When I was at the CBC in a previous century there was a sarcastic Q and A popular among us working stiffs in what CBC brass call “the regions.”

Q- What do you call the bodies of a dozen CBC executives at the bottom of the Rideau Canal?

A- A start

That tasteless joke came to mind last week as the latest episode of the long-running “bonus” pay saga played out in Ottawa. Barring a surprise ending the comedy of errors, starring CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait, is shaping up to unfold as a tragedy.

The plot centres around whether, while laying off staff and reducing programming, the public broadcaster should stick with the practice of giving non-union employees year-end top-ups to their pay. Critics and the media call that remuneration “bonuses”, the CBC calls it “performance pay.” 

In addition to Catherine Tait, the main characters in the tragicomedy are Conservative MPs and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), the  right-wing, anti-government  group that helped launch the political career of Jason Kenney. 

Forming a Greek chorus are the mainstream media which, as is so often the case, failed to provide much in the way of context. This includes the fact that for non-union employees, performance pay based on achieving certain corporate objectives, has been the practice at CBC at least as far back as 2015 and in the federal public service for longer than that. The latter point is noteworthy because the record shows that between 2011 and 2015, when the Harper/Poilievre Conservatives were firing thousands of public servants, performance pay and bonuses to deputy ministers increased every year. 

So the notion that performance pay – which can amount to as much as 20 percent of an annual stipend – is cancelled if jobs are cut is not the practice across government departments. In many cases, the opposite is true. And it is certainly not what goes on in the private broadcasting sector. The guy who runs CTV received a bonus of more than $I-million as part of his $4.9 million compensation even as the network laid off over 100 employees and reduced news programming everywhere but in Toronto. By contrast, Tait, who does a similar job for the CBC, makes between $468,900 and $557,600 and is eligible for a bonus of, at most, $110,000.

The other contextual element that did not receive enough attention is the fact that the main protagonists – the CTF and the Conservatives – don’t give a hoot about the loss of jobs at CBC. Otherwise – unless they know something about the economics of broadcasting that no one else does – they would not be calling for the federal government to “defund” the CBC, something that would likely mean the loss of thousands of jobs. Moreover, the CTF’s campaign against “bonuses” is not limited to the CBC. They’ve been arguing for years that the performance pay should be eliminated entirely from the public service.

So viewed through the lens of the Ottawa bubble, the inflated salaries of private media CEOs, and the demonstrated bad faith of the proponents, CBC’s reluctance to link layoffs and “bonuses” is understandable. Unfortunately, CBC leadership mis-read the political and media landscape and left the public broadcaster vulnerable to months of partisan attacks.

False framing prevails

The fallacious coupling of layoffs with “bonuses” was established by the CTF, and accepted by just about every other actor except the CBC brass. The CTF learned through Freedom of Information that for the 2022-23 fiscal year, 1,143 non-union employees received $14.9 million in performance pay. The information was released last December, at around the same time as the CBC was announcing that because of a projected deficit of $125 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year it would be cutting about 600 jobs, leaving 200 vacancies unfilled and reducing some programming. 

When Tait appeared on the National  to explain the cuts host Adrienne Arsenault showed that she had adopted the CTF’s framing of the issue. Arsenault said she “presumed “ that because of the cuts there would be no “bonuses” for 2023-24. “We’ll be looking at that, like we do all our line items in the coming months,” replied the CBC boss.

That response seemed to leave open the possibility that “bonuses” could be eliminated or reduced in response to the budget crunch. Members of the House of Commons Heritage Committee appeared to believe in that potential, inviting Tait to testify about the job cuts, while also voting unanimously that in light of the cuts “it would be inappropriate to grant bonuses to executive members.”  

That’s when Tate made her first big mistake. In a appearance in January, she failed to present the committee with either a strong defence of performance pay or some idea of how pay could be adjusted to mitigate the impact of a revenue shortfall on jobs. Instead she kicked the issue down the road, explaining to the committee that decisions on “bonuses” would not be made by the CBC Board until June, after results for the fiscal year were known.

She stuck to that position in May when she appeared again before Heritage committee to discuss how extra money in the spring budget would mean fewer job cuts. After falsely accusing Tait of lying during her January appearance, the Conservatives demanded assurances that none of the new money would go to “bonuses.” No assurances were forthcoming, but the meeting generated another round of negative headlines for the Corp.

Next episode

In June, the CBC announced that the Board had approved performance pay for 2023-24, but provided no numbers or amounts. It took a freedom of information request to elicit the details. Given how the story had unfolded to that point those details came across as the CBC thumbing its nose at its critics. As we learned last week, not only would performance pay continue, it would increase to a total of $18.4 million for the 2023-4 fiscal year, 23 percent more than the amount paid out in 2023.

The media, hungry for stories to relieve the summer news doldrums, were all over it. Headlines ranged from predictable -“CBC and their obscene executive bonuses” (Toronto Sun) – to merely tough – “CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses in 2024 after it eliminated hundreds of jobs” (CBC.ca). The Conservatives crowed about how they would stick it to the greedy executives by defunding the CBC and converting its Toronto headquarters to housing.

And still the beat goes on. Although the CBC Board decides on performance pay for other executives and managers, the decision on the CEO of the crown corporation like CBC is left to government. As of late last week no decision had been made, and when it is, rules on privacy prevent disclosure by the government. But the Conservatives are trying to round up support from other members for yet another Heritage committee meeting to go after Tait with more questions about “bonuses” – hers and the $18.4 million that made such great headlines last week.

Also keeping the story alive is a commitment by the CBC Board to review its compensation regime in acknowledgement of the negative optics of giving out “bonuses” during the same fiscal year that it made cuts. The Board should have made that announcement last December, along with a clear explanation of the perils of changing an established salary pattern midway through the year. That may have spared the public broadcaster eight months of negative publicity. 

By bungling the issue, the CBC is providing more ammunition for the Conservatives’ anti-CBC campaign. The Poilievre party’s latest appeal for donations cited the “bonuses”: “We have to defund the woke CBC. They are completely off the rails.” A tragic ending is looming. But if ending up at the bottom of the Rideau Canal is figurative punishment for wrecking public broadcasting, the other players in this saga have shown that CBC executives will have plenty of company.

-30-

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Here is part of a message, posted last March 14, that the Corporation clearly failed to get across.

  • CBC/Radio-Canada does not pay “bonuses.” All non-union employees are eligible to receive what is called “performance pay.” It is not an “extra,” but a portion of their compensation that is held-back until the end of the fiscal year and then determined based on individual and corporate performance against a specific set of indicators (KPIs), which are established at the start of each year.
  • This performance pay system is used across government departments and organizations, as well as private sector companies, because it ensures that part of employee and manager compensation is tied to the performance of the individual and the organization as a whole in meeting objectives. 
  • In July of 2023, 1,143 non-union employees received a total of $14.9 million in performance pay for their work in the previous year, 2022. These range from junior analysts, up to the Corporation’s eight senior executives. Their performance was evaluated against set objectives, following the end of that fiscal year, March 31, 2023. On January 30, we shared that precise information with the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Linking compensation from 2022 to the Corporation’s announcement last December of financial pressures for the fiscal year 2024-25 is deliberately misleading.