RESOURCES

Infrastructure

CBC/Radio-Canada has a base capital appropriation from the Government of Canada of $92.3 million per year. For 2014-2015, we increased this amount by transferring funds from our operating appropriation, for a total of $104.7 million to satisfy the annual capital portion increase on the Canadian Broadcast Centre mortgage. As required by subsection 54(4) of the Broadcasting Act, we present our capital budget to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages in our Corporate Plan and then submit it to the Treasury Board for approval.

We currently use $2.4 billion of assets (with a net book value of $948 million) in our operations. We operate one of the world’s largest broadcast transmission and distribution systems, with 539 transmission sites located throughout Canada. We are responsible for a real estate portfolio of more than 4.3 million square feet, including 21 buildings owned across Canada. We are also highly dependent on technology and technology-based assets in the production and delivery of our services.

The projects in the capital investment plan are aligned with and support our new strategic plan. Key capital projects include a new media asset management system (managing production to archiving functions); regional investments in new digital standards (e.g., high definition); regional investments in infrastructure and systems (e.g., program production); updates to major broadcast management systems; and real estate consolidation projects.

On the real estate side, we will continue to work towards our objective to halve our real estate footprint by 2020. We also require facilities that are better suited to the needs of a modern public broadcaster.

On May 7, 2015, CBC/Radio-Canada rejected the proposal submitted for the Maison de Radio-Canada (MRC) redevelopment project as it did not meet our requirements. Occupying the MRC tower costs the Corporation a lot of money, since it must cover facility maintenance and operating costs for a building that is too large and in need of major renovations and investments. As a result, we will be working over the next few months to examine new scenarios for the MRC redevelopment project. We will also be exploring our options on how to make better use of our Canadian Broadcast Centre in Toronto.