bell-01

Big Media is getting bigger while rabble’s doing more than ever with fewer resources. For our 15th anniversary we need 150 new supporters to cover our growing editorial costs — and we’re giving away free copies of the anniversary edition of the best of rabble, Michael Moore’s latest film Where to Invade Next? Find out how you can help build a new era in independent media and get these great rewards!

Bell Canada wants to buy Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) for $4 billion.

It’s a massive bid that comes at a time when our media landscape is exceedingly concentrated with Bell already dominating the national media market with revenues twice that of Rogers.

We need your help getting the word out to as many people as possible about Canada’s overly concentrated media landscape and why it is crucial that more Canadians support rabble.ca.

The history behind this proposed deal is ironic and far more people should be talking about it. rabble readers like you who support alternative media deserve to know. 

MTS was created way back in 1908 by the Progressive Conservative government of the day through expropriation of all of Bell Canada’s provincial operations. The resulting crown corporation, Manitoba Government Telephones, was North America’s first public telephone utility. It survived until its highly controversial privatization in 1996.

And now, it seems, Bell has returned to collect.

Corporate media concentration poses a serious threat to our democracy. Canadians’ access to information, local news, and independent views are all threatened by deals like this. And with the Trudeau government sitting on its hands, and preserving so many of the previous government’s laissez-faire economic policies, we have to take action.

We can only get ourselves out of our hyper-concentrated media landscape by expanding independent media alternatives in Canada.

For 15 years, rabble has done so much with so little to act as our national platform for social justice, environmental and labour movements in Canada — from our earliest days at the 2001 Quebec City protests to the Maple Spring, to Idle No More, Black Lives Matters, to the Leap Manifesto and beyond. Now it’s time to do more.

For our 15th anniversary fundraiser we need to find just 150 new supporters to donate $15/month. This support is vital to keeping our lights on, paying our writers, and hosting the over one million pages of content that hundreds of thousands of visitors access completely free of charge.

There are a lot of ways to help us make this fundraiser a success and oppose corporate media concentration, but here are just two.

The first, and easiest action you can take is also the most expensive. If you can, please consider making a special contribution to rabble for our fundraiser if you haven’t already. You can donate whatever you can afford right now or increase your existing monthly contribution to $15 or more.

The second, and equally important way to help rabble, is by spreading the word. Forward this email to your friends, co-workers and networks. Help us get our message out there that supporting rabble right now is a necessary action given Bell’s bid to tighten its stranglehold over Canada’s media market.

Let everyone know that now is the time to support rabble because our supporters are rewarded with special gifts like the anniversary edition of the best of rabble, a copy of Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next, or Lawrence Hill’s The Illegal.

Do you have less politically aware friends, or is this message a bit too harsh? We have a friendly tell-a-friend form you can fill out right here.

Your support for rabble, no matter how big or small your contributions over the years, is the one and only reason we’ve made it this far. We can do a lot of things with our brave, fierce, and gutsy ideas, but not without cash.

All of the thanks lies with you for getting us this far. But the next chapter for rabble, for independent media, and for Canada’s selfish media moguls is in your hands. We seriously need to expand rabble in the immediate term to survive in the long term. Take a few minutes and visit our donate page, then tell someone about it.