To the question of whether they will make a permanent increase to CBC funding, the Liberals say they are “committed to long-term and sustainable funding for the CBC.” 
 The single biggest budget cut ever imposed on the CBC was the work of a previous Liberal government in the mid-1990s, when CBC lost one-third of its parliamentary funding.

In answer to the question about changing broadcast policy to ensure that conventional TV and talk radio stations maintain newsgathering and provide local news, the Liberals point out that they supported a motion in the House demanding that conventional TV station owners be required to provide local news as a condition of their licence with the CRTC.

 In 1999, however, the CRTC stopped requiring local stations to provide news. The Liberal government in power at the time did not intervene to revise that policy.

The NDP opposes “the loss of choice” in local coverage that has resulted from media mergers and says “any further moves in the broadcast/ telecom industry for further integration must take place with the interests of ensuring a diversity of Canadian broadcast voices.”

When asked whether they support establishing new rules – prohibiting common ownership of newspapers and TV stations in the same market, limiting the repurposing of content across platforms, separating newsrooms within companies with more than one media property – to ensure a diversity of voices in the media, the Liberals say their government would “examine carefully the impact media concentration has on the diversity of voices available to the Canadian public. This diversity must be protected.”  The Liberals governed during the previous wave of media consolidation, in the early 2000s, and did not intervene to establish new rules to protect the diversity of news and programming available to Canadians.