When was the CBC founded?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was founded on November 2, 1936 when the federal Canadian Broadcasting Act (1 Edward VIII, c. 24) came into force, creating the CBC as a Crown corporation to provide national radio service in English and French. The CBC absorbed the existing Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC), which had operated from May 26, 1932 under the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act of that year. The CBC has remained the principal Canadian public broadcaster ever since, expanding to television in 1952 and to digital media in the 21st century.

The push for public broadcasting in Canada arose from concerns that American commercial broadcasters were dominating Canadian airwaves. By 1928 about 80 per cent of programming heard by Canadians came from American stations. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal government appointed the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting (the Aird Commission) on December 6, 1928. Chaired by Sir John Aird (president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce), with Charles Bowman and Augustin Frigon as members, the Commission visited Britain (where it studied the BBC), Germany, France, and other countries with public broadcasting systems. The Commission's report of September 11, 1929 recommended the creation of a Canadian public broadcasting system on the BBC model.

The Bennett Conservative government adopted the Aird Commission's recommendations through the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act of May 1932 (22 to 23 George V, c. 51). The Act created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, with Hector Charlesworth as chairman from June 1932 to October 1936. The CRBC operated until replaced by the CBC. Its accomplishments included producing some bilingual national broadcasts, organising the federal radio regulation system, and establishing the basic framework for what became the CBC. The CRBC struggled with limited funding and political interference; the Mackenzie King Liberals (returned to power in October 1935) replaced it with the more autonomous CBC structure.

The 1936 Broadcasting Act established the CBC as a Crown corporation with greater independence from political interference. Leonard Brockington became the first chairman (1936 to 1939); Major-General Léo La Flèche led the CBC during the Second World War (1942 to 1945). Major CBC developments included television service in Toronto and Montreal from September 6, 1952; Northern Service in 1958; CBC News (1941 in radio, 1952 in television); the founding of Radio-Canada as the French-language network (November 1936, broadcasting from Montreal); Radio One and Radio Two; CBC.ca digital service (1996); and the network of regional production centres. The Canadian Broadcasting Act of 1991 is the current governing statute. The CBC's mandate continues to balance the demands of linguistic duality, regional and Indigenous representation, public-interest news, and Canadian content.