Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is “furious” about the “rotten” decision taken by Bell Canada to end television newscasts, cut 4,800 jobs and sell nearly half of its regional radio stations.
“ This is a garbage decision “, he said Friday in English during a press briefing in the Greater Toronto Area, which can be translated as “it’s a rotten decision.”
Mr. Trudeau thus added another layer to the criticisms made the day before by his Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, with regard to Bell.
She notably asserted that the company did not keep its word to maintain newscasts even though it had made the promise by making acquisitions. The minister also maintained that Bell made cuts despite regulatory relief of $40 million from its obligations to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
“To see large corporations like Bell, in this case, participating in the erosion not only of our journalism, but of our democracy and our sense of community […]this is, for me, completely unacceptable and it annoys me enormously,” added Mr. Trudeau.
The Prime Minister deplored what he sees as a trend of layoffs, in the context of recent years where “community organizations, local journalists, are being bought by conglomerates, by multinationals.”
“As a government, we have been there and we will continue to be there to invest in local journalism,” said Mr. Trudeau.
Minister St-Onge mentioned Thursday that Bell was complaining that things were not moving fast enough in her view for the CRTC to adapt its regulatory framework to the digital age, about a year after the adoption of Bill C- 11 in this matter.
“There have been reliefs already given to them for the interim period, but at some point, companies that make billions of dollars [et] who have made a commitment to the Canadian population must respect their end of their commitments,” she said.
Legislation C-11 aims to modernize the Broadcasting Act. The CRTC makes regulatory changes so that new legislative measures actually come into force.