CBC/Radio-Canada has many areas of strength, but the public broadcaster needs to work on measuring its performance and setting targets for the future, according to Auditor General Sheila Fraser.

Fraser spoke to the House of Commons standing committee on Canadian heritage in Ottawa Tuesday morning, amidst the committee's ongoing evaluation of the role of the public broadcaster.

Auditor General Shelia Fraser holds a news conference after releasing her annual report in Ottawa, Tuesday May 1, 2007.
(Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Fraser and two colleagues from her office, Richard Flageole and Julie Charron, referenced the findings they initially reported in their 2005 special examination of CBC/Radio-Canada — one of the regular reviews of Crown corporations that take place once every five years.
 
"It's the performance indicators that are a problem," Flageole told the committee. "We have a lot of information on the outcome … but it's important to emphasize what the expectations were."

With the constant emergence of new technologies, the fragmentation of traditional markets and so many other issues affecting an entity as large as the CBC, the broadcaster needs to set clear and measurable targets for the future, Fraser and her colleagues said.

"The corporation has to have a plan that clearly identifies those challenges and changes, and determine what its strategy to face them will be," Fraser said.

"To know how you're going to deal with these issues properly."

She added that "to the best our our knowledge … [CBC managers] have begun to work on a much more robust set of performance measures."

In between the five-year special examinations, Fraser said the auditor general's office checks in to see how the CBC is doing when it conducts financial audits.

"We look at the process they have internally to ensure that their action plan is meeting its targets," she said.

"We will look, when we do our financial audits, that things are progressing as planned."

Management appointments questioned

Management of the CBC is an ongoing issue, as various groups — including Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada — have debated the current appointment process for the public broadcaster's senior management.

"We have to recognize that CBC is a Crown corporation," Fraser said when asked about her opinion.

"The government of Canada is the shareholder …. It is usually the shareholder who appoints the directors of any corporation."

Fraser said she does not find the current system — in which the federal government appoints the CBC chair, board of directors and its president — problematic "as long as there's rigour [in the candidate search] and you're looking for people with the right competencies."

Late last month, the federal government appointed Timothy W. Casgrain chair of CBC/Radio-Canada's board of directors for a five-year term.