In response to BCE’s investment cutbacks and layoffs designed to help the corporation remain profitable and continue to pay dividends to shareholders and pensioners in a competitive market environment, two of Canada’s political leaders hacked their way through demagogic rants against corporations, BCE in particular, and the foundations of the nation’s economic system.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Terence Corcoran: Who most deserves the award for economic ignoramus — Trudeau or Eby? Back to video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

It’s a toss-up as to which of the two — Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or British Columbia’s NDP Premier David Eby — deserves top billing as the economic and political ignoramus of the month.

After BCE reiterated its decision to cut capital spending by $1 billion (half directly related to CRTC regulation that would force Bell to resell access to its network at cheap prices to competitors) — and announced its plan to eliminate 4,800 jobs, including cuts in Bell Media television and radio operations — the doyens of Canadian economic and business ignorance entered the arena, starting with Trudeau, who was asked at a news conference to react to the BCE announcement.

“I’m furious,” he said. “This was a garbage decision by a corporation that should know better. We’ve seen over the past years, journalism outlets — radio stations, small community newspapers — bought up by corporate entities who then lay off journalists, change the quality of offerings to people, and then when people don’t watch as much or engage as much, the corporate entity says, ‘oh see, they’re not profitable anymore. We’re gonna sell them off.’ ”

Trudeau’s rant continued: “Over the past years, corporate Canada — and there are many culprits in this — have abdicated their responsibility toward the communities that they have always made very good profits off of in various ways … We will be demanding better from corporate leaders, like in this case Bell … So, yeah, I’m pretty pissed off.”

Spoken like a true pandering ideological hack, and joined by another, B.C. Premier Eby, whose demagogic performance reached even lower.

“Corporations like Bell have overseen the assembly of local media assets that are treasures to local communities. They’ve bought them up, like corporate vampires, they sucked the life out of them, laying off journalists. They have overseen the encrapification of local news by laying off journalists and now they say, ‘you know, it’s no longer economically viable to run these local ratio stations, it’s no longer economically viable to have investigative news.’ … The impact on local communities in British Columbia of their unrestrained corporate greed — (Bell) made almost $3 billion last year — is profound. The fact that they cannot find it possible, with all of their MBAs, to operate a few local news stations … is such an abandonment of any idea of corporate responsibility. I find it reprehensible … appalling. And Bell and other companies like Bell … need to be held accountable.”

I leave it to readers to select the winner of the Demagogue of Economic Ignorance Award. Here are some guidelines.

First, the utterly absurd and false allegation that Bell bought up local news and broadcasting enterprises, milked them dry to the point that they lost customers, and is now selling, closing and reducing the operations after greedily reaping huge profits.

Here are some facts: Mirko Bibic, current CEO of BCE, said in his open letter last week that Bell Media’s advertising revenues declined by $140 million in 2023 compared to 2022. “Across Bell Media’s news operations, we continue to incur over $40 million in annual operating losses despite having the most-watched network of local TV stations.” In short, BCE’s telecom operations have been subsidizing broadcasting for years — a business model Trudeau and Eby seem to think should be imposed on Bell as part of its corporate social responsibilities incur losses forever.

As for sucking the life out of media operations, Bell appears to have lost perhaps a couple of a billion dollars in its misguided expansion into news and broadcast media. Back in 2010, BCE announced the purchase of CTV in a $3.2-billion debt and equity package. In 2013, it paid an announced figure of $3.3 billion for Quebec media giant Astral. Other dealmaking followed, making it difficult to precisely assess total BCE media losses, but they would be substantial.

The cause of these losses is economic forces that Trudeau, Eby and other anti-corporate and anti-market crusaders claim do not exist in much of Canada: competition. Increased competition — not less — changed the business environment for media operations.

When Trudeau and Eby talk about greedy profiteering off of media assets, they are disseminating what Princeton professor Harry G. Frankfurt examined in his 2005 book titled On Bullshit — speech intended to persuade without regard for truth. Liars attempt to hide truth, said Frankfurt, while bullshitters don’t care if what they say is true or false.

Here’s an idea: Why don’t we call it the Harry G. Frankfurt Award for Demagogic Bullshit.

Our two competitors are masters. Trudeau could be the winner, since his rant diverted attention from his government’s role in setting up bureaucratically-concocted competition regulations that would force BCE to turn over parts of its high-speed telecom networks at below-market prices to other companies that have no networks.

When BCE appears Wednesday before the CRTC review of the wholesale access framework, it will likely repeat CEO Bibic’s assertion that the regulatory framework undermines BCE’s beneficial investment plans. Whether BCE will be willing to go so far as to name Trudeau as a recipient of the Harry G. Frankfurt Award remains to be seen. But it’s an idea.

• Email: tcorcoran@postmedia.com

Financial Post

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the business news you need to know — add financialpost.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters financialpost.com.