Juno News - Why it’s time to defund the CBC

00:00:00.000 The CBC is a beacon for truth against fake news, according to its CEO Catherine Tate,

00:00:05.300 while the federal liberals claim that Canada just wouldn't be the same without the CBC.

00:00:09.080 I'm Jasmine Moulton and it's time for a reality check.

00:00:18.500 This show is called Reality Check, but it really could be called

00:00:21.360 leftists say the darndest things. And there's no shortage of silly statements when it comes to 0.98

00:00:26.560 talking about Canada's national broadcaster, the CBC. But before we get to that, if you're

00:00:31.520 watching on YouTube, please leave a comment because I'd love to hear what topics you want us to debunk

00:00:36.540 next week. As you know, every week we debunk one common leftist myth in Canada. And so far,

00:00:42.180 some of those examples include the rich get richer, poor get poorer, that Canada has the best healthcare

00:00:47.400 system in the world and that our schools need more funding. So please drop a comment below and let me

00:00:52.880 know what topic you think we should cover next week. Now back to this week's topic, the CBC.

00:00:57.900 I've said it before and I'll say it again. How many journalism degrees does it take to understand

00:01:02.880 that accepting money from government is a conflict of interest in journalism? I mean, I'm not a

00:01:07.560 journalistic expert by any means, but it seems pretty obvious that if your funding comes from

00:01:12.540 taxpayers from the government and it's your duty to report on the government, that's obviously a

00:01:17.700 blatant conflict of interest. How can you honestly report on a government budget, for example, if

00:01:22.300 they're reducing your own funding? Do you think that's a great thing? No, of course you wouldn't.

00:01:26.260 And this is probably why you see a lot of people in this space, especially in the CBC, who are pro-big

00:01:31.840 government, who think that government spending is inherently good. So even though there's this

00:01:35.820 really obvious tension underlying the entire concept of a national broadcaster, leftists continue

00:01:41.880 year after year to defend the CBC. Specifically, they argue that the CBC's funding should be

00:01:46.660 increased for three main reasons. One, because the CBC protects Canadian culture and identity.

00:01:52.500 Two, because the CBC is comparatively underfunded compared to international counterparts. And three,

00:01:58.780 because our national broadcaster is tasked with providing local coverage. Let's debunk the left's

00:02:03.460 first argument in support of CBC, which is that the CBC is necessary in order to build and maintain

00:02:09.000 Canadian culture and identity. So the very idea that the CBC is supposed to build or maintain

00:02:14.760 Canada's identity and culture might be laughable to you, because perhaps you identify as everything 0.98

00:02:19.580 opposite of what the CBC represents. But we still need to dissect this argument, because it really

00:02:24.460 is the number one go-to argument that leftists use in support of the CBC. But first, it's worth

00:02:30.520 asking, what is Canadian culture? What defines our identity as Canadians? You might say Canadians are

00:02:37.420 polite, that maybe they're a little bit too apologetic. And often what comes to mind when you think

00:02:42.880 of Canada and Canada's identity is that we're very multicultural, but not according to the CBC. Here's

00:02:49.100 a CBC doc that was unearthed by my colleague, Harrison Faulkner. Take a look.

00:02:53.700 Let me ask you a question. How many of you would trade places with a Black person in this society? 0.79

00:03:01.520 Raise your hand. 0.96

00:03:02.080 I don't know the answer to that.

00:03:08.300 Well, it's yes or no. How many of you would do it?

00:03:11.420 I know I wouldn't. 0.97

00:03:12.160 I mean, I hated a Hispanic very dark-skinned. 1.00

00:03:15.000 No, no, I'm not talking about Hispanic. 0.96

00:03:16.980 She didn't ask you that.

00:03:19.140 But I was going to have children.

00:03:20.180 So I spent many years thinking of myself, of having very dark-skinned children.

00:03:24.360 The question is, how many of you would be willing to trade places in this society with a Black 1.00

00:03:34.600 person? 0.95

00:03:36.640 I think I would.

00:03:37.800 Absolutely.

00:03:38.200 Absolutely.

00:03:39.520 Okay.

00:03:40.300 I'm not saying there's not racism. Absolutely not. It's just saying I don't see it.

00:03:45.040 Yeah, but you know how racist this country is.

00:03:48.400 Not to the degree that you do.

00:03:49.840 Oh, no, you will never know. 0.93

00:03:51.340 You know, in this country, we created the criminalization of Black people.

00:03:59.280 And when your skin is seen as a weapon, you're never unarmed. 0.94

00:04:04.660 And that's why Black boys and men and women are dying in the street with their hands up. 0.98

00:04:10.980 What you just saw was a CBC documentary called Race to Dinner, Deconstructing Karen.

00:04:16.300 Census data from Stats Canada confirms that Canada is actually one of the most multicultural

00:04:21.600 countries in the world.

00:04:23.380 In fact, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from all across the world choose to make Canada

00:04:27.800 their home every single year.

00:04:29.640 But instead, the CBC chooses to air this extremely divisive documentary that paints Canadian culture

00:04:35.860 as the exact opposite.

00:04:37.160 And this is precisely the problem with putting a few cultural elites at the CBC in charge of defining

00:04:43.860 what Canadian culture and identity ought to be.

00:04:46.920 Listen to this clip.

00:04:47.960 This is Peter Mansbridge, who is a longtime news anchor and chief correspondent for the CBC,

00:04:52.960 talk about how the cultural bias of the CBC is real.

00:04:56.880 So, what I would say is that there can at times be an inherent bias that gives a Toronto-centric

00:05:05.980 view of issues that confront our country.

00:05:11.120 And it's something that we struggle here against.

00:05:16.620 I mean, I remember when I started my career, the first 10 years in Western Canada, I used to

00:05:20.360 thought, oh, those people in Toronto, man, they have no understanding of what it's like

00:05:25.840 here on the prairies, and all they ever talk about is their kind of Toronto issues.

00:05:31.760 Now, I don't think that's entirely fair, but I do think there can be an inherent bias

00:05:36.700 simply by the fact that some of the main players, not just of the CBC, but in the national media,

00:05:43.140 live in, you know, the proximity of downtown Toronto.

00:05:48.920 And so, therefore, they're affected, they and their families are affected by everything

00:05:54.020 from, you know, like the Toronto transit system, the Toronto healthcare, Toronto schools, Toronto

00:06:00.100 sewers, the, you know, the condition of Toronto roads, and they're always thinking that stuff.

00:06:05.760 And sometimes they tend to apply Toronto standards to their thinking behind the coverage of stories

00:06:12.380 outside of the city.

00:06:14.480 So, I, you know, I think that is a legitimate area to talk about.

00:06:19.260 I don't buy the political bias stuff, never have at all.

00:06:23.800 And quite frankly, I can tell you, when the Conservatives have been in power, I hear from

00:06:29.880 Liberals saying we have a Conservative bias.

00:06:32.160 When, you know, and when the Liberals are in power, we hear, you know, the same thing.

00:06:37.840 This clip should cast a lot of doubt on the CBC's role as defining Canadian culture and

00:06:42.740 identity.

00:06:43.240 But what makes that role even more dubious is the fact that the CBC's president, Catherine

00:06:48.000 Tate, doesn't even live in Canada.

00:06:50.840 The story broke during the pandemic that she's been living in a multi-million dollar brownstone 1.00

00:06:54.860 in Brooklyn, New York.

00:06:56.360 And this is literally the person in charge of the organization defining Canadian culture

00:07:01.320 and identity.

00:07:02.120 So, it's not surprising that the CBC gets Canadian culture and identity wrong so often.

00:07:07.100 Now, I was reminded of this recently when the CBC published a news piece, not even an opinion

00:07:13.340 piece, an op-ed given by one of its contributors, but a literal news piece published by one of

00:07:18.640 its journalists, Brock Wilson.

00:07:20.540 He interviews a now 21-year-old, but this kid who talks about when he was 13, how he could

00:07:26.640 have been radicalized by watching Ben Shapiro videos on YouTube.

00:07:30.860 So, if any of our viewers are unfamiliar, Ben Shapiro is a Conservative commentator from the

00:07:34.960 U.S., and he actually has quite a sizable Canadian audience.

00:07:38.560 I, for example, enjoy his content and watch it far more often than I would be caught watching

00:07:43.700 the CBC.

00:07:44.520 But of course, that doesn't prevent the CBC from running this hip piece on Ben Shapiro.

00:07:48.740 And listen to the following quote from the article.

00:07:50.440 Like, really, CBC?

00:08:03.860 I'm a 33-year-old mom, and I like Ben Shapiro.

00:08:07.940 That doesn't make me a sexist or a misogynist, which, as a reminder, a misogynist is defined

00:08:13.660 as a person who's strongly prejudiced against women.

00:08:16.780 Really, CBC?

00:08:17.660 I'm strongly prejudiced against women. 1.00

00:08:19.620 Simply because I enjoy the content of a Conservative commentator that the cultural elites at the

00:08:24.640 CBC disagree with.

00:08:25.600 But of course, this is nothing new, because the CBC runs a ton of content that runs counter

00:08:31.140 to Canadian values, culture, and identity.

00:08:34.200 For example, the CBC published commentary by an Elections Canada worker that painted elderly

00:08:39.360 white voters and Conservative voters as hateful and racist.

00:08:44.060 CBC Kids claimed that Harry Potter author J.K. 0.99

00:08:47.280 Rowling is transphobic and dangerous for saying that only women can menstruate.

00:08:53.200 And last but not least, CBC Docs is airing a show called Drag Kids, which profiles children

00:09:00.420 as young as nine competing in a drag show.

00:09:03.460 A lot of Canadians would not identify with any of this content, and beyond just simply not

00:09:08.440 identifying with it, they'd find it morally repugnant.

00:09:11.480 Based on these examples alone, the CBC cannot rightfully claim to be a cultural representative

00:09:16.540 of Canada or Canadian identity.

00:09:18.800 But even if the CBC didn't run some of these pieces that run counter to the identity

00:09:23.080 of broad swaths of Canadians, the idea that any single institution in Canada should be

00:09:27.740 responsible for defining Canadian culture is a terrible idea.

00:09:31.720 By its very definition, culture should be a bottom-up phenomenon, not a top-down dictate.

00:09:37.140 So ultimately, I think this reveals a sort of arrogance that anyone in society thinks that

00:09:42.160 there are cultural better and that they alone can be tasked with defining what Canadian culture

00:09:47.520 is or what our identity should be.

00:09:49.800 So the idea that we need government to safeguard our culture is ridiculous on its face.

00:09:54.080 Yet this is the argument that leftists often use to argue that the CBC needs more funding.

00:09:58.960 And this brings us nicely into argument number two that leftists often make is that the CBC

00:10:03.760 is underfunded.

00:10:04.680 If you take a look at this CBC presentation deck, it shows that Canada ranks 15th out of 20 countries

00:10:11.280 for spending on culture.

00:10:12.320 Now, of course, spending on public broadcasters is a subset of government spending on culture.

00:10:18.560 So the argument they're really trying to make here is, look, there's a lot of countries that

00:10:21.980 spend a lot more on their public broadcasters than Canada does.

00:10:25.400 Therefore, we should increase the CBC's funding.

00:10:27.640 But the argument that they're making here is really a weird one.

00:10:30.780 Because if you look, Canada does spend more on culture per capita than other countries such

00:10:35.900 as Japan, Italy, Portugal, New Zealand, and the United States.

00:10:39.520 So is the CBC trying to argue here that Canada has more culture than Italy?

00:10:44.900 Or does Norway, for example, the country that spends most on culture, does Norway have more

00:10:49.920 culture than France?

00:10:51.380 Of course not.

00:10:52.420 The idea that government spending can increase culture is absurd.

00:10:55.900 So the argument that the CBC needs more money really comes down to priorities.

00:11:00.300 Canada's debt is growing massively, spending is out of control, and Canadians are feeling the

00:11:04.960 pinch right now in an inflationary environment where many are teetering on the brink of being

00:11:09.160 able to pay their bills or not.

00:11:10.560 So the question becomes, is the CBC really that important that we need to increase taxes

00:11:16.020 on Canadians or add to the debt burden, which is essentially just a future tax liability for

00:11:20.920 the next generation?

00:11:22.060 Is the CBC that important that we need to add billions of dollars in spending for it?

00:11:27.400 And as a reminder, while many Canadians in the private sector lost their jobs during the

00:11:31.300 pandemic, the CBC, which is apparently crying poor, handed out over $30 million in raises paid for by

00:11:39.540 taxpayers during that pandemic.

00:11:41.860 So this information was discovered through an access to information request by Blackbox

00:11:45.880 reporter.

00:11:46.860 And they found that the CBC during the pandemic gave out raises to over a thousand full-time

00:11:52.460 employees, totaling on average about $15,000 each.

00:11:56.880 So it's a little hard to feel bad for the CBC when they cry poor after they hand out $30 million

00:12:01.600 in bonuses during the pandemic.

00:12:03.900 But of course, the best way for the CBC to make money would be for it to produce content

00:12:08.660 that people actually want to consume.

00:12:10.840 But as True North reported, the CBC is bleeding money and bleeding viewers.

00:12:16.080 Ad revenues for English language TV programs fell by 37% from 2018 to 2019.

00:12:22.700 And the CBC's total market share fell to a meager 5% in 2019, down from 8% the year prior.

00:12:31.020 The total audience tuning into local evening CBC TV newscasts was only about 319,000 Canadians

00:12:38.480 across the country.

00:12:40.180 That's approximately 0.8% of Canada's population.

00:12:44.660 Obviously, without viewers, your advertising revenue is going to fall.

00:12:47.840 And the CBC annual report for 2020-2021, indeed, acknowledged that advertising revenues were

00:12:55.220 down by over 10%.

00:12:56.360 But the CBC doesn't have an incentive to improve its content to attract more viewers, when

00:13:01.160 in reality, all they have to do is just rely on taxpayers.

00:13:04.480 And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was fully on board for this approach because in his mandate

00:13:08.980 letter to Pablo Rodriguez, who's the Heritage Minister, he said this.

00:13:12.600 He actually tasked the Cabinet Minister with providing additional funding to CBC to make

00:13:17.780 it less reliant on private advertising.

00:13:20.720 So with less private advertising, now taxpayers are going to have to pick up more of the bill

00:13:25.060 for the CBC.

00:13:26.480 As a reminder, they already fund about 71% of it, meaning the rest would come from private

00:13:31.600 advertising.

00:13:32.680 The Prime Minister thinks that taxpayers should pick up a greater portion of that.

00:13:36.460 And also, at the same time, that funding to the public broadcaster should be increased.

00:13:40.700 Now, this is my favourite argument that leftists make in support of CBC that I love to debunk

00:13:45.880 because it's such obvious math.

00:13:47.660 They love to say that, hey, why are you so upset that CBC only costs per capita about $33

00:13:53.720 per year for each Canadian?

00:13:55.920 So for starters, this is bad math because they include kids in that population. 0.99

00:13:59.840 And kids, for the most part, don't pay taxes, federal income taxes, which is what goes to

00:14:04.480 fund the CBC.

00:14:05.380 So immediately, you have to cut kids out of the total population that you're using in this 0.98

00:14:10.060 equation.

00:14:10.880 Also, what a lot of people might not know is that not all Canadian adults even pay federal

00:14:15.940 income tax.

00:14:16.780 In fact, one third of Canadian adults don't pay any federal income tax.

00:14:20.960 So actually, when you only consider the taxpayers who are footing the bill for the CBC, the number

00:14:25.860 is much greater than $33 a year.

00:14:28.380 And the most obvious rebuttal to all of this is that why should any taxpayer have to pay for

00:14:33.180 something that they're not using, a service that they're not consuming?

00:14:36.460 And in reality, the CBC actually costs a lot more than the nominal funding that it gets

00:14:41.600 every year because it's completely debt funded.

00:14:44.680 So in 2021, the CBC costs $1.4 billion is the amount in the budget that the government

00:14:51.100 gave to the CBC.

00:14:52.360 But the government was in deficit by over $100 billion that year.

00:14:55.900 So no, it didn't technically have the $1.4 billion that it gave to the CBC.

00:15:00.700 So that's debt funded.

00:15:01.700 If you look at the average cost of interest on the government's debt for that year, it

00:15:07.320 came out to about 2.15% is the interest rate that they were paying on their debt.

00:15:12.400 So an interest rate of 2.15% on the cost of the CBC, $1.4 billion in 2021, actually means

00:15:19.820 that taxpayers had to pay an extra $30 million or more in interest on the amount that we spent

00:15:26.260 on the CBC.

00:15:27.200 So sorry, viewers, the CBC actually costs you millions more than you think.

00:15:30.820 But again, the real question in all of this is why should any Canadian be forced to pay

00:15:35.780 for the CBC when they don't watch or listen to it?

00:15:39.860 And this brings us to our third and final argument why leftists think that Canada needs the CBC.

00:15:45.060 It's all about local coverage.

00:15:47.040 In today's media landscape, leftists will argue that there's not a market case to be

00:15:51.080 made in these smaller markets, smaller local markets.

00:15:54.780 They're not economic necessarily to run a newsroom out of anymore, as more advertising dollars

00:15:59.540 have gone to tech giants like Google and Facebook.

00:16:02.720 They argue that the CBC should operate in these smaller local markets where there's

00:16:06.980 not necessarily a market case to do so.

00:16:09.420 But shockingly, as we saw during the pandemic, the CBC actually shut down its local coverage

00:16:14.720 at a time that Canadians would have needed it most.

00:16:18.380 Susan Margetti, who's the general manager of CBC News, Current Affairs, and Local,

00:16:22.860 said the following in a statement.

00:16:24.060 As Canadians turn to us for the latest developments during these unprecedented times, we're temporarily

00:16:29.560 pooling our resources into one core news offering.

00:16:33.240 We are needed now more than ever, and we will work together across the organization to serve

00:16:37.780 Canadians night and day with the trusted news and critical information they need for the

00:16:42.200 duration of the pandemic while keeping our team safe.

00:16:45.360 Simply stated, extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.

00:16:49.540 Oh, the poor CBC.

00:16:51.240 They don't even realize how they're shooting themselves in the foot here because a lot

00:16:54.740 of their defenders say that local news coverage is their raison d'etre, that this is why they

00:16:59.700 exist, but obviously during the pandemic, they couldn't even keep that alive.

00:17:04.260 But this obviously does bring up a large criticism of the CBC, which is that they actually compete

00:17:09.740 with private industry, private media that could have otherwise popped up in the space.

00:17:14.780 If it's difficult to run a news operation in a small local community, it becomes that

00:17:20.080 much more difficult when you have a multi-billion dollar funded competitor to compete with.

00:17:25.680 So here's a reality check.

00:17:27.220 It is inappropriate that any government-funded institution in this country should be defining

00:17:32.140 and dictating what Canadian culture and identity are.

00:17:35.520 If the CBC truly was a relevant cultural force in Canada, then more than 5% of the market

00:17:41.500 would be tuning in.

00:17:42.280 But of course, the CBC is bleeding ad revenue and viewership, but instead of improving its

00:17:47.480 content, it instead just dips further and further into taxpayers' pockets.

00:17:51.780 And it's all too quick to axe local coverage when the going gets tough.

00:17:55.420 Frankly, the CBC is the last institution in this country that should be defining our culture

00:17:59.820 and identity, and it's not justifiable as a taxpayer expense, especially in these times

00:18:04.520 when taxpayers are struggling to even afford their groceries.

00:18:07.260 It's beyond time to defund the CBC.

00:18:09.280 That's our show for this week.

00:18:10.420 Thanks so much for listening.

00:18:11.260 If you like the work that we do, please support it.

00:18:13.940 Please consider going to donate.tnc.news.

00:18:17.740 Don't forget to make a comment.

00:18:19.520 Let us know what topics you want us to cover next week.

00:18:22.240 I'm Jasmine Moulton, and this is Reality Check.

Juno News - September 28, 2022

Why it’s time to defund the CBC

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