Poilievre Asks Twitter to Label CBC as ‘Government-Funded Media’

The CBC building in Toronto in a file photo. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

Public broadcaster CBC should be labelled as “government-funded media” on Twitter, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre told the social media company in a letter.

Poilievre wrote to Twitter on April 11 suggesting that CBC should receive a label based on the platform’s practice of identifying accounts of this type.

In recent days, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) received the label.

Poilievre quoted the definition used by Twitter to make decisions on accounts.

“Government-funded media is defined as outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” says the Twitter policy.

Poilievre noted that CBC receives the majority of its funding from the federal government, to the tune of $1.24 billion.

“As a result, and in the interest of transparency, I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC’s various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNews, and @CBCAlerts,” he wrote.

The letter was posted on Twitter by True North writer Élie Cantin-Nantel and confirmed as authentic by a Poilievre spokesperson.

CBC told The Epoch Times it can’t comment on the “motives behind the letter.”

“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,” said spokesperson Leon Mar.

“As every Canadian knows, CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded. Its editorial independence is protected in law in the Broadcasting Act.”

Elon Musk, who has owned the social media company since last October, has been tagged by some users of the platform asking him to label CBC. He responded on April 9.

“We need to add more granularity to editorial influence, as it varies greatly. I don’t actually think the BBC is as biased as some other government-funded media, but it is silly of the BBC to claim zero influence,” Musk wrote, confusing the BBC and CBC.

“Minor government influence in their case would be accurate.”

BBC has protested the labelling, writing on April 10 that it is independent. “We are funded by the British public through the licence fee,” it said.

Twitter’s move to label NPR has also not been well received by the outlet. NPR also said it is independent, and has stopped posting on the platform in protest.

Poilievre campaigned during the Conservative Party leadership race on a promise he will defund the CBC if he becomes prime minister.

CBC president Catherine Tait told the Globe and Mail in February that Poilievre was helping drive criticism against her organization.

“There’s a lot of CBC bashing going on — somewhat stoked by the Leader of the Opposition” she said. “I think they feel the CBC is a mouthpiece for the Liberal government.”

Poilievre responded in a tweet that Tait was “not even pretending to be unbiased.”

“She launched a partisan attack against me, proving my claim that the $1.2 billion corporation is a mouthpiece for Justin Trudeau.”

Editor’s note: The article was updated with a comment from the CBC.