The CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada will return to her home in New York and… her husband in a few weeks.
In principle, having been domiciled in New York for years, Ms. Tait could not have been appointed CEO. The law governing Radio-Canada requires that the CEO be domiciled in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s office turned a blind eye to this and even rejected a committee’s first choice to appoint her. Did he regret it? Perhaps, because all the former CEOs have had their mandate renewed unless they did not want it.
Madame Tait’s choice was bold and promising. Finally, a woman was named. Furthermore, she was neither a politician nor a bureaucrat nor a lawyer and she knew about production and television. A refreshing appointment.
In 2018, the board of directors of the Canada Media Fund (of which I am a member) and management welcomed Ms. Tait. A cordial meeting which allowed us to see that Ms. Tait was determined to bring the public broadcaster fully into the digital era, even if it meant shaking up the cage. At the end of the meeting, I paid her this tribute which everyone applauded: “If the CBC must be saved, it will be saved by you, madam!”
OUR RELATIONS ARE COOLING
My words were sincere. They pleased him and the few reports we subsequently had were warm. They gradually cooled following the criticisms I made in this column after Madame Tait’s questionable decisions or clumsy statements.
Among these, even if the English speakers had raised the loud cries, I do not count the parallel that she had established between the domination of Netflix and that of the British Empire over Canada or that of France over Africa , because we know what I think of Netflix’s imperialism. But from the mouth of the CEO of Radio-Canada, these comparisons were questionable.
RESIGNATION OF MICHEL BISSONNETTE
Even though Catherine Tait speaks impeccable French, she has never succeeded in decoding the many arcana of the French network, which is more resistant to wokism than the English network. She did not better understand the “revolt” of the information service following the untimely decision of the CRTC to demand an apology from the SRC to Ricardo Lamour or the refusal of journalists to participate in a parade in the honor of the natives. His relations were always tense with senior vice-president Michel Bissonnette. They led to his resignation.
Did she understand the CBC better? More or less if I judge by the statements of stars like Peter Mansbridge and his blind defense of “Tandem”, this dubious marriage of advertising and information.
On the Ottawa side, Madame Tait herself opened hostilities against Pierre Poilièvre by accusing him of invoking the “defunding” of the CBC in his search for funds. She requested a meeting with the leader of the opposition, an incongruous step putting her information services in an uncomfortable position. On Monday, October 21, she even accused conservative deputies on the Heritage Committee of harassment during her defense of performance bonuses. And so on!
Too bad for Catherine Tait, she will not be regretted.
