Count Telus Corp. out as a major buyer of Canadian media assets, at least for now.

“We don’t believe that you need to own content in order to provide content to the industry and to consumers as a whole,” Telus chief commercial officer Joe Natale told the BMO Capital Markets media and telecom conference in Toronto, via a webcast.

Telus intends to stay on the sidelines as rivals Shaw Communications and BCE move ahead with proposed takeovers of Canwest Global Communications Corp. and CTV, respectively.

Elsewhere, Quebecor Media is getting into the wireless phone business as it follows Shaw and BCE in driving video content it owns down its triple-play TV, Internet and wireless phone offerings.

“Our core competency is not producing content,” Natale said.

“Our goal is to aggregate and collect the best of that content whether it comes from capabilities in Canada, the U.S., or internationally,” he added.

Telus has already urged restraint on the part of the CRTC as it considers a Canwest Global owned by Shaw, with whom it competes in western Canada as it rolls out its Internet-based Telus TV service.