CBC/Radio-Canada to scrap much-maligned 'performance pay' for managers

John Paul Tasker · CBC News

· Posted: May 14, 2025 5:45 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

After a question of disapproval for handing retired alleged "performance pay" to managers erstwhile it was considering layoffs, CBC/Radio-Canada's committee of directors is ending the signifier altogether aft a third-party review, the corporation said Wednesday.

Previously, immoderate of the nationalist broadcaster's non-unionized employees — executives and managers — were entitled to bonuses if it met oregon exceeded definite metrics like gross targets, assemblage size and integer reach.

It's a signifier utilized by different national Crown corporations and authorities departments. But it didn't beryllium close with galore Canadians, immoderate members of the authorities and absorption MPs when the company, nether then-CEO Catherine Tait, was poised past twelvemonth to slash immoderate 800 jobs due to the fact that of a supposed deficiency of funds.

CBC/Radio-Canada handed retired $18.4 cardinal successful show pay to 1,194 specified employees for the 2023-24 fiscal year, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press — bonuses the national Conservatives called "beyond insulting and frankly sickening" astatine a challenging economical time.

Tait and her squad yet called disconnected galore of the layoffs aft the national authorities came done with much wealth to plug a fund shortfall driven successful portion by inflationary pressure. 

Tait was non-committal astir doing away with show pay, maintaining the funds were portion of a manager's compensation bundle and not "bonuses" successful the traditional, private-sector consciousness of the word. Veteran Quebec TV enforcement Marie-Philippe Bouchard took implicit the top occupation past fall.

In announcing the program to scrap the policy, CBC/Radio-Canada said successful a connection it wants to absorption little connected short-term goals similar gross and much connected "longer-term nationalist work goals," similar improving its "value to each citizens and strengthening Canadian culture." The caller compensation operation volition bespeak that shift, it said. 

But management and enforcement compensation is not needfully going down arsenic a result.

"In bid to support wide compensation astatine the existent median level, salaries of those affected volition beryllium adjusted to bespeak the elimination of idiosyncratic show pay," the institution said.

"CBC/Radio-Canada volition proceed to acceptable idiosyncratic and firm objectives and measurement performance, but show targets volition nary longer beryllium utilized to find portion of idiosyncratic compensation."

An extracurricular consultancy, hired to reappraisal CBC/Radio-Canada's compensation operation aft the brouhaha, said successful a report released today that its enforcement and absorption remuneration is mostly "conservative" and astir the aforesaid oregon successful immoderate cases little than what radical successful comparable positions successful akin sectors gain elsewhere.

In bid to forestall large enforcement and management turnover, the quality resources consulting steadfast Mercer said the nationalist broadcaster "should beryllium mindful of not falling beneath marketplace if it wants to clasp and enlistee the expertise and endowment it needs to present connected the organization's nationalist mandate."

CBC/Radio-Canada's parliamentary appropriation, the payer wealth fixed to the institution to operate, has hardly kept gait with ostentation — and is astir the aforesaid arsenic it was 20 years agone successful existent dollars, according to a reappraisal of past CBC/Radio-Canada yearly reports.

For example, the 2005 allotment was $877 cardinal — astir $1.32 cardinal successful today's dollars, which is astir what was allocated for operational expenditures by Parliament past fiscal year.

The country's colonisation has grown by immoderate 8 cardinal radical successful that time and the media ecosystem has changed dramatically with the advent of streaming and much contention from foreign-owned firms.

Prime Minister Mark Carney promised during the past predetermination run to boost backing to bring it person to what's allocated to nationalist broadcasters successful different developed countries.

The G7 mean backing for nationalist media is astir $62.20 per capita, according to government figures — Ottawa currently allocates astir $33.66 per capita to CBC/Radio-Canada.

During the caller election, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre campaigned connected defunding CBC and retaining the French-language Radio-Canada, saying different broadcasters and media organizations could capable the quality and amusement void astatine nary outgo to taxpayers.