Some pro-labour types argue against the type of employment model the CBC is trying to impose.

An excerpt from the globeandmail.com commentary:

Since the 1980s, many Canadian employers have responded to economic competition by shedding permanent full-time employees and replacing them with temporary employees on short-term contracts. Many companies have increased their reliance on temporary employment agencies. Hospitals, manufacturers and even universities have become increasingly reliant on these temporary employees.

It is an open question as to whether this approach has reduced costs for employers or allowed them to produce a better product. Paying only for the labour you need and having the ability to increase or decrease labour with few constraints may appear attractive in the short run.

In the long run, it may have serious costs.

Why should employees show loyalty to an organization that treats them as a rented commodity? How will employees develop specialized skills and knowledge of an organization when their relationship with the organization is contractual, short term and insecure? Will employers be able to attract the best and the brightest when all they offer is temporary employment? ...

The reality for most temporary workers is that they do not know from week to week if they will be working, where they will be working, or at what rate of compensation. For young workers, this uncertainty makes it difficult to plan a future. For workers with families, it makes it difficult to arrange child care, participate fully in their children's lives or play a role in their communities. For all temporary workers, the need to remain flexible, should work become available on short notice, makes it difficult to make fixed commitments to family, friends and society.

Our research has shown that, compared to permanent employees, temporary ones spend more time searching for work. They will do extraordinary things to keep work and spend time and resources acquiring skills on the speculation it will help them get work. They also express a sense of insecurity from not knowing if or when they will find work. These uncertainties, extra workload and low rates of compensation weigh heavily on their sense of well-being and health.

Even if the CBC's president is correct that productive skilled workers can be had on a temporary basis, this is not an approach that is in the interest of Canadians as a whole. This is an approach that harms the health of workers, undermines families and reduces our capacity to act as a society. It is not a course we should support or expect from an agency largely funded by the taxpayer.