NDP, Bloc accuse Poilievre of threatening French, Quebec culture with stance on CBC

The Conservative leader has suggested in media interviews that while he believes in defunding the CBC, he sees the value in its French-language programming.

OTTAWA — Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Pierre Poilievre’s criticisms of the CBC amount to an attack on Canadian culture by the Conservative leader — and Quebec and francophone culture, in particular.

Singh addressed the issue, speaking in French, after Twitter added a label to CBC’s main account on Sunday indicating the broadcaster was “government-funded media.”

That move prompted the corporation to announce Monday it was hitting pause on its use of the social-media platform, which described the BBC the same way before changing its own label to “publicly funded media.”

READ MORE: Trudeau, Poilievre clash over Twitter tagging CBC as ‘government funded’

CBC receives roughly $1 billion in taxpayer money annually, but it contends the label is inaccurate because it maintains editorial independence and receives its funding through a vote in Parliament.

Poilievre regularly promises to slash that funding. And he sent a letter to Twitter last week requesting that the label be applied to accounts associated with CBC News, though the letter did not mention Radio-Canada, the French-language wing of the broadcaster.

The Conservative leader has suggested in media interviews that while he believes in defunding the CBC, he sees the value in its French-language programming — but along with the NDP, the Bloc Québécois is raising concerns about that approach.

“This is not just an attack against independent journalists,” Singh told reporters Monday, speaking in French. “But it is also an attack against Canadian culture, particularly Quebec culture and francophone culture.”