$BCE Inc (BCE.CA)$ would be in a better place ten years from...

$BCE Inc (BCE.CA)$ would be in a better place ten years from now if they held onto MLSE, took stock and said “we need to cut this dividend to take care of our debt, but we are initiating an aggressive dividend increase plan out of that”
Instead - while I won’t guarantee a dividend cut for them, they will likely only do penny increases to maintain their status and will flounder for years where if anything goes wrong, they could fail dramatically.