Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge yesterday refused to say if she will comply with a Commons committee order banning future CBC executive bonuses while the Crown broadcaster pleads financial hardship. CBC management cut 346 jobs on complaints of “chronic underfunding” while approving $14.9 million in bonuses.

“There is a media crisis throughout the country,” St-Onge testified at the Commons heritage committee. The Minister would not say if she would comply with a committee order to freeze bonuses including $100,000 in annual “performance pay” for the CBC’s $497,000-a year CEO.

Conservative MP Damien Kurek (Battle River-Crowfoot, Alta.) said a bonus ban seemed obvious. The heritage committee in a report to Parliament last De