OTTAWA – While he didn’t come right out and say that federal cabinet will definitely stay out of the CRTC’s denial of Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media, Industry Minister Christian Paradis left little doubt that he believes this is a matter is best left up to the Commission and processes already in place.
During a scrum with reporters Tuesday afternoon after his speech to the International Institute of Communications Canadian conference, Paradis was asked whether or not cabinet will jump in and issue a policy directive to the Commission, as requested by Bell, whose leadership is very angry about the decision.
While saying he wouldn’t speak for cabinet’s intentions, he added: “The CRTC is a quasi-judicial tribunal, so they make their own decisions and at this point, there is an appeal possible according to the law but we don’t have any intention to intervene,” he said. “The CRTC has their own jurisdiction and they tabled a decision, we acknowledged the decision… there’s no point for the government to intervene.”
“We acknowledge the decision and at this point there is no way for us to intervene, This is not our jurisdiction.”
UPDATE: The Minister's office gave us a call today (Thursday) to clarify that Minister Paradis, a Francophone who still struggles with choosing the correct English phrases once in a while, wanted to make it clear that the law says there is no way for cabinet to intervene in this matter like it can with telecom matters or licensing decisions (the only avenue of appeal for Bell is to the Federal Court), that he had no opinion on the policy directive Bell has requested, and that was the only message he was trying to convey.
– Greg O’Brien
