News release from Franco Terrrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

CBC’s fresh batch of bonuses cost you $18 million

Catherine Tait has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments during her tenure as CBC President and CEO.

Trust in the CBC is in freefall, viewership and ad revenue are down, hundreds of jobs were just slashed, and more Canadians than ever want it defunded.

So it’s good to know that in between all that hard work, Tait still found the time to take more of your money to slosh around more bonuses at the state broadcaster.

The CBC rubber stamped another $18.4 million in bonuses in 2024.

You read that right: the CBC just took $18.4 million of your tax dollars and turned it into bonus cheques for 1,194 executives, managers and non-union staff.

Forty-five executives took home $3.3 million in bonuses, for an average of $73,000 each.

To put things in perspective: the average salary for Canadian workers last year was less than $70,000. That means CBC executives took home more of your money as a bonus than the average Canadian makes in a year.

At this point, we’re starting to wonder if Tait is a double agent working to bring down the CBC from the inside. Because these taxpayer-funded bonuses are making a great case for why the CBC should be defunded.

This latest round of bonuses comes less than six months after the CTF reported the CBC dished out $15 million in bonuses last year.

CBC bonuses now total $132 million since 2015.

Members of Parliament on the Heritage Committee are calling for an emergency meeting to drag Tait back to Ottawa to answer for the latest bonus bonanza.

If that happens, Tait will probably claim, yet again, that the CBC doesn’t hand out bonuses, which she prefers to call “performance” or “at-risk” pay.

And then she’ll defend the bonus payments by claiming her hands are tied, as payouts are triggered when CBC staff hit pre-set “key performance indicators.”

But here’s the thing about these KPIs.

The CTF went through every CBC annual report from 2019-20 to 2023-23.

Last year, the CBC only hit 40 per cent of its KPIs. That’s the kind of report card that should get your grounded, not a big bonus.

And it’s not like the CBC just had a bad year. Add up all of those years and the CBC only hit 58 per cent of its KPIs.

Keep in mind, these are performance targets they set for themselves. And they still only hit 58 per cent of them.

So, naturally, in honour of that stellar performance, the CBC showered itself with more than $61 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses during those years.

That’s like creating the test you have to take, still only managing to get a D+ and then rewarding yourself with other people’s money.

At this point, it’s clear Tait isn’t willing to do the right thing and end the taxpayer gravy train at the CBC.

So now it’s time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland or Heritage Minister Pascal St-Onge to step in and put a stop to this nonsense.

Or better yet, just defund the CBC.

Franco’s note: Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news. But it’s not just the bonuses. The number of CBC staffers taking a six-figure base salary has increased by 231 per cent under the Trudeau government. There are now 1,450 CBC staffers with a six-figure annual salary.

We need to keep building the taxpayer army that will push to defund the CBC. You can help build that army by signing and sharing the PETITION to defund the CBC and end media subsidies. 

Here’s the link to the taxpayer petition: https://www.taxpayer.com/petitions/defund-the-cbc-and-end-media-bailout