OTTAWA – The ‘Say No To Bell’ coalition is taking issue with interventions filed by Telefilm Canada and the Terrace, BC detachment of the RCMP in support Bell’s proposed takeover of Astral Media.
In a letter addressed to Heritage Minister James Moore, the heads of Cogeco, Eastlink and Quebecor expressed surprise that the publically funded federal agencies would submit interventions that “go beyond their respective competence and mandate”.
“In our view, these federal public bodies should have known better than to take sides on this public policy debate before the federal regulators in charge of reviewing the proposed merger”, reads the letter signed by Cogeco’s Louis Audet, Eastlink’s Lee Bragg and Quebecor’s Pierre Karl Peladeau. “And for its part, Bell Canada should have known better than to have lobbied these federal public bodies to take sides in an independent adjudicative regulatory process, and to have placed them in this awkward position.”
The letter also asked that the matter be raised with the two organizations “with a view to having them withdraw these inappropriate interventions”, and requested that the Commissioner of Lobbying investigate “whether the lobbying which must have preceded the intervention of Telefilm Canada and the RCMP before the CRTC has been pursued in accordance with the federal government's standards of ethics, accountability, transparency and lobbying reporting requirements”.
