Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[curves2000]

Bell Media is laying off 4800 people at radio, tv and more. CTV News, CTV National news, local news, radio stations and more are being just gutted. BCE, the company behind Bell Media had warned the federal government that they required specific changes and regulatory relief.

It's actually really sad to see so many talented journalist and local talent/programming being let go. Everybody knows the business is under attack from large US media and tech companies but the federal government is about as slow as molasses to react and assist where possible.

It just seems like we are getting the short end of the stick in all aspects in Canada in regards to telcom's. Raised prices, poorer service, lack of options, more buyouts and mergers and a lack of meaningful information to make informed decisions.

The federal government deserves a lot of blame in this regard. What are they actually doing behind the scenes to protect news and assist Canadians in regards to telecommunications ?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/not-...offs-1.6760935

[Azure]

Protect news? How should they protect news to the point of where Bell wouldn't lay people off?

At the same time they are doing this they are increasing the dividend to shareholders.

Cost cutting after becoming a useless, bloated company.

[Slava]

Things just look really stagnant there. Their revenues are virtually flat over the past decade, and they seemingly have no response for the changes in the landscape for their business. And it's basically all of their properties that are under this "attack". I like Sportscenter, but I rarely watch because odds are I've already seen these highlights. Same goes for their news programming and things like that. BNN is of questionable value at best.

It's a tough industry, without a doubt. But they've basically not adapted in a meaningful way to make people want to see these programs and services with the rise of the internet and online media in general. That's not up to the government to bail them out either. When the newscast is a glancing view at some top stories, the weather 5/6 times, some funny cat videos and a 5 minute review of sports it's not exactly an essential service.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

If I could trust the RCMP on anything like this, then fine.

Combining this report which has allegations of sweet heart contracts, no work done by contractors, visits between these contracting firms and senior officials at personal homes, possible bribes, as well as the information about 1700 emails being erased which is semi criminal, I do think this committee investigation needs to continue.

All that's going to happen if they shut this down and say that the RCMP is investigating it is the same thing that happened when the RCMP wanted to investigate SNC Lavalin. The PMO office will block it and deny access to information and the RCMP will give up.

Canada is fast becoming a Banana Republic. It is embarrassing and repulsive how Canadians continue to allow this crap to continue.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Slava

Things just look really stagnant there. Their revenues are virtually flat over the past decade, and they seemingly have no response for the changes in the landscape for their business. And it's basically all of their properties that are under this "attack". I like Sportscenter, but I rarely watch because odds are I've already seen these highlights. Same goes for their news programming and things like that. BNN is of questionable value at best.

It's a tough industry, without a doubt. But they've basically not adapted in a meaningful way to make people want to see these programs and services with the rise of the internet and online media in general. That's not up to the government to bail them out either. When the newscast is a glancing view at some top stories, the weather 5/6 times, some funny cat videos and a 5 minute review of sports it's not exactly an essential service.

It's a tough business without a doubt, traditional media is under attack but in a lot of ways, new media is just old media just with a different coloured bowtie.

My concern is more along the lines of things the government can do but just won't. We have CBC that competes with corporate media in a million markets, including on advertising dollars. It would be wise for the government mandate of CBC to focus on what it does best and focus on that.

All media companies are looking for regulatory relief but just don't get it at all, on the other hand, they play the game when it comes to mergers about protecting jobs, content and more.

Personally and what was considered the gold standard before was NEWS content was not a line of business that was thought of to be profitable. The air and radio waves/bandwidth were given to these companies to make money on other lines of business, with the public service of providing news content.

We are kinda in this quagmire where the government is allowing this destruction to occur, assists in this destruction with poor regulatory policies, doesn't listen to concerns, allows foreign companies to skirt the rules, thus allowing more destruction all while having policies in place that protects these companies from some aspect of competition.

It's a classic Canadian story of pathetic performance. It's not like Canadian companies are eating up large market share from the big dogs. It's revenue, eyeballs, ad dollars, market share and jobs that are being bled to the US and other entities.

[Ped]

News is dying for 2 reasons imo. First, everyone gets news off of twitter or social media or the like, never mind that many of those stories originate with the feeds of mainstream media. And second, mainstream media is really devolving into clickbait headlines and making slants on stories more obvious, imo, especially in the States. I"m not sure there's even a solution to it, because many people only read the headlines and not the story anyway.

[Azure]

Isn't this grand.

The whistleblower, a Canadian business school graduate, was staggered by the suspicious home loans he discovered in 2022 when he joined a mortgage approval team in a small HSBC branch on the outskirts of Toronto.

He knew of suspicions surrounding Chinese capital in British Columbia real estate, but had never witnessed shady lending while working at an HSBC branch in Campbell River, a bucolic town on the coast of Vancouver Island.

When he arrived at HSBC’s bank in Aurora, an affluent suburb north of Toronto, he discovered explosive growth in home loans to Chinese diaspora buyers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chinese migrants living across Toronto were obtaining mortgages from HSBC while supposedly earning extravagant salaries from remote-work jobs in China. In one example, an Ontario casino worker that owned three homes also claimed to earn $345,000 in 2020 analyzing data remotely for a Beijing company.

https://www.thebureau.news/p/fake-ch...utm_medium=web

Our country is a joke.

[Looch City]

All of these get rich quick schemes run by everyone from the Chinese government to the damn provincial government right here in Alberta...and I'm not involved in any.

I'm mad.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Bell Media is laying off 4800 people at radio, tv and more. CTV News, CTV National news, local news, radio stations and more are being just gutted. BCE, the company behind Bell Media had warned the federal government that they required specific changes and regulatory relief.

It's actually really sad to see so many talented journalist and local talent/programming being let go. Everybody knows the business is under attack from large US media and tech companies but the federal government is about as slow as molasses to react and assist where possible.

It just seems like we are getting the short end of the stick in all aspects in Canada in regards to telcom's. Raised prices, poorer service, lack of options, more buyouts and mergers and a lack of meaningful information to make informed decisions.

The federal government deserves a lot of blame in this regard. What are they actually doing behind the scenes to protect news and assist Canadians in regards to telecommunications ?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/not-...offs-1.6760935

Let's see, they tried to stand up to social media companies and we know the average Canadian stand on that. So what more were they supposed to do?

In other news, failing business blames liberals yet again.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Let's see, they tried to stand up to social media companies and we know the average Canadian stand on that. So what more were they supposed to do?

In other news, failing business blames liberals yet again.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trud...sion-1.6762883

That's what happens when you continuously cater to media lobbyists who care only about their profit line and and bend over to change laws for them, such as trying to extort money from American social media companies and bend rules. This is what happens when you give 40 million dollars in subsidies without attachments.

Bell and Rogers have cried wolf over and over about and have pushed to get rid of local stations for years, constantly having excuse after excuse.

Trudeau is rightfully pissed, but this farce does most definitely fall on Liberals for continuously falling for media executives' cry for help. This recent news isn't new at all and is pretty much a yearly thing for Bell. See these from 2021 and 2023

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...offs-1.5898421

This is in 2021, while BCE took 122$ million in wage subsidies during the pandemic.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/bell...offs-1.6453916

Bell said the CRTC's implementation of the Online Streaming Act has the potential to provide relief to media companies through compensation from online streaming giants, but it cannot afford to wait for the outcome of the regulator's consultations on the legislation.

This was in June 2023

That online streaming act legislation is now in place, Bell execs go LULZ, while pleading to Liberals for more money and and say this time we promise. Rinse repeat, and Liberals go:


https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...837288748.html

including a 3.1%, or $0.12 per share, increase in the BCE annual common share dividend to $3.99

Bell execs increased share dividend while doing these cuts. Dividends over the past 5 years have continuously increased.

https://ycharts.com/companies/BCE.TO/dividend

[GGG]

If only we had a way to not leave news delivery to the private sector and look for ways to expand what ever that happened to be

[Harry Lime]

It's amazing how much this reminds me of Blockbuster. Buying up all of the local stations, cutting out most of the local reporting for a more blanket model, and then having it all fall apart because your business is based on a growth model and local stations make the same reasonable profit every single year. Cry poor and shut it all down.

[FlamesAddiction]

I was hoping that whole Ukrainian Nazi fiasco would just blow over and go away, but apparently Putin mentioned it in his Tucker interview to show how the West supports Nazis in Ukraine. I hate that we gift wrapped Putin that kind of propaganda.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

It's amazing how much this reminds me of Blockbuster. Buying up all of the local stations, cutting out most of the local reporting for a more blanket model, and then having it all fall apart because your business is based on a growth model and local stations make the same reasonable profit every single year. Cry poor and shut it all down.

I'm not sure how much Bell was doing with actual local news, but I've long argued the one of the biggest strengths of the CNC is in fact local news, and I would support funding that as a taxpayer.

But I sure as hell don't support sending tax dollars to help Bell when they increased their dividend and just rip off Canadians all the time.

[Duruss]

Originally Posted by GGG

If only we had a way to not leave news delivery to the private sector and look for ways to expand what ever that happened to be

You know PP is going to spin the Bell layoffs into a reason to defund the CBC. Won't matter that it makes no sense.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I was hoping that whole Ukrainian Nazi fiasco would just blow over and go away, but apparently Putin mentioned it in his Tucker interview to show how the West support Nazis in Ukraine. I hate that we gift wrapped Putin that kind of propaganda.

It's kind of dumb take from Putin though, it's not like he was invited because he was a Nazi. It was a pretty epic gaffe that I am pretty sure the PMO would want a mulligan on.

Like, wow, we're all embarrassed that this happened, but somehow it means everyone in the west loves Nazis? If we loved Nazis, I think the reaction to discovering his past would have been diferent.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Wormius

It's kind of dumb take from Putin though, it's not like he was invited because he was a Nazi. It was a pretty epic gaffe that I am pretty sure the PMO would want a mulligan on.

Like, wow, we're all embarrassed that this happened, but somehow it means everyone in the west loves Nazis? If we loved Nazis, I think the reaction to discovering his past would have been diferent.

Dumb take or not, Putin obviously is going to take advantage of it.

Which we shouldn't really care about because, Putin, and yet at the same time it was am embarrassment to our country. But then again, most of what the Liberals do is, so yeah.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Azure

Dumb take or not, Putin obviously is going to take advantage of it.

Which we shouldn't really care about because, Putin, and yet at the same time it was am embarrassment to our country. But then again, most of what the Liberals do is, so yeah.

Yeah, I mean we know it was a terrible mistake and it doesn't reflect the views of Canadians or our allies. But when it comes to the war in Ukraine, Putin controls the narrative in Russia and countries aligned with Russia like China, Iran, South Africa, and so on. Not to mention, republicans in the U.S. Whether we like it or not, it makes up a significant part of the world. It doesn't matter what the truth is because perception is reality and it's easy to control perception in countries that don't have high levels of freedom (which is at least half the world).

[Locke]

Remember the days when it was perfectly cromulent to hate Nazis?

I think some guys got on boats a few years back to fight for that right.

When did 'hating Nazis' become even up for debate?

It used to be one group that you could safely persecute. You single out one group and inevitably someone's going to throw their hands up and be:

"Hey...woah now..."

Unless it was Nazis. Then nobody would stop you.

Those were good times. B.J. Blazkowicz where are you? We need you now more than ever!!

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Locke

Remember the days when it was perfectly cromulent to hate Nazis?

I think some guys got on boats a few years back to fight for that right.

When did 'hating Nazis' become even up for debate?

It used to be one group that you could safely persecute. You single out one group and inevitably someone's going to throw their hands up and be:

"Hey...woah now..."

Unless it was Nazis. Then nobody would stop you.

Those were good times. B.J. Blazkowicz where are you? We need you now more than ever!!

That hero cop Mark Fuhrman made a lot of people question if we aren't painting with too broad a brush