A healthy democracy doesn’t just depend on free elections or a functioning parliament, it requires a well-informed public. And that, in turn, depends on public media. Yet, while countries like Norway, Switzerland, and Germany invest heavily in their national broadcasters, Canada lags behind, spending just $32 per capita on the CBC. The average among comparable nations? $82 per person, over two and a half times as much. These aren’t obscure outliers. They are the very countries we hold up as models of good governance and enviable quality of life.

The implications of this underfunding are profound and dangerous.

For starters, let’s be clear about what a strong national broadcaster provides: verified, fact-checked information; in-depth investigative reporting; representation for marginalized communities; cultural production that reflects national identity; and local coverage that commercial networks consider financially unviable. It produces journalism and storytelling not because it will sell ads, but because the public needs to hear it. In short, a national broadcaster is not just media, it’s civic infrastructure.

And like all infrastructure, when it’s neglected, the cracks begin to show. Coverage gets thinner. Journalists are laid off. Investigative units are cut back. Cultural programming disappears. Public trust erodes. This is not some abstract danger. We’re already seeing it. In many rural and northern communities, CBC/Radio-Canada is the only news outlet on the ground. If we let it wither, those Canadians lose their voice.

Some critics argue that the CBC is biased or outdated. Others go further, calling for its privatization or outright abolition, but calls to defund the CBC aren’t coming from a place of principle, they’re coming from political convenience. The CBC’s critics are often those who fear being held to account. The very fact that it makes governments uncomfortable is proof of its relevance. A neutered or commercialized broadcaster wouldn’t challenge power. It would amplify it.

That’s why funding isn’t the only issue. Independence matters just as much.

Right now, the CBC depends on annual allocations from the federal government—allocations that can be increased, frozen, or cut depending on the political mood. That dynamic creates an impossible tension: how can journalists freely investigate the very politicians who control their budgets? To resolve this, Canada should follow the lead of countries like the UK and Germany, where national broadcasters are governed by arms-length boards and funded through fixed, long-term mechanisms like licence fees or parliamentary endowments.

We don’t just need to preserve the CBC, we need to drastically increase its funding. Canada should not be spending less than a dollar a week per citizen on one of its most vital democratic institutions. A national broadcaster must be robust, resilient, and equipped to compete in a rapidly changing media landscape. That takes serious investment. The federal Liberal government has acknowledged this, pledging in successive platforms to increase funding to the CBC and Radio-Canada; but pledges are not progress. What’s needed now is political will to deliver not just marginal boosts, but transformational support, the kind that allows the CBC to rebuild local newsrooms, expand digital services, and commission bold, public-interest journalism across all regions and communities in Canada.

We must also abandon the false binary that public media is either pro-government or obsolete. Neither is true. A public broadcaster does not exist to defend the state, it exists to inform the public. In an age when foreign disinformation campaigns, clickbait economics, and algorithmic echo chambers dominate, a trusted public voice is not a relic of the past. It’s an essential defense against manipulation and ignorance.

In fact, defunding public media doesn’t reduce bias, it opens the door to greater corporate influence. When information is treated solely as a commodity, public interest takes a back seat to private profit. Stories that matter but don’t sell, like Indigenous issues, climate policy, or rural healthcare, vanish from the airwaves. And the stories that do remain are curated not for accuracy or balance, but for engagement, outrage, and revenue.

We know where that leads. We’ve seen it south of the border.

So let’s learn the right lesson. Let’s fund the CBC, not as a cultural subsidy, but as a democratic necessity. Let’s enshrine its editorial independence in law. Let’s give it the tools to innovate, expand, and thrive in the 21st century. And let’s stop pretending that cutting public media is some kind of populist virtue.

Supporting a national broadcaster is not a left-wing or right-wing issue. It’s a civic one. And at $32 per Canadian per year, it’s also a bargain.

We don’t need less CBC. We need more of it, improved and independent.