OTTAWA — The Liberals have appointed a Quebec television executive to become the new president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada.
Marie-Philippe Bouchard will assume the role in January 2025 and will be the first Francophone woman to lead the public broadcaster. She currently serves as the president of V5 Québec Canada.
“Marie-Philippe Bouchard is a talented, strong public broadcasting leader with a proven record of transformation,” Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement Tuesday morning.
“In a critical time of modernization, I am confident that Ms. Bouchard will provide a steady hand and be a positive guiding force for Canada’s national public service media now and into the future.”
Bouchard takes over from outgoing president and CEO Catherine Tait, who was the first woman to be appointed to the role back in 2018. She was reappointed in 2023.
Tait came into the job as a veteran film and television executive. Bouchard, on the other hand, hails from a public broadcasting background. The government says she previously worked at CBC/Radio-Canada in senior executive positions in legal and regulatory affairs.
Bouchard served as one of the advisors to the minister on what a future mandate for the broadcaster should look like. The Liberals are hoping to table its plan this fall, with the minister looking for the changes to be passed by the time the next federal election happens. Voters must go to the polls by October 2025, but an election could happen sooner under a minority Parliament.
Bouchard will begin her five-year term after what has been a difficult year for the public broadcaster. Besides managing a challenging media environment, it has found itself in the crosshairs of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s pledge to “defund” it. The broadcaster receives roughly $1 billion from Parliament annually, which is allocated through the federal budget.
Tait was at the centre of much of that controversy. In a 2023 interview, she accused Poilievre of stoking the “CBC bashing” she was seeing across the country, saying he was doing so to raise money. Poilievre pushed back, accusing Tait of making a partisan attack.
Parliamentarians of all political stripe also criticized the broadcaster’s decision to axe more than a 100 jobs and eliminate another 200 vacancies while still paying out millions in bonuses to its managers and top executives.
Tait testified to that decision on Monday, saying the compensation should be more accurately described as “incentive” or “performance” pay that is written into the contracts of its non-unionized employees, including its most senior executives who received around $3 million after the last fiscal year.
National Post
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