After a highly publicized candidate search, the government has finally announced its pick: lawyer and former sports commentator Hubért T. Lacroix will fill what may be Canada’s most thankless high-level public-sector job, running CBC and Radio-Canada.

Lacroix replaces outgoing Liberal appointee Robert Rabinovitch, who has been president of the CBC since 1999 and leaves the job Dec. 31. Rabinovitch’s tenure was marked by a number of labor conflicts, including a seven-week lockout in 2005.

A mergers and acquisitions specialist, Lacroix has practiced law for 30 years, including working at one of Montreal’s most prominent firms, Stikeman Elliott, the law office where former Jean Chrétien aide Eddie Goldenberg works, as does Dick Pound, who used to head the World Anti-Doping Agency. Lacroix also worked for SRC as a color commentator during the Olympic Games in 1984, 1988 and 1996.

He comes to the pubcaster at a challenging time, particularly for CBC TV. In April, CBC fired 41 employees across the country because of declining ad revenue and dwindling government funding. In January, CBC’s primetime audience share for the regular season was only 7.3%. Although SRC is also struggling, its share is roughly 14%. Lacroix was unavailable for an interview immediately following news of his appointment.

The hiring process was marked by controversy. Longtime Tory insider Tom Long, now with the headhunting firm of Egon Zehnder International, was hired to find candidates, a move critics said stood to politicize the choice. Prime Minister Stephen Harper supported Long when he ran for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance in 2000.

Ian Morrison, spokesperson for the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, believes Lacroix’s record appears to be ‘clean’ in terms of political affiliations, but maintains that the PMO shouldn’t have the last say on who heads the pubcaster. ‘It’s not good for the CEO of Canada’s public broadcaster to report directly to the prime minister… It’s the same old, same old. He’s got too much power and isn’t accountable enough.’

A 2003 heritage committee recommended that nominations to the CBC board should be made by a number of sources, and the CBC president should be hired by and be responsible to the board, rather than simply the PMO’s office.

Morrison isn’t surprised that Lacroix has no high-level broadcasting experience. ‘It puts him in the category of his five immediate predecessors,’ he tells Playback Daily.

Liberal Heritage critic Mauril Bélanger wants Lacroix to come before the standing committee on Canadian Heritage as soon as he can. ‘I’ve never met the man, but I look forward to hearing what he has to say. I would like to know what his vision of Radio-Canada and CBC is,’ the MP for Ottawa-Vanier tells Playback Daily.

Lacroix has been a high-level executive with Telemedia Corporation for a number of years, and is also an adjunct professor with the faculty of law at Université de Montréal. He’s also on the boards of a number of companies, including printer and publisher Transcontinental. The CBC has a budget of about $1.5 billion, of which $950-million comes from the federal government.