On April 11, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) — the official opposition to Justin Trudeau’s liberal minority government — penned a letter to Twitter Inc. requesting that Canada’s state broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) be labeled as “government-funded media” on the platform.
“Government-funded media is defined as outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” reads the letter.
“Twitter’s Platform Use Guidelines refer to a source that describes the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the “CBC”) as a publicly funded broadcaster,” Poilievre wrote, adding that, “The CBC’s 2021-2022 Annual Report disclosed that it received almost $1.24 billion, the vast majority of its funding, from the Canadian government.”
“As a result, and in the interest of transparency, I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC’s various news-related accounts,” he wrote.
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Poilievre is no fan of the CBC and is currently running on a platform that promises to fully defund the national broadcaster.
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The CPC is also currently collecting signatures from Canadians at large calling on Trudeau’s government to “defund the CBC.”
“Whereas the CBC undercuts private sector and independent media and competes for advertising space while receiving more than $1 billion in direct taxpayer subsidies. And whereas the CBC mostly provides opinions and coverage that are widely available in a free and competitive media marketplace. Therefore, be it resolved that we call on this Liberal government to defund the CBC to save taxpayer dollars and ensure a free and competitive press in the Canadian media landscape,” reads the petition.
The number of signatures collected to date has not been disclosed however a report, published by independent media outlet True North, in March last year claims that the “Majority of Canadians support defunding the CBC.”
The outlet cited an Angus Reid poll conducted in March, 2022.
Poilievre’s request follows Twitter labeling American public broadcaster, National Public Radio (NPR) as “Government-funded media,” a move that prompted the outlet to abandon Twitter entirely.
In a statement published on April 12, NPR wrote, “NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” adding that, “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence.”
