Canadian media monopoly shows its baneful face again

The Canadian media monopoly showed its baneful face again this week. This time the culprit was Bell. Over 200 Bell Media employees were laid off, including TSN favourites Dan O'Toole, Brent Wallace and Natasha Staniszewski.

Those four meant a lot to sports-loving Canadians who grew up on TSN, but it's the deeper cuts of the people you often don't hear about that really boil the blood.

The head writer of SportsCentre with Jay and Dan, Brendan Halloran, was also let go from Bell Media's TSN network. This was just days after the birth of his daughter.

This was also just days after Bell's Let's Talk Day, an awareness campaign created by the Canadian telecommunications company in an effort to raise awareness and combat stigma surrounding mental illness. They laid workers off and put them in a situation of extreme stress just days after preaching about their national mental health support system.

And it's not just the ignorance of that decision by itself, it's important to know the economic side of things. Bell turned around and let over 200 employees go after taking $122 million in pandemic-related labour subsidies and posting strong financial results (with boosted dividend payouts to shareholders.)

They took advantage of the system, pocketed taxpayer dollars and laid off workers who could now be now stuck jobless in a pandemic.

Hunter S. Thompson got it right when he described the TV industry: "a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."

Here's to those affected, let's hope they come out of this mess stronger.