Tait won’t rule out bonus pay for CBC’s top brass despite job cuts

CBC-Radio Canada CEO Catherine Tait won’t say if she, or the public broadcaster’s top brass, will be getting their yearly bonuses at the end of March despite recently announced job cuts to deal with its $125 million budget shortfall. “Everything is on the table. So we will see at the end of fiscal year based on results and where we are financially,” Tait said. Tuesday, Tait and her colleagues appeared before the House of Commons Canadian Heritage committee to discuss the public broadcaster’s financial troubles. In December the public broadcaster announced plans to cut 10 per cent of its workforce and slash some programming. That amounts to 600 lost jobs and 200 posts left vacant. According to CBC’s chief transformation officer Marco Dubé, the broadcaster awarded $14.9 million to approximately 1,100 employees. CBC spends $950 million on its entire payroll. Tait argued that the bonuses are a small amount in comparison. She also maintained that CBC did not hand out bonuses but rather “at-risk or performance pay,” and noted that it is up to the board of directors to decide whether to hand out the incentive pay. “For an individual, let's say who's making $80,000, a portion of that pay is held back. That's what performance pay is. This is not an additional amount,” she said. “These are not frivolous awards given at Christmas time.” Members of the committee pressed Tait on whether or not she would recommend that the board of directors withhold the pay. “I will recommend that the 1140 unaffiliated, non-unionized employees receive their fair pay, their performance pay,” she said. Highlighting the methodology behind CBC's compensation strategy, Tait said that the corporation benchmarks its compensation against the middle range of pay for similar positions across both government and industry sectors. She elaborated that at-risk pay, withheld until the end of the fiscal year, is contingent upon individual and corporate performance, aligned with predetermined metrics outlined in CBC's annual business plan. "These specific measurements," Tait said, "are linked to our annual business plan, including targets like revenue, reach, and engagement across all of our services. Our board of directors reviews and approves these targets at the beginning of the year, and we report quarterly on our progress in our public documents." Tait said the CBC is on track to meet most of their corporate targets but are down on revenue, therefore, only some portion of bonuses would be awarded. She also noted that the majority of cuts announced will happen in the coming months and there is still time for the public broadcaster to recover from their current financial situation. – Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Tait won’t rule out bonus pay for CBC’s top brass despite job cuts

News | January 30, 2024

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Tait won’t rule out bonus pay for CBC’s top brass despite job cuts

News | January 30, 2024

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