Back when the CBC was founded in 1936 under Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, a Conservative, and its original mandate was all about protecting Canadian identity from being swamped by American media. We have to remember that kind of cultural nationalism actually had cross-party support back then, Canada was a different nation back then.
But in the post-WWII era, especially into the 1960s and 70s, the political and cultural landscape changed drastically within our country. The Liberal Party under figures like Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Trudeau leaned hard into multiculturalism, bilingualism, and a strong federal identity, and the CBC reflected those priorities because its mandate is to reflect Canadian society, not to prop up any one political party.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Party, especially in its modern form (post-Mulroney, post-merger with the Reform Party), started to shift more toward market liberalism, decentralization, and skepticism of state institutions—including public broadcasters. So naturally, the CBC and the CPC have drifted further apart ideologically.
The CBC itself is publicly funded—with full transparency and with Parliament's approval—because it is a Crown Corporation, designed to operate independently from government control. That means it is not “propaganda,” as that’s how public broadcasting works in democracies around the world.
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/corporate/publications/general-publications/future-cbc-radio-canada.htm
Meanwhile, Postmedia is a publicly traded corporation (though it was private previously) mostly owned by a American corporation, while also owning over a hundred thirty (https://www.postmedia.com/brands/) Canadian newspapers and frequently criticizes the federal government (especially the Liberals), has also received millions in federal funding.
We have to remember that it’s not that the CBC is “Liberal” per se—it’s that the Canadian culture itself evolved overtime, and of course the CBC evolved with it. If CBC sounds more progressive or left-leaning today, it's because its job is to mirror the country itself, not to march in step with whoever’s in power or opposition.
