I wouldn't take anything the Fraser Institute says very seriously.

Yup. It should be required that any mention of TFI is prefaced with the declaration that they are a right-wing advocacy organisation that will not disclose their funding.

Foreign owners won't be interested without regulatory change, so it's a whole horse/cart stalemate of not-gonna-happen.

Rules to follow.

Last edited by The Weed (August 13, 2025 1:04 pm)

I texted with a friend in Gander and they've instituted a ban on ATVs. The area is dry as tinder and waiting for one match or spark. Unfortunately, it's basically unenforceable he said. Not enough responsible people - of any age - left. But, you know, it "can't happen to me or mine".

Last edited by The Weed (August 13, 2025 1:13 pm)

Hansa wrote:

I wouldn't take anything the Fraser Institute says very seriously.

Agreed.  BTW, joining the USA would probably do wonders for our economy as well, but that's not on the table.

I wonder where the Fraser stands on Trump's 51st BS?   


I noticed years-ago that the Fraser seems to take a conclusion and then reverse-enginner their study to fit it.
I'm not the only one who noticed.    After a while, CFTO news began framing them as a Conservative think tank when they reported on their various findings.   I haven't seen them do it for anyone else, either leaning.
 

Last edited by SpinningWheel (August 14, 2025 10:09 am)

Is Kelsey Grammer a member of the "Fraser" Institute?

Chrisphen wrote:

mace wrote:

turkeytop wrote:

A right wing think tank
 

Agreed. Just like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is a left wing think tank.

Most stations will take pains to point that out. Not so much with outfits like CD Howe or Fraser Institute.
 

That, in itself, is a form of bias. Subtle, to be sure, but it's still bias.

Skimming that article, I'm inclined to believe that study is more oriented towards service providers than media companies. Then again, I guess in this country there isn't much of a difference. Comcast buys Rogers so the next Jurassic World movie is shot in British Columbia and we all get spam text/emails telling us about the next Ted series on Xfinity + Peacock?

When it comes to broadcasting, I think people do need to step back and realize that most of our protectionist laws have been thoroughly subverted by VOD platforms. From UGC services like Tiktok and YouTube, to big money SVOD like Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Netflix, large amounts of money in this country are going to foreign-owned and operated platforms. I don't think we're important enough to pull a "You must sell majority ownership of your Canadian operations to a local player or else!"  15-20 years into the existence of these platforms. 

There's also something to be said about how reliant our broadcasting system has been on being the middleman for U.S. productions and how those foreign-owned VOD platforms have undercut that business substantially. WBD and Comcast are the only major content providers in the U.S. who don't offer their flagship streaming services in Canada and there's nothing saying that can't change one day. What happens to Crave if WBD suddenly decides to launch HBO Max in Canada? What happens to Corus if Comcast does the same with Peacock? We've already seen the damage Disney+ and Paramount+ have done to these companies. Corus used to operate 5 different Disney channels in Canada. Come next month, they'll be down to 1.

There will be very obvious negative ramifications to selling these business to foreign players, but there are also very obvious negative ramifications to closing your eyes and pretending it's still 2005. Bell, CBC, Corus and Rogers aren't just competing with each other. They're competing with multi-national giga corps who can, will and are leaving them in the dust. I don't know what the solution is. Corus is in a particularly precarious position and I don't think it's a coincidence that Doug Murphy was asking for the CRTC to change its stance on foreign ownership before he  ̶q̶u̶i̶t̶  retired. Selling to Quebecor would only address some of their issues.

Questionable year to suggest this, though.