No vendetta against CBC: Peladeau

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This article was published 21/10/2011 (5445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Quebecor president Pierre-Karl Peladeau insists his company is not engaged in a vendetta against its CBC competitor, but is instead upholding a public duty to probe the affairs of a government-funded Crown corporation.

The media mogul appeared Thursday at a parliamentary committee hearing into why the CBC is fighting access-to-information laws in the courts.

The corporation says it has been swamped with hundreds of information requests, mainly from Quebecor’s many media outlets, and suspects an orchestrated campaign to damage it.

But Peladeau denies the quest for information is anything more than independent journalists doing their work.

“Despite what some may think — in other words, that we are waging a war against CBC-Radio Canada — we believe that these requests are not only legal but also legitimate and in the public interest and in keeping with the act,” Peladeau told the access-to-information committee.

Still, he went on to threaten legal action against the CBC for putting out a statement earlier this week about Peladeau’s own lack of accountability in receiving public funding.

He also lashed out at the corporation for pulling all its advertising from Quebecor media and admitted under questioning he had written the prime minister to complain.

And he chronicled how CBC had withdrawn advertising from his Journal de Montreal during a labour dispute.

CBC had wanted to run ads in the sister paper in Quebec City instead, but Quebecor refused.

The two companies compete head-to-head in Quebec for television viewers.

Quebecor’s Sun Media division frequently publishes criticism of the CBC and has urged an end to its public funding.

— The Canadian Press