New CBC boss gets emotional at the prospect of being the one to "turn out the lights"
Meanwhile, CBC reporter asks Poilievre if he’ll step aside and let Liberals run the country. Plus! Enjoy the new podcast
Marie-Philippe Bouchard sure doesn’t want to be the CBC president who turns out the lights.
When asked by The Current host Matt Galloway last week if she harbours that fear, she responded by speaking through restrained tears. When Galloway noticed, she agreed that the prospect of dismantling the CBC makes her emotional, which isn’t surprising given that the Mother Corp has been, as she says, “a big part of my life.”
“I’m here to make sure that it (CBC/Radio-Canada) gets through,” she says. “That’s what I’m called to do.”
You can listen to the entire exchange here or just scroll ahead to the 18:00 mark for the turning out the lights bit.
It’s a pretty revealing interview, one in which, when prompted, Bouchard concedes the organization that she’s been in charge of for exactly one month today faces an “existential threat” from Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives should they win an election (assuming that there will be one at some point). He, in case you missed it, has promised to “defund the CBC” - a line that sends crowds at his events into a euphoric frenzy
She is articulate and passionate about wanting - wait for it - a “conversation.” And we learn nothing about her vision or what the still unannounced new mandate for the CBC might be, just some hints about it maybe refocusing on being more “in proximity to where people live.” There’s no sense that any change is pending that might attempt to address why Conservatives have come to resent the CBC to the point where they want it - at least the English part - to die. Just the usual stuff about a “unique ability to bring us together” (which it clearly has not done) and a “vital role in maintaining a diversified landscape for good journalism.”
When asked by Galloway what the CBC offers that we can’t already get from the “avalanche” of information available on our phones or from the private sector, all she has is “I think they have big challenges and the media in general is in transition” before noting later that “we support the media ecosystem - public and private.”
At that point, a voice in my head shouted: “No Madam Bouchard. You don’t.”
Many private sector broadcasters have wondered for decades why they have to pay taxes to fund their competition. They and newspaper proprietors, who have spent many years complaining that the CBC’s online presence is damaging their efforts to transition to the digital world, would echo my reaction with an “Amen, brother.”
CBC has played public broadcaster when it suits it and otherwise is a commercial competitor. It launches web platforms where it has no local broadcast station and there have been complaints it low-balls rates while consuming hundreds of millions in advertising budgets.
The CBC supports the media eco-system the way a bull supports a china shop. Imagine, if you will, an industry that could have any health at all when its biggest player comes out of the gate every year armed with a $1.4 billion subsidy. Doesn’t work, does it?
Bouchard comes across as passionate and deeply steeped in the traditional CBC view that it is the system and that the private sector exists to fill in the gaps. It is easy to forget that when its predecessor - the Canadian Radio Broadcast Commission - was founded in 1932, the government envisioned it taking over/nationalizing every private radio station in the country. She obviously doesn’t suggest that, but it appears a certain sense of superiority may linger within the institution’s culture.
It doesn’t sound like there will be a lot of original thinking coming forward on Bouchard’s national tour other than to stop Poilievre. The chief argument appears to be that CBC should continue to exist because it does. In the off chance the Conservatives ever win an election again, she’s going to have to come up with something better than that.
As will her news teams. In its coverage of Trump tariff day Saturday, CBCNN chose to interview Alberta’s NDP opposition leader Naheed Nenshi - still without a seat in the assembly - for perspective from that province. And yet, no John Rustad from B.C.’s Conservative opposition.
Then, on Sunday, they went a step further when a reporter served up a hanging curve ball of a question and clumsily asked Poilievre - at a news conference CBCNN did not broadcast in full - if he would step aside and not seek to become prime minister. Here’s the clip.
Poilievre swung for the fences.
“No, we’re not going to suspend democracy. The Canadian people run this country and they will choose the next prime minister thank you very much.”
As former CTV journalist Alan Fryer put it in a Tweet, “It’s like they’re begging to be defunded.”
God bless the Globe and Mail. There I said it.
Just as I was about to take umbrage at what was looking like a “No traitors here - move along folks” approach by media to the foreign interference inquiry report from Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, Patrick Brethour’s editorial board team weighed in with a precise dissection of her work. headlined “The Hogue report keeps Canadians where they were - in the dark.”
“The upshot for Canadians is that there are people in Ottawa who showed dangerously poor judgment, but somehow it’s better if the public doesn’t learn their names and, consequently, whether they are still in office, are planning to run in the next election or have even been told to smarten up.”
The Globe can be pretty institutional and that’s okay because when it uses its podium, those in power listen. It did exactly what the non-institutional hoi poloi expect from a journalism organization and held the powerful to account.
Good journalism - honest journalism - will always be appreciated by the public. That explains why some news organizations are able to sell subscriptions while others aren’t.
The last mast of Brandon’s CKYB-TV/4 slipped beneath the waves last week when the CRTC signed off on the permanent shut down of its analogue signal in southwest Manitoba.
That brings an official end to over the air local broadcasting in Brandon, CTV famously having been unable to sell another station there, CKX, for $1 in 2009. Westman cable may still operate a Community Cable station.
I was way too busy with work last week, but for those who missed it, I am now podcasting with Tara Henley of Lean Out and Harrison Lowman of The Hub and last week we got the full launch on Spotify and YouTube.
You can read the column here and here is the podcast! Also, thanks to Greg Brady of Global News Radio 640 in Toronto for having me on his show last Thursday.
(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald and a former vice chair of the CRTC)
The cbc likely can’t help itself.
Meanwhile, over at The Line, they seem to be suggesting the liberals ditch Trudeau and the race and crown Carney.
How that will help I cant say, Mr Net Zero sounds intent to double down on all the idiotic energy policy that got us to this point, a world Trump obliterated with the stroke of a pen last week.
But I recall Gurney saying how intelligent Trudeau is so I guess that explains that.
Seems like two paths forward for the CBC after the next election (if we ever have one):
1. Total defund. CBC left to get support from advertisers and direct contributions from the public, like PBS in the United States (except no Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is government taxpayer funded). Total freedom for the CBC to take whatever stance it wants on any issue.
2. Very limited government support ($100M) with guarantee that they will take no advertising and stay out of politics. Likely has to mean no news division since that would be impossible to keep politics free.