Canadian Heritage Committee on Jan. 30th, 2024

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.

I have worked for many corporations as an executive, so I'm very acquainted with performance awards that have an individual performance portion and a corporate performance portion.

You've indicated already, Ms. Tait, that in the individuals' employment contracts, their performance awards are part of that. I would assume that means if they perform this year, they are going to receive that portion of the bonus certainly. Is that correct?

[Catherine Tait]

Correct.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay.

Then, on the corporate portion, I would be surprised if you were 10 months into your fiscal year and you didn't have an idea of whether or not you were on track to meet your targets, so I guess the question would be: Are you on track to meet your targets?

[Catherine Tait]

We are on track to meet most of our targets. I indicated that we are down in revenue.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay. That will mean that some portion of the corporate performance awards should be awarded.

[Catherine Tait]

Some portion will be awarded, but some portion will not.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

All right.

For your own compensation, you have a performance award that's not on the same formula, but it's closely linked, you said, to the performance of the corporation. If the corporation is good on some metrics but not on all, then you would be somewhere in the range of $124,000, if you're at the lowest end of the salary spectrum, and $145,880 if you're at the top of your range. Where do you expect to be within that range?

[Catherine Tait]

I'm not sure where you came up with those numbers, but I assume it's from the public website.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes.

[Catherine Tait]

Okay.

First of all, just to be clear, if the board of directors makes a recommendation based on our performance, they will do so to the government. That goes to the Privy Council Office and the PMO. What I end up with really has nothing—not nothing to do, it has something to do with how I've performed, but there is a whole other pool of people—other GICs, other deputy ministers—and other factors that will play, so it's not predictable in that regard. I can say what the board might recommend and what I hope they would recommend based on my performance, but it isn't really, at the end of day, even their decision. It's the government's decision.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Very good.

I have a question as well about the cuts to the employees. The original mandate for CBC was to provide Canadian content, especially across the country, even in areas that are rural and remote and where it normally wouldn't be economical to do that. With respect to the cuts that are being made, what per cent of those will impact on rural and remote communities?

[Catherine Tait]

As I said earlier, we are still very much in the planning process of determining that and, hopefully, we will not have to implement all of the cuts that we projected.

When we worked with our teams, we made it very clear that the filter number one for us was proximity. We know that is the force of the public broadcaster: our proximity to our audiences, especially in the regions. We asked managers to ensure that would remain a priority. Similarly—

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I'm sorry. I have limited time.

Do you have a percentage?

[Catherine Tait]

At this point, we don't, because we're still working on our numbers, but all I can say...I can reassure you that we have kept the regions as a priority.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

The other question that I would have, then, has to do with when I worked for a company and times were tough and they did actually cancel bonuses. I think you heard the sentiment here today that this might be something to consider, but the other way to get at it is to increase revenue.

You've talked about Gem and the success of Gem. How many paid subscribers do you have to Gem?

[Catherine Tait]

We don't give that information out publicly.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay. Let me ask a different question.

If the public taxpayers are funding CBC to the tune of $1.4 billion, why do Canadians then have to pay on top of that for a streaming service from CBC?

[Catherine Tait]

The logic of that is that we have costs associated with all of these additional programs such as Gem or ICI TOU.TV. We offer the service for free to any Canadian who wants to watch it. The paid version is without advertising.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Could you comment on your KPIs for this year? You said you were going to meet some of them but not all of them.

Which ones, other than the ad revenue, which you have already said is down—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I think we have run out of time.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

When another person asks a question, if somebody could throw that answer in, that would be great.

I'll go to Mr. Noormohamed for the Liberals.

You have five minutes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all for continuing to stick with this.

I want to come back to you, Ms. Tate, and talk a little bit about CBC Gem.

We've heard over the course of the last little while the Conservatives' assertions that the CBC is less popular, that the viewership isn't there, and that is their justification for gutting it or killing it. In fact, you have lines of business and you have lines of service to Canadians that are going quite well.

Maybe we could take a brief moment and talk about something positive. Can you share with us which lines of business are actually growing for CBC and why they are important for us as we think about the role of the CBC and the mandate of the CBC independent of government? Most importantly, why should Parliament keep funding the CBC in these areas?

[Catherine Tait]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, may I pass the question to Ms. Williams?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Williams, go ahead, please.