Canada: Transparency and Control at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Abstract

In March of 2016, Canada’s Liberal government reversed years of cutbacks at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), increasing funding for the public broadcaster by $675 million between 2017 and 2021. However, stubborn structural challenges remain within the organization that pose a continued impediment to the CBC fulfilling its potential as a national public broadcaster. For years, friends and foes of the CBC alike have noted problems in transparency and accountability, including how the CBC spends its funding, how the CBC responds to access to information requests, the contentious position of the CBC ombudsman, and, most significantly, the transparency of the process in which senior executives at the CBC are appointed. This chapter argues that unless changes occur regarding these structural flaws within the CBC, no amount of government funding will make the nation’s public broadcaster truly responsive to, and representative of, the Canadian people.