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OTTAWA — Conservative leadership candidates are fighting over who can gut, or in some cases completely “dismantle,” the CBC, with Kellie Leitch promising she would scrap the public broadcaster.

A day after leadership rival Maxime Bernier promised he would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from CBC/Radio-Canada and retool its mandate, Leitch said she strongly disagrees with his promise and insists that simply reforming the public broadcaster doesn’t go nearly far enough.

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She promised Thursday to stop funding the public broadcaster with taxpayer dollars.

After months of railing against the “left-wing media elite,” Leitch said Thursday in a news release that private media outlets, such as newspapers, TV and radio, are struggling for advertising dollars, and that it’s time for the government to “level the playing field.”

“The CBC doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be dismantled,” Leitch said. “Taxpayers should not have to subsidize the CBC to keep it afloat.

“Just like in the private sector, if a company isn’t competitive and isn’t profitable, it shouldn’t be in business…. The days of a bloated, taxpayer-subsidized CBC are numbered.”