The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Rogers's $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications would "greatly reduce" competition and choice for consumers of broadcasting services, rival Telus told a CRTC panel on Tuesday. The Globe's Alexandra Posadzki writes that Rogers and Shaw argue that greater scale will allow them to compete against global streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+. However, Telus executives told the five-commissioner panel that greater scale would allow Rogers to buy exclusive access to foreign content and would turn the merged company into a gatekeeper for Canadian programming services, which would then come to depend on the telco for their survival. "This merger will greatly reduce competition and consumer choice, and it will impoverish the diversity of voices in the broadcasting system," said Telus lobbyist Stephen Schmidt. "Rogers will be able to use content exclusivity to force consumers to subscribe to their service." The CRTC is reviewing only the transfer of Shaw's broadcasting distribution business to Rogers, including a satellite TV service called Shaw Direct, and cable television services in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.