February 12, 2024
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is rejecting the idea that his party played a role in granting $40 million in regulatory relief to Bell Media.
Conservative and NDP MPs backed a 2022 amendment to the Online Streaming Act, opposed by the governing Liberals, that allowed Canada’s private broadcasters to save about $120 million a year in regulatory fees.
Bell’s share of those savings was $40 million — the precise total of annual operating losses the broadcaster’s parent, BCE Inc., cited when it slashed 4,800 jobs last week.
But Poilievre is now blaming Justin Trudeau for those cuts, and has called on the prime minister to claw back some of his government’s federal grants to media companies.
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