TORONTO – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is deeply concerned about Bell Media firing 4800 workers, including hundreds of journalists, in their latest round of layoffs and wishes someone would do something about the rampant unchecked greed of Canadian corporations.
“I’m pretty pissed off about what’s just happened,” Trudeau said during a press conference on Friday. “The hollowing out of local journalism in Canada is profoundly disturbing and I can’t understand why no one is stopping this.”
Trudeau, who has been the head of Canada’s government for almost a decade, made his disgust at the inaction of those in positions of power to save Canadian journalism very clear, going so far as to call the decision made by Bell, which receives $40 million in annual regulatory relief due to a law the Liberals updated last year and will receive $30 million more due to the Online News Act the Liberals passed in December, garbage.
“It’s eroding our very democracy,” Trudeau said. “Surely, at some point, the need to protect Canada’s news media from the constant predations of unregulated corporations will permeate the thick heads of those who have the ability to do something about it.”
“Like every other Canadian who is furious about this, all I can do is hope and pray for a day when good legislation, good governance, and efficient subsidies combine to ensure that Canada’s news landscape is no longer dependant on the sociopathic media conglomerates that have been allowed to gobble up all the small players and then destroy them in a catastrophic search for profits at the expense of the public good.”
“But who would spearhead such an effort?” the prime minister then mused, seemingly more to himself than to the assembled reporters, before shaking his head in chagrin and moving on with the press conference.
