New Auditor General report critical of CBC’s governance structure, insiders say

A report by Auditor General Denis Desautels on the management of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp should be released within days, but at least one crucial chapter probably will not be made public, federal sources tell Canadian Communications Reports. The report, which examines the internal structure and management of the public broadcaster, is generally supportive of lower and middle management, but is critical of the CBC's governance structure, including its board and highest-level executives. The CBC board has the power to permanently hold back any part of the report. CCR has learned that individual members of the CBC board have seen the report and are not happy with the Auditor General's findings, which reportedly describe the board as overly timid, lacking in imagination and too politically beholden to Cabinet. The full board is expected to review the report this week. Johanne McDuff, manager of communications at the Auditor General's office, confirmed that the report is in the hands of the CBC. She said the Auditor General doesn't know whether the CBC board has decided to hold back parts of the audit. The audit was carried out under the rules of the Financial Administration Act (FAA), which requires an administrative review of all Crown corporations every five years. While Auditor General reports on government departments are presented to Parliament and are public documents, those that are done under the FAA are not available to the public unless the Crown corporation decides to release them. They are also not available through Access to Information requests. The fate of the audit also won't arise as an issue anytime soon in the House of Commons, which broke for the summer last week. Sessions will begin again in October, unless there is a fall election. McDuff said the audit of the CBC took about a year and was an intensive look at the way the corporation is managed. She said the CBC released all the findings of the Auditor General's 1995 audit. Details of report leaking out A senior CBC manager told CCR that the contents of the report are filtering through CBC's headquarters, making morale in the corporation even lower. "There's a feeling among CBC managers that the members of the board are more worried about their next patronage job than they are about the future of the CBC. And most people have the same feeling about (president Robert) Rabinovitch," says the source. "They took on the CRTC and ignored its request for more local programming because they knew that (Heritage minister Sheila) Copps and (Prime minister Jean) Chrétien wanted to hear them say that they didn't want to spend more money. They sacrificed the CBC's mandate to keep the Prime Minister's Office happy," the source says. If the chapter of the Auditor General's report dealing with CBC's board and senior management is held back, insiders say it will likely be leaked to journalists within a few days.

New Auditor General report critical of CBC’s governance structure, insiders say

Broadcast | June 22, 2000

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