Peter Menzies: Canada Needs a Sound Free-Market Strategy for News Industry, Not Confetti Thrown at Favourites

Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 20, 2022. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

Commentary

The big debate about the future of Canada’s mainstream media these days won’t be about whether or not its newsrooms will be made dependent on the good graces of Justin Trudeau’s government. That’s over.

Now, we’re just arguing about the price.

That became abundantly clear on Oct. 21 when Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. And while he tried hard to assure committee members that his Online News Act wouldn’t allow politicians to choose which media would qualify for its benefits, it’s becoming very clear his legislation will designate winners and losers. And not only will the biggest winners be those whose survival is least at risk, Rodriguez appears determined to make as many media as are willing permanently dependent upon the continued existence of a Liberal government.

The minister, who described legacy media as vital to democracy but made no mention of new startups or innovators, said he wanted nothing to do with deciding who would qualify as a designated news organization under Bill C-18 (the Online News Act). But in response to a question regarding which body news providers could appeal to if they aren’t designated as beneficiaries, he said the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) would decide. (That’s despite the fact the CRTC chair said earlier that they did not want to decide).

Regardless, somebody’s got to do it and at the end of the day it will be people appointed by the Trudeau government—either CRTC commissioners or the panel that decides which organizations make the cut as a qualified news organization as defined in the Income Tax Act.

The group that decides who qualifies is called the Independent Advisory Board on Eligibility for Journalism Tax Measures. It consists at the moment of only four members: chair Colette Brin, a journalism professor at Laval University and former Radio Canada reporter; Kim Kierans, journalism professor at University of King’s College in Halifax and a past CBC reporter; Margo Goodhand, former editor of the Winnipeg Free Press and the  Edmonton Journal; and Pierre-Paul Noreau, former publisher of Le Droit and former board member of News Media Canada, the lobby organization that pushed for Bill C-18. Karim H. Karim, a professor at Carleton University and former Heritage Canada staffer, resigned his post almost 18 months ago and the government hasn’t appointed a successor.

As for those small operators left out of the Bill C-18 windfall, the Heritage Minister was quick to point to the Local Journalism Initiative—which he topped up on Oct. 20—as a source for their sustenance. Originally announced as a $10 million a year fund for five years, Rodriguez is doubling that to $20 million next year and it sure sounds like it’s not expiring after five years. Nope, it’s looking like the $10 million a year for five years is becoming $20 million a year forever. And if that’s not enough, Rodriguez extended the “Special Measures for Journalism” portion of the Canada Periodical fund with an additional $40 million over the next three years, which should take benefiting news organizations and Rodriguez through to the next election.

Little wonder Rodriguez boasted how “the world is watching,” as in his view Canada leads the way in ensuring its legacy media—and democracy itself—survive change.

But while he’s avoiding personally picking winners, there’s no question he’s building a world in which it is glaringly obvious to news organizations which political party will keep them fed, watered, and paying their mortgages.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has run the numbers on Bill C-18, which forces social media and search engines to pay news organizations for posting their content on the platforms for free. And the big winners in that cashapalooza play—a barefaced shakedown—won’t be the legacy newspapers that are facing bankruptcy and begged for it in the first place. Nope, according to the PBO they will get a mere $80 million a year to fight over between them, with the remaining $249 million likely to line the pockets of well-heeled broadcasters like the CBC, Bellmedia/CTV, Corus/Global, and others.

Bill C-18 won’t, in other words, save legacy newspapers like the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and Ottawa Citizen even if, as seems increasingly unlikely, Facebook continues to allow news postings. But it might just provide their online competitors with the loot needed to finish them off.

“According to the PBO the majority of the profits from Bill C-18 is going to the CBC and other big broadcasters,” Saskatoon West MP Brad Redekopp tweeted. “The only thing the world is watching is @Pablorodriguez tear away the credibility of our media.”

It’s important that people have sources of news—accurate news—that they can trust. As we have seen from testimony in the Emergencies Act inquiry, hysterical left-wing and just plain bad reporting can have serious consequences.

Canada needs a proper free-market industrial strategy for its news industry in the 21st century. Bill C-18 and all the other financial confetti being thrown by Rodriguez at the feet of some of his favourites isn’t it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.