Pierre Poilievre says one of his first acts when (not if) he becomes prime minister will be to shut down the CBC.
There’s nothing surprising about his commitment. Fear and loathing of the public broadcaster has been baked into the identity of the federal Conservatives. To them, the CBC – its management, producers, reporters, program hosts, and probably the kids who fetch the coffee – is irredeemably Liberal. Why, they ask, should taxpayers be subsidizing – to the tune of roughly $1.2-billion per year – an outfit that never gives the opposition a break and whose English television service, so the Conservatives contend, acts as a propaganda appendage of the prime minister’s office, especially at election time.
Paranoia? There’s enough to go around. While the Conservatives see the crown corporation, especially its on-air journalists, as agents of the Liberal party and government, the Liberals see the same journalists as part of a “small-o opposition” that has to be neutralized or manipulated out of the party’s way.
As noted, Poilievre is not the first Conservative to have a scunner against the CBC. Many of the financial problems the corporation is experiencing today can be traced to rounds of savage budget cuts initiated in 1984 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a politician who, ironically, never saw a CBC camera he didn’t love, or met a CBC personality whom he wouldn’t schmooze.
With or without Poilievre, the CBC is at a crossroads. Audiences for conventional television continue to decline. More Canadians get their news from internet sites and social media than from their TV. “Smart” television receivers stream an incredible array of programming; television networks can’t compete.
I wonder how hard Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are prepared to fight to save the CBC. There was certain dissonance in New Year’s messaging. The prime minister was upbeat: “We have a lot to be thankful for this past year. We got back to doing the things we love … As our economy reopened, we experienced one of the strongest economic recoveries in the G7. … [In 2023] let’s continue to show up for one another, and together, let’s build a better future for everyone.”
Meanwhile, the corporation’s English network aired a package of doom and gloom, dismal forecasts for 2023 from its beat reporters on everything from health care to transportation. Here’s one example, on the economy: “Recession, persistent inflation and rising unemployment all forecast for the new year.” (But didn’t the PM say, “one of the strongest economic recoveries in the G7?”)
In the years past, Conservative leaders have complained loudly about the CBC. Poilievre sounds as though he wants to be one who will actually axe the broadcaster. In a speech to the Empire Club in Toronto in November he talked about affordable housing. He said the federal government owns 75,000 buildings across the country that are not being fully utilized. He would sell 15 per cent of them and use the proceeds to renovate some of the remainder as affordable housing for young families. One of his reno targets is the former CBC headquarters on Bronson Avenue in south Ottawa – that modernistic, glass and steel structure with three flared wings that stands atop a hill on the way to the airport. Designed by the CBC’s chief architect, David Gordon McKinstry, and built between 1961 and 1964, with no expense spared, the Edward Drake Building, as it was then known, housed the CBC until 1997. It’s a huge place. Its six floors could accommodate many growing families.
All that space must have been on Poilievre’s mind when he spoke at the Empire Club. “You know it just warms my heart to think of a wonderful family rolling up in a U-Haul and unloading their possessions in their beautiful their new home in the former headquarters of the CBC, he said.”
That got him got a chuckle from the Empire Club. But he hadn’t done his due diligence. His “wonderful family” might not be amused when they roll up with their U-Haul and discover a couple of uncomfortable truths. One: despite its relative youth, the former headquarters is a “classified federal heritage building,” meaning it has the highest level of heritage protection and cannot legally be converted into housing (or be torn down and replaced by a housing project). Two: The government has not acted on a 2020 treasury board assessment that found the structure in such poor condition that “some or all asset systems are compromised or show serious signs of deterioration. Risk of some systems failure is likely.”
Before moving along in their U-Haul, the disappointed family might wonder about the source of a peculiar smell in the air. It’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s just anther politician peddling snake oil.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com