But Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) suggested Wednesday freedom of the press in Canada is at stake as the government rams legislation through Parliament giving Cabinet unprecedented control over collective bargaining for all 49 federal Crown corporations, while the spokesman for a lobby group opposed to the plan warned that its supporters may target Conservative MPs in the 2015 federal general election if the Conservatives go ahead with the bill, C-60.
The legislation to give Cabinet new powers to direct collective bargaining between the CBC and its six unions, along with the other Crown corporations, passed through its final stage of debate in the Commons on Tuesday evening, after Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) last week imposed time allocation to cut short debate on the bill to send it to the House Finance Committee for witness and evidence hearings, scheduled to begin on Thursday.
As Friends of Canadian Broadcasting spokesman Ian Morrison met Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) to publicize a petition with more than 130,000 signatures of people opposed to government interference with the CBC, Mr. Leef (Yukon) told The Hill Times the perception of political interference with the public broadcaster is wrong, and that the government is taking charge of CBC’s contract negotiations, normally conducted with its board of Cabinet-appointed directors, as part of a wider attempt to rein in wage and pension costs across the public service and other Crown corporations.
Most major public sector collective agreements, as well those of the CBC and Via Rail, either have expired or are set to expire between now and the 2015 election year.
Mr. Leef made his comments about the government goals as he was explaining the importance of the CBC, particularly CBC Radio, in his far-flung northern riding and across the other two northern territories.
“There is value to it, obviously, and I don’t think anything our government is doing is signalling that we don’t think that’s the case. There’s absolute value to the CBC; we support it and we continue to support it, and some of the things that we’re looking at are to provide transparency, and to enhance the service, not to harm it, not to impact it,” Mr. Leef said.
“I think, at the end of the day, when there’s Canadian tax dollars going to something and there’s a line budget, we have to make sure that that budget can be sustained and not increased to levels the Canadian taxpayer can’t sustain,” he said. “That only ensures a healthy organization, and I would support that because I want to see a healthy and strong CBC, of course, because it is important in our riding, it is important in the Yukon, it is important across the North, I hear that from my constituents.
“There’s a concern that overall budgets, in general, get to a point where they’re outstripping the sources of funding that we’re able to provide,” Mr. Leef said.
Mr. Leef said the Commons Public Safety Committee, where he is a member, has discovered the same issue in a study it is conducting on soaring police service costs across Canada.
“It’s all that we hear that across departments right now, you hear that when we’re talking about economics of policing—we’re undertaking that study in public safety right now—and one of the things we’re hearing there is that it’s wages and pensions that are really consuming so much of that budget. Budgets, by and large across all departments, a good percentage of those budgets are being taken up by employee wages and pension plans,” Mr. Leef said.
In response to a widespread perception that the direct involvement of Cabinet is political interference with the CBC, Mr. Leef responded: “Perceptions have to be managed, right, and I think as we communicate the reason and rationale for it, it will help shape those perceptions in an appropriate manner, which is simply that any exercise we undertake is an exercise to make sure that there is a long-term future for the CBC, that it can actually sustain growth, it can actually sustain the spending plans it has, and it can sustain that within reasonable budgetary parameters that the Canadian public would have.”
“There is an expectation in the Canadian public that there is reasonable pay for reasonable work across all departments, that budgets will be able to sustain their organization for a long term, and Canadians, by and large, have a right to know how that spending is occurring.”
Mr. Trudeau, however, after appearing with Mr. Morrison for a photo and camera media event with boxes of the petition, gathered through his Friends of Canadian Broadcasting in collaboration with the Leadnow.ca and SumOfUs.org online activist networks, reiterated his concern media independence is at risk.
“There is no question the CBC needs stable, long-term funding and a strong mandate, but one thing CBC doesn’t need and Radio-Canada doesn’t need, is government interference,” said Mr. Trudeau. “It’s always been strong, however frustrating it is for us politicians. A free press is the cornerstone of a strong democracy and having a public broadcaster is essential.”
Bill C-60, legislation implementing the March federal budget, would give Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his Cabinet the power to order the CBC and the other Crown corporations to get approval collective mandates and requirements from the Cabinet’s Treasury Board committee of ministers, and also force both the Crown corporations and the unions to allow a Treasury Board secretary in on the talks to monitor them.
Mr. Morrison, in response to questions at a news conference on Parliament Hill, warned there could be a backlash against the Conservatives in 2015 if the government goes ahead with the bill.
“If they were to proceed with this and to undermine the independence of the national public broadcaster, a lot more people than just the hundreds of thousands that we deal with will be very concerned, and I think they [Conservatives] know that we are capable of organizing, in a non-partisan effective way, but our supporters can be as partisan as they like, in ridings that are crucial in the next election,” Mr. Morrison said. “They know that there are several thousand people in Waterloo, for example, who care about this matter. This is not going to go away, it’s just the opposite.”
Conservative MP Peter Braid won his Commons seat for the southern Ontario electoral district of Kitchener-Waterloo with only 41 per cent of the popular vote.
NDP MP Andrew Cash (Davenport, Ont.) said Mr. Leef’s statement about controlling costs was only justification for interfering with CBC internal operations, despite past claims by Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, B.C.) that the government maintains an arm’s-length relationship with the CBC.
“This is a reach-in to direct control over the hires and fires at the public broadcaster. This runs exactly counter to the minister’s protestations in the House of Commons that he doesn’t muck about in arm’s-length, third-party agencies of the government,” Mr. Cash said.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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