CBC advisory panel costs reach $200K, stacked with former CBC staff

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OTTAWA — Costs for the seven-person panel struck to advise modernization efforts for Canada’s national broadcaster have now exceeded $200,000 with more money expected to be spent, according to a note from a government department.

But documents uncovered by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show the panel — formed by Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge earlier this year to help chart the future course for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — show those costs to be closer to $280,000.

“The feds wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to figure out why the CBC is failing, but they could have saved that money and asked a random person at Tim Hortons,” said the CTF’s Franco Terrazzano.

“If the CBC wanted to build trust with Canadians, here is a place it could start: stop paying millions in bonuses to executives.”

In the note from the Department of Canadian Heritage to the CTF, around $70,000 will be paid to the seven panelists.

In addition, $83,000 was awarded to Paradigms Media Technology Network for “research on international public media” and preparation of briefing papers and discussions for the panel, and $28,000 was set aside for facilitation costs.

As well, $13,100 was spent on interpretation services.

“No further expenditures were made as part of the CBC/Radio-Canada Expert Advisory Panel,” read the note. “That means we could estimate at this moment approximate total costs of about $200,000 for the CBC/Radio-Canada Expert Advisory Panel.”

This, the note says, is “consistent”  with what’s spent on similar policy-advisory committees.

But those numbers don’t jive with figures contained in separate access-to-information requests filed by the federation, which put the cost at closer to $280,000 — including $106,500 in payments to panel members, $133,000 for background documents, $28,815 for facilitation and $13,050 to pay for translation services.

As well, the government appeared to have stacked the panel with several CBC alumni — including TV5 Quebec Canada President Marie-Philippe Bouchard, Canadian Film Board executive Loc Dao, Indigenous Journalist and CBC Radio contributor Jesse Wente, and former CBC News Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire.

The panel also includes Université du Québec à Montréal Professor Catalina Briceno, and David Skok, editor-in-chief of The Logic.

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The lone non-Canadian on the panel is University of Southern California Journalism Professor Michael Ananny, who is also a Trudeau Foundation scholar.

Panelists were paid between $15,821 and $19,566 for their work — with the exception of Skok, who declined payment.

In a statement, Minster St-Onge said she’s focused on reviewing the CBC’s mandate, which she said will focus on reviewing the broadcaster’s finances, governance and organizational mission.

“Like the rest of the news and information sector, they are facing a significant drop in commercial revenue due to the dominant role of foreign tech giants in the ad market,” she said.

“As a government, we are working toward strengthening our independent public broadcaster.”

Referring to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to defund the CBC, Ministerial Spokesperson Charles Thibault-Béland described such a move as reckless.

“ It serves rural, remote and Northern Canadians with local stories and news that reflect their experiences when the private market would not,” he said.

“Pierre Poilievre is recklessly threatening to cut a service that millions of Canadians rely on. He has said he would keep Radio-Canada, but has not acknowledged how cutting CBC would impact upon them.”

Terrazzano said the numbers speak for themselves.

“Canadian Heritage sent hundreds of pages of records showing the cost of the panel is $280,000, but now the department says its $200,000. Does anyone in government know what is going on and how much this is costing taxpayers?” asked Terrazzano.

“The government could have saved itself all this confusion, paperwork and money by asking any of the millions of Canadians who know why the CBC is failing.

“The only modernization plan the state broadcaster needs is three words long: defund the CBC.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume