From a Canwest press release...

"The digital transmitters are launching just as new episodes of our viewer favourites return to the networks. We are offering our viewers the best programming via the best quality broadcast signals," said Barbara Williams, Executive Vice President, Content, Canwest Broadcasting.

-- guffaw! sure, sure... they make it sound as if they planned this, when they actually whined to the CRTC and got multiple extensions over several years, before they even bothered with OTA HD