Opinion
The CBC is failing by every metric. It’s promotion of ‘non-binary’ insanity shows why
From LifeSiteNews
The percentage of Canadians who watch CBC content is within the statistical margin of error. Which, incidentally, I find encouraging – the ideological drivel they serve under the banner of ‘Canadian content’ has caused Canadians to tune out.
Last May, the editorial board of the Globe and Mail took an uncharacteristically surprising position. Canada’s state broadcaster the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), they observed, has failed by any metric:
CBC English-language television is failing badly. CBC’s third-quarter report shows its share of the national prime-time viewing audience dropped to 4.4 per cent (excluding Saturday), down sharply from 7.6 per cent in 2018, and trending below target for the year. Or, to turn that around: 95.6 per cent of TV-viewing Canadians do not tune in to CBC’s English language prime-time programming.
Supper-hour newscasts in English-speaking markets are attracting tiny audiences. In Calgary, the CBC daily broadcast reaches just 20,000 people, on average.
As English TV audiences have been shrinking, the CBC’s annual government funding has increased, up nearly 21 per cent from 2016, to $1.24-billion in 2022. (That funding is for all of CBC’s operations, not just English television).
The CBC is effectively crowding out competitors using money given to them by the government (which the government took from the taxpayers). Canadians are paying for something that, by the numbers, they do not want. We are funding the careers of delusional activists who use tax dollars to aggressively push a far-left agenda, campaigning against any Canadian conservative who dares to say something mildly centrist and for the boundary-smashing agenda of the LGBT movement.
In short, we are paying for the extravagantly expensive vanity project of a handful of out-of-touch elites who claim they are essential but cannot get a viewership for their state-funded content. The percentage of Canadians who watch CBC content is within the statistical margin of error. Which, incidentally, I find encouraging – the ideological drivel they serve under the banner of “Canadian content” has caused Canadians to tune out.
Consider, for example, a new CBC documentary – part of a series ironically titled “The Nature of Things” – titled Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary. “Non-binary Toronto comedian and actor Mae Martin says their new documentary about gender fluidity feels especially relevant as transgender rights ‘are really under attack’ in Canada and the United States,” CityNews Toronto reported. Martin wants to tackle “dangerous myths about gender identity perpetuated on both sides of the border,” such as the reality of biological sex.
The documentary is directed by a former executive producer of “Canada’s Drag Race” and takes aim at Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s science-driven proposal to ban sex change “treatments” for minors, which Martin calls “disheartening”: “It’s so disheartening. To feel like you have no recourse and no support and you’re being demonized, particularly when you’re young and going to school, I think that’s pretty devastating.” To be clear, this is a government-funded LGBT activist cosplaying as a comedian getting paid by the state to attack an elected premier for advocating a policy supported by a solid majority of Canadians.
Martin, who is a trans-identifying female, had a double mastectomy in 2021, went on testosterone afterwards, and is an advocate for “sex change” surgeries. She did not explain why, if she is “non-binary,” she needs to use the “they” pronoun – or why she needed surgeries or drugs at all. She did, however, explain how female lions who develop masculine traits when taking care of the pride is an example of evidence for the transgender movement’s premises. If you believe that, I’ve got a pretty good idea of who you’re voting for.
Martin enthused that it is very exciting for “a revered institution” like the CBC to tackle gender fluidity, and said she hopes Fluid will create “more empathy and understanding” among Canadians. Unfortunately for Martin but fortunately for the Canadian public, almost nobody watches this stuff. We do, however, have yet another example of why a Conservative government needs to make defunding the CBC a top priority. The CBC is no longer revered; it is barely relevant. We shouldn’t have to pay for a handful of activists to talk to themselves and their delusional clique.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Ian Madsen
From overstaffed departments to subsidy giveaways, Canadians are paying a high price for government excess
Not all the Trump administration’s policies are dubious. One is very good, in theory at least: the Department of Government Efficiency. While that term could be an oxymoron, like ‘political wisdom,’ if DOGE is useful, so may be a Canadian version.
DOGE aims to identify wasteful, duplicative, unnecessary or destructive government programs and replace outdated data systems. It also seeks to lower overall costs and ensure mechanisms are in place to evaluate proposed programs for effectiveness and value for money. This can, and usually does, involve eliminating some departments and, eventually, thousands of jobs. Some new roles within DOGE may need to become permanent.
The goal in the U.S. is to lower annual operating costs and ensure that the growth in government spending is lower than in revenues. Washington’s spending has exploded in recent years. The U.S. federal deficit exceeds six per cent of gross domestic product. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, annual debt service cost is escalating unsustainably.
Canada’s latest budget deficit of $61.9 billion in fiscal 2023–24 is about two per cent of GDP, which seems minor compared to our neighbour. However, it adds to the federal debt of $1.236 trillion, about 41 per cent of our approximate $3 trillion GDP. Ottawa’s public accounts show that expenses are 17.8 per cent of GDP, up from about 14 per cent just eight years ago. Interest on the escalating debt were 10.2 per cent of revenues in the most recent fiscal year, up from just five per cent a mere two years ago.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) continually identifies dubious or frivolous spending and outright waste or extravagance: “$30 billion in subsidies to multinational corporations like Honda, Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt. Federal corporate subsidies totalled $11.2 billion in 2022 alone. Shutting down the federal government’s seven regional development agencies would save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion annually.”
The CTF also noted that Ottawa hired 108,000 more staff in the past eight years at an average annual cost of over $125,000. Hiring in line with population growth would have added only 35,500, saving about $9 billion annually. The scale of waste is staggering. Canada Post, the CBC and Via Rail lose, in total, over $5 billion a year. For reference, $1 billion would buy Toyota RAV4s for over 25,600 families.
Ottawa also duplicates provincial government functions, intruding on their constitutional authority. Shifting those programs to the provinces, in health, education, environment and welfare, could save many more billions of dollars per year. Bad infrastructure decisions lead to failures such as the $33.4 billion squandered on what should have been a relatively inexpensive expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline—a case where hiring better staff could have saved money. Terrible federal IT systems, exemplified by the $4 billion Phoenix payroll horror, are another failure. The Green Slush Fund misallocated nearly $900 million.
Ominously, the fast-growing Old Age Supplement and Guaranteed Income Security programs are unfunded, unlike the Canada Pension Plan. Their costs are already roughly equal to the deficit and could become unsustainable.
Canada is sleepwalking toward financial perdition. A Canadian version of DOGE—Canada Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Team, or CAETT—is vital. The Auditor General Office admirably identifies waste and bad performance, but is not proactive, nor does it have enforcement powers. There is currently no mechanism to evaluate or end unnecessary programs to ensure Canadians will have a prosperous and secure future. CAETT could fill that role.
Ian Madsen is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
It’s fair to say everyone in hockey wanted the Winnipeg Jets back in the NHL. They became everyone’s darlings in 2011 when the Atlanta Thrashers, the league’s second stab at a franchise in Georgia, were sold to Canadian interests including businessman David Thomson. (Ed.: Gary Bettman’s try number three in Atlanta is upcoming.).
Yes, the market is tiny. Yes, the arena is too small. Yes, Thomson’s wealth is holding back a sea of inevitability. But sentimentalists remembering the Bobby Hull WHA Jets and the Dale Hawerchuk NHL Jets threw aside their skepticism to welcome back the Jets. The throwback uniforms with their hints at Canada’s air force past were an understated nod to their modest pretensions. It was a perfect story.
The question now, however, is will the same folks get dewey-eyed about the Jets if they become the first Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup since (checks his cards) Montreal and Patrick Roy did it in 1993. It would be helpful in this election year if something were to bind a nation torn apart by politics. The Gordie Howe Elbows Up analogy is more than shopworn, and Terry Fox can only be resurrected so often. So a Cup win might be a welcome salve.
But the approved script has long dictated that the Canadian team to break the schneid should be one of the glamour twins of the NHL’s Canadian content, the Edmonton Oilers or the (gulp) Toronto Maple Leafs. The Oilers and their superstar Connor McDavid barely lost out last spring to Florida while the Leafs, laden with superstars like Auston Matthews and William Nylander, are overdue for a long playoff run.
Hockey Night In Canada positively pants for the chance to gush over these two squads each week. When was the last time Toronto played an afternoon game so HNIC could showcase the Jets? Like, never. Same for the Oilers, who with their glittering stars like McDavid Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent Hopkins are the primary tenants of the doubleheader slot, followed by Calgary. Winnipeg? We’ll get to them.
But there’s going to be no ignoring them in the spring of 2025. The Jets in the northern outpost in Manitoba were the top team in the entire league in 2024-25. They’ll comfortably win the Presidents Cup as the No. 1 squad and have home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs. They have the league’s best goalie in Connor Hellebuyck (an American) and a stable of top scorers led by Kyle Connor and Mark Schiefele. Because Winnipeg is on a lot of No Trade lists, they have built themselves through the draft and thrifty budgeting.
But will the same people who swooned over the Jets in 2011 now find them as adorable if they ruin the Stanley Cup plot lines of the Oilers, Leafs and Ottawa Senators? Will the fans of Canadian teams in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal not making the postseason take the Jets to their hearts or will they be as phoney as the Mike Myers commercials for the Liberals?
In addition, the Jets will be swamped by national media should they proceed through the playoffs. It’s one thing to carry the expectations of Winnipeg and Manitoba. It’s another to foot the bill for a hockey crazy county. We remember Vancouver’s GM Mike Gillis during the Canucks 2011 Cup run bemoaning the late arrivers of the press trying to critique his team as they made their way through the playoffs.
It will be no picnic for the Jets, however strong they’ve been in the regular season. No one was gunning for them as they might for the Oilers or Leafs. They will now get their opponents’ best game night after night. Hellebuyck has been a top three goalie in the NHL for a while, winning the Vezina Trophy, but his playoff performance hasn’t matched that of his regular-season version.
Already the injury bug that sidelines so many Cup dreams is biting at the Jets. Nikolaj Ehlers collided with a linesman in Saturday’s OT win in Chicago. Defenceman Dylan Samberg is also questionable after stopping a McDavid slap shot with his leg. A rash of injuries has ended the run of many a worthy Cup aspirant in the past. Can Winnipeg’s depth sustain the churn of seven weeks of all-out hockey?
As always for the small-market Jets time is of the essence. Keeping this core together is difficult with large markets lusting after your players. With the NHL salary cap going up it remains a chore to keep their top players. Schiefele and Hellebuyck are tied up longterm, but 40-goal man Connor is a UFA after next season while Ehlers is not signed after this season. Young Cole Perfetti will be an RFA in 2026. Etc.
So how much do Canadians love the Jets if they sneak in and steal the hero role by winning a Canadian Cup? Lets see Ron MacLean pun his way through that one.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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