The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - Greedy CBC leader gets slammed by Conservative MPs in committee

00:00:00.000 Hello everyone, Wyatt Claypool here. I obviously do not like the CBC and would like them to be

00:00:07.560 defunded, as is implied by my very elegant sticker here from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:00:14.160 but if there is one person in Canada that I can guarantee wants to see the CBC get defunded more

00:00:20.160 than me, that would be the current CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Catherine

00:00:25.900 Tate, because her tenure at the CBC has driven down its popularity to all-time lows and really

00:00:33.840 opened a lot of Canadians up to the idea of just slashing all of their taxpayer funding, which is

00:00:40.720 $1.4 billion a year right now. They'll try and finagle the numbers a bit and say, well, it's only

00:00:46.580 70% of our budget. I'm like, well, of course it's only 70% of your budget. It would be impossible

00:00:52.580 not to generate at least some amount of ad revenue with spending that much money. Really,

00:00:58.900 it's demonstrating that they cannot turn a profit at all with all of the money that they're given.

00:01:04.620 The CBC, in fact, has a bigger per capita budget than Fox News does in the United States. It's

00:01:11.520 absolutely wild, but the person who seems to not understand how much people don't like the CBC

00:01:16.820 is Catherine Tate herself. Or maybe she does and she's acting like this, like my theory implies.

00:01:22.880 She wants everyone to hate the CBC and is acting this way to make sure that we defund it when

00:01:27.900 Polyev becomes prime minister. But here is her saying that everyone loves us and the viewership's great.

00:01:33.560 Depending on the platform, up.

00:01:37.140 Okay. Support and trust in CBC Radio Canada. Is it, are Canadians supportive of CBC Radio Canada?

00:01:45.820 As we've seen in multiple third-party surveys, and I'm talking about non-CBC surveys,

00:01:54.420 CBC Radio Canada remains the most trusted source of credible news in this country.

00:02:01.660 That's just not true. The viewership numbers of the CBC, like, debunks that because people do not

00:02:08.820 watch the CBC. I'm about to bring up the source to show you just how few people watch the CBC.

00:02:13.260 But the reason the CBC ranks high in terms of trusted news is because it's usually a poll of

00:02:20.900 only mainstream news sites. You don't add in any alternative media sites. And also, most people

00:02:26.400 don't watch that much Canadian news in general because global CTV news, city TV are also trash 0.95

00:02:32.120 fires. Like, to be fair, it's not like they're fully fake news and everything they're telling you is

00:02:37.060 wrong. 95%, 90% of what these outlets tell you is correct. It's the spin. It's the framing of the

00:02:45.160 story. That is why people don't trust them. Because if you watch the CBC, you'll always think the

00:02:50.540 liberals are right. And technically, they don't lie. They just don't give you the full context.

00:02:54.840 But the reason that CBC ranks high in trust is because even if more people watch global or CTV news

00:03:01.720 than they watch the CBC, most people, if you poll them, who probably aren't watching news in general,

00:03:07.080 if you ask them, what news site do you trust the most? And CBC is like the main one in Canada in

00:03:12.440 terms of name recognition. So they say, CBC, even though more people watch CTV news and the other

00:03:17.920 outlets in comparison. Anyways, I'll let Catherine Tate finish up here before I pull up the numbers. 1.00

00:03:23.580 The Polaro survey also indicated that CBC Radio Canada is the most admired media brand in the

00:03:32.240 country. There are many surveys that indicate that CBC and Radio Canada remain very much loved among

00:03:40.580 Canadians. Very much loved. Well, how much do Canadians love them? Because a great way of quantifying love

00:03:48.180 would be how many people are actually watching it. I tend to spend money and view things that I love.

00:03:55.780 But so let's just pull up this article here from the, I believe, what website is this? I should be

00:04:00.960 giving them a plug. Ottawa Life. I'll link this article in the description below because there's a

00:04:05.740 lot of details I'm not going to go over here. And, you know, people deserve clicks for compiling all this

00:04:10.380 data. So right here it says, even with billions in extra revenue since 2015, CBC's audience

00:04:18.060 has continued to dwindle. The network currently holds a 4.4% audience share for primetime TV,

00:04:25.280 meaning 95% of Canadians are opting out of CBC content. Its local TV newscasts have fared even

00:04:33.000 worse, with just 319,000 combined viewers across 27 programs representing less than 1% of Canadians.

00:04:41.480 That is what we call indicting. Nobody watches these people. Even with them spamming local news

00:04:48.820 sites all across the country, so every major city will have one in certain provinces will have their

00:04:55.080 own CBC. Still, nobody is watching them because you get better information by just being on X or being

00:05:02.560 on Facebook before C18 came into effect. You get just politicians tweeting stuff out, just local

00:05:09.000 journalists tweeting stuff out, independent people tweeting stuff out. You get a better

00:05:12.960 version of the news from actually just following a CBC journalist on Twitter than actually watching

00:05:18.500 that CBC journalist then present the news in the filtrated form on the CBC. So the funny thing is

00:05:24.400 there are talented people who work for the CBC. Let's not pretend that everything they do is bad.

00:05:29.400 There is some good stuff. It's hard not to do the weather correctly, although they try by constantly

00:05:35.180 mentioning climate change. But the thing is that the CBC's taxpayer funding is actually what hurts

00:05:42.180 them the most. Because when you're taxpayer funded, the quality doesn't have to be good. Shows don't

00:05:47.140 have to be interesting. CBC, I think it's Power Play, Power in Politics. I forget. One of them's on CTV.

00:05:53.980 CBC's politics panel shows are dull. Nobody should watch them because it's three lobbyists who are

00:06:01.420 associated with three of the parties who can't say anything because they're political masters,

00:06:07.660 not in terms of the party, but the interests, the lobby groups they work for, obviously don't want

00:06:12.420 them to say anything spicy on television because they're supposed to be very accessible. Here's a

00:06:17.180 great clip from this committee where Damian Kirk and several of these other conservative MPs start

00:06:24.180 asking her questions about just what kind of, you know, goodwill and trust the CBC has been

00:06:30.620 garnering these days. I'm going to jump between Damian Kirk and Andrew Scheer here. And I believe

00:06:34.780 also Jamil Giovanni was at this committee as well, Ms. Tate, about talking about the $18 million in

00:06:41.500 bonuses that were awarded. Oh, and yeah, by the way, Catherine Tate still wants her bonus despite 1.00

00:06:48.500 viewership going down consistently. And she claims, well, on some platforms it's up.

00:06:54.180 Okay. But overall it's way down. She still wants her millions of bonuses, hundreds of thousands 1.00

00:07:00.060 to individuals of the CBC. Now, Ms. Tate, in your opening statement, you asked for more money.

00:07:08.460 Yet the last time more money was awarded to the CBC, it went to bonuses. As a show of leadership from

00:07:16.420 the top, can you, and I'm going to, this was asked to you before and you didn't answer clearly. So I'm

00:07:21.460 going to give you another opportunity here today. Will you categorically reject any bonus that is

00:07:27.100 offered to you as your tenure, as the CEO of CBC comes to a close?

00:07:34.280 Madam Chair, there were a number of questions in that question, if I may.

00:07:41.460 The idea, if the committee wishes, I can reread the motion.

00:07:45.220 It is about cuts to CBC and the impact of defunding the CBC. That's one of the

00:07:51.840 things that was clear. It was not about bonuses.

00:07:57.020 What? Okay. It is about bonuses. Damien Couric, who's also a fantastic MP, you should go follow him

00:08:03.660 on social media. I think he's the MP in Alberta for Battle River. That was a very clear question and

00:08:10.420 is within the purview of defunding the CBC. He is basically asking a question about the

00:08:16.800 mismanagement of money by the CBC executive. The lack of trust also has to do with this.

00:08:24.140 Everything technically outside of just saying, defund the CBC, should we or shouldn't we? Just

00:08:29.420 that basic question. Technically, everything outside of that is not about the exact question.

00:08:33.680 But what Damien Couric is getting at is, you know, what gives you the right to demand taxpayer money when

00:08:39.140 you're not using it properly. Now, maybe this is why people don't trust you.

00:08:43.100 Because if you recall, the state was here not too long ago talking about bonuses. So I think we

00:08:49.480 should read that. I will read it provided now, including how the liberal threat to cut funding

00:08:57.160 led to hundreds of CBC Radio Canada job cuts and the effects on smaller communities as promised by the

00:09:03.560 leader of the official opposition and the consequences of defunding the CBC.

00:09:09.020 So that's the question purview you must stay in, even though the CBC has been having to cut jobs

00:09:15.140 anyways, despite having more money than ever because of their mismanagement and giving out bonuses to

00:09:19.940 executives who sit around doing nothing, just ensuring that content keeps being awful. So how is

00:09:26.500 that any different? But the liberals don't want us to talk about any of the actual corruption and

00:09:32.060 mismanagement issues inside the CBC. They just want a fear monger to the small base of people in this

00:09:36.960 country who will vote against the Conservatives because we got to maintain the CBC. It's Canadian

00:09:41.600 heritage, don't you know?

00:09:43.720 That's clearly what the motion says.

00:09:46.240 Thank you, Madam Chair. And look, I think that it is clear that Ms. Tate, in her opening statement,

00:09:52.900 asked for more money. And Conservatives do not believe that if the leader at the top of the

00:10:00.840 organization is unwilling to make a commitment to say that they won't accept a bonus to what could

00:10:09.540 be the tune of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' money at a time when people are being laid off.

00:10:16.660 The last time the CBC asked for more money, they paid out more bonuses. Ms. Tate, to you today,

00:10:22.560 out of respect for the organization that you've led over the last number of years,

00:10:26.400 will you reject, if offered, a taxpayer-funded bonus?

00:10:32.040 Madam Chair, I've appeared at this committee now five times, and I believe that I have more than...

00:10:37.140 Well, you've got nothing better to do, lady. What are you going to do? Go burn money in your office? 1.00

00:10:41.440 Adequately.

00:10:41.920 So that's a no. So it's a no. She can't actually say that she doesn't want the bonus, even though,

00:10:47.380 like, again, I'm not going after anyone for making money. That's perfectly fine. Make money. But not

00:10:51.740 when you're making money off of the back of terrible content and taxpayer, like, endless taxpayer

00:10:58.720 funding. Here's Andrew Scheer, who I don't even need to introduce this clip. He just does a flat-out

00:11:04.760 amazing job of just taking down how dishonest and ineffective Catherine Tate has been as the CEO. 1.00

00:11:11.660 I'll get right to it. Ms. Tate, would you categorize your term at the CBC as a success?

00:11:16.640 Yes.

00:11:18.520 So you believe that you've left it in a better place than how you found it?

00:11:23.060 Absolutely.

00:11:23.840 Okay. So if I just go through a few things, and I just have to say, you must have quite

00:11:28.340 the echo chamber there if you believe that, because, you know, when we're talking about

00:11:33.140 how out of touch the CBC can be with Canadians, you only need to look at the bonuses that you 0.69

00:11:38.640 paid out during an affordability crisis to executives and senior management while laying off

00:11:43.940 the frontline staff, something that even Peter Mansbridge called the CBC out for. When we look

00:11:50.640 at all the metrics, all the key performance indicators, ad revenue overall down, trust is

00:11:55.520 down, despite polls that the CBC might have commissioned for itself. Independent third-party

00:12:00.840 organizations that analyze this indicate that trust in the CBC fell 17%.

00:12:06.160 And he is right there. What Catherine Tate was saying at the very start of this video,

00:12:11.180 where she was saying, well, you know, trust is up and third-party organizations say that

00:12:15.860 we're actually still the most trusted name in news. One, again, it's probably just basically

00:12:19.600 showing that they have higher name recognition than the other outlets because, you know, you

00:12:23.780 can't have not high name recognition with $1.4 billion a year, but they're still commissioning

00:12:29.020 the third-party polls. Yeah.

00:12:30.940 Nobody thought the CBC was literally doing the poll themselves. They're going to hire,

00:12:34.960 they're going to contract someone else to do the polls.

00:12:36.660 And if you ask questions in a weaselly enough way, you'll always come out with the outcome

00:12:42.960 you want. I am very pro-poll, but when you look at the poll questions often, you can tell

00:12:48.460 if the question was off or not, and we should discount it. Because so often, the question

00:12:53.100 will lead people to the answer. Well, what outlet do you associate closest with Canada's heritage?

00:13:00.240 And then people will say CBC. Because it's the oldest, obviously, and it's been around the

00:13:04.560 longest. My goodness. In just four years, viewership is down less than 3% in primetime

00:13:11.040 markets. That means during primetime when... Oh, yeah. And so when I went over that statistic

00:13:14.980 before, where it's 4.4%, that was like two years ago. It's fallen off even harder. And

00:13:20.320 think about it. They're also even running the CBC, the gem now, and they still can't get good

00:13:25.120 viewership, even though you can watch them on demand. When Canadians are getting into the living 1.00

00:13:29.720 rooms to watch what is on TV, 97% of Canadians say no to the CBC, tune it out, and move on

00:13:38.860 to other things. Based on all of that, Ms. Tate, I just want to say, on behalf of the Conservative

00:13:46.600 Party, I want to thank you for your efforts in helping us promote the campaign to defund the

00:13:52.340 CBC. Because I think... Again, I don't usually watch these clips very far in. So when at the

00:13:56.760 very start of this video is saying that she's been almost campaigning on getting the CBC defunded

00:14:01.180 through her bad behavior and poor management. I didn't even know that Andrew Scheer brought that

00:14:05.160 up too. But good on Andrew Scheer for saying this. Andrew Scheer is so much better. He's always been so

00:14:12.000 much better as this kind of attack dog type person. When he was the leader of the party between

00:14:17.560 2017 and 2019, I think his advisors and consultants did him such a big disservice.

00:14:23.340 Andrew Scheer is actually a lot of fun as a politician. He's really... He's good at being

00:14:28.920 that attack dog who's smiling all the way through, kind of like an Ezra Levant type figure. But when

00:14:33.560 he was the leader, I found that all of his advisors sucked all the value out of him by telling him to be

00:14:38.280 more flat and professional and just positive without going on too many... Not being too aggressive.

00:14:43.720 It's like, no. Aggressive Andrew Scheer is great. Aggressive John Rustad is great. Aggressive

00:14:47.780 Pure Poly is great. Conservative politicians being aggressive while also having that levity to them

00:14:53.160 is always the best path forward. I think outside of the Conservative Caucus, you have been the most

00:14:58.820 successful person in creating the demand to defund the CBC. $1.4 billion of taxpayers' money doesn't go

00:15:06.360 for an online streaming service. It goes to a whole host of products in which Canadians are choosing

00:15:12.940 other sources of information and entertainment. So again, I don't really have a question there.

00:15:17.980 I just wanted to say thank you for your efforts to help us defund the CBC.

00:15:24.620 Did you have a comment?

00:15:25.500 I must say that it really does shock me the extent to which certain members of this committee

00:15:32.540 and SUPS in, or whatever you call it, seem to make me the target and throw insults to my tenure.

00:15:43.100 It's almost like you're the leader. It's almost like the buck stops with you. I don't get this. Whenever

00:15:49.260 someone's in trouble, suddenly they're like, why are you singling me out? The person who singled myself

00:15:54.300 out for the top job in the organization, I can't believe you. I'm offended right now. I dare say,

00:16:03.020 sir, I must clutch my pearls because of what you said.

00:16:08.540 Also, I hate the bilingualism of government where everyone always has to say,

00:16:13.340 Radio Canada, just say CBC. We know what you're talking about. We know it encompasses CBC North and

00:16:18.940 CBC Quebec and the Francophone version. Just say CBC.

00:16:22.540 ...order to discredit the organization. The organization has stood for 90 years,

00:16:29.420 and we know 79% of Canadians say they believe that CBC Radio Canada should continue. And so to have this

00:16:42.220 be somehow, you know, a proof that we should be defunding the CBC is ridiculous. 0.60

00:16:50.380 I was... Go ahead, Mr. Scher.

00:16:52.940 Who cares if it's been around for 90 years? How long was the... Yeah, like... Okay.

00:16:59.660 Khmer Rouge existed for a long time. I don't think that anyone brought that up in

00:17:03.740 any meetings on banning this Khmer Rouge from Cambodia. Well, you know, they have been an 1.00

00:17:08.140 institution for over 30 years. I just want to point out that those were not insults.

00:17:12.140 It may be insulting to hear that bad revenue is down, but that is just a fact. It may be

00:17:17.340 insulting to hear that 97% of Canadians choose to watch other things on TV other than the CBC,

00:17:24.140 but that is just a fact. It is just a fact that trust in the CBC has fallen by 17% in just four

00:17:31.020 years. When I had a chance to ask you about trust in the CBC, one of your responses back was that

00:17:37.580 corrections were up, that the number of corrections that the CBC News issued is up,

00:17:41.980 and that was a proof, some kind of evidence that the CBC could be trusted. I look at it the other way.

00:17:48.140 When you have a falsehood broadcast on the national news and then a correction that follows up a few

00:17:54.780 days later or on an online post, that that doesn't instill confidence and trust in the CBC. It points

00:18:03.740 out that the CBC allows things to get to air before doing proper vetting validation and fact-checking.

00:18:09.900 And it may be insulting to hear the dollar amounts about executive bonuses, but I'll tell you who was

00:18:15.340 really insulted. The frontline workers that were laid off when the CBC was claiming it didn't have

00:18:21.100 enough money to keep that entire workforce and then reads in the paper or reads on a news source other

00:18:26.220 than the CBC, because they probably weren't watching either, that senior management and executive all got bonuses.

00:18:32.140 So again, those are just facts.

00:18:34.140 Great, great, great. You know, honestly, fantastic content right there from Andrew Scheer. I like to

00:18:39.580 see stuff like this. Damian Couric, Andrew Scheer, Larry Brock, Michael Cooper. There's a lot of CBC

00:18:47.020 MPs out there who are like fantastic at their jobs. One MP I tend to plug a lot because I think he does a

00:18:53.340 fantastic job as well is Kevin Vong. He's an independent MP. And some of these people,

00:18:59.020 just as singular MPs with their offices are able to actually shift public opinion so much on issues,

00:19:05.500 it's actually quite startling how so many other MPs from all the parties tend to be pretty sluggish and

00:19:11.420 don't get anything done and basically just sit out there and throw up their hands for votes. Like,

00:19:15.260 yes, nay, yay, abstain. Or it's like, come on, guys, you should try and model yourself into a useful

00:19:22.860 figure in our parliament. You know, it's what I tried to do. I tried to run for the conservatives

00:19:27.020 in Signal Hill. Didn't work out because I got kicked out because certain people didn't want

00:19:31.420 me to win, but whatever. Water under the bridge. Anyways, but no, I'm trying to be somewhat,

00:19:36.780 you know, I don't even know what the word is. Not cynical. I don't know. So facetious about it,

00:19:43.740 regardless. I guess that should be it for me today, guys. Defund the CBC. That's my final message here.

00:19:49.660 Same as always. If you guys want to contribute and help out the channel, make sure you're subscribed.

00:19:54.140 Make sure you like the video. Leave a comment. I always try and scroll through them, get ideas

00:19:57.820 from people. You know, I have even people like Jessica in the comments recommending I interview

00:20:03.900 certain people. I'm going to try and do that. And if you guys also want to fund the National

00:20:09.020 Telegraph, you can donate to our legal fund in the description below, as well as at the top of the

00:20:13.500 comments. I have been fighting this crazy long legal battle over defamation from a Chinese 0.99

00:20:19.020 billionaire developer trying to sue me and not actually providing any evidence. So it's cost me

00:20:24.220 over three, $3,000 fighting back. And so anything you can donate does obviously soften the blow of

00:20:30.540 the money I had to pay back then. Anyways. So that's it for me today, guys. See you guys later.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - November 29, 2024

Greedy CBC leader gets slammed by Conservative MPs in committee

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