Evidence of meeting #13 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was magazine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
May 5th, 2016 / 8:45 a.m.
Liberal
8:45 a.m.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Madam Chair, we have been summoned to the House this morning by the Prime Minister because of the extraordinary situation in Fort McMurray. The Prime Minister will be making a statement.
Does the committee wish to hear from the witnesses for the first part of the meeting and then go to the House? I'm not sure whether everyone has been summoned for 10 a.m. I am asking whether the committee wants to adjourn at 9:45 a.m., after the presentations of the first witnesses, in order to go to the House in light of the extraordinary situation in Fort McMurray.
8:45 a.m.
Conservative
8:45 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Just to clarify, he was talking about the part after witnesses, because we do not have witnesses for our second hour today.
8:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Well, we're having an in camera meeting.
I didn't quite get what you want to do with that.
8:45 a.m.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
I just want to be sure on whether the committee wants to go to the House at 10 o'clock for the discours du premier ministre about the situation at Fort McMurray.
8:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Yes.
No, I think we have work to do. I think we should do the work.
We have two groups of witnesses today, Magazines Canada and the National Campus and Community Radio Association.
I must say that we're looking forward to hearing not just from Magazines Canada, but specifically from the National Campus and Community Radio Association. If anybody is local, you guys are, because you're so very focused on campus. I'm glad you were able to come.
Here's how it works. You have 10 minutes to do a presentation. I'll try to give you a two-minute call so that you know you have two minutes left, but I'll have to cut you off at 10 minutes. This means 10 minutes for one group and 10 minutes for the other. Then we will move into a question-and-answer period.
I know the clerk briefed you on the themes we're studying. I won't go over them, but I hope you will address some of the issues we are looking at in our themes. Thank you.
Perhaps we will begin with Magazines Canada, represented by Matthew Holmes, president and CEO, and Douglas Knight, board chair.
Have you decided who will speak?
8:45 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Magazines Canada
Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members. It's a pleasure to appear before you today.
My name is Matthew Holmes. I am the president and CEO of Magazines Canada, the national body representing Canada's magazine media, including arts and culture, consumer, and business titles. I'm joined by the chair of our board, Douglas Knight, who will share our time.
There are roughly 2,000 Canadian magazines in the market today, including 1,300 consumer and 700 business titles. Given what's facing the papers, you may be surprised to learn that this number represents an increase of 30% in Canadian magazine titles since the year 2000. This is a $2-billion sector directly creating tens of thousands of high-quality knowledge economy jobs.
Here's what you need to know. In addition to our stable numbers, we also have a committed and stable readership; in fact, the latest figures released just three weeks ago show that more than 70% of Canadians read Canadian magazines across all platforms, print and digital. This is true for all age groups, young and old alike.
There has been a history of protective legislation put in place to allow Canadians equal access to Canadian voices in the media. This goes back to before Confederation and in the establishment of Canada Post, which ensured that there was equal access to the same service, and the same postal rate charges, regardless of where you lived in the country or where you were distributing to.
Policies such as these have contributed to the fact that 80% of the base of readership of Canadian magazines comes through subscription. This is one of the highest magazine subscription rates in the world, ensuring that Canadians remain major consumers of Canadian content, even though U.S. imports have historically dominated newsstand displays.
Magazines Canada feels that we must maintain our current policy framework for magazine media, including the Canadian periodical fund, to guarantee that Canadian content and voices continue to reach their audiences.
Finally, as we grow new audiences on new digital platforms, it's important to know that the magazine sector in Canada has been an absolute leader in digital innovation. Upwards of 90% of our members are publishing on digital platforms, often on multiple digital platforms. We even developed the country's first digital newsstand in partnership with Zinio years before Apple or Texture launched their products.
The question is not whether magazines are print or digital. With 92% of Canadian readers still choosing print as part of their reading experience, the question instead is how to support both print and digital.
To speak more to these issues, I'd like to introduce the chair of the board of Magazines Canada, Douglas Knight, president of St. Joseph Media, publisher of numerous Canadian magazines and digital properties, including Toronto Life, a former publisher and CEO of various Canadian newspapers, and founder of ImpreMedia, the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States.
Doug.
8:50 a.m.
Douglas Knight Board Chair, Magazines Canada
Thank you.
Good morning, Madam Chair and members.
I just bumped into Jim Balsillie in the hotel as I was leaving. He's about to testify at the international trade committee. He challenged me to open by saying “Deep thoughts”, and that is what I'm going to say: “Deep thoughts.”
8:50 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
8:50 a.m.
Board Chair, Magazines Canada
I don't know if I have deep thoughts, but I do hope that at the end of this you will go away saying, gee, I hadn't thought about it that way.
Many years ago I was teaching a course at the University of Toronto on the politics of Canadian cultural institutions. As a result, believe it or not, I've actually read the 1920 Aird commission on radio, the Massey commission, the Fowler commission, the O'Leary commission, the Davie report, and the Kent commission. Of course, I have followed all of these issues since.
My takeaway is that the work of this committee, studying how Canadians are informed about local and regional experiences through news, broadcasting, and digital and print media, continues a very deep tradition of concern in this country for making space for Canadian voices and Canadian choices.
To be clear, the core focus has been, and I would argue should be, on ensuring that we make space for Canadian voices and choices to the benefit of Canadians and not exclusively through the lens of the companies who do the work.
Why are Canadian voices so important? I also happen to be the chair of Writers' Trust of Canada and was in town last week for our Politics and the Pen dinner. In some remarks I was making at a reception at the U.S. ambassador's residence the night before, I told a story I had heard from Governor General David Johnston. He was hosting a dinner for Angela Merkel at Rideau Hall, and after dinner she took him aside and said she had only one question: how do you do it?
What she was asking, of course, was how we in Canada manage to find more strength than division in our diversity.
Now, having lived and worked in New York City and having owned papers in New York, L.A., and Chicago, this is a question that I've been thinking about for some time. What makes Canada so unique? While we always aspire to be better, to the world we are a model for finding strength in our diversity. Why is this? As a country of east and west, north and south, first nations peoples, French and English, immigrants from more than 200 ethnic groups, seeing the world through others' eyes has for more than 150 years—sometimes difficult years—become who we are. It's in our DNA, and it's who we aspire to be. I suspect that nowhere will you recognize this more than in our political discourse.
If there is a particular Canadian genius, it is perhaps easiest to discover in the work of our writers and our artists. They tell our stories. They help inform the Canadian imagination, our way of seeing the world through others' eyes, finding strength in empathy, not antipathy—even, and perhaps especially, when we disagree.
My takeaway is that rarely has there been a time when Canadian voices are so important. They are important to Canada in continuing to build strength from our diversity, and they are important as an example to the world of how this gets done.
Do Canadians care? At the risk of suggesting that I don't have a day job, I'm also the chair of the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards. A couple of years ago, we introduced the notion that Canada is an arts nation. You often hear that we're a hockey nation, which has been pretty tough this year; if you're from Toronto, it has been tough since 1967.
8:50 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
8:50 a.m.
Board Chair, Magazines Canada
But the digital geeks at MIT did an interesting study a couple of years ago, looking to identify the most famous citizens of 160 countries by examining their digital footprint. Canada was the only country to emerge from the study where all ten of the ten best-known Canadians around the world were writers and artists—not a politician, not a general, or a hockey player among them. That may be changing in the last six months, but we'll see.
A second surprising fact, which is reported each year by Statistics Canada, is that ordinary Canadians in all of your constituencies from coast to coast to coast spend more than twice as much attending the arts each year as they spend attending all sports put together. That's just true. My takeaway is that Canadians punch way above our weight in the creative industries and that Canadians have a real appetite for Canadian voices and Canadian stories.
The experience of Canadian magazines confirms this. Despite the enormous disruption and disintermediation of traditional media caused by the expansion of the media ecosystem, which has dramatically reduced daily newspaper readership and put pressure on traditional broadcast audiences, magazines have maintained their readership. Magazines, as Matt said, are read by seven out of ten Canadians—again, of all ages.
It should also be said that Canadian magazines have been, as Matt said, leaders and innovators in the digital space.
I'll give just a couple of examples from my own shop. Toronto Life magazine in print is read by more people in Toronto than read The Globe and Mail and the National Post combined; and several years ago, Toronto Life was the first magazine in Canada to have a larger digital audience than print audience.
In a very different space, we happen to publish Fashion magazine. Fashion magazine has the largest social audience of any magazine in Canada.
The takeaway here is that we get it and we know how do it. In fact, we offer this service to a wide range of organizations looking to understand the new media ecosystem.
We created all the content and design for the new National Music Centre in Calgary and we developed their digital platform. We are building the public portal for the celebration of 2017. It's the digital platform and content engine for the whole country. We've just completed the digital platform and content strategy for the University of Guelph's new global Food Institute. These are just a few examples; there are many more.
However, this does not mean that digital has replaced print, that all is well in the world, and that the problem has been solved. In our time with you this morning, with just 10 minutes, Madam Chair, to present our views—
8:55 a.m.
Board Chair, Magazines Canada
Thank you. I'll go really fast then.
In terms of our views on a very complex and rapidly changing media ecosystem, it has occurred to me that the real value will be in the question period. Please don't ask me about quantum computing, but it is tempting in a forum like this to come before you and make a narrow case for why our particular industry is deserving of more support to protect us from disruption or unimpeded voices from the giant next door.
My intention is to take a broader view, and to hope that your intention is to take a broader view, and avoid the temptation of simply identifying today's pain points and seeking short-term band-aids. The fact is that change is so rapid, whatever solution we think we've discovered today will be out of date tomorrow.
8:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I'm not taking up your time, but you can during the questioning expand on some of things you were going to say.
8:55 a.m.
Board Chair, Magazines Canada
I look forward to someone asking that question: “What did you mean to say?”
8:55 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
