Pierre Karl Peladeau scrum, Sept. 11 in Montreal at CRTC hearings into BCE/Astral deal.
Why is bigger bad?
Never happened in Canada it is a combination of Anglo and Franco. It’s something we’ve never seen. Something that is also unique is the combination of telecommunioncstiona and broadcasting. When you look at the footprint not only in terms of market but services not existing anywhere other than Canada if this deal is approved.
When you say it’s a point of no return, what do you mean?
I think the president Blais used right expression – here is where we are in front of an omelette not able to any more separate them. Create a marketplace driven by monopoly mindset bad for consumers and all Canadian citizen
How is it bad for Quebecor?
Look at this as a combination – it’s unique. No Canadian broadcaster that is involved or small in Quebec we do not have any significant presence in English market. First time ever in the Canada you will see a dominant position for the Anglophone market and the francophone market across Canada in speciality channels and conventional channel in telecom and broadcasting. This is unique and it is unique to every other western country because there`s no such a situation elsewhere.
We participate because we are part of industry. Will it affect us É no doubt about this. We talked about their capacity to use their dominant position in terms of ad market. Tva largest broadcaster which is a conventional business which his only feed or able to get revenue through advertising will have in front of it an array of speciality channel have capacity for royalties and advertising. Weaken our capacity to finance our programming because we’ll have in front of us a monster that will kill the business literally.
Were you in on bidding/ Would you bid if come back?
Not the issue. An issue of looking at what take place in Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications. Question of being a responsible citizen, a corporate citizen. There’s no issue regarding acquisition. To be more specific didn’t have any interest in buying astral.
Is this a war of empires?
We’ve been bringing competition all over the place in telecom and broadcasting. We launch new services we launch new telecom services we launch wireless service in Quebec few others launching wireless other than .. I think we are alone competing bell rogers an TELUS as incumbent other new entrants in Canada good for Canadians seeing more competition seeing invoices coming down for smartphones. Very important not just for citizens but also business because when you compete globally you need to have tools that will make you successfully competing globally we are not afraid of it we are always welcoming competition.