It seems as though Bell Media has run out of F___s to give when it comes to optics as they dish more money out to shareholders.
Throughout the Bill C-11 debate, Bell argued that the legislation was about “telling Canadian stories”. They were one of many players trying to build the false narrative that the big fat meanies of foreign streaming services was making it impossible to continue creating Canadian content and unless government intervened immediately, Canadian’s would lose their entire cultural identity as no one would be telling Canadian stories.
The claims, of course, were ridiculous as Canadians have never had more avenues for telling Canadian stories as they did before Bill C-18 came into force (another bill pushed by the big publishers which predictably backfired). Yet, it didn’t exactly take long before Bell completely undermined their own argument when they called for the government to allow them to more cheaply rebroadcast American programming and reducing their obligations to telling those very “Canadian stories” they earlier crowed about.
Meanwhile, throughout the Bill C-18 debate, companies like Bell were screaming until they were blue in the fact about how this legislation was about saving Canadian journalism jobs. Those big fat meanies at Meta and Google were “stealing” from them and if government didn’t intervene, that Canadian news rooms would fold and journalists would be out of work. The claims never really held up to scrutiny especially when Meta dropped news links altogether in Canada. So much for “stealing” news content.
So, with the failure of the Online News Act (Bill C-18), the government grabbed and used their last tool in the chest to right the situation. They issued massive media bailouts in an effort to make them whole. Of course, as I’ve said all along, there’s only two actual possibilities for the media companies in this debate. Either they were losing truckloads of money because their content is completely unwatchable, or they are producing content that people are watching and they were flat out lying about the endless reams of losses they were experiencing. It’s either one or the other, not both.
Last year, we got a hint that it is probably the latter as Bell laid off 1,300 people despite it looking like Bell was going to get everything it wanted. Then, after getting Bill C-11, Bill C-18, and taxpayer bailout money, Bell proceeded to lay off 9% of its workforce. At minimum, it showed that Bill C-18 was never about saving Canadian journalism jobs as those jobs were already getting cut regardless of the outcome of the two bills and the ensuing media bailouts. The layoffs were merely props as a means to a political end for Bell.
The Canadian government was furious at the decision. Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said that he was “pissed off” about the decision. Heritage Minister, Pascale St-Onge, suggested that Bell broke the deal they made with government, expecting those jobs to be retained after bailing out the company.
Apparently, Bell is going to be appearing before committee for its decision to hack and slash jobs. From (ironically) CTV:
The head of Bell Canada will testify before members of Parliament next month over the company’s decision to cut thousands of jobs across Canada.
CEO Mirko Bibic is scheduled to appear at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on April 11.
Buried at the bottom of the article is quite the paragraph, though:
In February, Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. announced it was cutting 4,800 positions from its workforce, ending several television newscasts, and selling 45 of its 103 radio stations.
Bell blamed the cuts in part on the federal government and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, claiming Ottawa has been too slow to assist media companies. In the same Feb. announcement, Bell also stated that it was raising quarterly dividend payouts to shareholders from 96.75 cents to 99.75 cents per common share.
Wait, let me get this straight: Bell has been claiming poverty all this time, went running to the government cap in hand asking for financial help, then, at the same time, raising their quarterly dividend payouts to shareholders as if things have never been better for the company? I mean, does this sound like a business in trouble financially? Why on earth are they raising dividend payouts while they are hacking and slashing their offerings and laying off thousands? This while already pulling in billions in the process.
I can tell you one thing: this is not a company that’s going bankrupt. This is a company that managed to hoodwink the government into believing that they were a company in crisis. While the government fell for their shtick hook line and sinker, even the government is realizing that Bell may not have been forthcoming about their real financial situation. The fact that they raised their dividend payouts in the midst of it all signals that this is a company that really doesn’t care what people think of it.
Go ahead and find out that they are simply shovelling more money to shareholders. Why would they care? The government is there to serve them, after all, so what incentive do they have to stop telling the government tall tales of a company on the brink of failure? All that matters to them is the next quarter and how much shareholders are getting. Paying staff to produce and broadcast news? They mean little to the company (as indicated by the layoffs). Shut it all down for all they care. Money is going to keep flowing towards them forever – especially if the government keeps shovelling money towards them. If things do actually go wrong, well, they can just blame the government afterwards. After all, management can do no wrong and they have a convenient scapegoat afterwards. What a great deal!
(Via Commissioner Miner)
