Poll Suggests 45% of Canadians Want the CBC Shut Down

The CBC-Radio Canada building in Montreal on Jan. 28, 2021. The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz

A new poll commissioned by a public relations firm found that 45 percent of Canadians want to shut down the CBC, with a similar number also considering the public broadcaster’s content to be propaganda.

On April 21, Spark Advocacy published the findings from a nationwide online survey, with field work done by pollster Abacus Data.

“As Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre ratchets up his campaign to ‘defund the CBC’, many observers are tempted to believe that he is alienating a huge swath of Canadians. Not necessarily,” wrote Spark’s Bruce Anderson.

Anderson said this doesn’t mean Poilievre has a winning strategy, but the survey “should put to rest the notion that he is speaking to a tiny sentiment of the most rabid parts of the right wing.”

The survey shows that over a third of supporters of left-of-centre parties also want to shut down the CBC to save money.

Out of those, NDP supporters are the most favourable to the CBC at 67 percent, followed by Liberal supporters at 64 percent and Bloc Québécois at 61 percent.

Conservative Party supporters value the CBC the least, with 67 percent wanting to shut it down, followed by People’s Party of Canada supporters at 57 percent.

The survey shows a direct correlation between the age of the respondent and how they value the public broadcaster.

Younger respondents (18 to 29-years old) were the most in favour of closing the CBC to save money, at 55 percent. The 30-44 age group were favourable at 51 percent, the 45-59 at 46 percent, and 35 percent of the 60 and older felt the same way.

Geographically, the Prairie provinces are the only ones with a majority against the CBC, with 57 percent in Alberta and 51 percent in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Atlantic provinces value the CBC the most, with 60 percent wanting to maintain it.

Propaganda or Unbiased?

Spark also sought to know whether Canadians think the CBC’s journalism is propaganda or whether they think it’s independent and unbiased.

Nationwide, 60 percent said that CBC’s journalism isn’t propaganda, and responses spanning age and party lines were similar with regard to whether the broadcaster should be shut down.

People between 18 and 29 think the CBC is propaganda at a higher rate (55 percent), the survey found, whereas 29 percent of those over 60 think the same.

Liberal Party supporters are the least inclined to think CBC is propaganda, with 77 percent saying it’s independent.

In terms of provinces, Alberta was again ahead with 55 percent of respondents saying CBC is propaganda.

Analyzing the results, Anderson wrote that the CBC has an uphill battle to fight to “bolster its credibility” and “re-construct a strong attachment with Canadians.”

CBC has defended its independence in recent days after it was labelled a “government-funded media” on Twitter. It stopped posting on the platform in protest.

“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,” CBC’s director of media relations Leon Mar told The Epoch Times in an email on April 16.

Twitter removed the label on April 21, along with those previously affixed to other public and state broadcasters, but CBC said it was reviewing the developments before re-starting its activities on the platform.

The “government-funded” label appeared on CBC’s account shortly after Poilievre wrote to Twitter asking that the network be slapped with the label.

Poilievre campaigned during the party’s leadership race on the promise to defund the CBC, which cost taxpayers $1.2 billion in 2021.

Omid Ghoreishi and Peter Wilson contributed to this report.