Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for his request to Twitter to label CBC as “government-funded media,” which came after the social media platform had already added the tag to the CBC's account.. Conservative Leader Pierre PoilievreConservative leader Pierre Poilievre .“When they’re trying to attack a foundational Canadian institution, the fact that he has to run to American billionaires for support to attack Canadians says a lot about Mr. Poilievre and his values,” Trudeau told reporters..“I think it says a lot about the Conservative Party of Canada. They’re choosing to constantly attack independent media organizations, journalists who are working hard to keep Canadians informed and support our democracy.”.Trudeau spoke in French and criticized Poilievre for “pretending” that he could target the English-language CBC while ignoring French-language Radio-Canada..Last week, Pierre Poilievre wrote to both Twitter and its owner Elon Musk, requesting that the platform “accurately” label CBC..This request came after Twitter applied the label to the British public broadcaster BBC News and NPR in the United States..As a result, NPR left the platform, while BBC objected, leading Twitter to change the label to “publicly-funded.”.In an emailed statement, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh took a similar approach, stating that “this is a result of a personal obsession of Pierre Poilievre.”.Singh also criticized the Conservatives, claiming they “have an unhealthy adversarial relationship with the media.”. Jagmeet Singh .According to Singh, Poilievre has been known to avoid answering difficult “questions and to wrongfully accuse journalists of bias when he doesn’t like tough questions or fact checks.”.“Now he wants Elon Musk — an American billionaire — to help him dismantle the CBC/Radio-Canada because he doesn’t like their reporting,” Singh said in the statement..“It is unfortunate that Elon Musk has decided to take his side and meddle into Canadian politics. That’s not what we should expect from leaders in a democracy.”.According to Twitter, a “government-funded” media outlet receives “some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”.On Sunday evening, CBC took to Twitter to say, “this is clearly not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada.”.“CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation that is voted upon by all members of Parliament. Its editorial independence is protected in law in the Broadcasting Act,” CBC said..“In addition, our journalism is independent and subject to our Journalistic Standards and Practices, as well as an independent complaints process.”.In a tweet on Sunday, Poilievre stated that “now people know that (CBC) is Trudeau propaganda, not news.” He urged the Liberal Party to “defund the CBC” and “save $1 billion.”.CBC received $1.24 billion in federal government funding for 2021-2022. Comparatively, it reported $651 million in revenue from other sources, with advertising being the biggest contributor.
