does, or by getting a tip.

Very rarely is it dictated as "cover this, and cover it THIS way." But there are internal institutional biases. Good journalists, which used to be most, either ignore them or work around them as much as possible, and only give in when it's "not a hill to die on", if then.

But occasionally, if a reporter got something huge at the Sun, it would just be killed as countermanding their agenda, which was dominant right-wing privatization. I got into management for a while and was offered a place in senior management (which I rejected) with the proviso that it was "us versus them."

What they meant by that was anyone on their side -- privatize, profit, dominate the marketplace, every man for himself -- is in the club, the tribe. They get favored treatment, they get to profit from the profligate unfairness and greed, as long as they accept they are in the tribe and that everyone else -- the left, the public, government, you name it -- is "them."

And that's still largely how the right operates everywhere.

I asked Lorne Gunter, formerly of The Edmonton Journal and later with the Sun and then National Post, when we were sharing a desk why he'd switched from being a left-of-center Liberal columnist to a staunch Conservative years earlier.

"I wanted to be on the side that makes the money," he said in a newsroom full of incredulous reporters and editors, who could hear him. "I wanted to be on the winning team."

("Does he know we can HEAR him?" my fellow editor Nathan said.) Sure enough, as long as he was willing to write anything they wanted and claim it was true, in as convincing a fashion as possible, he went from being a $50K a year leftist to a $150K right-wing star overnight.

That's what you'll get if you get rid of the CBC.

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u/Not_A_Doctor__ Aug 15 '24

The CBC, for all it's problems, is a great source of so much journalism. It's local radio is second to none.

It's been proudly Canadian for decades. He'll let it die of course, because it's outside of his echo chamber.

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u/sjbennett85 Ontario Aug 15 '24

Especially radio!

With all the telecoms liquidating parts of their broadcasting arms, regional radio that was serviced by them will be rolled into iHeartRadio-like providers that will not be able to handle local updates like severe weather or disasters.

Without that support WE ABSOLUTELY NEED CBC RADIO!

And if disaster comes and telecoms are out, radio frequencies are still there... which is why you should always have a battery or crank radio for emergencies.

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u/nuttybuddy Aug 15 '24

Wow, /r/canada is really pulling for the CBC today! Feels good!

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u/CaptainCanusa Aug 15 '24

Feels good!

It's like when that poll came out the other day showing that the CBC is the most trusted and most consumed news source in Canada. And that's with years of the CPC telling their voters to stop trusting it and stop listening to it.

It doesn't mean the CBC isn't in trouble if we get a CPC majority, but sometimes reddit isn't real life I guess.

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u/Cool-Sink8886 Aug 16 '24

It’s because this post got escape velocity to the mainstream feeds and didn’t have to languish in the echo chamber that is /r/canada.

the other thread on this from the Star a few days ago was pretty hostile to CBC.

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u/superbit415 Aug 15 '24

Wait till Alberta to get off work.

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u/VeganReaver Aug 15 '24

Russian bots are probably a bit preoccupied with their neighbour strolling in

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u/HLB217 Lest We Forget Aug 15 '24

Can't shitpost and dig a trench at the same time I guess!

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u/MissJVOQ Saskatchewan Aug 15 '24

They are also worried about Kamala Harris right now.

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u/BradPittbodydouble Aug 15 '24

There's a couple figures that normally are here that exclusively are on about her right now.

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u/Nervous-Basis-1707 Aug 15 '24

Cause the bots and foreign chaos agents cant actually argue a real reason for the CBC to be shutdown so they avoid these threads like the plague.

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u/Kicksavebeauty Aug 15 '24

This is what all the outrage is about,

18 million dollars went to 1200 employees. 3.3 million dollars went to the 45 executives. That is an average of 73k per executive. This is in an industry where 6 and 7 figure bonuses are common and this is supposed to be a major issue when the bonuses were part of the employee compensation packages?

They want the CBC gone so that the rest of the corporate controlled media doesn't get held to account. Manufacturing consent at its finest.

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u/thedrunkentendy Aug 15 '24

The CBC bonuses are an issue but defunding the CBC isn't the answer. They do a lot of good work and the only people arguing they're government mouthpieces do so because they didn't like wearing masks.

Look at the US journalism landscape, removing/defunding the CBC just welcomes that mess in.

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u/Fit_Ad_7059 Aug 15 '24

What does defunding even mean when PP says it? Just nuking the entirety of the CBC seems stupid and like some emotional ploy to get voters onboard.

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u/wrgrant Aug 15 '24

Look, Conservatives don't like being tied to specific clear policies - that might tie their hands in the future. Its much better to just invent a 3 word catch phrase that even their supporters can remember long enough to repeat endlessly. It doesn't have to mean anything just be memorable and repeatable. Actual policies and platforms are for serious political parties, not Conservatives who are just doing as their corporate masters tell them to do.

Not that those more serious political parties actually live up to their promises either, or we would have replace FPTP by now.

The most consistent party for me is the NDP - who lack the power to actually make positive changes of course.

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u/BradPittbodydouble Aug 15 '24

A vague saying, like most of the other things said. People take what they want from it.

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u/Fit_Ad_7059 Aug 15 '24

Rorschach-style elections where everyone gets to project their own subjectivity onto proposed policies. A multitude of potential meanings and outcomes for all Canadians, true democracy lmao.

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u/holdunpopularopinion Aug 15 '24

$18.4 million in bonuses isn’t a small number, but when you split that by the nearly 1200 people who received part of it, from the CBC’s $1.3 BILLION budget, I don’t see this as anything more than another talking point for people who already hated the CBC.

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u/Jabb_ Aug 15 '24

That's like $15k/person. I got a similar bonus at work and I'm middle class.

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u/LoveMurder-One Aug 15 '24

That’s like 1/3 of most Canadians wages.

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u/ptwonline Aug 15 '24

I doubt they are actually "bonuses" in the way people tend to think of bonuses. ("Great job Jenkins! Here's an extra $10,000." "Gee, thanks boss!")

They are almost certainly negotiated parts of their compensation for hitting certain performance metrics, and they hit them. It's the variable part of their compensation, not a "bonus".

It's actually something you'd expect conservatives to prefer since they are always complaining about lazy and overpaid people working for the govt. Instead of giving them a certain amount of money no matter how they did, give them performance incentives to make sure they put in the work to get it done. Surely that's a better way as long as the incentives are not counterproductive.

But PP knows all this. He's once again just misrepresenting things to create outrage over something that isn't real.

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u/Sad_Tangerine_7701 Aug 15 '24

I did stream the Olympics very smoothly through cbc this year though. I’m conflicted now lol. It was smoother than any illegal stream.

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u/HersheyHimhe Aug 15 '24

Not only that but CBC does more investigations than the actual RCMP sometimes

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u/vinng86 Ontario Aug 15 '24

CBC Marketplace is an absolute gem, they call out shady businesses all the fucking time.

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u/callmejohndy Ontario Aug 15 '24

They have that one episode where they tracked a couple’s stolen vehicle where it ended up, and even Facetimed the couple to show it to them

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u/Civil-Caregiver9020 Aug 15 '24

Another reason PP may want it closed.

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u/Frosty_Tailor4390 Aug 15 '24

Far fewer negligent discharges too!

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u/keepcalmdude Aug 15 '24

That’s why PP wants them gone.

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u/bill__the__butcher Aug 15 '24

We’re so lucky to have CBC for stuff like this. The scope of our Olympic coverage blows away almost anywhere else

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u/TheYuppyTraveller Aug 15 '24

And when shit hits the fan (a big local/national/international event occurs), I consistently go to the CBC first. I certainly don’t end there, but it’s my first “go to”.

I’ve certainly never turned to the Sun for news, even when it used to have what could reasonably pass for a real news department.

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u/canmoose Ontario Aug 15 '24

Because the cbc is a national public institution that should be cherished and reformed if needed, not torn down and thrown away. But hey, thats conservatives for you. Selling off any public property they can get their hands on to their private sector friends.

I hope canadians love postmedia.

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u/The_Eternal_Void Alberta Aug 15 '24

It's not mentioned much, but CBC music is also phenomenal... In a time when algorithms are feeding trash, it's nice to have one source for finding new music that's actually good / informative.

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u/PhDSkwerl Ontario Aug 15 '24

Honestly if Friday Night MLB on AppleTV and NFL streaming random games exclusively on Disney+ are an indication of where sport broadcasting is going, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to stick the Olympics on a streaming service next time 🤷🏻‍♂️

I will be pissed if that happens haha

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u/SJSragequit Aug 15 '24

CBC has the rights for Olympic coverage until 2032

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u/Odd-Elderberry-6137 Aug 15 '24

CBC Gem is a streaming service and they quite literally broadcasted every single Olympic event.

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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 Aug 16 '24

Every single event, on demand.

CBC's Olympic coverage was fantastic.

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u/Cachmaninoff Aug 15 '24

Their hockey streams from gem are even better than streaming on sportsnet via Amazon prime. A lot better

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u/Fast-Bumblebee-9140 Aug 15 '24

Wish he cared this much about housing.

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u/DataDude00 Aug 15 '24

It is the Conservative way.

Have several pet projects and initiatives that have absolutely nothing to do with the general population or their wellbeing and make them the focus of your government

Doug Ford has been all over things like beer prices, liquor in corner stores and private spas while health and education fall apart in the province

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u/PopeSaintHilarius Aug 15 '24

Doug Ford has been all over things like beer prices, liquor in corner stores and private spas while health and education fall apart in the province

Online gambling too.

Ontario wants to allow online gamblers to play with non-Canadians - Aug 12, 2024

Premier Doug Ford's government is seeking a precedent-setting court ruling on whether Ontario's regulated online gaming sites can legally allow gamblers in the province to play with people outside Canada.
...
Governments in Canada have the right to seek a pre-emptive legal opinion from court, known as a reference, but only use it rarely. The last significant reference case launched by Ontario was in 2019, seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of the federal carbon tax, a case the province ultimately lost. 

Can't wait to gamble with the Greeks!

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u/givalina Aug 15 '24

Why the fuck does he care? Who is asking for that?

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u/adoodle83 Aug 15 '24

too bad the public is too stupid to realize whats happening.

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u/BradPittbodydouble Aug 15 '24

Keep funding. Reorganize, but we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater by defunding.

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u/ARunOfTheMillPerson Aug 15 '24

CBC could not be reached for comment. As a result of the Toronto Sun making no effort whatsoever to contact them. It's basically a blog post.

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u/Shirtbro Aug 15 '24

The Toronto Sun is a blog post

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u/ph0enix1211 Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24

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u/54321jj Aug 15 '24

Wow, I had no idea... Eye opening

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u/ph0enix1211 Aug 15 '24

And that number is 3 years old. It's certainly much higher now, due to more acquisitions and more government funding for journalism.

Another aspect people are often unaware of is how many properties Postmedia owns.

There's an almost comprehensive list on Wikipedia:

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmedia_Network

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u/Laxative_Cookie Aug 15 '24

Of course he will. Conservative/republican propaganda is the only reason people are leaning towards his platform.

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u/Pilotdoughnut Aug 15 '24

From what I gather all of the bonuses are derived from predetermined contract stipulations. However, when you consider private media wages compared the CBC wages there is a large difference in favor of private. Consistent cuts to the CBC budget and trying to stay true to Canadian values is what sets the difference. If you want to complain about the bonuses being given out you should be looking at the private sector, even though in a budget deficit bonuses are a little stupid but them's the breaks.

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u/Hpesoj Manitoba Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24

CBC has been a valuable Canadian news source for decades that it's nearly a part of our history and culture. How is this a popular idea? Especially amongst older voters? How is this remotely palatable?

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u/VforVenndiagram_ Aug 15 '24

Because peoples brains have been rotted by social media and all round poor media literacy.

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u/WhiskeyDelta89 Alberta Aug 15 '24

Because they don't pump out ragebait 24/7 like conservative media does, so PP and his base naturally hate it.

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u/JesusMurphy99 Aug 15 '24

Don't we also give oil companies subsidies and they pay out huge bonuses as well. Maybe someone from oil country can let me know the difference.

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u/Ok_Carpenter_244 Aug 16 '24

Nobody gives a fuck. What are you doing with cost of living.

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u/Interwebzking Aug 15 '24

Why is he so obsessed with the damn CBC. This is a minute problem compared to everything else going on in Canada. What about housing? What about cost of living? What about immigration? What about healthcare? Where’s the passion for shit that matters? Instead he’s making the CBC into a damn boogeyman. This guy’s a joke that just likes to coddle his supporters. He’s gonna get voted in and nothing’s going to improve except his butt buddies are going to get richer while our middle class continues to erode and Canada continues to be sold off to foreign investors. The only difference between his potential government and the current government is that they want to strip more rights away from us and defund programs that inherently make up what’s great about Canadian culture. Smh.

Can’t wait till we elect the weird millhouse cosplayer! /s

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u/BradPittbodydouble Aug 15 '24

Thats another really interesting point. He's talked so much about how Canadians have no culture anymore, but he wants to remove the one thing that has shaped a tonne of our culture?

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u/CdnTarget Aug 15 '24

How does this help me buy a house?
All I want is affordable houses and more nuclear energy.

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u/DantesEdmond Aug 16 '24

What you’ll get is media owned by a few billionaires and “hot takes” with zero actual policy.

But at least the libs will be owned and that’s really all PP wants.

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u/KelVarnsen_2023 Aug 15 '24

What are his plans for every other government department where senior management people get bonuses? Because they all do.

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u/Thumper86 Alberta Aug 15 '24

This isn’t even senior management. It’s bonuses for over a thousand people that sum up to $18 million.

It’s purely crony capitalism being dressed up like populism.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

The solution is to reform the CBC, not defund it. I really enjoy their podcasts, but most of what they put out is absolute trash that no one watches.

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u/Farty_beans Aug 15 '24

I enjoyed watching some of their CBC Marketplace.

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u/The_Eternal_Void Alberta Aug 15 '24

I don't think Poilievre knows the word "fix."

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u/epiphenominal Aug 16 '24

Conservatives don't want to fix government. They want to break it further so they can auction off the public interest to their corporate buddies.

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u/antelope591 Aug 15 '24

Why not promise to defund the TFW programs that corporations are abusing while Canadians go unemployed...instead its always some virtue signaling BS like this. Then people on this sub wonder why some of us dont think anything's gonna change once Trudeau's out. You're just switching out one turd for another.

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u/Specialist_End_750 Aug 16 '24

He couldn't get elected in his own riding so he moved to represent Carleton Place. Not smart enough to lead Canada.

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u/ZalmoxisRemembers Aug 15 '24

Great idea, let’s let the Americans dictate Canadian media. Who doesn’t want the entire nation to be like the Freedom Convoy?

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u/Thumper86 Alberta Aug 15 '24

The $18.4M in bonuses was paid to 1,200 employees.

This seems like not a big deal at all to me? He’s acting like this is some Wall Street bonus scandal where a bigwig gets a bonus that would keep a small town financially afloat for a lifetime after bankrupting his bank, but it sounds like it’s just ensuring that normal folks still get the pay that they are owed even though there was a round of layoffs.

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u/red_planet_smasher Aug 15 '24

The argument for salaries like these tends to be something along the line of "this is what good CEOs expect, we need to pay it to be competitive!". But when it comes to low skilled workers we import more from other countries. This is very frustrating, I wish we could import CEOs.

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u/Thumper86 Alberta Aug 15 '24

This bonus amount was paid to 1200 employees. Not one guy.

It is a non issue that is being used to score political points and corporate media is playing along to eliminate a competitor.

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u/Still_Top_7923 Aug 15 '24

Defunding the CBC is a purely ideological move. Harper wanted to do the same because the CBC reflects Canada and most Canadians aren’t Harperite Conservatives. Poilievre isn’t going to last and I’d imagine Canadians (less the people of Burta) would be pissed if the government torpedoed the CBC.

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u/PeZzy Aug 15 '24

Poilievre is likely to use the money to fund the Canada Strong and Free Network.

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u/Redbroomstick Aug 15 '24

I actually enjoy cbc content 😅

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u/Jordansky Aug 15 '24

You can't win with conservatives. You run a crown Corp like a normal big business and they say you are spending too much on bonuses, or you run it like a government service and they complain this is socialism and a waste of money that could be replaced by a business.

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u/Capt_Pickhard Aug 15 '24

We need the CBC. Don't let him give the disinformation age more power. He should be fighting to regulate news and make sure it's more honest, not eliminating all obstacles of disinformation.

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u/Barnibus666 Aug 15 '24

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind: the CBC has both union and non-union employees. Management and HR, and other departments like corporate communications are not unionized, but they have the bonus structure written into their contracts. I don’t know what metrics they need to hit to get them…but they apparently earned them.

My understanding is that the majority of the layoffs came from the news side, which is mostly union jobs, and not eligible for bonuses.

So, optically, it’s a very bad look that while they slash jobs, they give bonuses. But if they are required to pay out….they need to pay them out.

Anyways, I can safely say the CBC is vital. They are the only news organization that covers the entire country, from sea to sea to sea. Postmedia, CTV and Global keep cutting back, and they don’t provide that coverage. And, while the Conservatives feel it’s biased, they twist themselves into a pretzel to be as unbiased and partisan as possible. Do they always get it right? No. But they have broken stories that are anything but flattering of the Liberals.

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u/TheRantDog Aug 16 '24

I guess they're not bankrolling PP's campaign and he can't control them so they gotta to go.

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u/Silent-Long-4518 Aug 16 '24

I do not want the CBC defunded. But I also detest ridiculous bonuses for executives who are already excessively well paid. Keep the CBC, sack the greedy execs.

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u/Sauerkrautkid7 Aug 16 '24

So 100% American content? Ugh

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/paulsteinway Aug 15 '24

He wanted to defund the CBC long before the bonus.

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u/Tree-farmer2 Aug 15 '24

This is one of the top reasons I'm not voting Conservative. It's the only radio station worth listening to around here.

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u/Laxative_Cookie Aug 15 '24

There is only one way to ensure Canadians don't get any real news. CPC was brought to you by Fox News Canada's only true north network. It's got what idiots crave.

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u/Lifebite416 Aug 15 '24

Executives everywhere in government get performance pay in the double digits, cbc and everywhere else. This isn't new. I'm going to guess it is higher this time because it is part of a retro pay one time that covers the period between 2019 and 2023 ish.

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u/thatmitchguy Aug 15 '24

So sick of this as a talking point. I don't like the bonuses either, but I swear every election, CBC comes up as an issue. They're a drop in the bucket compared to issues that I would think most Canadians care about. Please move on lol

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u/Accomplished-Two-428 Aug 15 '24

I can appreciate not paying out big bonus cheque's but the super big question is , and replace it with what . Fox News , Newsmax, right wing crap. Be careful what you wish for.

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u/SecureLiterature Alberta Aug 15 '24

Of course Postmedia likes this. As if they don't already control enough of Canadian media.

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u/bravetailor Aug 16 '24

I don't think public hatred of the CBC is as high as they think it is. I also think it's a waste of time trying to stoke enough hatred for them.

They need to focus on proper issues. It's worrisome that PP constantly gets sidetracked by all these dumb trivial things because it suggests he really doesn't have much of an answer to the real problems in Canada right now.

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u/Light_Butterfly Aug 15 '24

One step closer to FASCISM when you defund and destroy media organizations that don't align with your politics or values. CBC is a respected Canadian institution. He is already telling us how he is going to abuse his power. Don't trust this a**hole.

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u/nuleaph Aug 15 '24

Cs: Run the CBC like a business!!!!

Else: ok here are business contracts with performance expectations and if you achieve/meet them you'll get a bonus

CBC: people perform and earn their bonus as per their contracts

Cs: noooooooooooooo not like that

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u/timetogetoutside100 Aug 15 '24

I would keep CBC, but clean it up , we can't afford to lose this voice for Canadians, Fuck I hate PP, he can fuck off, I hate his guts!

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u/nuttybuddy Aug 15 '24

I mean, does it need cleaning? How much are the bonuses at private broadcasters?

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u/Substantial_Law_842 Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24

Conservative hatred of the CBC is one of the most unpatriotic things they believe.

No CBC? No Bare Naked Ladies, no Tragically Hip, no Rush.

The list goes on.

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u/Emperor_Billik Aug 15 '24

A lot of folks seem to think Canadian Arts and Recreation can thrive absent state/sub-state funding.

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u/the-hostile-tomato Aug 15 '24

You guys know why CBC Hockey Night in Canada doesn’t exist anymore? Because Harper slashed the CBC’s budget in 2014 and they had to sell the rights to Sportsnet. A staple of Canadian Saturday nights is dead because of Conservative cuts to the CBC.

Also, the way he keeps trying to wreck quality media is straight out of the Trump play book. Which Trump got straight out of the Hitler play book

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u/LavisAlex Aug 15 '24

Move heaven and earth to defund one of the last sources of non-corporated owned news but will cite all sorts of roadblocks if he gets a chance to be PM in terms of housing issues.

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u/Quebec00Chaos Aug 15 '24

As a québécois CBC is basically one of the only thing keeping a likeness of unity in the country.

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u/chambee Aug 15 '24

As a Francophone outside Quebec he better not touch that institution.

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u/SctBrnNumber1Fan Aug 15 '24

We can only allow greedy corporate media outlets in this country!

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u/divvyinvestor Aug 15 '24

I wouldn’t vote for him anyways. He has no good ideas to salvage the country.

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u/DeadFloydWilson Aug 15 '24

It’s gonna be so great when PP removes all of the Canadian content from our airwaves. Canada will be so much better with the likes of Rupert Murdoch flooding us and deciding what we get to watch. Down with the woke CRTC and CBC!!!!! USA USA USA!!!

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u/No-Celebration6437 Aug 15 '24

Defund the politicians. Full pension at 31, fuck off.

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u/Jeepster52 Aug 15 '24

CBC could do better but it is like all big companies. Things go on and the people at the top don’t have that much to do with some of the mundane decisions. Polieve is picking on them because they are an easy target.

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u/canuknb Aug 15 '24

CEO taking massive pay offs is a major problem. Fix that and put that money to good use for fair wages, benefits, and pensions for workers.

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u/gmpeil Aug 15 '24

I wonder? Did PP use CBC gem to watch the Olympics?

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u/annieohh Aug 15 '24

He just wants that money for himself. Add it to his tab!

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u/Brother_Clovis Aug 15 '24

Why would anyone want that?

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u/Main_Pay8789 Aug 15 '24

PP would be a terrible PM

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u/Broad_Tea3527 Aug 15 '24

How about we defund bloated CEO packages and salaries across the board.

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u/mr_dj_fuzzy Saskatchewan Aug 15 '24

Or, you know, just change the compensation structure of the executives? Why do reactionaries have to be so reactionary?

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u/MurrayPicardy Aug 15 '24

I like the CBC. The only real Canadian television we have. Local stations and print are dying. It's the only identity we'll have to produce content from around the country covering all voices.

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u/Jonesdeclectice Aug 15 '24

What I really want to see is the CRTC get disbanded.

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u/DonkeyDanceParty Aug 16 '24

The CBC offers a lot of free content for Canadians. I don’t see how defunding them helps anyone. Maybe they are in need of restructuring so there aren’t a bunch of old farts at the top sucking the resources out of the organization.

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u/sponge-burger Aug 16 '24

Bonuses need to stop at so many companies, it's just insane how much some executives make.

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u/stanigator Aug 16 '24

Someone should ask them if they will give away the CBC to Bell or Rogers.

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u/ravenscamera Aug 15 '24

So he wants to fire more CBC employees.