(Quebec) The mayor of Quebec defended Thursday the decision of his administration, which intends to resume buying advertisements from the City on Radio X and renounce a policy put in place by Régis Labeaume.
“Public money cannot become political money. There are media outlets that deliver content – content with which I can totally disagree. The day the mayor uses public money to hold political debates, I think we have a democratic problem, ”said Bruno Marchand, on the sidelines of a press conference on COVID-19.
His predecessor had decided in the middle of the second wave to withdraw all its advertising placements from CHOI Radio X. Régis Labeaume maintained in September 2020 that the station “trivialized” the pandemic.
The antenna “constitutes a danger to public health”, had argued the City of Quebec in a press release.
Several major advertisers – Hydro-Quebec, Desjardins, Industrial Alliance and others – had followed suit.
Radio X had launched a legal offensive in return. RNC Media, owner of the antenna, had put Quebec City on notice in October 2020.
“We are witnessing nothing more or less a settling of scores on the part of stakeholders who have long wanted to muzzle CHOI and make it disappear from the Quebec media landscape,” wrote Robert Ranger, president and CEO of RNC Media.
“No date determined”
But Bruno Marchand had already made it known in the campaign that he would revise the policy if he was elected. On Thursday, the mayor was unable to say when ad placements would resume.
“When the City needs to broadcast public service announcements to people who listen to Radio X, we will. There is no fixed date; it depends on when we need to do it, ”he said.
“That does not prevent me from being in favor of sanitary measures, provaccination. I want people to go get vaccinated, apply the distancing measures, ”said Mr. Marchand.
“I want us to get out of this crisis as quickly as possible. The better we will be to support these measures, to apply the right rules, the faster we will get by. ”
The official opposition to Quebec City Hall did not want to comment on Thursday. The Team Marie-Josée Savard caucus, heir to Team Labeaume, has not yet taken a position.
Its leader, Claude Villeneuve, was very critical in September 2020 of the comments made on the airwaves of the station. So columnist at Journal of Quebec, Mr. Villeneuve had signed a text entitled “Radio epicenter”.
“In the end, if things are going badly in Quebec City and Lévis, it is certainly not just because of Radio X. That said, if we have to close businesses again, it would be good if those who place more money there. advertising remember that it will not have been part of the solution, ”Claude Villeneuve wrote at the time.