QUESTION PERIOD — Canadian Heritage
Online News Act
February 12, 2024
Senator Gold, last week, Bell Media announced it was laying off 500 employees across news platforms. This follows on the heels of CBC News announcing massive layoffs prior to Christmas. Senator Gold, these are the two outlets that stood to gain the most cash from your government’s social media shakedown under Bill C-18.
Your boss appeared quite angry about the announcement, Senator Gold, but how could that be? Did Prime Minister Trudeau not receive some assurances from Bell and CTV that the money you guys keep giving them hand over fist would protect jobs rather than go straight into the pockets of executives?
The Prime Minister has made it very clear that these cuts were regrettable, and he used stronger language than that, as you all know.
I’m not aware of what assurances, if any, were made with regard to those who received a share of the resources that were made available by that act. We seem to be relitigating the matter again, Senator Housakos, but the fact remains that Bell remains a remarkably profitable organization, and the Government of Canada deplores the decision to cut so many jobs which have an impact not only on the employees, their families and the communities, but also on the quality of availability of news programming in this country.
Only the Trudeau government could toss hundreds of millions of dollars to someone without any guidance or any strings attached.
Senator Gold, the problem began before Bill C-18, but now we have these massive job cuts in mainstream media, and online outlets are also struggling because their content no longer gets shared by Meta.
Why not just admit that trying to buy the media is never a good idea, and admit that this government’s actions of throwing good money after bad failed? Will you repeal, once and for all, Bill C-18 — a fiasco of a piece of legislation?
The short answer is no. The government does not accept the premise of your position, and there is no plan to repeal Bill C-18. Thank you for your question.
