(Montreal) Several dozen people gathered in Rimouski on Saturday morning to denounce the decrease in regional media coverage in Bas-Saint-Laurent.
Citizens, elected officials and journalists spoke of the “media desert” that the region could soon face. The last cut in information came on November 2, when the TVA Group laid off 80% of the staff at the Rimouski station.
If the TVA Employees Union was at the origin of the rally, provincial president Carl Beaudoin affirms that power is now in the hands of the population.
It is up to the population to stand up to assert their rights, their loss of local coverage, the loss of regional information which is the lifeblood of democracy.
Carl Beaudoin, president of CUPE 687
He emphasizes that it is not only on the TVA side, because there are 19 media outlets which have disappeared in Bas-Saint-Laurent in the last fifteen years.
Mr. Beaudouin finds that the citizen mobilization on Saturday morning “warms the heart”, because there were people from all “social, political” backgrounds, he notes.
“The important thing is above all not to be forgotten week after week, so that the world remembers that sooner or later local information is in danger,” he said.
A blow
On the side of local elected officials, in addition to job losses, we are worried about the future of regional information.
“We are already geographically distant, if on top of that we have fewer people talking about us, it’s very bad news. For democracy, it takes media,” said the deputy for Matane-Matapédia, Pascal Bérubé, during the rally.
For the mayor of Rimouski, Guy Caron, the TVA announcement is a second hard blow this year after that of Bell Media.
In the regions, we really need regional information to have a mirror of the community. […] It is a democratic element that we are currently losing, because we need to have these media to help us, as elected officials, to have accountability to the population.
Guy Caron, mayor of Rimouski
Mr. Caron, who was a journalist on local radio and newspapers in Rimouski in the 1980s, emphasizes that the regional media landscape has completely changed.
“We had three radios […] and two televisions which provided information, (up to) three weeklies, a daily… All that no longer exists,” he laments.
He recalls that in 1990, when Radio-Canada closed the regional station, thousands of people mobilized in the Rimouski Colisée to protest against the closure of CJBRT. He hopes, and Carl Beaudoin too, to see the same civic enthusiasm this time. “It took 20 years before we could get a news bulletin (from Radio-Canada), but we got it,” says Mr. Caron.
The elected official affirms that the provincial and federal governments must act to support the media and also the regions, which he considers neglected in several areas and at the mercy of the decisions of large private companies.
Uncertainty among employees
There will remain six employees at TVA Rimouski: four journalists and two cameramen, to cover the entire Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie region. There were nearly thirty of them before.
A great feeling of uncertainty reigns among the employees of the TVA Group in Rimouski, La Presse Canadienne was able to observe among some of them. 23 people will lose their jobs. Across Quebec, 547 employees were laid off.
If the TVA Group indicated in a press release that the people affected will receive at least 16 weeks’ notice of dismissal, the employees do not know for how long and how they will still work, as the end date of employment does not have to them. yet been communicated. The transition of most activities to a “production hub” in Quebec – as the group plans – is still a big unknown.
Another gathering will be held Monday in Mauricie. In Trois-Rivières, approximately 70% of the workforce will be cut at the TVA station, or 25 positions.