CBC warns of lawsuit over government efforts to control salary negotiations

OTTAWA – The CBC is warning the federal government that its efforts to control salary negotiations at the Crown agency could be at odds with the Broadcasting Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, leading to litigation.

Canadian Broadcasting Corp. chief executive Hubert Lacroix sent a letter to the Commons finance committee today, pleading for an amendment to the budget implementation bill to ensure the broadcaster’s independence.

But when Liberal MP Scott Brison read parts of the letter to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the minister stiffly dismissed any possibility of changes to the bill.

“The CBC may think it is a special, independent, Crown agency. This is wrong,” Flaherty said.

“All Crown agencies have a responsibility through ministers, back to Parliament, to the people of Canada. They can’t do whatever they want, particularly with taxpayers money. They can’t just go off and pay their executives and pay everybody else whatever they want to pay them.”

The government’s budget bill would require the CBC, and other government agencies, to seek a mandate to negotiate and “submit to the minister responsible a draft document setting out the general components of a policy on remuneration and conditions of employment.”

But the CBC is different, Lacroix writes. The Broadcasting Act gives the CBC’s board of directors “explicit authority” to determine salaries, and specifies that employees of the broadcaster are not public servants.

“(The bill) … may give rise to conflicts with the Broadcasting Act and the Charter and compromise the Corporation’s independence,” reads the letter.

“This could potentially embroil the government, our corporation, and its unions in litigation, a result that could be avoided with an amendment that protects that independence.”