CBC/Radio-Canada on Thursday hit back at newspapers owned and run by Quebecor Media for recent reports that claim lavish corporate spending by senior network executives on travel and hospitality.

‘I have been reading a lot of nasty, out-of-context stuff recently about our senior executives in the papers owned by our competitors, notably a series of articles in The Sun and Le Journal de Montréal,’ said CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix in an internal staff memo that was released to the media.

Lacroix cited a recent Sun newspaper report that detailed $80,000 in spending on entertainment and hospitality in 2006 by Sylvain Lafrance, EVP for French services at CBC/SRC.

That report on Wednesday led newly installed Heritage Minister James Moore to tell top CBC/SRC execs to cap their entertainment spending in hard times.

‘I am sure that you are sensitive to the fact that, at a time of fiscal restraint when Canadians are struggling to maintain their jobs and savings, this sort of reported excess does not sit well with them,’ Moore said in a private letter to CBC chairman Timothy Casgrain.

But Lacroix argued Lafrance’s discretionary spending was more corporate than personal, and that it all passed muster with CBC policy.

‘They [the Sun newspaper chain] lumped Sylvain’s personal expenses in with corporate activities that he approved as the executive in charge of a business, and ascribed all expenses to him personally,’ the CBC president argued.

‘If Sylvain approves the presence of CBC/Radio-Canada at a social event or approves the holding of a corporate event inside our organization to thank our employees for a job particularly well done, is it fair to say that these approved expenses are his own? C’mon. Let’s be fair,’ Lacroix said.

The pubcaster drew the Moore missive after the Sun detailed $80,000 in expenses for theater tickets, meals and travel submitted by Lafrance in 2006. Those tabs included $28,000 spent on travel, hotels and meals, $15,000 for corporate catering, and $33,000 spent on benefit dinners and theater tickets.

The heritage minister, who is a native British Columbian, argued the CBC should be seen to rein in discretionary spending, especially after it recently angered some radio listeners by eliminating the Vancouver-based CBC Radio Orchestra.

‘As this unpopular measure was justified by the CBC as a fiscal restraint measure, the same could be expected by taxpayers with regards to CBC operating expenses,’ Moore wrote.

But Lacroix, while conceding the need for restraint, argued Lafrance’s corporate spending surfaced in the press as part of a persistent campaign by the Sun newspapers to use freedom of information requests to draw out information that will vilify the pubcaster.

He pointed to another Le Journal de Montréal report that chastised CBC/SRC for paying $3,400 in expenses for a 2005 leadership program for Lafrance at Harvard.

‘We sent him to live in a hotel for eight weeks for god’s sake. The same paper is likely to have another go at Sylvain for the cost of the program, which was about $52,000,’ an emboldened Lacroix added.

CBC execs also complain that the Sun chain is owned and operated by Quebecor Media, whose TVA network competes head-on in Quebec with SRC. They further point to the Quebecor chairman being ex-prime minister Brian Mulroney, who has long alleged the CBC has a vendetta against him.