OTTAWA - The main purpose of Parliament is to hold the government accountable for the way it spends your tax dollars, and to prevent the abuse of power. That was the origin of the Magna Carta, when Britain's nobles first forced King John to be accountable to Parliament back in 1215.
And it continues to this day.
Yet for all the oversight MPs provide, for all the legislation and promises aimed at providing transparency into how our tax dollars are spent, there is one government organization that thinks it is above it all: the CBC.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation receives $1.1 billion per year from taxpayers in the form of direct subsidies. It receives $41 million per year in payments from cable and satellite subscribers, fees set by the CRTC, another government body. This year they will get an additional $96.5 million from the Canadian Media Fund, a government-mandated program funded through your cable bill to pay for new productions. And, finally, they receive millions from the CRTC's Local Programming Improvement Fund.
On top of all of this, the programming CBC produces is also eligible for federal production tax credits, provincial credits and access a number of other government or quasi-government money pools.
The annual flow of tax dollars to the state broadcaster is far greater than the purchase of the F-35 fighter jets, which will cost between $250 million and $350 million per year over 40 years. At the end of 40 years, the CBC will cost far more than the current $1.1 billion per year.
The CBC is one of the biggest beneficiaries of federal tax money, but they are not really accountable to anyone. Governments are unwilling to hold the CBC accountable because they would be accused of interference. Opposition parties might call them to account once or twice each year at a committee hearing, perhaps amounting to four hours of testimony. Otherwise, we are left with the CBC's expensive and self-serving "surveys," which whitewash the corporation's actions.
Back in 2007, the government added CBC to the list of government agencies subject to the so-called Access to Information Act, giving politicians and media a valuable new tool to help hold the CBC accountable. Finally, the organization that demands "accountability" from every other branch of government would have to explain and justify its own actions, and the expenditure of so much money -- or so we thought.
In the last three years, QMI Agency has filed thousands of ATIPs, trying to find out how and why CBC spends taxpayer money on board meetings in Iqaluit, executive expenses, anchor salaries and bidding for commercial or sports properties.
But in most cases, our ATIPs have been ignored or rejected, with the Corporation claiming exemptions for any information related to news, programming and creative work. Many ATIPS came back with thousands pages blank or blacked out, like top-secret intelligence documents.
We complained to the Access to Information Commissioner, who took the CBC to the federal court. She wanted to see if the CBC was justified in refusing our requests. The CBC fought and lost the case, but has now appealed the decision. It costs money to fight these cases in court but, again, the CBC won't tell taxpayers how much money they are spending to keep their files closed.
So, in our on-going efforts to hold CBC accountable to taxpayers, QMI is going to run a regular series of stories on the corporation. We're going to call it "Down the drain."
Today, we're starting with some of our favourite "rejections." These are simple questions we've asked that the CBC refuses to answer. Feel free to send us your questions or thoughts so we keep up the pressure for accountability.
Send your CBC tips to cbctips@sunmedia.ca.
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