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Canada’s telecom regulator has approved Rogers’s takeover of Shaw’s broadcasting services with some conditions attached, clearing the first of three regulatory hurdles facing the $26-billion takeover.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said in its decision on Thursday that the deal, with the conditions it has proposed, is in the public interest because it would advance the objectives of the Broadcasting Act. Those goals include encouraging the development of programming that reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions and values.
Under the conditions set out by the regulator, Rogers would be required to pay $27.2-million to the Canada Media Fund, which finances the creation of Canadian content, the Independent Local News Fund, which supports independent television stations in producing local news, and specific independent production funds, such as the Rogers Documentary Fund and the Shaw Rocket Fund.
The CRTC said in its decision the deal, with the conditions it has proposed, is in the public interest because it would advance the objectives of the Broadcasting Act.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
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About 15,000 civilians illegally deported from Mariupol to Russia, Ukrainian authorities say
Ukrainian authorities in the besieged Mariupol said on Thursday about 15,000 civilians had been illegally deported to Russia since Russian troops seized parts of the southern port city.
Ukrainian officials say civilians trapped in Mariupol, once home to about 400,000 people, face a desperate plight without access to food, water, power or heat. Local authorities said on Sunday that thousands of residents had been taken by force across the border, but did not provide a more precise figure.
In Canada, meanwhile, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser faced questions from the opposition at a committee hearing over the government’s streamlined immigration program for Ukrainians fleeing the war. Opposition parties say the new program creates a two-tiered, racialized system that prioritizes Ukrainians over refugees from other conflict zones, including Afghanistan.
More coverage of the war in Ukraine:
- Canada to boost energy exports to U.S. to aid in supply crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine
- NATO pledges to boost Ukraine military aid
- John Ibbitson: Russia is facing a demographics disaster and Putin’s foolish invasion of Ukraine will only make it worse
- Opinion: Putin’s war in Ukraine and a looming energy shock will change the future
- Follow our live updates
WHO rejects Medicago COVID-19 vaccine over Canadian company’s ties to tobacco industry
The World Health Organization has rejected Medicago’s COVID-19 vaccine because of the company’s ties to the tobacco industry, the Globe and Mail has learned, a major blow that will substantially limit the vaccine’s reach worldwide.
The unfavourable decision, which was expected, raises new questions about the federal government’s 2020 decision to invest $173-million in Medicago, given that Philip Morris Investments, a subsidiary of tobacco giant Philip Morris, has a one-third ownership stake in the Quebec City-based company.
On Thursday, a WHO spokesperson told The Globe and Mail in an e-mail that Medicago’s request for an emergency-use listing – aimed at expediting the availability of vaccines around the world during public-health emergencies – has been denied “because of the linkage with the tobacco industry and WHO’s strict policy on not engaging with companies that promote tobacco.”
Catholic Canadians face ‘moment of crisis’ as Indigenous delegation heads to Vatican to call for residential-school apology
When friends ask Rose-Alma McDonald, “How can you still go to that church?” – and they ask often – the 68-year-old Mohawk from Akwesasne knows exactly what they’re getting at.
For much of last year, the doors of her church were surrounded by hundreds of baby shoes, visual reminders of the suspected unmarked graves located around the site of a former Catholic Church-run residential school in Kamloops, B.C., last June.
Like many of Canada’s 11 million Catholics, McDonald, a lay minister, will be watching the developments from an Indigenous delegation’s visit to the Vatican later this month with nervous anticipation. While she hopes the trip, along with a widely anticipated papal apology on Canadian soil, can begin to reverse the church’s troubled relationship with Indigenous people, she knows junkets and regret alone won’t cut it.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Aide to former Unifor boss Jerry Dias was whistleblower: A long-time assistant to former Unifor president Jerry Dias – Chris MacDonald – was the whistleblower who lodged a complaint against his boss to the union about an alleged $50,000 payment that Dias accepted from a supplier of COVID-19 rapid-test kits.
National-security threat in relation to convoy blockades identified in early February, OPP says: Ontario’s intelligence bureau identified a national-security threat connected to the blockades against COVID-19 restrictions a week before the government invoked the Emergencies Act, the Ontario Provincial Police’s commissioner told MPs at a committee hearing on Thursday.
Bridging Finance receiver faces opposition to wind-up plan from unknown investor group: An anonymous group claiming to be investors in Bridging Finance has threatened to derail a proposal by the troubled lender’s court-appointed receiver to wind up its operations. “Certain Bridging Unitholders,” as the group refers to itself in legal filings, will ask a judge on Friday to reject a recommendation made by receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Listen to The Decibel: Hate crimes in Canada are up. What’s being done to stop them?: For the first year of the pandemic, the number of incidents reported to police increased by 37 per cent from the previous year, according to recent Statistics Canada data. But in Canada, charging someone for a hate crime rarely happens.
MORNING MARKETS
World stocks are headed for a second consecutive week of gains for the first time in 2022 though sentiment was broadly cautious as markets evaluated the economic risks from the Federal Reserve’s policy tightening and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Overnight the three main U.S. stock indexes each rallied more than 1%, as investors snapped up beaten-down shares of chipmakers and big growth names. The Canadian dollar was trading at 79.75 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
To save Ukraine, the West must preserve the Zelensky government
“If a Russian victory can still be prevented, the West will need to step up its assistance to the Ukrainian military to force Mr. Putin into a bloody stalemate, followed by a negotiated settlement that leaves at least part of Ukraine intact and in the Zelensky government’s hands.” - Michael Ignatieff
Jagmeet Singh puts on a rare display of integrity in politics
“As an opposition leader, he’s not viscerally antagonistic to everything a government does. Not scoring political points doesn’t seem to bother him as much as it does others in the cynical enterprise. He appears to realize his party does not have a reasonable chance at forming government and that his primary role, therefore, is moving those in power as close as he can to his NDP priorities.” - Lawrence Martin
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
The Alternative Oscars: The best movies that were snubbed by the 2022 Academy Awards, and where to watch them now
While Dune, West Side Story, Drive My Car and the other Best Picture nominees deserve to be in the spotlight, there are a Dolby Theatre’s worth of eligible movies, including The French Dispatch and Pig, that didn’t get any love from the Academy at all. Enter The Globe’s inaugural Alterna-Oscars: a quick guide to the should’ve-been-contenders.
MOMENT IN TIME: March 25, 1942
Aretha Franklin is born
American R & B singer Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) sang a short set outside the Holt Renfrew store on Bloor Street as part of its Christmas season launch, Nov. 6, 2007.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
She was known as the Queen of Soul. But when she was born this day in 1942, the name given to her by her parents was Aretha Louise Franklin. She was delivered at her family’s home in Memphis, Tenn., daughter to a circuit preacher father and a piano-playing, gospel-singing mother. By the time she was 5, her family had relocated to Detroit. She grew up fast, having two children before she was old enough to drive and signing a record deal with Columbia at age 18. In 1966, producer Jerry Wexler brought her to Atlantic Records, where Ms. Franklin’s career took off as a soulful pop singer who brought a gospel fervour to her secular material. Hit songs such as Do Right Woman – Do Right Man portrayed women as vulnerable yet indomitable, and if men didn’t get the message, the singer was not above spelling it out for them. The greatest female singer of her generation died in 2018, at age 76. The story of her life was told in a 2021 feature film. It was called Respect. Brad Wheeler
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