One of Canada's richest monopolies begs for more taxpayer bailouts

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Let me read a gorgeous headline to you: BCE’s CEO calls for government assistance for struggling media sector.

Just in case you don’t know, BCE stands for Bell Canada Enterprises — one of the richest companies in Canada. I checked and as of today, it’s worth $52 billion.

And look at the stock price chart. They made a killing during the lockdowns. Of course they did. When you were locked in your homes, not allowed to go to work or school or a restaurant or sports or whatever, what could you do but sit at home and watch TV? They made billions off the lockdowns.

And it was not surprising to learn afterwards that Trudeau paid the big TV stations, including CTV, which is owned by Bell, $104 million to promote their lockdown propaganda. So that was pretty cosy. Trudeau locks Canadians into their homes, shutting down any real life social interactions, forces you to go online for any human contact, and — surprise! — the big internet, cable and cellphone company makes billions off of it, and supports the lockdowns with a vicious vengeance against anyone who dares to call for freedom instead.

Look at that stock chart — it’s not as shocking at the Big Pharma companies, but it’s close.

So anyways, this big, monopoly company that got rich off the lockdowns — they’re begging for help. Not trying to earn it from their customers. Trying to coax it out of Trudeau. Because apparently a hundred million to promote the lockdowns — that’s already been spent. Let me read a bit:

BCE Inc.’s chief executive officer is calling on Canada’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator to help the country’s media sector cope with a challenging advertising market and competition from foreign giants.

Bell Canada is a giant. I read their most recent annual report. Look at this: $24B in revenue last year. $69B in assets. That’s up $9 billion in two years. They literally made billions of dollars off of the lockdown. They’re profiteers.

Oh — and they also happen to own, besides a swath of TV stations, they own a chunk of major sports teams — including the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, huge sports arenas. They’re billionaires who employ millionaire athletes. These are the people who charge $300 for a ticket to see a ball game.

And they’re begging for hand-outs from the government — which means of course, from taxpayers.

Let me read more:

During a conference call Thursday to discuss the Montreal-based company’s second-quarter results, Mirko Bibic said “more needs to be done by the CRTC, faster,” to ease the pressures on the industry.

“The ecosystem in Canada is under severe stress and requires urgent government assistance,” Mr. Bibic said, as BCE reported higher second-quarter revenue but a steep drop in profit owing to higher expenses.

So hang on. They’re making more money than ever. But they’re just spending too much, so taxpayers have to fix that. Otherwise these billionaires might have to take, not a pay cut, but rather a slightly smaller bonus.

It’s amazing to watch these predators — who are rich mainly because they have a protected cellphone and cable monopoly — claim to be the little guy.

“When massive U.S. companies with global scale and global footprints are having extreme difficulty contending with the difficult advertising markets, you have to ask how Canadian broadcasters are expected to navigate” them with such an unfair regulatory playing field, he added.

Got it. They have a monopoly. But they’re still treated unfairly.

Hey, how about poor Bell customers? Here’s an independent international review of cellphone prices, including for data. Look at the different charts. Canada is literally the worst country in the world. We pay the most for cellphones in the world and get the least.

Because BCE hoovers it up without competition. You can’t get American companies up here, because BCE lobbies to keep them out. But they need more money from the government, a.k.a., from you.

They really don’t care about anything other than money, of course. Look at this:

In June, BCE’s Bell Media filed an application asking the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to waive local news and Canadian programming requirements for its television stations.

Got it. So they want CTV and their other propaganda stations to not have to publish Canadian news. To run, you know, America’s Got Talent or the Barbie movie or whatever. But they still want a monopoly.

Oh — and they just laid off 1,300 people in their news division. But can they please have more taxpayer money anyways?

The company announced back in June that it was eliminating roughly 1,300 positions as part of a significant reorganization. It expects to see the financial benefits in the second half of the year.

Got it. But they’re still begging. So gross. So perfectly a fit for Trudeau, though. And look at the sucking up:

Mr. Bibic said he’s encouraged that the federal government is “trying to help out on the news side of things” with Bill C-18, the Online News Act, and that the industry is “pushing back against the very aggressive moves by Meta and Google.”

The tech giants have announced plans to block news content for Canadians in response to Bill C-18, which forces them to pay media organizations for that content. Meta has already begun rolling out the change.

That’s a lie. They’re not being forced to pay for content. They’re being forced to pay for even linking to that content. Like when you do a Google search, and it gives you a list of websites that fit your description, and shows the first sentence or two, and has a link — Google would have to pay the companies that show up in those links.

That’s not paying for content. That’s paying for linking. Which is how the entire internet works. It’s so stupid. Bell knows it’s stupid, the Globe and Mail knows it’s stupid, but they’re pretending that’s a thing, because they’re all in on it — Bell, the Globe, the Liberals, everyone.

They’re all in on it just like they were all in on the pandemic feast, making billions.

Say, I went through BCE’s annual report. The word “profit” appears seven times. Which seems a bit shy for a company that had a whopping 42.2% profit margin, before interest, taxes and depreciation. A 42% profit margin, because they have a near-monopoly, and they’re begging for more money. Seems shy to only mention profit seven times.

But the letters “ESG” were in there 64 times. What’s that?

our environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives, which include, without limitation, our objectives concerning diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), our targeted reductions in the level of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions including, without limitation, our plans to be carbon neutral for our operational GHG emissions starting in 2025…

So, they’re implementing the Liberal party platform within their company. They also mention the word “climate” 36 times and greenhouse gases, or GHGs, 49 times.

Bell isn’t really a company. They’re an oligarchy, protected by monopolies keeping out foreign competitors. They’re fat and rich and lazy and uncompetitive — the worst in the world for cellphone pricing.

But boy do they excel at woke politics.

I saw six mentions of Bill C-11 in their annual report, too — that’s Trudeau’s plan to censor the internet. Bell loves it. And I already mentioned C-18 — the plan to tax Facebook and Google. Five mentions. BCE loves it, too.

Bell Canada is as atrocious in real life as they are when you try to deal with their cellphone bill or cable bill. They’re the worst. And I’ll bet you $52 billion that Trudeau is going to give them more of your money.

GUEST: Gordon G. Chang (Follow @GordonGChang on X for more) on the recent arrest of two US Navy sailors on charges of allegedly spying for China.