Canada’s largest newspaper chain, Postmedia, is owned by an American hedge fund headed up by a wealthy donor to Donald Trump.

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    1 hour ago

    For the sake of our democracy, American hedge funds should be banned from owning Canadian things. --FTFY

  • badbytes@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Did Canada sell them? Maybe the problem is that they are private. But even if private, can’t guarantee it will be pro-democratic.

  • HonoredMule@lemmy.ca
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    7 hours ago

    It doesn’t even need to be specifically targeting the U.S. Canada should require all media operating in Canada with a physical presence to have Canadian majority ownership/controlling interest. That is (I believe) enforceable as well as non-discriminatory and fully justifiable as a matter of national security.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    7 hours ago

    American companies shouldn’t be allowed to own or operate anything in Canada, period

    Hedge funds shouldn’t be allowed to own any company, period

  • LithiumX@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Never. Trust. An. American. They are worse than a fucking maggot, with respect to maggots

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      This, so much this. I literally just went by the bay and it’d just fucking sad. It’s a squeezed out husk

      • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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        4 hours ago

        I figured things were at the end when Nespresso pulled out their boutique from the flagship downtown Montreal location last year, or two years ago.

        The homeless tents lined up on the West and East sides of the building didn’t help, or the defective escalators.

        They say the retail landscape changed too much and passed them by, but downtown there’s Simon’s that has IMO pretty much the same large store with clothes, sheets, bath supplies. No appliances or perfumes though, maybe The Bay was just too big.

  • phx@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    How about banning them from majority share in any major Canadian business. I’m tired of the buy, drain, dismantle cycle perpetuated but these vultures

  • eureka@aussie.zone
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    19 hours ago

    I highly recommend reading Manufacturing Consent[wiki]. It’s easy to find free online. It explains how mass media is systematically filtered by five major factors, the first being ownership, which is more and more relevant every year as media outlets consolidate under the ownership of billionaires like Murdoch, Bezos, Musk and Bloomberg, who have very different material class interests to the other 99.99999[…]% of the population.

  • BeNotAfraid@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    A friendly reminder to everyone. Lemmy is absolutely not representative of the broader mass media dialogue happening around us. We have to be paying attention to how all people, close with us in our day to day lives interact with it instead. My boss is a retired mechanic who thought Trump was gonna run the US “like a business.” I have been speaking very openly about my views on the American News Media bias in Canada. How new and legacy media are both monopolies controlled by the same small group of men. How the Heritage Foundation funded the Trump Campaign. How every far-right group appearing after Covid had the same names and message. America First, Canada First, Britain First, Ireland First, Francais Premier and all, coincidentally, funded by right-wing, American, Christian groups. Something clicked with him today, while he was on his phone and I watched as it all suddenly made sense to him.

    Then I watched as he actually became worried. People know that it’s Big Tech and we have to have these conversations, because that’s how you get people to put their phones down and re-evaluate the idea of trusting 5 companies with all of their personal information and doing all computing in a web browser. That’s how you wake them up to the fact that LLM’s and embedded AI assistants are only their to spy on you and silence dissent.

    Hey Co-pilot, have any of our user’s expressed dissatisfaction with the regime? Here’s a curated list.

    We are so close to class consciousness do not let this echo-chamber be a safe space. Get Offline, get loud, get honest. Fuck Google

    • Isaac@waterloolemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      This is important information for people to read and unddrrstand. As a denizen of multiple communities for over 25 years I think the seeds of ideas start with these forums. They are almost like a canary in the coal mine to give us an idea what will bubble up to the surface to grandma.

      We’re not the majority on Lemmy, many instances are curated to keep out the filth. But content is recycled and moves throughout the net. I’m reminded of this old meme, eventually content makes it to facebook where my mom and elders consume content.

  • merc
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    1 day ago

    The issue really isn’t foreign ownership, it’s for-profit ownership or bias in the interests of wealthy owners. Do you think investigative reports into the Rogers family would happen on City TV or CTV, both properties owned by Rogers Communications? That’s why we need to protect CBC. It’s not free from bias, but it’s much less biased than most mainstream media sources.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      I think CTV owned by Bell? Not sure why Bell would want to cover up something their competition is doing wrong.

      Also the CBC exists. It’s owned by the government so you can get your news from there if you’re worried about wealthy owners hiding stuff. CBC Marketplace is all about investigating companies doing shenanigans.

      • merc
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        22 hours ago

        Yeah, you’re right. I got confused about which member of the oligopoly controlled CTV.

        As for CBC, I think that was the main point I was making.

  • CircaV@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Absolutely. I hope Carney has the cojones to make this happen. Can’t have a foreign country threatening to annex us, masquerading as Canadian media.

    • BeNotAfraid@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      Carney is a former central banker, he will not do anything to upset the flow of money. Realistically, every single career politician in the world is complicit in this. Why can we build no more, houses? Why is everything so expensive? Why is the American party of “progressiveness” running Kamala Harris whose brother is CEO at Uber? It’s an illusion, they are all compromised, they are all bought, that’s just the nature of Capitalism. We have bring back the death penalty, but only for corporate person-hood. If you commit global terroristic acts like Meta, Muskrat and Amazon, we should be able to kill these things. We have to stop putting the 1%'s property rights over the lives of the 99%. It’s our planet, why do we need elected individuals whose sole purpose is to make decisions detrimental to everyone but themselves. We need to make Fight Club a documentary.

    • Sixty
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      1 day ago

      Now’s also the time to admonish your friends and family for consuming enemy state media about their own country. Uncomfortable family talks.

      I’ve already had one with my dad. He would’ve supported P.P and was asking my opinion.

      Retired boomer with no imagination so he took up a part time job as a driver in a plumbing shop. His conservative coworkers poison his aging grey matter, and I have to deprogram him now and then. Thankfully my dad’s not a reactive dick and will read sources I provide him that he’s not read and change his mind. Begrudgingly. That old boy conservative mindset is ingrained in him deep. He always has a look on his face like he’s betraying his community voting against cons. I don’t get it, but he’s not as bad as he could be.

      My point is, people have to fucking try with family if there’s a chance they can be reasoned with. Don’t be cowards/doormats.

      • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Those uncomfortable conversations are essential, and I appreciate that you’re putting in the work. It’s not about “deprogramming” so much as encouraging critical evaluation of news sources.

        Media literacy is becoming increasingly vital as we approach the election. The challenge is that many people don’t realize how their media consumption shapes their political views—they just see it as “the news.”

        What’s worked for me is asking questions rather than making statements. “Where did you hear that?” followed by “Have you verified that information with a Canadian source?” opens the door without creating immediate defensiveness.

        Your dad’s willingness to engage with alternative sources shows he values truth over tribal politics, even if reluctantly. That’s actually quite rare these days and worth appreciating.

        The “betraying the community” feeling is something I’ve noticed with older conservatives too. There’s this sense that changing one’s mind is somehow disloyal, when really it’s just part of being an informed citizen. Democracy depends on people who can evolve their thinking based on new information.

        • Sixty
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          1 day ago

          Your dad’s willingness to engage with alternative sources shows he values truth over tribal politics, even if reluctantly. That’s actually quite rare these days and worth appreciating.

          For sure I appreciate this more than it seems. I focused on the negatives to try and empathize with anyone reading with more difficult relationships. I can’t be fully myself around mine due to their religion that I rejected long ago for example.

  • anomnom
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    1 day ago

    Don’t let them buy your houses either. In fact don’t let them own anything. Hedgefunds ate parasites that feed the wealthy.

  • HellsBelle
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    1 day ago

    All private equity and/or hedge funds should be banned completely from owning anything.

    They don’t do anything positive for the majority of residents in Canada, preferring to bend the knee to the super rich billionaires.

    Fuck them.

  • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    How about banned from owning any Canadian business? Yes, that includes the hedge fund that owns your org’s parent company too

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      They’re vultures and parasites. They get a friendly CEO into a company who then sells off useful assets and changes to renting/leasing.

      Does your org own property/offices. Sell those of to another company under the hedge to show high numbers for the first numbers. Then the company needs to rent - often from those same funds and possibly that exact same property they’re still in - which then makes the business less and less profitable as supply chain is also replaced with whatever profits the hedge most.

      Finally, declare bankruptcy, fire-sale any remaining assets (probably to hedge-fund buddies), close up shop and let all the workers go

    • 7rokhym@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      They did a smash up job with Hudson’s Bay. Financial terrorists is what they are.