As Bell Media blamed regulators and policymakers for its decision to announce a fresh round of layoffs Thursday, federal and provincial politicians accused the company of unnecessarily killing off local journalism.
I mean, seriously, what did they expect? Capitalism gotta capitalize, and I suspect that if our economy wasn’t in terrible shape we wouldn’t be witnessing any theatrical indignation on the part of our leadership whatsoever. They aren’t angry that this is happening, they’re angry they got caught and being made to look bad and are desperately trying to get ahead of the story before they become the story.
This is all theatre to avoid real discussions about how companies and the wealthy were not, and are not, taxed fairly. When you can make a billion in profit a year and pay your executives millions and still do share buybacks and still cut staff, employees and services while still raising prices then you have too much cash on hand.
Tax them. Force them to either put that money back into the business, or pay it to the government. Stop letting them create Scrooge McDuck-style swimming pools of cash that do nothing.
On the surface you can’t really say the Liberals didn’t try to regulate some of this stuff and get more local content but the results in this case is Bell getting $40 million break in fees that would usually fund these programs plus another $30 mill from the Google deal. Canadian lose more local news coverage and get to watch the Prime Minister of the country essentially shrugs and says he can’t believe Bell only care about maximizing profits.
The Liberals’ update to broadcasting law, the Online Streaming Act, came into effect last April. It abolished certain licensing fees, which St-Onge said will save the company some $40 million a year.
This marks the end of the government’s direct role with the law formerly known as Bill C-11, the Liberal government’s second attempt to bring major online-streaming services into Canada’s broadcasting system and eventually have them contribute to supporting local music and stories.
“The sector needs to adapt to where the Canadian public is today. And we know Canadians look for their news and content online,” Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said Tuesday in Montreal.
I can’t believe 80% of Canadian voters were good with these 2 imbeciles running country last election.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre responded to the cuts on Thursday by placing blame on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He said high taxes, burdensome red tape and an uncompetitive business environment “is driving our jobs and our money out of the country to foreign nations that are prospering at our expense.”
Stop handing out money to gangsters and thieves … if you feel good handing it to Bell … might as well do the same for the Hell’s Angels and Asian gangs because it would do the same thing to our country.
If government gives money to big corps like Bell … average citizens don’t benefit
If government doesn’t give money to big corps like Bell … average citizens don’t benefit but at least we didn’t have to pay for it
Stop handing out money to those that give no benefit to the country. It’s like investing in destroying the nation.
The only way government should finance these industries is by forcing them to do secondary share offerings to be purchased by the government. Your company needs so much help that it becomes 50%+1 owned by the government? Too bad, you’re nationalized.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
What did they expect?
I mean, seriously, what did they expect? Capitalism gotta capitalize, and I suspect that if our economy wasn’t in terrible shape we wouldn’t be witnessing any theatrical indignation on the part of our leadership whatsoever. They aren’t angry that this is happening, they’re angry they got caught and being made to look bad and are desperately trying to get ahead of the story before they become the story.
This is all theatre to avoid real discussions about how companies and the wealthy were not, and are not, taxed fairly. When you can make a billion in profit a year and pay your executives millions and still do share buybacks and still cut staff, employees and services while still raising prices then you have too much cash on hand.
Tax them. Force them to either put that money back into the business, or pay it to the government. Stop letting them create Scrooge McDuck-style swimming pools of cash that do nothing.
Time to collect that $40M before it gets converted into CEO bonuses.
Oops, Bell already raised their dividend.
Is this incompetence or malice?
On the surface you can’t really say the Liberals didn’t try to regulate some of this stuff and get more local content but the results in this case is Bell getting $40 million break in fees that would usually fund these programs plus another $30 mill from the Google deal. Canadian lose more local news coverage and get to watch the Prime Minister of the country essentially shrugs and says he can’t believe Bell only care about maximizing profits.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/social-media-creators-podcasts-won-t-be-regulated-under-liberal-online-streaming-law-1.6644499
I can’t believe 80% of Canadian voters were good with these 2 imbeciles running country last election.
https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2024/02/08/local-news-cuts-at-bell-come-after-it-was-granted-40m-in-regulatory-relief-st-onge/
Stop handing out money to gangsters and thieves … if you feel good handing it to Bell … might as well do the same for the Hell’s Angels and Asian gangs because it would do the same thing to our country.
If government gives money to big corps like Bell … average citizens don’t benefit
If government doesn’t give money to big corps like Bell … average citizens don’t benefit but at least we didn’t have to pay for it
Stop handing out money to those that give no benefit to the country. It’s like investing in destroying the nation.
The only way government should finance these industries is by forcing them to do secondary share offerings to be purchased by the government. Your company needs so much help that it becomes 50%+1 owned by the government? Too bad, you’re nationalized.
Wtf is “regulatory relief”?
It says what it is right in the article…
Oh sure, on the like paragraph five. That’s way more than a single tweet. How do you expect anyone to read that much all in one go?!?