OTTAWA — As Bell Media blamed regulators and policycreaters for its decision to announce a fresh round of layoffs Thursday, federal and provincial politicians accutilized the company of unnecessarily killing off local journalism.
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge decried the company for breaking its promise to invest in news after it was granted more than $40 million in annual regulatory relief.
That’s the same amount the company declared its news division, which includes CTV News and BNN Bloomberg, is losing annually.
Facing $40 million in annual operating losses, Bell Media is cutting 4,800 jobs. That comes amid across-the-board cuts at parent company BCE Inc., which has an operating revenue totaling $6.7 billion, up from $6.44 billion a year earlier.
“They are not going bankrupt. They’re still creating billions of dollars. They’re still a very profitable company,” St-Onge declared Thursday on Parliament Hill.
“And they still have the capacity and the means to hold their conclude of the bargain, which is to deliver news reports.”
St-Onge declared the government has worked to assist the news industest, and at some point companies have to chip in, too.
The Liberals’ update to broadcasting law, the Online Streaming Act, came into effect last April. It abolished certain licensing fees, which St-Onge declared will save the company some $40 million a year.
Bell Media is also expected to receive money becautilize of the Liberals’ Online News Act, which came into effect late last year.
Broadcasters are expected to receive $30 million through a side deal the government struck with Google.
It agreed to pay news outlets $100 a year to avoid being regulated under the new law, which requires tech giants to compensate news producers for content that is shared on their platforms, and from which they financially benefit.
Still, Bell Media is blaming its cuts on the federal government, declareing Ottawa took too long to provide relief for media companies.
It also blames the Canadian Radio-television Commission, declareing the regulator is too slow to react to a “crisis that is immediate.”
The CRTC is expected to release final regulations aimed at assisting the news industest in the coming months. Until then, St-Onge declared, “we required everybody to hold strong.”
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, a former journalist, declared Thursday that the layoffs are “atrocious” and it’s “hard seeing journalists being treated as rounding errors in what I consider are healthy profit margins.”
And British Columbia Premier David Eby declared Bell Media has “overseen the ‘en-crap-ification’ of local news”
He declared the layoffs — along with the sale of 45 of the company’s 113 regional radio stations — is “catastrophic.”
“Bell and corporations like Bell have overseen the assembly of local media assets that are treasures to local communities. They bought them up. Like corporate vampires, they sucked the life out of them, laying off journalists,” Eby declared Thursday.
The federal NDP declared this should serve as a wake-up call for Ottawa and its relationship with corporations.
“The federal government requireds to start revealing leadership, first off, and any funding that is going to Bell or any other corporation requireds to come with the key guarantees in terms of jobs and maintaining professional journalism,” NDP Houtilize leader Peter Julian declared.
When St-Onge was pressed on the cuts by the Bloc Québécois during question period, she stated in French that the Liberal government would not be giving any more money to billionaire companies.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre responded to the cuts on Thursday by placing blame on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He declared high taxes, burdensome red tape and an uncompetitive business environment “is driving our jobs and our money out of the countest to foreign nations that are prospering at our expense.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2024.
— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa and Sammy Hudes in Toronto.
Mickey Djuric, The Canadian Press
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