The News Rundown

CBC paid more than $18-million in bonuses in 2024 after eliminating hundreds of jobs, documents show

A number of weeks ago we dove into the story pertaining to the downfall of Corus and how that represents a different view on the media's problems in 2024.
Despite all those issues it has come to light this week that the CBC paid $18m in bonuses out to employees in 2024 and shedding hundreds of jobs.
Documents received through access to information requests show that in the 2023-24 fiscal year the CBC paid out $18.4m in bonuses to 1,194 employees.
$3.3m of that was paid to 45 executives.
Averaging this out, the executive would’ve received a bonus of over $73,000 which of course as we talked about last week is more than the median income for a family after taxes in 2022.
$10.4m was paid out to 631 managers and $4.6m was paid out to 518 other employees.
The bonuses were approved in June but the company refused to disclose how much was paid out even though MPs have been asking for the figure since last December.
That is of course when the CBC announced that they’d layoff employees to help their bottom line.
141 employees were laid off and 205 vacant positions were eliminated.
CBC CEO Catherine Tait has been tight lipped about whether or not she received a bonus and the federal government isn’t saying if she’ll get one this year.
It’s the federal agencies that determine if the head of the CBC gets a bonus.
Only the Conservatives have been pushing to recall Catherine Tait to committee to answer questions about bonuses and if she’s going to receive one.
Conservative MP and heritage critic Rachael Thomas said, "While Canadians struggle to afford basic necessities like food and rent, CBC executives are rewarding themselves with massive bonuses despite their failing performance. End the madness. Recall the committee. Defund the CBC.”
No other party has committed to calling her back but the closest to enabling such a thing appears to be the Bloc Quebécois where MP Martin Champoux said, "A lot can happen between now and the return in committee so I can't tell you what my position will be when a motion to invite Ms. Tait will be debated.”
It falls to Canadian Heritage to decide if Ms. Tait will receive a bonus and they are still considering their options. They did add, however, that if she does receive one we likely will not know due to privacy laws and that the decisions are not public.
The only thing we did get from Canadian Heritage is that they have faith in their Minister, Pascal St-Onge, to “get board evaluation processes right.”
Prior to bonuses Tait’s salary range is between $468,900 and $551,600 per year and she could potentially receive a bonus of 28% of her salary which is $131,292 at the low end and $154,448 at the high end.
The CBC’s place in Canada has been questioned and it’s no secret that their journalism when relying on wire services is on par with other outlets. But when looking at native crafting CBC journalism, that journalism blends the line between news and opinion and Canadians who don’t take a fine-tooth-comb to their news are being misled.
Then we factor in all the other extraneous factors that the CBC pushes like their questionable children’s content that we’ve talked about in years past pushing drag queens to kids, we need to really ask if the CBC should exist at all.
Should it be defunded and try to survive as a private entity?
Or is it something that the laurentian elite will go to the end of the world to save because it advocates for and protects their world view.
Nonetheless it’s clear that questions are on tap for the CBC and this government will sit idly by while the money taps get turned on for CBC’s executives.
Supplementals:

The one-day suspension of a Victoria firefighter has erupted into a political firestorm after a Conservative Party of B.C. candidate accused the B.C. premier and the city's mayor of involvement in the disciplinary decision.
A statement from Premier David Eby's office called the accusation "completely false," while a statement from the City of Victoria says Mayor Marianne Alto has "no role in the operational decisions of the Victoria Fire Department."
Firefighter Josh Montgomery was suspended without pay by the fire department after he wrote an open letter to the premier expressing his opposition to a planned homeless outreach centre near his home in the city's North Park neighbourhood.
In his letter to the premier, written in the aftermath of a first responder being attacked on Pandora Avenue in July outside a homeless shelter, Montgomery said first responders like him are seeing an escalation of aggression from individuals using social services: "The escalating violence and alarming decisions being made by City of Victoria officials have put my life, the lives of my colleagues, and the safety of our community at severe risk."
The Pandora incident saw a paramedic assaulted while attending to a patient. The assault led to police and other first responders being swarmed by about 60 people. In response, paramedics and firefighters announced they would no longer go to medical calls in the area without police.
The planned outreach centre at 2155 Dowler Pl., would be located just across the street from the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre hockey arena, and just a few streets away from the Pandora Avenue homeless shelter. Montgomery wrote that the site will include harm-reduction services for drug users "just 100 feet from where my young daughters, ages 4 and 6, play outside our home." The firefighter called the city's support for the centre "outrageous" and "reckless," and called on the premier to "take immediate action" to intervene to stop it.
The union representing Victoria firefighters, Local 730 of the International Association of Firefighters, confirmed Montgomery was being suspended for one day without pay specifically due to the content of a letter sent to Premier David Eby.
“There has been misinformation that has been circulated amongst the public regarding employment matters with one of our members. Local 730 can confirm that a member, Josh Montgomery, was disciplined for his opinions shared in a letter to Premier Eby,” the union said in a statement. According to the union, it wanted to clarify the length of suspension and why it was handed down as misinformation spreading, as a result of few details being released about the situation. What details those were, the union wouldn't say.
If you wish to view the letter in full for yourself, we have it linked in the supplementals.
Once Montgomery's suspension came to light, B.C. Conservative candidate Tim Thielmann seized on the firefighter's cause, calling the one-day suspension a "chilling retaliation" for political speech.
Thielmann, the Conservative candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill, said in a statement: "We demand an account. Was Mr. Montgomery's suspension at the insistence of the mayor or did it come from the premier himself?"
The premier's office, denying it had any role in the suspension, said Eby "seeks out information from front-line workers and welcomes feedback of all kinds."
"First responders do heroic work in our communities and we stand firm in supporting the work they do to keep us all safe," the statement added.
Eby and Alto initially distanced themselves from the matter, with both issuing statements saying they had nothing to do with the fire department's decision. But the premier's office released a follow-up statement Thursday questioning the decision to suspend the firefighter, saying: "No one should face consequences for writing to me and, if that's the reason he was sanctioned, then he deserves an apology and back-pay from the person responsible."
The premier stood by his comments on Friday, saying that "if it's the case that this firefighter was disciplined for writing a letter to the premier about an issue of significant importance for him and his community, that can't stand."
Hours earlier, Alto condemned the premier's involvement in the matter from Victoria city hall: "I am extremely disappointed that any provincial premier would feel it appropriate or necessary to make a comment on what is clearly an operational personnel matter of a local government. Particularly, as I believe he has said, since he is not in possession of all the facts."
It's weird how a letter expressing one's opinion on matters in their neighborhood got someone suspended from their job, a very important job at that. It's even stranger how Eby's seemingly innocuous statement got such strong pushback from Victoria's mayor, who I guess felt that he was intruding into municipal matters again.
People in Canada should not be suspended from their jobs for exercising their right of free speech, and we've recently seen troubling news stories like this in other countries. With the Online Harms Act being pushed through by Justin Trudeau people in Canada could see jail time for what they post online. Erosion of our free speech isn't something that should be encouraged.
Supplementals:

NDP broke election finance rules during leadership race

For this story we go into the weeds of the Alberta NDP leadership race.
The NDP leadership race that elected Naheed Nenshi made headlines because of all the new members that the party signed up, specifically from Calgary.
This week Elections Alberta announced that the NDP broke election finance rules due to an investigation that took place after a complaint by the UCP.
In February the UCP wrote to Elections Alberta alleging that the NDP was breaching section 25(1) of the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act (EFCDA), which states an annual membership fee is not to be considered a contribution.
In the complaint, the UCP alleged the NDP’s membership forms illegally equated party membership fees with contributions. It also claimed that part of the NDP constitution that stated any donation to the party over $10 is deemed a valid membership renewal, broke election rules.
This week Elections Alberta confirmed that the NDP did break the rule and that the party was not in compliance.
In highlighting where the transgression took place, Paula Hale, election commissioner, said, “Specifically, in circumstances where memberships were being renewed as the result of an individual making a contribution in a subsequent year.”
The issues that Elections Alberta found in breach of the compliance agreement were:
Using a membership form that does not use the word “donation” and having contribution and membership fees treated distinctly.
What this means is that if somebody buys membership in year 1, a donation in year 2 can not count as a renewal of that membership.
The contribution receipt should not include the membership fee.
The NDP captured media headlines with their race in that they had the highest number of voters for any provincial party race and this was after dismissing the UCP’s complaint in February.
The NDP has said that they will accept the compliance agreement and that “unambiguous language to distinguish contributions from membership payments is imperative.”
Now of course the question with this is, how many people who voted in this leadership race were voting with membership extended by donation?
The NDP doesn’t have to publish its leadership numbers and the only reason we’re able to know what’s going on here and have Elections Alberta look into it is that the NDP themselves actually pushed for this to become law!
Does the de-legitimize Naheed Nenshi as leader of the NDP? With the other candidates earning anemic numbers of votes, no.
But does it throw into question how many members the party actually had for this leadership race, yes.
It also makes another story we saw in Q1 of this year make sense: The NDP’s Q1 fundraising efforts were almost non-existent despite an incoming leadership race and the party was in the red.
We didn’t get this at the time with the hype built around Naheed Nenshi.
Through election rules, contribution limits, and now this most recent charge against the party, it will be hard for them to build their cash flow back up over the next year.
The reason it didn’t make sense is because we were told the NDP had members until tomorrow but we didn’t exactly know how that could be the case with a party in the red.
We now know, those members were likely extended due to a crooked accounting policy put in place by the party.
The last note on this is that if it were the UCP, specifically the UCP under Jason Kenney, this would have been all the ammunition that was needed to call that race illegitimate.
But the media already did that with a charge that wasn’t proven in the end despite harassment of voters who lived at the same address.
Were CBC journalists calling NDP members to verify their membership? No. Would they ever? No.
That’s why this story is bigger than any UCP leadership controversy because it’s actually been proven that there was money that flowed illegally.
One of the number one rules in rooting out corruption is to follow the money. Thankfully Elections Alberta did in this case.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

'Chickens have come home to roost': Mounting criticism over Canada's low-wage temporary foreign worker program

Canada's temporary foreign worker program has been getting lambasted over and over in the news this past week, as a report from the UN likens abuses of the program to "modern slavery", lighting the match to a whole bonfire of criticism, with a lot of it being focused on a set of changes that Trudeau introduced in 2022.
In April 2022, the federal government expanded the Temporary Foreign Worker program in order to, it said at the time, “ensure it continues to meet the labour market needs of today.” The government noted that the Canadian labour market was tighter than before the pandemic, and that “much of the unmet demand is in low-wage occupations", pointing out that the highest vacancies were in accommodations and food services, healthcare and social assistance and retail trade.
Before 2022, employers were allowed to bring in temporary foreign workers in the low-wage occupation stream only if the unemployment rate in their local region was less than six per cent. Most sectors were also restricted to having 10 per cent of the workforce be low-wage temporary foreign workers. In 2022, Ottawa scrapped the unemployment rate restriction, and raised the workforce limitation for the percentage of low-wage TFWs allowed to 20 per cent. For seven sectors, that limit was raised to 30 per cent.
Economists say those changes have made it more difficult for young Canadians to find employment. Mike Moffatt, senior director of the Smart Prosperity Institute said: “It’s absolutely contributing to the record low employment rates that particularly younger people are facing, specifically 14 to 19 year olds. Outside the pandemic, this is the worst summer on record for youth employment. A lot of that is that businesses – your coffee shops, your ice cream places – aren't hiring those 16 and 17 year olds, because they're hiring either temporary foreign workers or older college students instead.”
As a result of the changes made, use of the non-agricultural low-wage stream has surged since 2022. in 2023 the number of approved TFW positions in the low-wage stream more than doubled. Government data show that more than 83,000 low-wage TFW positions were approved in 2023, compared to about 16,000 in 2016.
Going forward, economist Armine Yalnizyan says the government needs to pull back the intake of TFWs, as well as international students, which she says “are a de facto low-wage worker group.” She would also like to see an end to the practice of tying a work permit to a single employer, as in the TFW program, and instead have permits tied to a region or a specific industry with significant labour shortages.
Yalnizyan also notes that the TFW program makes up just a fraction of the people entering Canada on a temporary basis, and “we need much better pathways to permanent residency for everybody that comes here as a temporary foreign worker, not just through this program.”
The UN was even more scathing of the program, denouncing Canada's temporary foreign worker program as a "breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery," citing wage theft, excessive work hours, limited breaks and physical abuse as some of the ways workers are being mistreated.
The final report from the UNs' special rapporteur, Tomoya Obokata, on contemporary forms of slavery reiterates his previous comments after a visit to Canada last year. It outlines how the looming threat of deportation can prevent workers from reporting unsafe or exploitative conditions.
In the UN report, Obokata — a professor of international human rights law at the University of York in the U.K. — says he received reports of workers being underpaid and going without protective equipment, and of employers confiscating documents, arbitrarily cutting working hours and preventing workers from seeking health care.
Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday he objected to the phrase "contemporary slavery" in reference to the temporary foreign worker program, but still acknowledged the abuses outlined in the report and said they need to stop.
"Any person in Canada, regardless of who they employ, needs to treat people with dignity and respect according to the law," Miller said. "That isn't happening in some sectors that employ temporary foreign workers, and that needs to end."
Hiring people under the temporary foreign workers program is so popular that even Liberal MPs are doing it. While online outrage focuses on companies like Tim Hortons filling their stores with out-of-country, low-wage workers, BC Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal has taken advantage of the program.
In addition to being an MP, Dhaliwal is also the owner of a land surveying company in British Columbia. On the federal government’s website, Dhaliwal’s firm was approved for hiring “legal administrative assistants” through the temporary foreign workers program in late 2023. Were there really none available in Surrey, a city with a population of close to 600,000 in an area with a population of more than three million and growing?
Dhaliwal’s firm is just one of a growing number of companies turning to the temporary foreign workers program. While some might claim that the people coming into Canada on this program are doing jobs Canadians won’t do, that’s hard to fathom given the rising unemployment rate.
The youth unemployment rate — those aged 15-24 — stood at 10.2% in April 2022 but now it is 14.2%. That’s a 40% increase in youth unemployment as the types of low wage, low skilled jobs that would normally go to students and those just entering the workforce go elsewhere.
The Trudeau Liberals have not only radically altered the requirements for hiring someone under the temporary foreign workers program, they have added hundreds of thousands of new workers who came as students.
We had one million foreign students enter into Canada in 2023 and right now, there is no cap on how many hours they can work. It had been 20 hours per week, but that cap was removed during the pandemic to ease worker shortages.
As of September, a new cap will come in for foreign students at 24 hours per week. So, we’ve more than tripled the number of foreign students and increased their ability to work. That is all on top of the massive changes in rules for temporary foreign workers that employers are taking advantage of.
In 2014, when he was still in opposition, Justin Trudeau said that abuse of the TFW program under the Harper government was driving down wages of low income Canadians. That was at a time when there were less than half of the number of foreign workers than there are now.
Trudeau still says they are driving down wages but other than accusing businesses of abusing the system his government created, they aren’t doing anything about it.
It's clear more than ever that the system was continued by design by the Trudeau Liberals and it's part of the reason we're in the mess that we're in right now. The fact that it's taken this long for mainstream pushback from the media on this horrendous program shows that the media are not doing their jobs.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

"While Canadians struggle to afford basic necessities like food and rent, CBC executives are rewarding themselves with massive bonuses despite their failing performance. End the madness. Recall the committee. Defund the CBC.” - Conservative MP Rachael Thomas on the increasing bonuses of CBC executives.

Word of the Week

Bonus - an amount of money added to wages on a seasonal basis, especially as a reward for good performance.

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Show Data

Episode Title: End the Madness
Teaser: The CBC pays out huge bonuses while cutting jobs, a Victoria firefighter gets suspended for a letter to the BC Premier, and the Alberta NDP broke leadership election financing rules. Also the UN likens Canada’s TFW program to modern slavery.
Recorded Date: August 17, 2024
Release Date: August 18, 2024
Duration: 56:15
Edit Notes: Pickles

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX