CBC President Catherine Tait wrote a private letter where she disagreed with a proposal from the Conservative Party to “defund” the network..Tait said cutting the annual parliamentary grant of $1.3 billion would negatively affect Canada.. Pierre PoilievrePierre Poilievre .The claims are detailed in letters Tait sent to Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre following his election last Sept. 10 as head of the Conservative Party..Tait on Sept. 16 asked to meet Poilievre to “make the case to you directly for the value of the public broadcaster in a time of greater polarization in our country.”.Poilievre did not schedule a meeting..Tait sharply criticized the Opposition leader in a follow-up letter last November 29..“Given that during your leadership campaign, you publicly promised to ‘defund the CBC,’ I would have hoped that spending some time to understand the organization would be useful,” wrote Tait..“Your party continues to run email blasts and Twitter and Facebook ads falsely accusing CBC journalists of bias and using the ‘defund’ promise to try and generate money for your party.”.“These fundraising efforts do not acknowledge the scope or value that CBC/Radio-Canada actually delivers to Canadians or the implications to this country and its economy were it to be ‘defunded,’” wrote Tait..“As head of the public broadcaster and as leader of the Opposition, I think Canadians can rightly expect the two of us have a responsibility to discuss the implications of your promise.”.Poilievre proposed cuts to CBC-TV English language programming..“The CBC frankly is a biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party and frankly negatively affects all media,” Poilievre told reporters on April 13..“We need a neutral and free media, not a propaganda arm for the Liberal Party.”.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, CBC managers have longstanding friction with the Conservative Party..President Tait distributed an internal email in 2021 questioning what then-leader Erin O’Toole “means for us.” .Management distributed a tweet in which O’Toole wrote: “The CBC is out of control and in need of reform. I’ll slash funding for English TV.”. CBC-LogoCBC Logo .In 2019, the CBC sued the Conservative Party over an alleged breach of the Copyright Act in the party’s use of news clips in a YouTube campaign video..A federal judge in 2021 rejected the CBC claim..The Conservative Party, in a 2021 campaign document Canada’s Recovery Plan, proposed changing the CBC mandate to “assess the viability of refocusing the services on a public interest model like that of PBS in the United States, ensuring it no longer competes with private Canadian broadcasters and digital providers.” .Direct federal funding for all newsrooms “undermines press freedom and trust in media,” wrote the Conservative Party..The CBC released the letter through Access to Information.
