With months left in her term, CBC/Radio-Canada’s CEO says losing the station would be “tragic.”

Outgoing CBC/Radio-Canada CEO Catherine Tait said this week that breaking up the nearly 90-year-old public broadcaster would be “absolutely tragic” and that politicians like Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre should think twice before doing so torpedo something that is so closely tied to Canada’s “cultural fabric.”

But Tait acknowledged that the company still has a lot of work to do to restore the trust of Canadians who have become wary of the public broadcaster and its programming.

Tait said her biggest regret at the end of her more than six-year tenure at CBC in January was some people’s loss of trust in the network.

Polls suggest that conservative voters are among those most likely to support abolishing the CBC.

Poilievre has vowed to “defund” the company if he is elected, a promise that often draws loud applause and cheers from receptive audiences at his rallies.

Delegates to the recent Conservative Party conference also put forward a proposal to end funding for CBC because of what its supporters say the broadcaster has “increasingly politicized agendas.” It was ultimately defeated by party members.

“If I could turn back the clock, I would have started the conversation about trust sooner,” Tait said in an interview with CBC News on the sidelines of the Public Broadcasters International (PBI) conference in Ottawa on Thursday.

“We need Canadians to feel responsible for their public media service. People have distanced themselves from us and that is the work that lies ahead.”

“And it’s not just the Conservative leader. I say to all Canadians: we are here to serve. We are an absolutely crucial part of the cultural fabric of this country.”

A poll of 1,300 respondents conducted in January 2024 by the Gandalf Group for Friends of Canadian Media, a Canadian public media advocacy group, found that about 40 percent of Conservative voters surveyed want continued government funding for CBC/Radio-Canada.

Some 48 percent said they would see funding cut, while 11 percent were unsure, the poll showed.

That means a majority of Conservative respondents want to eliminate Ottawa’s support for the Crown-owned broadcaster or are entirely unsure what to do about it.

Strong majorities of Bloc Quebecois (68 percent), Liberal (82 percent) and NDP (77 percent) voters want the station to receive state funding, the poll showed.

Most Canadians want a public broadcaster to tell the country’s stories, Tait said, especially as other media companies wither and die and foreign, mostly U.S., companies dominate the broadcasting landscape.

“Public broadcasting is worth fighting for”: Tait

“I would pause before I think about taking this down,” she said via CBC/Radio-Canada.

“It is an enormous treasure. “It’s a legacy of almost 90 years – it would be absolutely tragic” to close the company, she added.

Tait pointed to the channel’s extensive coverage of the recent Olympics, which attracted large audiences to its free programming.

“It’s worth fighting for public broadcasting,” she said.

“I just think it’s an amazing gift that Canada has a public broadcaster. For me, it’s on par with healthcare. It makes us different from the United States in profound ways.”

WATCH: Losing public broadcaster would be ‘absolutely tragic,’ says CBC CEO

Losing the public broadcaster would be “absolutely tragic,” says CBC CEO

CBC CEO Catherine Tait says her “sincere hope” is that the discussion about media bias “goes away” as the public broadcaster “wins people’s trust every day and the journalism is excellent.”

As CBC News reported last week, the Liberal government will soon choose a new CEO to replace Tait, release a revised mandate for the broadcaster and decide how best to fund the company in the coming years as it faces a rapidly evolving crisis changing media ecosystem.

Asked whether the CBC could become a campaign issue, Tait said the company would handle whatever comes its way.

“We need to put aside the noise and focus on trusted news, facts and the work we are paid to do,” she said.

“The noise out there between the political parties is actually none of our business. That shouldn’t be the focus. If we show that we are gaining trust every day and that the journalism is excellent, I would hope – my sincere hope – that this problem will be solved.”

While Poilievre stressed that he would retain parts of French-language station Radio-Canada to serve French-speaking minority communities outside of Quebec, he said there was no need for an English-language public station when private options were available.

He said CBC/Radio-Canada’s parliamentary funds – about $1.3 billion last year – would be better spent elsewhere or saved to reduce the deficit.

Poilievre and his party were particularly critical of the company’s decision to introduce performance pay, or “bonuses,” for its management team, in a year in which hundreds of employees were expected to be laid off.

Dozens of people may have lost their jobs, but the worst cuts were avoided when the federal government made more money available in its latest budget.

CBC bonuses ‘offensive, disgusting’: Conservatives

The Canadian Press filed an access-to-information request and found the company paid out $18.4 million in incentive pay for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

The company has defended the move, saying a portion of a manager’s salary is withheld and paid out only if certain performance metrics are met. It would not be fair to call it a “bonus” in the traditional sense.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, said the payments were “beyond insulting and frankly abhorrent,” especially when many Canadians face homelessness and other challenges.

When asked if she regretted the way the company handled the issue and the resulting reputational damage, Tait was unmoved.

“All people must be paid fairly for the work they do,” she said.

“And I don’t live in regret. I believe we are doing the right thing, and the fact is that we are the subject and target of some kind of conversation that is being had for specific purposes.”

But Tait said the company’s board is considering an overhaul of the performance pay program and compensation policies in general.

“The board will review with a third party whether our approach to performance pay and compensation is appropriate in the current environment and what other public broadcasters and other media companies are doing,” she said.

That’s not the only thing that needs to be checked, Tait said.

“We absolutely need sustainable financing”: Tait

Speaking at a panel discussion on social media, Tait told delegates at the PBI conference that the company faces an existential threat if it cannot expand its audience to appeal to younger media consumers.

CBC/Radio-Canada is working with other public broadcasters, including Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC), RTBF (Belgium), SRG SSR (Switzerland) and ZDF (Germany), on a “public space incubator” called Once completed, it could transform how media companies engage with their audiences online at a time when traditional social media platforms are becoming increasingly toxic.

The broadcasters are working with the American company New Public to “develop prototypes for digital conversation spaces that provide a healthy forum for contact and increase engagement in civic discourse,” according to the project’s website.

“Social media today is where the audience is, the young audience,” Tait said Wednesday.

“They’re not on TV, they don’t listen to the radio and they’re barely on our streaming platforms. If we don’t figure this out…If we can crack this nut, we have a future.” And if we don’t, I wonder,” she said.

To that end, Tait hopes the government will provide more money for CBC/Radio-Canada.

In her interview with CBC News, Tait said efforts to reach new audiences online will require resources.

“We absolutely need sustainable funding for the future to stay relevant,” she said.