OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he’s “furious” with BCE Inc, Canada’s largest telecommunications firm, over its decision to cut jobs and programmes in its media division.
BCE announced on Thursday that it is eliminating 9% of jobs this year, about 4,800 positions. The cuts will heavily affect its broadcasting unit, with layoffs and cancelled news shows at its television stations. The Quebec-based company is also selling 45 of its 103 regional radio stations.
Trudeau said the cuts are deeply frustrating to him at a time when the government is trying to help local journalism.
“This is a garbage decision by a corporation that should know better,” Trudeau said in response to reporters’ questions on Friday.
“Over the past years, corporate Canada — and there are many culprits on this — have abdicated their responsibility towards the communities that they have always made very good profits off of.”
BCE did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trudeau’s remarks.
BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises) had its origins in the 19th century as the Bell Telephone Company and once had a monopoly over telephone services and equipment in many parts of the country. Over the years it diversified by creating or acquiring other technology and media assets to become what it is today.
When announcing the cuts on Thursday, BCE put some of the blame on the government. The company is pulling back on capital spending and slowing down the building of its fibre-optic network, a decision it attributed to federal policies such as a regulatory decision last year that would force BCE to open up its broadband networks to smaller rivals at fixed rates.
“We need to take additional measures in response to increasingly unsupportive federal government and regulatory decisions, legacy business declines and a macroeconomic environment with higher interest rates and continued inflation,” BCE said. It is aiming to save as much as C$200 million (US$149 million) this year with the staff reductions.
News legislation
Trudeau’s government has sought to provide money to Canadian news outlets through legislation such as the Online News Act, which tries to force Google and Facebook to pay them for content.
Facebook parent Meta declined, instead prohibiting users on Facebook in Canada from posting links to news articles. Google negotiated payments in the range of C$100 million.
“We’ve seen over the past years, journalistic outlets — radio stations, small community newspapers — bought up by corporate entities who then lay off journalists,” Trudeau said.
“This is the erosion not just of journalism, of quality local journalism, at a time where people need it more than ever given misinformation and disinformation. But it’s eroding our very democracy.”
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge — who oversees the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which regulates the broadcast sector — said the government has allowed media consolidation on “the promise that they would deliver on news content.”
“They’re backing away from that,” she told reporters Thursday.
She also said the CRTC had already given BCE about C$40 million in licensing fee relief, and warned that regulatory changes will be coming soon with updated legislation on the broadcasting sector.
The CRTC said in an emailed statement that it is examining whether BCE is in compliance with its licence obligations.
BCE’s media division owns BNN Bloomberg Television, which has a news content partnership with Bloomberg LP.