Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio Canada (CBC)

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, presented bilingually as CBC/Radio-Canada, is Canada’s national public broadcaster, operating as a federal Crown corporation that delivers programming in both of Canada’s official languages, English under the CBC banner and French under the Radio-Canada banner. The Corporation traces its origins to the Canadian Broadcasting Act of 1936 and operates today under the current Broadcasting Act of 1991, which establishes its mandate, governance and accountability framework. With its current corporate strategy CBC, Here for Canada unveiled in October 2025 under new President and Chief Executive Officer Marie-Philippe Bouchard, the Corporation has entered its 90th year amid a substantially reshaped political and funding environment following the March 2025 change of Prime Minister and the April 2025 federal election, which returned a Liberal minority government under Mark Carney, and the new administration’s election pledge to lift CBC funding by an initial CAD 150 million per year and to enshrine its appropriation in law.

In its current iteration, CBC runs four terrestrial radio networks—CBC Radio One and CBC Music in English, and Ici Radio‑Canada Première and Ici Musique in French—plus the digital-only international radio arm, Radio Canada International (RCI), whose audio content has been distributed online since 2012. It also operates two main TV networks—CBC Television (English) and Ici Radio‑Canada Télé (French)—as well as multiple satellite and cable services including CBC News Network, Ici RDI, Ici Explora, and other specialty channels like Documentary and ARTV. In the Arctic, CBC North and Radio‑Canada Nord deliver tailored regional content. Beyond the official languages, CBC/Radio‑Canada serves Indigenous audiences, offering radio programming in eight Indigenous languages domestically and in five languages via RCI’s online platform.

Media assets

English television: CBC Television, CBC News Network, Documentary Channel

English radio and audio: CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, podcasts and digital audio services

French television: Ici Radio-Canada Télé, Ici RDI (rolling news), Ici Explora (science and discovery), Ici ARTV (arts)

French radio: Ici Radio-Canada Première, Ici Musique

Northern services: CBC North and Radio-Canada Nord, providing tailored programming for Arctic and Indigenous audiences, with radio programming in several Indigenous languages

International: Radio Canada International (RCI), digital-only since 2012, with multilingual international content

Ownership and governance

CBC/Radio-Canada is a federal Crown corporation, a form of public ownership vested in the Sovereign of Canada and structured to provide statutory distance from the government of the day. Under the Broadcasting Act 1991, the Corporation reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage, with the Board of Directors as the supreme governing body. The Broadcasting Act provides for a Board of 12 directors, including the Chairperson and the President and CEO. All appointments are made by the Governor in Council, the federal Cabinet acting through the Governor General, with candidates for the CEO position drawn from a shortlist developed by the Independent Advisory Committee for Appointments to the CBC/Radio-Canada Board of Directors since the 2024 process that selected the current incumbent.

The current Chair of the Board is Michael Goldbloom, reappointed for a term ending 28 March 2028. The President and Chief Executive Officer is Marie-Philippe Bouchard, who took office on 3 January 2025 for a five-year term ending 2 January 2030, succeeding Catherine Tait following an open selection process led by the Independent Advisory Committee. Bouchard, who previously served as President and CEO of TV5 Québec Canada and held senior positions at CBC/Radio-Canada in legal services and digital strategy earlier in her career, is the first Francophone woman to lead the Corporation. The 2025 transition was accompanied by Bouchard and Goldbloom jointly unveiling the new 2025 to 2030 corporate strategy CBC, Here for Canada at the October 2025 Annual Public Meeting and Digital Content Festival, with strategic priorities including expanded local news coverage, modernised digital and streaming offerings, and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence under explicit editorial safeguards.

In February 2025, before the Carney government’s election mandate, Canadian Heritage proposed a package of governance reforms including a shift of CEO appointment authority from the federal Cabinet to the Board of Directors, a fixed five-year mandate with a ten-year maximum tenure, an expansion of the Board from 12 to 14 members with explicit geographic and demographic representation requirements, a new Vice-Chair position, and a fixed per-capita funding model indexed to inflation. None of these elements had been enacted into legislation at the time of writing. The Carney administration that took office on 14 March 2025 has pledged to enshrine CBC funding in law through a Broadcasting Act amendment, an approach consistent with several elements of the February 2025 reform package, although the precise legislative form had not been tabled by the close of this review period.

Source of funding and budget

CBC/Radio-Canada’s funding model combines parliamentary appropriations, advertising revenue (primarily on television and digital platforms), subscriber fees from specialty channels, and royalty distributions under the Online News Act regime. Primary public radio services remain advertising-free.

In fiscal year 2024 to 2025, CBC/Radio-Canada received an estimated CAD 1.38 billion in federal appropriation, including a CAD 42 million top-up allocated in the April 2024 budget. The two preceding fiscal years showed operating deficits of CAD 120 million in 2022 and CAD 119 million in 2023, with commercial revenue under sustained pressure from digital platform competition and declining traditional television advertising.

The Carney administration’s first federal budget, tabled on 4 November 2025 by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, proposed CAD 150 million in additional funding for CBC/Radio-Canada for the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year, delivering on the Liberal Party’s April 2025 election pledge. During the April 2025 election campaign, then Liberal Leader Mark Carney described the public broadcaster as “underfunded” by comparison with peers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany, and signalled that future funding would be progressively increased and ultimately made statutory by amendment to the Broadcasting Act. The proposed statutory funding mechanism, if legislated, would move CBC/Radio-Canada from the annual voted-appropriation process toward a more stable statutory funding framework, materially strengthening the broadcaster’s structural independence from short-term political pressure. The statutory funding mechanism had not been enacted into legislation by the close of this review period.

A separate revenue stream operates under the Online News Act 2023, with the Canadian Journalism Collective administering from 2024 onwards approximately CAD 100 million annually contributed by Google to eligible Canadian news outlets. CBC/Radio-Canada is among the eligible Canadian news organisations under this regime, although the specific share allocated to CBC/Radio-Canada under the Collective’s distribution formula is not separately reported in the headline contribution figure. The Meta platform, which had been expected to contribute under the same legislation, has continued to block news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada since the Act’s commencement.

Editorial independence

The Broadcasting Act 1991 guarantees CBC/Radio-Canada’s editorial independence in statutory terms, and the Corporation maintains detailed journalistic standards and practices covering accuracy, fairness, balance, integrity and impartiality across news and current affairs programming. An independent Ombudsman office reports through the President and CEO to the Board of Directors and prepares mid-year and annual public reports on complaints handling. The Ombudsman role is structurally separated from program staff and senior management. A Human Resources and Governance Committee assesses the annual performance and effectiveness of the Board, its committees, and individual directors.

The Carney government has taken a continuation-and-strengthening stance on CBC editorial independence, contrasting with the Conservative Party position, led by Pierre Poilievre, of defunding CBC English-language services while preserving Radio-Canada in French. The 28 April 2025 federal election delivered a Liberal minority government with 167 seats, short of the 172 needed for an outright majority, with the Conservatives picking up 24 seats and 42 per cent of the popular vote. The Poilievre defunding proposal, while unsuccessful at the 2025 election, remains the principal articulated alternative future for CBC English services and a continuing source of political contestation around the broadcaster’s role.

AI and digital policy

CBC/Radio-Canada has published its institutional Approach to Artificial Intelligence, framing AI as a tool that must be applied without compromising journalistic credibility or the Corporation’s statutory mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain. In November 2025, CBC News issued updated guidelines for newsroom use of generative AI, building on earlier 2023 guidance and reflecting the corporate strategy launch the same autumn.

Per the published guidelines, CBC News maintains a conservative posture toward generative AI. News division staff are required to use only CBC/Radio-Canada corporate AI accounts approved for internal use rather than personal AI tools, must verify and cross-reference all AI outputs with a focus on fact-checking, and must disclose AI use to audiences when generative AI’s contribution affects the content in a materially significant way or when content would not have been possible without AI use. The November 2025 guidance prohibits News division staff from using AI to write articles or scripts and from using image or video generators to create content for public-facing use. Permitted workflow uses include brainstorming and outlining of story ideas, research and data analysis, headline and question suggestions, summaries always vetted by a human, and grammar and style feedback. Oversight is provided through the Journalistic Standards and Practices Office, with Rignam Wangkhang serving as CBC’s AI projects advisor.

At national level, Canada continued to develop AI governance and adoption policy during 2025/26, including federal AI transparency and register initiatives, the Statistics Canada Artificial Intelligence and Technology Measurement Program (allocated CAD 25 million over six years in a previous federal budget), and broader AI literacy and adoption objectives. No public-sector generative AI framework specific to public-service broadcasting has been promulgated; the CBC/Radio-Canada framework operates as a self-regulatory governance arrangement under the broader Broadcasting Act mandate.

Classification rationale

CBC/Radio-Canada remains classified as Independent State-Funded (ISF) for the 2026 cycle. The Corporation is a federal Crown corporation governed by the Broadcasting Act 1991, with a Board of Directors and statutory editorial-independence protections, and its President and CEO was appointed for a fixed five-year term through the Independent Advisory Committee process. No evidence was identified during the 2025/26 review period of operationalised executive control over editorial decision-making at CBC/Radio-Canada. The classification can be anchored in the three principal features that distinguish ISF from less independent typologies.

On ownership and governance, the Corporation operates as a federal Crown corporation under the Broadcasting Act 1991, with a Board of Directors as the formal governance structure and CEO appointments now drawn from the Independent Advisory Committee shortlist. Bouchard’s January 2025 appointment under this process for a five-year term, rather than through Cabinet-controlled discretionary mandate extensions of the type that characterised the Tait succession in 2023, represents a meaningful procedural strengthening of arm’s-length governance.

On funding, the Corporation’s primary revenue source is the parliamentary appropriation, with the Carney administration’s announced commitment to enshrine the appropriation in the Broadcasting Act through statutory amendment representing a substantial pro-independence reform if legislated. Budget 2025 proposed and provided CAD 150 million in additional funding for 2025/26, addressing the long-standing per-capita funding gap relative to peer national public broadcasters in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The Online News Act regime provides a complementary revenue stream insulated from direct government discretion, although Meta’s continued news blocking limits the policy’s reach.

On editorial independence, the Broadcasting Act 1991 provides a clear statutory guarantee, supported by Corporation-level journalistic standards and practices, an independent Ombudsman office, and a Human Resources and Governance Committee. The 2024 content analysis by the Media and Journalism Research Center did not find overt bias favouring authorities in CBC’s editorial output, providing observed-output evidence consistent with the institutional independence framework.

The principal continuing risk factors are the Conservative Party’s articulated defunding policy for CBC English services (a politically credible alternative future following the Conservatives’ 42 per cent popular-vote share at the April 2025 election), and the broader Canadian press-freedom environment, which the Reporters Without Borders 2026 World Press Freedom Index ranks at 20th of 180 countries with a score of 78.76, an improvement of one place on the 21st position recorded in 2025. RSF’s 2026 country profile notes Canada has become the regional leader in the Americas following Trinidad and Tobago’s decline to 32nd, while flagging continued concerns about declining outlet diversity (with 603 Canadian news outlets lost between 2008 and 2025), legal pressures on protest coverage, and online harassment of journalists.

June 2026