By now it’s a common take that the only positive thing to come out of Trump’s tariff threat, which has been deferred for 30 days, is that it brought Canadians together, regardless of province or politics. And according to CBC numbers released on Wednesday, that meant a lot of us turned to the nation’s pubcaster for coverage, on all platforms.

According to the CBC, 4.5 million Canadians tuned in to CBC News Network from February 1 through 3, making it the most-watched English-language Canadian news network. And the broadcaster’s flagship news program, The National, had two million viewers on Feb. 3, which was the second highest viewership this season (after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation on Jan 6).

CBC’s digital and mobile platforms also saw a significant boost in users – Feb. 1 was the highest single day for mobile CBC News and app hours since the convoy protests in Ottawa on Feb. 19, 2022. CBCNews.ca and the CBC News app received four million unique visitors on Feb. 3, the highest number since coverage of the Rogers network outage on July 8, 2022.

Those unique visitors represented a 120% increase in visitors, compared with a typical day for the app. Compared to Jan. 2025, the CBC News app saw a 32% increase in average daily unique visitors between Feb. 1-3.