Canadian Heritage Committee on April 11th, 2024

[Mirko Bibic]

In some cases, the employees had their individual meetings and were given specific notice on days and weeks after February 8. In that respect, for those employees, the information would have been shared with them days or weeks later.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

For the avoidance of doubt, you did not provide 16 weeks' advance notice to the Government of Canada that you were doing these layoffs. Is that correct?

[Mirko Bibic]

That's correct. That's what I specifically answered in respect of the prior question, which is that we gave notice to the Government of Canada but also 16 weeks' salary continuance to all employees who were affected, even those otherwise would not have had—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Right. What I don't want is people leaving this room with the misapprehension that somehow the Government of Canada knew for 16 weeks before a single person was laid off. I want to thank you for clarifying that, in fact, that was not the case.

With that done, with that said, I do want to go back, Mr. Bibic, to a conversation we had earlier, when you talked about the importance of building “strong Canadian companies”. I agree with you. I think building strong Canadian companies is important. Those Canadian companies should provide good jobs, and those employees should have certainty that the companies for which they work, that they give everything to, are going to take care of them, respect them and ensure they have a strong trajectory for their careers.

I don't know how that worked for the 6,000 people you laid off, but I know how it worked when we talked about the executive bonuses. What I want to talk about a bit is your newsrooms. Newsrooms are a big part of this country's ability to tell its stories, and they're about providing good, quality information. Can you tell us, since you did these layoffs, how much you have expanded—if you've expanded—the size of your news team and specifically where?

[Mirko Bibic]

We continue to deliver more news than we ever have before. We have 35% more national news correspondents than when we began the 2023 restructuring, which has been referred to throughout our time together.

We've grown Noovo Info in Quebec by 25% since we launched it in 2021. We, for the first time, will have, as I've mentioned, journalists in all 10 provinces, whereas before we did not. They will be covering New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan and another province. We're—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Ten covers all of them. I appreciate what you're saying—

[Mirko Bibic]

Yes, but I'm giving you a sense of which ones are new.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

In small communities and rural communities, in underserved communities, are you increasing or decreasing your footprint? This is not where you say that in every major city across the country you have reporters.

What are you doing to put reporters into smaller communities, rural communities, indigenous communities and so on and so forth?

[Mirko Bibic]

We have the journalists that we have, and that has grown to the extent that I've shared with you. Their mandate is to cover news stories as they break, where the news happens, and to make sure those stories are filed and delivered the way consumers and/or viewers want to engage with that news. More and more, that's on digital platforms. We've lost $40 million a year on news, and we should be talking about that as well—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Let's talk about that—absolutely.

[Mirko Bibic]

It's an industry that's under tremendous stress—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I am so pleased that you raised that. You mentioned that you took a $40-million loss in your newsroom, but you got a $40-million waiver of fees in order to make sure that you did not have to worry too much about your newsroom.

I know we've run out of time, but perhaps one of my other colleagues might like to ask this question: How on earth do you justify saying, on the one hand, that you took a $40-million loss and come to us...?

Thanks to the Conservatives and the NDP, you got that $40 million back, but then you still proceeded to gut your newsroom.

[Mirko Bibic]

The news division is operated under CTV Network, and the CTV conventional stations lose $185 million a year. Our advertising revenues declined $140 million from 2023 compared to 2022.

There's only one revenue stream, and it's advertising. When the federal Government of Canada, which is one of the massive advertisers in the country, spends 70% of its advertising budget on digital platforms, which predominantly goes to Meta and Google, it creates massive stress on the entire media ecosystem.

We need to have a conversation around how we fix Canadian media, because otherwise there will be no Canadian broadcasting system, news or otherwise. Then there will be no Canadian stories being told to Canadians. There will be no news, national or local, being delivered to Canadians, except maybe by Radio-Canada and CBC, which is an altogether different debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. The time is now well over. I'm sorry.

I'm going to go to Martin Champoux for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Chair, I am pleased that we are talking about regional news coverage.

Mr. Bibic, I understand that the entire media ecosystem is in crisis. People have been saying it for years, and successive governments have been too slow to react. The fact remains that Bell is a major player in the industry in Canada, and that comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities, a moral and social responsibility, is to ensure that its role is fulfilled in the best possible way.

I looked at the figures and, as far as I can see, Bell still isn't in the red. It might very well be that profits have declined over the years, but Bell is still a going concern. So the company still has some leeway whether its shareholders like it or not.

However, media coverage in eastern Quebec has been in a critical situation for years, and Bell is withdrawing its operations there, as a result of which media coverage is declining in that part of Quebec.

I spoke to you earlier about media coverage in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. This winter, there was an extremely worrisome situation. People were stuck on the river and needed help. The event may have been trivial for the people of Montreal and Toronto, but for residents in the region, this news was of vital importance. However, no one from Bell was there to cover the event, because the regional newscast was produced in Quebec City. So, Mr. Bibic, how can you tell the committee here that Bell has invested in news and that it has correspondents in all the provinces of Canada, when it is abandoning regional news coverage, thinking that Radio-Canada and the CBC will stay behind to do the job?

I am aware that there is a problem in terms of market fairness. I realize that the web giants have to do their part, but they won't be involved in journalism. The responsibility for journalism rests, once again, with broadcasting companies, and Bell is probably the largest in Canada.

Mr. Bibic, I am making a heartfelt plea. Are you able to tell Quebeckers today that once we have succeeded in restoring equity in this market between the web giants, who are abusing the system, and the broadcasting companies, which are under an extremely heavy regulatory burden—we are all aware of that—Bell is committed to reinvesting in the jobs that have been cut and in Quebec's regional media coverage, which is lacking?

Are you able to tell Quebeckers today that once equity with the web giants is restored and Bell has the leeway it needs to operate in the broadcasting sector in Canada, it will start reinvesting in regional news?

[Mirko Bibic]

Thank you for your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I need a very short answer to that question, please.

[Mirko Bibic]

The playing field must be levelled to ensure the viability of the Canadian media ecosystem and news production. Web platforms should be required to contribute. The federal government should invest more in traditional Canadian media so that they can evolve. That would allow us to reinvest—

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Are you going to reinvest in regional journalism, Mr. Bibic?

[Mirko Bibic]

I'm here in good faith, and that's what we're doing: We launched Noovo Info. I would like to do more—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Bibic. The time is now up. I'm sorry.

I'm cutting you off 56 seconds later, so I'm giving you enough time, Martin.

I need to let the people answering the questions know to try to be as concise in your answers as possible. Thank you.

I now go to Niki Ashton.

Niki, you have two and a half minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Oligopolies like Bell's are hurting Canadians. Nowhere is that more evident than in my province of Manitoba.

In 2017, we were told that Bell buying out MTS would bring in better rates and service. With the Liberals' approval, you spent $3.9 billion to purchase Manitoba Telecom Services, a company that was at one time proudly publicly owned. Not only have our rates gone up, but the quality of the service has gone down, no doubt linked to the fact that you cut over 45% of the Manitoba workforce. This reality is clear in our region.

I have a picture here shared by my constituent, Susann Sinclair, who lives in Dallas. She's forced to use a walkie-talkie to communicate with her 89-year-old veteran father who lives down the road because Bell-MTS's land lines don't work in their community. Why? Because Bell-MTS refuses to do the maintenance required: land lines that belong to Bell-MTS in Canada in 2024.

Perhaps the most egregious example of the way in which Bell-MTS has taken Manitobans for granted is Bloodvein First Nation, which was in communication with Bell-MTS for a number of months, starting in 2020, about setting up and operating a cellphone tower. A year later, when the wildfires of 2021 hit the region, the first nation asked to work with Bell urgently. At this point, they had built a cellphone tower. They had the equipment set up. All they needed from Bell was for it to turn on a switch and get the cellphones working.

As the wildfires raged and multiple communities were evacuating, including theirs, the smoke engulfed Winnipeg and reached southern Ontario. Bell-MTS told Bloodvein that they had to pay $652,000 to turn on a switch and get cell service to a community that was eight miles from a burning wildfire—cell service that could help save lives.

Oligopolies like yours have failed Manitobans, first nations, workers and Canadians across the board. Do you find it acceptable that your company rejected Bloodvein's requests at a time of real crisis? Will you work with them to get them cell service?

[Mirko Bibic]

Madam Chair, I will communicate with the clerk to get the information as it relates to that specific situation, as well as the customer to which the honourable member referred.

As for Bell's investments in Manitoba, we made a commitment when we acquired MTS to invest at least a billion dollars, and I'm proud to say that we've invested well above that. That has allowed us to build fibre to the home networks in Churchill, Flin Flon and La Salle, in Morden and other communities, in Winkler and in many more—

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Bibic, I think the questions we've raised here are ones of real crisis—

[Mirko Bibic]

We have heard them.