Bell Canada (BCE) President and CEO Mirko Bibic was roundly criticized by federal MPs on Thursday as he tried as best he could to defend the layoffs of 4,800 people in February.
Questioned at length by elected officials sitting on the Standing Committee on Heritage, Mr. Bibic defended his decision by arguing in particular that the CTV channel had lost $180 million last year.
The difficult economic context and competition from American digital giants – which are not subject to the same rules as Canadian media, particularly in terms of content – would explain the setbacks of Bell Media.
“We should force web platforms to contribute. The federal government should invest in traditional Canadian media,” argued Mirko Bibic, so the company has already received hundreds of millions from the government.
Despite the cuts, the leader assured that Bell is doing its part to inform Canadians. “The main objective is to serve the audience and the consumer. This is what we do. We are producing more and more news, beyond the regulatory minimums imposed by the CRTC,” argued the CEO.
Bad quarter of an hour
These explanations hardly impressed elected officials, who criticized the manager’s evasive answers or questioned the payment of millions of dollars in bonuses to senior BCE executives, including $2.96 million for Mr. Bibic.
In February, Bell shook the already fragile Canadian media environment by announcing 4,800 layoffs across the company, including 10% in the Bell Media subsidiary, in addition to the sale of 45 radio stations. These job cuts were in addition to 1,300 decided in June 2023.
This announcement caused the federal government to fulminate, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau going so far as to speak of a rotten decision (“garbage decision”, in English).
The Canadian media is going through troubled times. Besides Bell, several other players had to announce major cuts, including Groupe TVA and Postmedia, while the “Métro” newspaper completely closed last summer.