Unprecedented situation at the National Assembly: Quebecor’s parliamentary correspondents will no longer have their own offices. The company will almost completely empty its premises in January, a few months after announcing that it would no longer be able to pay the rent of just over $100,000 per year that the institution charged it.
Depending on what The duty has learned, Quebecor will only keep a small space starting next month. The company thus ensures a minimal presence within the National Assembly, which will allow its journalists to still be accredited to cover parliamentary work. But they will no longer be able to all work in the same room at the same time. Some may have to write their articles and make their calls in the corridors or outside.
However, virtually all major media outlets in Quebec rent offices to their journalists in the André-Laurendeau building, located behind the Parliament Building. The National Assembly indicated Wednesday that Quebecor was the only organization to have expressed the wish to rent a smaller surface area.
The rent varies from one media to another depending on the space occupied. As of this summer, about a third of the members of the Press Gallery were employees of the Quebecor empire.
Media in crisis
In August, Quebecor sent a letter to the Secretary General of the General Assembly and to parliamentarians asking them to help the media by waiving the rent they must pay to be present on Parliament Hill. “The rent demanded by your management […] goes against the principles of access and harms democratic life,” wrote Jad Barsoum, vice-president of institutional affairs at the company.
Mentioning the media crisis, Mr. Barsoum reported that Quebecor no longer had the means to pay the rent of $8,448 per month ($101,376 per year) that the National Assembly demands of it. “The decision to allow access to these premises free of charge would be a tangible action in support of the media here on the part of the National Assembly of Quebec,” he indicated.
In recent months, Quebecor has been directly affected by the difficulties experienced by the media due to the exodus of advertising revenues to Web giants. After initial cutbacks in the spring, the TVA Group announced in November the elimination of 547 jobs, or nearly one in three positions within this division. For reasons of economy, the television channel will also leave its head office, 1600, boulevard De Maisonneuve Est, in Montreal.
Income still on the rise
Although its media activities are suffering losses, Quebecor remains a company that is doing relatively well thanks to its activities in the telecommunications sector, which today represent the majority of its profits.
In the last quarter, it recorded revenues of 1.42 billion, an increase of 23% compared to the same period last year.
She did not provide further details Wednesday on her decision to significantly reduce her offices on Parliament Hill.