Global Affairs Canada (GAC) is listed as a major contributor to the charity wing of the UK’s BBC in 2023-2024, money that was primarily used for DEI initiatives in Africa.
According to the charity wing — BBC Media Action — GAC handed out $1,623,711 in taxpayer money to the BBC’s charity group.
Though BBC Media Action noted that GAC provided more than $1.6 million in funding for the fiscal year of 2023-2024, only one BBC Media Action project was shown on GAC’s website during that year – and it cost just over $1.5 million.
GAC records show most of that money was allocated to a gender equality initiative in East Africa called “Broadcasting for Change: Empowering Young Women Through Media in Tanzania.” The feds originally budgeted $2,120,000 for the program that year but only transferred $1,536,981.
The website says the program funded a nationally recognized youth radio show, ‘Niambie,’ that was focused on “transforming young women and men’s attitudes towards gender equality.”
According to the feds, the project was expected to “strengthen the production of gender-sensitive and gender-transformative media that supports the social, economic and political rights of young women and girls.”
It also aimed to increase “supportive attitudes” by Tanzanian youth towards young women’s participation in society and to increase the use of social services that support the social, economic and political rights of young women and girls.
When asked about the other amount – nearly $100,000 in unaccounted-for apparent spending – GAC asked True North for an indefinite extension to the deadline provided to give a response.
The program was set to run from 2019-2024, and was granted a maximum contribution of $9,180,034, according to the federal report on the program and its spending. The government also planned a $1,165,156 disbursement to BBC Media Action for the program for the fiscal year 2024-2025.
“This government is doing a terrible job paying bureaucrats and the media here. It’s hard to believe the government paying bureaucrats and media organizations in other countries will work any better,” Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told True North.
“Canadians shouldn’t be forced to pay for our own state broadcaster, and we definitely shouldn’t have our tax dollars going anywhere near another country’s state broadcaster,” he said.
But Peter Menzies, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former CRTC vice-chair, told True North that the funding could have a strategic purpose for Canada.
“The BBC Action Team is a charity that supports media in developing nations, which I don’t think is the worst use of money,” he said. “Reasonable people can disagree on whether that’s the best way to go about things. But I expect it will be interpreted by many as unnecessary funding for foreign media.”
GAC lauded the results of their five-year spending on the program in the report, saying since the project launched, radio programs related to the rights of women and girls were produced, and media practitioners received DEI training.
This aligns with the Liberal government’s global commitment to spreading gender equality. In 2022-2023 alone, GAC spent $15.5 billion on its Feminist International Assistance Policy.
The report also said 91 per cent of the program’s listeners “demonstrated knowledge” on gender equality and 42 per cent reported using counselling services.
Similarly, from 2016 to 2020, GAC gave BCC Media Action $4.8 million for a “Her Voice, Her Rights” initiative which sought to train media on gender equality issues in Afghanistan.
Terrazzano said GAC is one of the worst waste offenders in the “entire government.”
“And that’s saying a lot,” he said. “With the government more than $1 trillion in debt we need to open up the books and cut wasteful spending in every department, and that definitely includes Global Affairs Canada.”
In October 2024, True North reported that GAC spent over $3 million in taxpayer dollars on alcohol. At the time, GAC did not provide an answer before True North’s publishing deadline, or in a follow-up.
GAC’s foreign aid tracker became unavailable to the public on Wednesday, which prompted a flurry of suspicious posts on social media. However, GAC released a statement saying the outage was due to technical difficulties and was not intentional.
Terrazzano highlighted some of GAC’s wasteful spending on X, responding to the news that its funding reports were now unavailable to the public.
Along with the $51,000-a-month bar tab, he said GAC funded an $8,800 sex toy show in Germany, and spent $12,500 on a live talk show in Taiwan, Austria and Australia featuring seniors telling sex stories.
