Juno News - Majority of Canadians support DEFUNDING the CBC

00:00:00.000 a new one persuasion poll commissioned by true north found that a majority of canadians wanted

00:00:08.800 to defund the cbc that young canadians are more likely to support increasing media subsidies and

00:00:16.160 that a majority of canadians believe media subsidies impact impartiality well as canada

00:00:22.320 gears up to approach a federal election in a year's time how much will the ongoing debate

00:00:26.560 between choosing to fund or defund the cbc play in the months ahead joining us to break down the

00:00:33.040 data and to walk us through the findings is hamish marshall political strategist pollster

00:00:38.080 and partner at one persuasion hamish thank you so much for joining us great to be here as always

00:00:42.560 harrison so in the recent poll that true north commission and your team conducted one of the

00:00:48.640 standout uh one of the standout questions and really one of the answers that we found interesting was

00:00:52.880 that only half of 2021 liberal voters approximately half of both liberal and ndp voters would support

00:01:01.760 fully funding the cbc meaning that the push to defund the cbc seems to really be working and actually

00:01:08.640 breaking through party barriers is that uh one of the findings that you found to be interesting as well

00:01:13.600 yeah absolutely um this is the numbers here are staggering and that the number of folks who are

00:01:19.840 in favor of fully funding the cbc keeping the model the way it is today has just collapsed and it's

00:01:25.920 across the political spectrum of course we see very few conservatives wanting to keep the status quo that

00:01:30.560 shouldn't be a giant surprise it's obviously one of one of peer polly of signature um uh campaign

00:01:35.760 issues when he ran for the leadership and he's kept on talking about it it's certainly doing very

00:01:39.600 very well for him with conservatives but the fact that's only about half of ndp years 55 of liberals

00:01:45.840 want to keep them the funding model the same i think really speaks to the cbc's

00:01:51.280 you look i think there's a couple things going on here one is the general decline of media and people

00:01:55.120 just moving away from the old school mainstream media to platforms like true north but also the cbc

00:02:00.800 in particular has done such an appalling job of the last uh in the last say 15 or 20 years of um

00:02:07.760 building those links with canadians that maybe it once had um and that i think we're seeing that in these

00:02:13.360 numbers and one of the things that we've seen has been really conservatives either willing to stand

00:02:20.800 and fight on the on the defunding of the cbc issue or in some cases like in the last federal election

00:02:27.120 almost completely abandoning that issue uh once a once erin o'toole for example became the leader

00:02:34.400 do you think that this is going to strengthen the message from pierre paulio is he going to continue to

00:02:39.440 go for maybe a full defunding now or is he going to try to maintain a middle line approach where some

00:02:47.120 parts of the cbc are going to be defunded but others like some of the uh the french speaking radio

00:02:53.440 as well and rural services will be kept how do you think that's going to change uh pauliev's approach

00:02:58.400 heading into the next election i think what all this does is confirms his approach thus far right he's

00:03:03.520 keep that english cbc uh especially the television branch is in real trouble uh pauliev the support

00:03:10.800 for it is very low pauliev is absolutely going to keep that promise and go out and go after that and

00:03:15.440 defund that there's no doubt in my mind of that um the i think i think the situation in quebec in

00:03:20.480 particular is is is um a little different obviously it's a different media environment the number of

00:03:25.920 sources of media in french uh even the number of independent sources is a lot less and as a result

00:03:31.920 there's more support uh for um for the cbc broadly speaking although it is interesting that um when

00:03:42.560 uh when you look at even at the quebec numbers um uh still there are 24 percent uh want us to in

00:03:51.680 quebec want to stop funding the cbc entirely um and only 40 say keep it as it is so even there there's

00:03:59.840 there's more of an appetite today than i think there was a year ago but quebec's going to be

00:04:04.960 trickier for sure the the other question that you guys were focusing in on this poll was it had to

00:04:12.800 do with media subsidies and and basically bailing out the newspapers and media companies that the

00:04:18.480 federal government has been doing for quite a while and it found that actually a majority of canadians

00:04:23.360 believe that taking federal money impacts impartiality uh and i found that it was uh it was uh

00:04:30.560 i believe it was younger younger canadians actually uh the most who believe that that uh taking federal

00:04:36.160 funding impacted impartiality the that's right there's not too is that is that correct that is

00:04:42.480 correct you know uh you know young men under 35 for instance almost 70 percent uh think that taking

00:04:48.880 subsidies uh will impart their impartiality when it comes to reporting on the government and so i found

00:04:56.320 that that was very interesting but but also the findings indicate that a majority of canadians are

00:05:02.080 not interested in removing those subsidies so they believe that they will impact impartiality but they

00:05:07.440 actually don't want to eliminate the subsidies for the media was that a surprise when you guys were

00:05:12.480 asking that question and got these results yeah that was a little bit of a surprise although it's

00:05:16.800 it's important to note that the largest segment by far are people who who moderately agree with the

00:05:22.160 statement um uh are people who people who say we should maintain the current level people aren't

00:05:27.760 looking to increase the subsidy levels either they're looking to sort of continue where it is

00:05:32.080 i think canadians are generally um struggling with the situation they have with the media they know the

00:05:37.440 media is in a lot of trouble they're not prepared to go and spend money on the media the way they

00:05:41.600 conventionally had to when you when you you know support ad-funded tv or bought newspapers

00:05:47.360 back uh when i was a kid but they are also they know they want it to keep going in some way shape

00:05:54.080 or form and while there's dissatisfaction i think with the current model they don't have a better

00:05:59.440 one in mind so what this says to me is there's a lot of disquiet the concern about about influence

00:06:07.040 and about impartiality is one of them um but and if somebody came along and said here's a better model to

00:06:12.800 make sure we have a robust media environment in canada that would probably be quite popular but

00:06:16.720 right now in the absence of something different they're saying the current systems it's okay

00:06:22.400 right and do you think that you think that uh poliev will want to if he if he wins you think you'll

00:06:28.160 want to go in and attempt to slash a lot of these subsidies it's not something that he talks about

00:06:34.240 as much as he does regarding the cbc how do you think uh a peer polio government would approach the

00:06:40.240 media subsidy system well i think there's an i think we've got a huge problem in this country

00:06:45.280 and the whole sort of cultural space whether it's the news whether it's you know we've seen different

00:06:49.440 attempts in the past on taxing netflix and apple tv plus we've been all this sort of like the fact of

00:06:54.640 the matter is is that our entire cultural policy when it comes to media and entertainment in this

00:06:58.960 country is from the pre-internet era definitely the pre-streaming era and bits of legislation have

00:07:04.640 been cobbled onto it so i think the most likely thing is that there's an opportunity to kind of rewrite that

00:07:10.640 whole environment everything from the um uh from uh the other subsidies that exists for cancon and

00:07:19.680 the crtc rules and i think you could see a region of things in the context of a of an overall reform

00:07:25.840 of the system and frankly just updating the system to deal with the realities of living in 2024 or 2025

00:07:33.120 and not on this weird patchwork system that sort of grew up in the late 90s did you find that when

00:07:39.520 it came to questions about the media that there was a large divide between education levels because

00:07:45.520 i feel like that that also determines how people consume media depending on what education level

00:07:50.800 they have um usually there's there's quite a divide but was there a major divide in answers

00:07:55.360 regarding education absolutely so for instance um people with a university degree or or a postgraduate

00:08:01.600 degree uh were much more likely to be in favor of um uh continuing to fully fund the cbc amongst people

00:08:08.080 who have a trade or college degree that are a trader community college certificate that number

00:08:13.600 drops to only 31 of people who want to see the cbc uh continue as uh as as it currently exists support

00:08:20.880 for subsidies is higher with better educated people but interestingly enough concern about

00:08:26.320 impartiality is also highest with people with the most education they're the most aware of it likely

00:08:31.440 to be a problem and they are but again that goes to what i was saying that i think there's dissatisfaction

00:08:36.560 with the current system but there's less there's this confusion about what else there could be

00:08:42.000 right and and just kind of moving outside of the questions regarding the media just broadly speaking

00:08:47.440 we know that the liberals have been almost stuck in their in a in place when it comes to public

00:08:53.360 opinion they have not been able to capitalize on any effort recently to gain popularity in the polls

00:09:00.080 has anything changed or do you see anything that could possibly change in the next 12 months as we

00:09:05.360 as we approach the end of justin trudeau's third mandate i think a lot of people are a lot of

00:09:11.040 people who have decided they're not for the liberals they don't like trudeau are now just tuning them

00:09:14.800 out so they can come out and announce some phenomenally exciting policy next week and a huge

00:09:19.760 chunk of the electorate would just say i don't i don't care i don't listen to anything those guys say

00:09:24.080 and i think they're in that problem that everything they say i mean they were very excited about the

00:09:27.440 budget they rolled out in the spring i'm not quite sure why i understand why it flopped but i also

00:09:32.080 understand that a whole bunch of people who might have liked some things and i don't know but they

00:09:36.000 just weren't listening and that's the big big problem that they have is that once people have

00:09:39.680 decided they dislike a politician intensely it doesn't matter what they say it's very very difficult

00:09:44.080 to turn that around especially a politician that's been in office for a long time maybe after a year or two

00:09:49.440 and you're beginning to say well i'm not like i don't like this this leader as much as i once did

00:09:53.680 but they did something cool and exciting they'd be more willing to to come back but at this stage

00:09:59.360 nine years in um there's almost nothing i think they can do but a lot of it's tied up with trudeau

00:10:04.800 i mean i guess if if trudeau quit i think they would have i don't think they would i think i

00:10:08.720 still think they would they would lose but i think they would gain um some uh there would be a change

00:10:14.000 there if they could talk a little bit about change with some credibility if they had a new leader

00:10:18.720 and do you think that what goes on in the united states during the presidential election might

00:10:23.520 impact how voters in canada think when they head to the polls later on yeah i mean i i think we can

00:10:30.000 expect um uh the trudeau liberals through everything they can to make to say that pierre paulio is a

00:10:35.520 carbon copy of of of donald trump um and i think they're going to be pushing that line very very hard

00:10:41.760 they run they're at the stage in the government right now where they have run out of ideas and they're

00:10:46.080 just going to just go back to the old hits so they're going to absolutely try that i don't i don't think

00:10:50.800 it's going to expect it's going to work very well for many of them of the same reasons that i just

00:10:55.600 said that people are just tuning them out once people have decided they dislike trudeau as intensely

00:11:00.000 as they clearly do uh they're just tuning out everything he says do you do you feel like some

00:11:07.040 of the major pieces of legislation that have come in regarding access to news in canada c63 being one

00:11:14.480 of them that basically shut down news access um on facebook has that impacted the way canadians

00:11:22.000 operate and view the news as well like i imagine that uh belief in in trust hasn't hasn't been fixed

00:11:30.560 by anything that the federal government has tried to do with media no i think just the opposite i i think

00:11:36.080 i think i would i don't have a study to back this up but anecdotally i would argue i think canadians are

00:11:40.800 consuming less canadian news as a result of this i think people are sharing less links they know

00:11:46.560 they're not going to work uh people are i mean i just think personally the amount of discovery of

00:11:52.000 news stories that came out of social media for me that has just vanished um and and i think and

00:11:57.600 i'm someone who's a fairly you know somebody's fairly interested in the news and if someone was

00:12:01.600 sort of a much low and lower intensity news consumer that that sort those headlines that aren't

00:12:08.480 getting seen those stories that aren't getting linked to i think has i think it's dramatically

00:12:12.160 decreased it and one of the interesting things on the cbc website on the cbc website if you read

00:12:16.560 a story on their website it will often show you the number of people reading the top four or five

00:12:21.440 stories at any given time and it's fascinating the number of that has dramatically dropped there was a

00:12:26.480 time a couple of years ago when you know whatever the top story of the day was you might see 18 19 20 000

00:12:32.800 people reading the story at once now you go on there it's three four or five thousand so i think

00:12:37.600 they're suffering a lot from not coming from facebook and i imagine it's the same across all of the media

00:12:43.680 i want to just jump to a to the other side of the country here and to british columbia because we

00:12:48.880 know that there is an election coming up there in october and the bc conservatives have been really

00:12:55.040 put they've really put themselves in a position where they could potentially win um being the third

00:13:00.080 party and now they might end up winning what are you seeing on the ground there and has there been

00:13:04.880 anything that that has shifted public opinion uh in a considerable way against the bc ndp toward the

00:13:11.600 bc conservatives in that province as they lead up to an election look the ndp hasn't actually dropped

00:13:17.040 that much the ndps depending on the poll has dropped five or six points from the last election

00:13:21.440 a lot of that's due to the fact they've been in power a long time they have a less popular leader

00:13:25.280 and david eby john horgan was a very popular uh guy who who appealed across party lines um so they're

00:13:31.600 you know the fact that the ndp is down from 47 where they got in the last election to sort of low 40s

00:13:36.320 isn't much of a surprise bc conservatives have mainly gained the old bc liberal now bc united vote

00:13:42.160 primarily they're somewhere in the high 30s i'm skeptical maybe they've got maybe they can pull it off

00:13:47.600 maybe they can't polling i did a few months ago a couple months ago we looked at time for a change

00:13:53.280 desire for people to change the government and what we found is that the people who were most

00:13:57.520 intensely hated the ndp were all lining up behind the bc conservatives and they were very excited

00:14:02.480 about it but the number of people who were left who wanted to change in government wasn't that huge

00:14:08.000 so maybe they can do it maybe they'll have a good campaign but also you know as and i've been

00:14:12.080 there i've worked with third parties on on their their their rise um you know candidates they

00:14:17.360 selected a year ago when they were a lot lower in the polls can cause a lot of trouble

00:14:21.680 um a lot of their uh their senior team is very untested so uh we'll have to wait and see how it

00:14:27.200 goes but um right now i i i'm not optimistic that the ndp will be defeated in ontario it's looking like

00:14:35.360 there may be a snap provincial election in the next month or two uh is there anything there that you

00:14:41.360 think would be a problem for doug ford does bonnie crombie's do bonnie crombie's liberals look like a

00:14:46.080 threat or is this a good chance for them to try to go after them when they're when they're still just

00:14:50.960 starting out you know the biggest strength of ford governments had in the last election in the last

00:14:55.680 election even election before is this incredible split between the liberals and ndp it's right down

00:14:59.760 in the middle no one has become the obvious candidate to defeat for you know frankly i got

00:15:06.160 it wrong i thought in the last provincial election there would be a fight and by the end of the

00:15:09.440 election it would be obvious that if you want if you were anti-ford you line up either behind the ndp

00:15:14.080 or the liberals and we'd see that across the province and one of those parties would end up in the

00:15:18.000 catbird seat didn't happen then hasn't happened in the in the last uh couple of years maybe there's

00:15:24.000 an election or prompted to happen but nothing on the ground nothing seems to be indicating that that

00:15:29.680 is about to happen that one of these parties is running away with it or the other the interesting

00:15:34.320 thing that's going to happen is what is it if that is if there's a consolidation of the you know

00:15:40.400 left center left vote against ford with either the liberals or the ndp that will make the election much

00:15:46.400 much closer than it is today um but uh you know we're not seeing that so far and the results the

00:15:52.080 most recent by-elections indicate that you know ford's sitting in a great position which is why i

00:15:56.320 think we're hearing a lot of talk about an early election well when uh the british colombians headed

00:16:01.200 the polls in october and when ontarians headed the polls later on it'd be nice to have you back to

00:16:06.000 discuss all that in more detail but uh until then hamish marshall thank you so much for joining us my

00:16:11.600 pleasure harrison

Juno News - August 20, 2024

Majority of Canadians support DEFUNDING the CBC

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