Conservative Leader Pierre Poirierbre slammed the company on Tuesday after BCE-owned CTV News aired edited footage that changed the meaning of his comments.
Poiriervre stood up during debate on the motion of no confidence in the House of Commons and said CTV’s Sunday news report on the motion was “grossly dishonest” and “deceptive.”
He slammed Bell, citing a rating agency’s recent downgrade of the company’s credit rating to “near junk status.” He accused CEO Mirko Bivic of being “overcompensated,” saying he was “emptying the books to pay his wealthy friends,” and alleged the company was paying “unacceptably and unrealistically high dividends.”
Poirievre has been a frequent critic of the media, particularly the parliamentary press chamber. He has challenged the reporting of outlets such as CTV, CBC and the Canadian Press, accusing them of being biased towards the Liberal Party.
While speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poirierbre blasted Canada’s largest telecommunications company and CTV’s parent company, BCE, for its news division airing edited footage that changed the meaning of his comments.
But it is unusual for a veteran politician like Poirievre to use such strong language to criticize a large, publicly traded company like Bell, even though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this year criticized the company for making a “garbage” decision to fire journalists and media workers.
Poirievre suggested, without evidence, that the news team behind the doctored footage was somehow following Bibic’s orders.
“He and other cronies from his company are attacking me because he knows that I am standing up for the people against crony capitalists and insiders like him,” Poirierbre said.
Elections Canada records show that Bibic has donated to the Conservative party in the past, including to a local Liberal candidate in Ottawa in 2004.
Records show that in 2022, Bibic also provided funding to Jean Charest, Poirievre’s main rival in the last Conservative leadership election.
Poirievre’s latest attack came after CTV News reconstructed some of his comments during a scuffle with reporters. The Conservatives argue that CTV pieced together his words to give the impression that Poirievre was trying to file a motion of no confidence that would lead to an early election because he wanted to scrap the Liberal government’s fledgling dental program.
“That’s why the time has come to table an election motion for a carbon tax,” Poirierbre said during a press briefing.
“That’s why we need to table a motion,” Poirierbre said on CTV broadcast, moments after a reporter for the network read a transcript saying there were “doubts” about the “future” of dentistry as the no-confidence motion loomed.
“The Opposition Leader’s comments were taken out of context,” a CTV spokesman said in a statement.
“A misunderstanding in the editorial process led to this misrepresentation,” the spokesperson said. “We offer our sincere apologies to Mr. Poirierbre and the Conservative Party of Canada.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Politicians who deliberately undermine the legitimacy and hard work of professional journalists do not support democracy.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poiriervre stepped up his attacks on Bell in a speech to the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Bell did not immediately respond to a request for response to Poirierbre’s latest comments about the CEO and the company’s motivations.
Poirievre’s spokesman, Sébastien Scamski, rejected CTV’s “so-called apology.”
“This was not just a misunderstanding,” he said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“Conservative MPs will not engage with CTV News or its reporters until they clearly acknowledge their malicious editing and omission of context in an attempt to disparage Pierre Poirievre.”
Skamski posted a photo on social media of a memo sent to the Conservative caucus instructing MPs and senators to “refrain from engaging with CTV News, including participating in interviews, providing statements or providing comment of any kind.”
Poirievre has not given a clear answer as to what he would do about dentistry if he becomes the next prime minister, and has never cited it as a reason to topple the government.
Poirievre said he wants a “carbon tax election” to ask whether to continue the Liberal government’s climate change policy of taxing fuels such as oil and gas and giving most of the revenue back to households.
Poirierbre has questioned the value of the steadily increasing tax, which he argues punishes consumers for their reliance on fossil fuels, and has repeatedly promised to repeal it if elected.
Poirierbre had been a strong critic of Bell even before the incident, taking to social media last week to point out the company’s near-junk credit rating.
He criticized long wait times at the company’s call centres and said the company wanted the Liberal government to give it favourable regulatory treatment.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Trudeau said it was journalists’ job to “challenge people who are in positions of authority or who seek to be in positions of authority.”
“It is imperative that media freedom and independence be protected at all times,” he added. “Politicians who deliberately undermine the legitimacy and hard work of professional journalists are not in support of democracy, much less freedom.”
As one of Canada’s largest companies, Bell is grappling with some big challenges.
The company has burned through funds to upgrade its network and infrastructure and is saddled with debt.
The company’s shares have fallen in recent months as investors worry about the company’s ability to repay its nearly $40 billion in debt and pay generous dividends to shareholders in an era of high interest rates.
Moody’s, a major ratings agency, expressed concern about the telecom company’s high debt load and downgraded its credit rating to the last level of junk bonds in August.
The company’s shares are widely held by individual investors and pension funds, in part because the company pays out almost all of its profits to shareholders through dividends.
The stock offers a dividend yield of nearly 9%, much higher than the yields investors get from most bonds or other products such as bank GICs.
One of the reasons the company’s stock price is falling is that doubts are being raised about the company’s ability to continue paying such a high dividend.
Bell has sold assets to raise cash to satisfy ratings agencies and dividend-oriented investors, and last week began the process of selling Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment.
The company also laid off about 4,800 employees earlier this year to contain costs.
