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Canadian Taxpayers Federation looking into value of CBC properties

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

CBC amasses half a billion in real estate

Author: Ryan Thorpe

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has amassed nearly half-a-billion dollars in real estate holdings, according to documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The CBC’s real estate portfolio, comprised of 12 properties scattered across Canada, is assessed at more than $444 million. The CBC leases another 72 properties, including five in foreign countries, that it refuses to disclose costs for.

“It sure seems the CBC is spending way more on its buildings than competitors spend, but what value do taxpayers get for all these properties?” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Taxpayers have every right to question why we’re paying for all these CBC buildings in Canada and in other countries.”

Records detailing the CBC’s real estate portfolio were released in response to a written order paper question from Conservative MP Adam Chambers (Simcoe North).

CBC’s most expensive is its Toronto headquarters, which is assessed at nearly $314 million.

For context, when TorStar – the parent company that publishes the Toronto Star – was sold in 2020, the price tag for the entire newspaper chain was $52 million. And when the Calgary Herald sold its building earlier this year, it went for $17.25 million. In 2012, the Globe and Mail sold its head offices in downtown Toronto for $136 million. The National Post sold its headquarters in Toronto for $24 million in 2012.

Table: CBC-owned property, assessed municipal value

Location

Value

Toronto, Ont.

$313,866,000

Vancouver, B.C.

$99,061,000

Winnipeg, Man.

$11,718,000

St. Johns, N.L.

$4,439,000

Yellowknife, NWT

$3,181,720

Fredericton, N.B.

$2,791,000

Charlottetown, P.E.I.

$2,631,800

Saguenay, Que.

$2,485,939

Whitehorse, Yuk.

$1,847,410

Winnipeg, Man.

$1,541,000

Thunder Bay, Ont.

$537,000

Rankin Inlet, Nun.

$314,600

Total

$444,414,469

The CBC is refusing to disclose what it spends on the 72 other properties it currently leases in Canada and abroad, citing it as “commercially sensitive information.”

Outside of Canada, the CBC leases property in London, U.K., Mumbai, India, Paris, France, and New York City and Washington, U.S.A.

In Paris, France, the CBC leases offices in “a corner building on one of the prestigious avenues leading off the Arc de Triomphe,” located in the city’s 17th Arrondissement, on the right bank of the River Seine.

In London, U.K., Canada’s public broadcaster leases office space bordering the city’s Soho district, famous for its restaurants and nightlife, located a short drive from Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park.

And in New York City, the CBC leases office space in downtown Manhattan, a short walk from Rockefeller Centre and Central Park.

It also leases multiple properties in six Canadian cities, including two in Prince Rupert, B.C. (pop. 12,300) and two in Matane, Que. (pop. 14,000).

In Montreal, the CBC leases three properties, including its French-language headquarters on Papineau Avenue. While it is now refusing to say what it costs to lease its Montreal HQ, back in 2019, the CBC disclosed it was paying $20 million per year.

“Why does the CBC need to lease these properties in far-flung countries, let alone multiple properties in smaller Canadian towns, and how much is all of this costing taxpayers?” Terrazzano said. “The CBC costs taxpayers more than $1 billion every year, so at the very least it owes Canadians full transparency.”

In 2021, the CBC took $1.2 billion from taxpayers, including $21 million in “immediate operational support” to ensure its stability during the pandemic. In late-2022, the feds gave the CBC another $42 million to help it “recover from the pandemic,” as reported by the National Post.

The CBC gave staff $28.5 million in bonuses and pay raises in 2022. There are now 949 CBC staff taking home a six-figure annual salary, with the number of employees on the sunshine list doubling since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015.

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CBC’s business model is trapped in a very dark place

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The Audit

 

 David Clinton

I Testified Before a Senate Committee About the CBC

I recently testified before the Senate Committee for Transport and Communications. You can view that session here. Even though the official topic was CBC’s local programming in Ontario, everyone quickly shifted the discussion to CBC’s big-picture problems and how their existential struggles were urgent and immediate. The idea that deep and fundamental changes within the corporation were unavoidable seemed to enjoy complete agreement.

I’ll use this post as background to some of the points I raised during the hearing.

You might recall how my recent post on CBC funding described a corporation shedding audience share like dandruff while spending hundreds of millions of dollars producing drama and comedy programming few Canadians consume. There are so few viewers left that I suspect they’re now identified by first name rather than as a percentage of the population.

Since then I’ve learned a lot more about CBC performance and about the broadcast industry in general.

For instance, it’ll surprise exactly no one to learn that fewer Canadians get their audio from traditional radio broadcasters. But how steep is the decline? According to the CRTC’s Annual Highlights of the Broadcasting Sector 2022-2023, since 2015, “hours spent listening to traditional broadcasting has decreased at a CAGR of 4.8 percent”. CAGR, by the way, stands for compound annual growth rate.

Dropping 4.8 percent each year means audience numbers aren’t just “falling”; they’re not even “falling off the edge of a cliff”; they’re already close enough to the bottom of the cliff to smell the trees. Looking for context? Between English and French-language radio, the CBC spends around $240 million each year.

Those listeners aren’t just disappearing without a trace. the CRTC also tells us that Canadians are increasingly migrating to Digital Media Broadcasting Units (DMBUs) – with numbers growing by more than nine percent annually since 2015.

The CBC’s problem here is that they’re not a serious player in the DMBU world, so they’re simply losing digital listeners. For example, of the top 200 Spotify podcasts ranked by popularity in Canada, only four are from the CBC.

Another interesting data point I ran into related to that billion dollar plus annual parliamentary allocation CBC enjoys. It turns out that that’s not the whole story. You may recall how the government added another $42 million in their most recent budget.

But wait! That’s not all! Between CBC and SRC, the Canada Media Fund (CMF) ponied up another $97 million for fiscal 2023-2024 to cover specific programming production budgets.

Technically, Canada Media Fund grants target individual projects planned by independent production companies. But those projects are usually associated with the “envelope” of one of the big broadcasters – of which CBC is by far the largest. 2023-2024 CMF funding totaled $786 million, and CBC’s take was nearly double that of their nearest competitor (Bell).

But there’s more! Back in 2016, the federal budget included an extra $150 million each year as a “new investment in Canadian arts and culture”. It’s entirely possible that no one turned off the tap and that extra government cheque is still showing up each year in the CBC’s mailbox. There was also a $93 million item for infrastructure and technological upgrades back in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Who knows whether that one wasn’t also carried over.

So CBC’s share of government funding keeps growing while its share of Canadian media consumers shrinks. How do you suppose that’ll end?

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PBO report shows cost of bureaucracy up 73 per cent under Trudeau

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Franco Terrazzano

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to rein in the bureaucracy following today’s Parliamentary Budget Officer report showing the bureaucracy costs taxpayers $69.5 billion.

“The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased by 73 per cent since 2016, but it’s a good bet most Canadians aren’t seeing anywhere close to 73 per cent better services from the government,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Taxpayers are getting soaked because the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy is out of control.”

Today’s PBO report estimates the federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $69.5 billion in 2023-24. In 2016-17, the cost of the bureaucracy was $40.2 billion. That’s an increase of 72.9 per cent.

The most recent data shows the cost continues to rise quickly.

“Spending on personnel in the first five months of 2024-25 is up 8.0 per cent over the same period last year,” according to the PBO.

“I have noticed a marked increase in the number of public servants since 2016 and a proportional increase in spending,” said Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux. “But we haven’t seen similar improvements when it comes to service.”

The Trudeau government added 108,793 bureaucrats since 2016 – a 42 per cent increase. Canada’s population grew by 14 per cent during the same period. Had the bureaucracy only increased with population growth, there would be 72,491 fewer federal employees today.

The government awarded more than one million pay raises to bureaucrats in the last four years, according to access-to-information records obtained by the CTF. The government also rubberstamped $406 million in bonuses last year.

“The government added tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, rubberstamped hundreds of millions in bonuses and awarded more than one million pay raises and all taxpayers seem to get out of it is higher taxes and more debt,” Terrazzano said. “For the government to balance the budget and provide tax relief, it will need to cut the size and cost of Ottawa’s bloated bureaucracy.”

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