I'm a bit confused about a statement I believe I heard from Rogers, that it would redirect money that Shaw spends on local news, which is about $13 million annually. There was a quote from Matt Hatfield with OpenMedia. He told this committee that the merger would put one man, Ed Rogers, “in charge of the Internet and broadcast service of nearly half of English Canadian [network] users.” The end result is that in Canada, the top four companies will hold an astonishing 53% of the market share.
With respect to that, we're very concerned about the impact of this merger on the Canadian news market and the long-term impact on the quality of diversity of voices.
What can you say to reassure this committee that our concerns about this merger and the concerns of the majority of commentators, experts, community and ethnic media associations are not warranted?