Every January, near the end of the month, there鈥檚 one day earmarked for spreading awareness of mental health issues and sharing feelings of empathy and understanding for those who struggle with it every day.
It鈥檚 called 鈥楲et鈥檚 Talk Day鈥� and it鈥檚 the brainchild of Bell Media, the Canadian communications giant that owns such engrained cultural entities such as CTV and TSN.聽 The gist is pretty simple: for every mention of the hashtag known as #BellLetsTalk on social media, Bell commits five cents to funding mental health initiatives across the country.
On paper, it鈥檚 actually a pretty amazing cause.聽 This year鈥檚 Let鈥檚 Talk Day, held on January 28, saw a whopping total of 159,173,435 social media mentions, equating to just under $8 million in new funding, according to a Bell media release.聽 The hashtag was also the top trending topic on Twitter, a routine occurrence for this consistently successful event.
That鈥檚 certainly no small feat and you have to give credit where credit is due here.聽 Starting from zero dollars and driving it up to just under $8 million over the course of one day is nothing short of incredible.
And then the walls came crumbling down.
Just over a week removed from their annual day centered on mental health, Bell Media took the proverbial axe and started hacking and slashing away at jobs. 聽TSN radio stations were shuttered; over 200 Toronto employees were laid off, including half from newsrooms; and even Dan O鈥橳oole of the widely known 鈥楯ay & Dan鈥� duo from TSN鈥檚 SportsCentre got his pink slip.
I鈥檓 only providing a small glimpse of what happened in this massacre of Canadian media.聽 For all I know, someone who works under the Bell umbrella is being terminated as I type this.
That last firing was quite the headscratcher as Dan O鈥橳oole, who visited Outlook with co-host Jay Onrait to broadcast a live edition of SportsCentre from inside the regional park back in the summer of 2010, was a vocal supporter of Bell鈥檚 mental health initiatives, particularly as someone who has admitted to issues with his own mental health in the past.
Furthermore, it had fans asking, 鈥榃hy only Dan and not Jay?聽 Why was he singled out?鈥�
For his part, O鈥橳oole took to Twitter days after his termination to poke holes, perhaps justifiably, at Bell鈥檚 Let鈥檚 Talk measure, indirectly questioning why the billion-dollar company waits for only a specific date to donate money to mental health initiatives, as opposed to doing so year-round.聽 A snippet of Dan鈥檚 Twitter:
鈥淟et鈥檚 talk. We should. Let鈥檚 talk. Does it mean anything without a hashtag? Oh right. Wrong day. So I have to mention the company for it to mean anything? But what if I was fired by the company that makes the hashtag about mental health? Do I still include them in the hashtag?鈥�
Hey, can you blame Dan for his take?聽 I don鈥檛.聽 I really have to question the absolute need to lay this many people off and axe this many jobs just days after exclaiming how much one cares about the mental health of everyone.聽 It鈥檚 important to note that Bell Media received federal wage subsidies to the tune of over $120 million and raised shareholders鈥� dividends.聽 It also produced a gargantuan $22.9 billion in revenues for 2020.
It looks like others aren鈥檛 taking the news lightly either, as a petition making the rounds says that the Bell Let鈥檚 Talk initiative needs to end because all it represents is marketing and good PR for the company while amassing and donating millions for tax reductions.
Listen, no one鈥檚 saying that Bell Media shouldn鈥檛 operate the way that any other massive corporation operates.聽 In any company, there ARE going to be layoffs and people ARE going to lose jobs because that鈥檚 the way the corporate cookie crumbles.聽 But it鈥檚 the sheer timing of all of this that is leaving a horrifically sour taste in many mouths.
It goes further for me, though.聽 Every time Let鈥檚 Talk Day rolls around, I just can鈥檛 shake this feeling that most people just want to hop on the social media bandwagon for 24 hours and only make it appear that mental health is important to them.聽 Why just the ONE day a year, huh?聽 To make Bell look awesome, while they fire hundreds of their own people?
I say 鈥楲et鈥檚 Talk鈥� about the consistently underfunded and inaccessible support systems.聽 Let鈥檚 talk about the self-esteem destroying vulnerability that comes with aching to ask for help.聽 Let鈥檚 talk about the fear of what people will think if you come forward and out yourself as suffering from a mental illness.聽 Let鈥檚 talk about all that dark and grisly stuff that I guess just isn鈥檛 marketable enough for some corporations to brandish every January.
Then at some point, let鈥檚 stop talking and let鈥檚 actually do something about this stuff.
Saskatchewan government, are you listening?聽 Can we talk about a Sask Let鈥檚 Talk Day to raise money?聽 How about a quarter a tweet?聽 A loonie a like?
When Bell鈥檚 annual day arrives every January, I log onto Facebook and I can鈥檛 help but see dozens of people draping their profile pictures in that temporary 鈥楲et鈥檚 Talk鈥� logo.聽 It鈥檚 a nice gesture, and if that鈥檚 your thing, then cool.聽 As far as I鈥檓 concerned, after all that Bell has probably done to cripple the mental health of their now-former employees, I never want to read anything about how much they care or how much they raise.
It just goes to show that at the end of the day, this world will always belong to the white-collar types.聽 We just live in it.
For this week, that鈥檚 been the Ruttle Report.
