CBC - Part 2 - $1,000,000,000!

Canadian taxpayers will pay 1.07 billion dollars next year to support the CBC. Last year it was $1.09 billion. Big numbers. The amount "one billion" is frequently cited in calls for the privatization of the Corp -- the implication being that there are plenty of better ways for Canadians to spend a billion-plus dollars each year.

I look at that money a couple of different ways.

First, according to the Fall 2011 budget, the government's total expenditures next year will be 250.8 billion dollars. So the $1.09-billion CBC allocation represents less than half of one per cent of the country's overall expenses.

Still, to individual taxpayers and families, a billion dollars sounds like a whack of cash. So let's look at it on that individual scale. To borrow an analogy from my accountant, suppose I go to the grocery store with $250.80 in my pocket and spend $249.71 on groceries for my hungry family. I don't need a loonie to pay a Halifax bridge toll on the way home from the grocery store, so I could give the change -- or, relatively speaking, CBC's public allocation -- to my kids to put in the CNIB seeing eye dog on the way out (they love doing that). I probably wouldn't give that loonie, nickel, and 4 pennies a second thought.

Another way to look at a billion dollars in Canada is that, assuming a population of 33.74 million, the CBC costs each individual Canadian $34 per year. By contrast, I could spend $30/month for basic cable -- as many Canadians do. That low-end cable bill adds up to $360 per year.

For that $34 dollars a head, everyone has access to three national public radio stations; two television networks; national and international news reporting; local programming; original news, entertainment, children's programming, and documentary content; iTunes programs; and a website with print, audio, video, and additional multi-media content.

Personally, I feel like our local Mainstreet program alone is a bargain at $34 and I'm glad to pay it.

Finally, I've noticed a few other things Canadians spend in the neighborhood of a billion dollars on every year. In other public arenas, $1 billion buys us:

-- last year's budget for Environment Canada, at $1.09 billion -- though that's dropping to $872 million this year (because we all know how little Canadians care about the environment);
-- over six months worth of a continued war in Afghanistan, which costs Canada an estimated $1.85 billion per year;
-- almost a year's worth of tax subsidies for oil and gas companies, at about $1.4 billion per year.

If it were up to me, Environment Canada would be a spending priority. I'd have to take a good long look at the efficacy of our efforts in Afghanistan. And I seriously question the public good of subsidizing oil -- one of the richest corporate industries in the world, and one that already gets our cash at the gas pump, on my home heating bill, and indirectly through higher food prices, among other things. 

Obviously, it's overly simplistic to yell, "it costs us one billion dollars!" as if that tells taxpayers all they need to know about CBC. But when the public broadcaster's detractors feel they need to elaborate, they go on to cry that it's one billion dollars just for cultural elitists. So in my next CBC post, I'll talk about the value of culture.