Bureaucrats faring well at CBC, journalists not so much

The number of journalists and reporters employed by the CBC appears to be dwindling, while the Crown corporation’s level of bureaucrats is on the rise, according to newly obtained documents.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The number of journalists and reporters employed by the CBC appears to be dwindling, while the Crown corporation’s level of bureaucrats is on the rise, according to newly obtained documents.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation first acquired the records through an access-to-information request, which found that the number of CBC staff with “journalist” or “reporter” in their job title has been declining in recent years.

“CBC defends its very existence based on its journalism, but its number of journalists are going down while its bureaucracy keeps getting bigger and taxpayer costs keeps going up,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano on Friday.

“Why does the government keep giving CBC more taxpayer money if barely anyone is watching and its number of journalists keeps going down?”

The CBC employs nearly 100 fewer people working as either a journalist or reporter than it did less than five years ago.

According to the records, 745 staff of the CBC’s total 6,100 workers were employed under those titles in 2021, but only 649 are employed as of 2025.

That means only 11 per cent of the Crown corporation’s current staff hold these titles.

Additionally, indirect journalist roles, such as editors, producers and hosts have been in decline.

Meanwhile, the number of other bureaucrats it employs has grown, with 14 more management positions this year compared to 2021.

The CBC now has 949 people employed in bureaucratic roles, from “administrators” and “advisors” to “analysts” and “sales staff.”

However, it was management positions that saw the largest growth, driven by titles like “national director,” “project lead,” “senior manager,” and “supervisor.”

The hiring trends contradict the CBC’s narrative that its journalism has been under threat as a result of the new media landscape, previously calling for further funding to protect it against online competition.

Currently, the public broadcaster has more than 250 directors, 450 managers and 780 producers who are paid more than $100,000 per year.

While the CBC redacted the roles of over 200 people in a separate access-to-information records, it employed 130 advisers, 81 analysts, 120 hosts, 80 project leads, 30 lead architects, 25 supervisors, who were also paid more than $100,000 last year.

Media spokesperson Chuck Thompson told True North that the CBC has “a variety of roles that encompass journalists — including producers, announcers, video journalists, and writers that aren’t called journalists.”

According to Ottawa’s Main Estimates, the CBC is en route to surpass $1.4 billion in taxpayer funding this year, despite the CBC News Network only accounting for roughly 1.8 per cent of TV audience share.

Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to increase its funding on the campaign trail, saying, “Our public broadcaster is underfunded.” Carney pledged an initial $150 million annually, while allowing room for additional financing in the future.

The CBC has spent roughly $5.4 billion in taxpayer money since 2020, over the same period that its journalists and reporters began to decline.

A portion of that money has been paid out in the form of executive bonuses, accounting for $18.4 million last year alone after announcing it would eliminate hundreds of jobs.

After polling highlighted that 69 per cent of Canadians opposed the CBC approving the 2024 bonuses, the broadcaster decided to end the practice.

However, the CBC followed up the fiscal policy with a decision to hand out $37.7 million in pay raises last fiscal year—over triple the $11.5 million from the year before—after scrapping performance bonuses amid political backlash.

The CTF said that while no bonuses were issued in 2024–25, the public broadcaster instead gave raises to 6,295 employees, averaging around $6,000 each. Not one employee received a pay cut.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for an office full of middle managers pretending to be reporters,” said Terrazzano.

“The CBC’s own records prove it has fat to cut and if Carney is serious about saving money, he would force CBC to cut its bureaucratic bloat. Or better yet, Carney should defund the CBC.”