Tait Reappointed as CBC President for Just 18 Months as Public Broadcaster’s Mandate Is Reassessed

CBC President Catherine Tait arrives on the red carpet at the Juno Awards in London, Ont., Sunday, March 17, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

Cabinet has reappointed Catherine Tait as president and CEO of CBC and Radio-Canada for just an 18-month term as Ottawa reassesses the public broadcaster’s mandate going forward in a shifting online “environment,” says Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez.

Tait was appointed to a five-year term as CBC’s president in July 2018, but Rodriguez told reporters in Ottawa on June 1 that Canada’s online information landscape will be “so different” in a year and a half due to the recent passage of the Online Streaming Act and the expected passing of Bill C-18 that he’s decided to reappoint Tait to only an 18-month term.

Bill C-18, or the Online News Act, would require tech companies like Google and Meta to compensate Canadian news organizations for the content that appears on their platforms. The Liberals argue that the bill, currently under Senate committee consideration, would help the Canadian news industry, which has seen massive drops in advertising revenue over the past decade.

Due to this and other pieces of legislation, Rodriguez said cabinet will be updating the CBC’s mandate to ensure it appoints the “right person” to be the public broadcaster’s president at that point.

“We’re in a transition period,” he said in French. “There will be a very different environment in a year and half.”

“So we came to an agreement on this period where [Tait] will help us during the process,” he added. “The context will be so different with C-11, C-18, and the modernization of CBC that we need to reflect on who we'll need for this.”

Tait issued a statement on June 1 in response to her reappointment, saying she “is pleased to continue in her role ... for an additional 18-month term.”

During her second term, Tait said she wants to focus on projects CBC has undertaken with other media organizations and stakeholders to “address the urgent issues of polarization and distrust, which are undermining democratic and open societies.”

“It’s a critical issue that all Western democracies are grappling with,” she said. “I believe Canada’s public broadcaster has a unique role to play to address disinformation, build trust in verified and trusted news, and, most importantly, to foster Canadian conversations in English, French and Indigenous languages.”

New Regulations

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is currently developing a regulatory framework to implement changes to Canada’s Broadcasting Act as legislated in the Online Streaming Act.

Among other changes, the amended Broadcasting Act gives the CRTC regulating authority over online streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube to require them to contribute to new Canadian content standards or face steep penalties.

The CRTC says on its website that it will begin considering this fall how to define “Canadian and indigenous content” in the new online regulations, holding public consultations on the matter throughout the winter.

Although the Online Streaming Act’s wording leaves open the possibility that the CRTC could use its new authority to regulate user-generated content, the broadcast regulator has stated several times that it will not do so.

“Content and digital creators will not be regulated, just as creators, artists and producers are not regulated today,” the rgulator writes on a webpage titled “Myths and Facts about Bill C-11.”