The Conservative party wants to cut $200 million from the CBC’s parliamentary grant, claims an independent watchdog of Canadian programming.

In an e-mail sent out yesterday (December 4) by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, spokesperson Ian Morrison claimed that a confidential source had alerted the organization of “Conservative plans to slash a devastating $200 million from the CBC’s parliamentary grant”.

"It’s a source that we know and that we trust and that has seen the document," Morrison told the Straight in a phone call. "The document exists. It’s official enough that it exists in two official languages. It’s not just some kind of casual memo. Its status is that it’s a document of the Conservative Party of Canada, not the government of Canada....We interpret it as a policy proposal from somebody fairly high in the Conservative party."

If true, the cut could cripple Canada’s national broadcaster, which received $974.3 million in operating funding and $93.1 million on amortisation of deferred capital funding from the feds in 2007; down from 2006, when it received $1 billion in operating funding and $118 million on amortisation of deferred capital funding.

The CBC’s total expenses in both years was $1.7 billion; a loss of $200 million would mean more than a 20-percent cut in the broadcaster’s operating grant.

As it is, the broadcaster has already been struggling to deal with increasingly tight finances. In March, citing budgetary concerns, it announced it would disband the CBC Radio Orchestra, which played its last concert in November. And last month, a leaked internal CBC memo from president Hubert T. Lacroix noted the broadcaster was facing a $45-million budget shortfall, due to a decline in ad revenues, and would be implementing a freeze on discretionary spending.

The $200-million cut would also be a slap in the face to the federal standing committee on Canadian Heritage, which recommended in a February 2008 report that the CBC’s core funding be increased “to an amount equivalent to at least $40 per capita”.

That recommendation was dismissed in the government’s June 2008 response to the report, written by then minister of heritage Josée Verner, which stated, “By setting clearer goals and using more effective performance measurements, CBC/Radio-Canada will be better able to demonstrate to Canadians that it is acting as a responsible and accountable public institution. CBC/Radio-Canada is expected to make the best use of its existing resources, which currently exceed $1 billion annually.”

Had Governor General Michaí«lle Jean, a former CBC journalist and broadcaster, rejected Stephen Harper’s request yesterday to prorogue Parliament, making way for the Liberal-NDP coalition to take power, she could have helped secure the future of her former employer: both the Liberals and the NDP have repeatedly stated they support increased funding for the arts, and the NDP made campaign promises to increase funding to the CBC.

Now that the coalition is reported to be on shaky ground, the future of Canada’s public broadcaster is looking increasingly bleak.