CHPC meeting 7 · 2025-10-20 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

The House of Commons Canadian Heritage Committee studied the role and strategic direction of CBC/Radio-Canada, hearing from Marie-Philippe Bouchard, the corporation's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Marie-Philippe Bouchard outlined a new five-year strategic plan built on three pillars: proximity, digital agility, and bringing people together. She emphasized the importance of local news, noting the corporation has added journalists to over 20 communities, and highlighted partnerships with public libraries in more than 250 communities. She stressed the need for predictable, multi-year funding to make sustainable investments, arguing that annual funding volatility prevents long-term planning and partnerships with independent producers and community media. She also discussed the challenge of disinformation, advocating for collective investment in media literacy and tools to foster civilized online dialogue, and noted that CBC/Radio-Canada operates independently from government, with safeguards built into the Broadcasting Act and certification through the Journalism Trust Initiative.

In response to questions about allegations of workplace toxicity and bias, Bouchard said she has not witnessed a culture of toxicity and that employee surveys show widely positive sentiment, though she declined to comment on a specific former employee's case due to ongoing legal proceedings. She acknowledged that perceptions of balance are lower in Alberta and Saskatchewan and that redeploying journalists to more locations should improve the corporation's ability to reflect diverse viewpoints. On CBC Gem subscription numbers, she stated that 5.3 million accounts have been created but that paid subscriber numbers are kept confidential for competitive reasons, a position the corporation is defending in Federal Court against the Information Commissioner's ruling. She condemned anti-Semitic comments made by a journalist on a Radio-Canada broadcast as unacceptable and contrary to journalistic standards, and said the corporation continuously reviews its journalistic processes rather than launching a single investigation. She also said there are currently no temporary foreign workers employed at CBC/Radio-Canada and committed to providing historical data if it exists.

The committee did not engage in procedural debate, motions, or votes during this meeting.

AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.

Witnesses · 1

Marie-Philippe Bouchard

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada

Opening remarks

Madam Chair and members, I welcome the opportunity to meet with you again, this time as president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada. It has been a busy 11 months. When I last met with you, I said CBC/Radio-Canada needed to be a listening organization, that I wanted to take the time to listen to employees, to stakeholders and to Canadians, the users and the non-users of our services. That’s what I have been doing, across the country. What I’ve heard is reflected in the new strategic plan. We’ll be sharing that with Canadians at our annual public meeting on October 28, but I think it would be helpful to share the details with you today. We all know the challenges facing Canadians today: economic and trade pressures; the hollowing out of local news by global digital platforms that now capture 92% of digital ad revenue in Canada, the revenue that once sustained a diverse news ecosystem of community newspapers, radio, even television, all across the country; and the continued rise of polarization and the difficulty in knowing what information is accurate. What I've heard is that a public broadcaster, serving all Canadians with relevant and reliable news and supporting Canadian culture, is…

Full testimony ↗