CUPE Québec will file a complaint with Canada’s broadcast regulator over TV network TQS’s plans to eliminate its news programming.
“The diversity of voices is being wiped out before our very eyes,” said Jean Chabot, the president of CUPE’s communications sector council in Québec.
Québec City will be particularly hard hit, Chabot said. “It will be increasingly difficult for people there to find out what’s going on in their city. That’s worrying for quality of information and public debate in a democratic society.”
TQS’s broadcast license requires the network to provide 14.5 hours of local news in Montréal and 9.5 hours in Québec City.
“If TQS wants to change its license requirements, the time to do it is when their license is up for renewal in Fall 2009,” Chabot says.
The union also expects to fight over what TQS’s new owner, Remstar, owes its members at TQS.
- Full story: Disparition de l’information à TQS Le SCFP déposera une plainte au CRTC (French only)