CanWest Global’s takeover of Alliance Atlantis will give equity partner Goldman Sachs de facto control of one of the country’s largest private broadcasters, according to a warning issued Friday by the Coalition of Canadian Audio-Visual Unions. The umbrella group of domestic media guilds and unions has come out against the deal in an intervention filed with the CRTC.

‘Approving this transaction will bring us one step closer to total domination by foreign media giants,’ Stephen Waddell, ACTRA national executive director, said in a statement from the CCAU.

Besides a loss of jobs, the $2.3-billion deal for AAC, conceived by CanWest Global yet largely financed by the Wall Street investment house, also threatens a loss of Canadian cultural sovereignty, the group warned.

‘Alliance Atlantis is a house Canadians built and this deal threatens to dismantle it brick by brick,’ David Hardy, business agent for NABET 700, said of Goldman Sachs ‘footing the bill’ for CanWest Global.

Interventions to the CRTC in the yet-to-be-approved AAC takeover were largely favorable to the proposed CanWest Global deal, coming as they do mostly from independent producers, entertainment lawyers and other industry players dependent on CanWest Global and AAC for future business.

But the CCAU submission stood out by raising questions about media concentration and American domination of the Canadian airwaves.

‘If the CRTC approves this transaction, then an American corporation will have a large stake and powerful voice in what Canadians can watch and when,’ says Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada.

The CCAU’s tough warning comes ahead of CRTC hearings into the AAC takeover, starting Sept. 5, that will consider, among other issues, whether CanWest Global has structured its deal to ensure equity partner Goldman Sachs has no effective control over a proposed Global/AAC entity.