Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has come to the defense of the CBC after Twitter labeled the public broadcaster “government-funded media.”
On Monday, Trudeau accused Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre of attacking “independent media organizations.” The state broadcaster receives over $1.2 billion in taxpayer funding from the federal government.
“When they’re trying to attack a foundational Canadian institution, the fact that he has to run to American billionaires for support to attack Canadians says a lot about Mr. Poilievre and his values,” claimed Trudeau.
“I think it says a lot about the Conservative Party of Canada. They’re choosing to constantly attack independent media organizations, journalists who are working hard to keep Canadians informed and support our democracy.”
Trudeau was referencing an open letter written by Poilievre, in which the Conservative leader asked the social media company to apply the label to the outlet.
In response to the label, CBC has denied the characterization, claiming that it is independent of government influence.
“Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as cases where the government “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” which is clearly not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada,” wrote the CBC in a series of tweets.
“CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation that is voted upon by all Members of Parliament. Its editorial independence is protected in law in the Broadcasting Act, as we said in our statement from last week.”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has applied the government-funded label to a number of media outlets including NPR most recently.
