I saw a joke yesterday on social media that went like this. What do you call 600 laid-off CBC employees? The answer — a good start.Regardless of whether the joke was in good taste or not, it was in reference to Monday's announcement from CBC President Catherine Tait, that the organization would be cutting 10% of its workforce and reducing the services it provides in both official languages.If you’re for defunding the CBC, you may be delighted at this news. But these layoffs and the corporation's ongoing and embarrassing failure to succeed despite heavy taxpayer subsidization, isn’t the victory you think.The CBC’s planned reduction of 10% of its work force equates to approximately 600 employees. This will be on top of the additional 200 vacant positions that they will cut from their roster. CBC and Radio-Canada will be decreasing their overall staffing by about 250 of the total jobs slated to be cut. The remainder of the reductions will come from technology and infrastructure departments.But the people who will be losing their jobs aren’t the ones who should be. Therefore this is no cause to celebrate, especially with the announcement coming just three weeks before Christmas.The layoffs, scheduled to take place over 12 months, won’t be impacting those responsible for the absolutely dismal entertainment programming CBC has on offer. Nor will it hurt the employees making the journalistic and editorial decisions that shape the corporations often biased and occasionally erroneous coverage of our domestic politics and foreign affairs.No, unfortunately the people in those roles are perfectly safe.The problem with the CBC is its top-heavy management. They were given $1.3 billion in public funding in fiscal year 2022/23 and reported a net loss of $92.7 million in 2022. In fact they’ve been reporting losses every year since 2014.Yet despite a flawless, almost decade long record of being unprofitable, and with their national prime-time viewership dropping to just 4.4%, CBC management awarded themselves $16 million worth of bonuses in 2022 according to documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.I’m not going to say that giving out bonuses is unreasonable. In fact, it’s well understood in that in order to attract and retain high functioning and successful employees, those financial incentives are often very necessary. But it doesn't look to me as if they've earned a nickel of it.Ultimately, the success or failure of the CBC rests solely with the president. Laying off employees in the production and ancillary departments as a cost saving measure is a testament to Tait’s failure and proof that she is disconnected from her own shortcomings and the world that CBC inhabits.This latter assertion was well-demonstrated in an interview she conducted on CBC’s The National about the upcoming cuts. Catherine Tait said she hopes Canadians “won’t notice too much.” Don’t worry Madame President, they won’t. Nobody's watching.Or listening. The reason the CBC finds itself in its current predicament is because Canadians don’t notice it at all. It barely registers on their consciousness day to day. It’s no longer the 1900s — Canadians aren’t stuck getting their news and entertainment via analog broadcasts.Yet out of 800 positions to be axed, the one the organization needed gone most, that of the president's, isn’t among them. It’s too bad because skilled workers are a lot tougher to come by, than over-paid executives. Once you lose experienced employees it can be hard to get them back or to train new ones. (Just look at the Canadian Armed Forces; that's exactly their problem, now.)This is why the loss of 800 low or mid-level employees shouldn’t be celebrated — even if you intensely dislike the CBC. Because with reduced funding, restructuring, and a new mandate there is still the potential for the CBC to play an important role in the media and news landscape of this country. But it won’t be able to do so without the technical expertise of skilled workers.It’s too bad that a once great media organization has been reduced to a shadow of its former self by poor leadership. But I guess “it’s a Canada thing.”
