—Government of Canada ad buy is not insignificant for us. Of the $100 million spent last fiscal year, on a per capita basis some $4 to $5 million would have been spent through our language media. It's gone somewhere else.
Even if one were to accept the argument—and we do not—that only $8.5 million was spent on print, that still represents about $425,000 for an Italian-language press in Canada. For an enterprise like ours, which has 11 employees and is responsible for an additional 10 FTEs, that represents the difference between survival and additional employee attrition.
The Corriere Canadese also receives no share of the ad buy allocated for online advertising, although our nascent online edition receives about 85,000 hits per day and over 100,000 unique visitors per month. We think it would be good value for money and for Canadian taxpayers.
Furthermore, the Corriere Canadese is shut out from any direct grants and contributions under the aid to publishers program. In the last fiscal year, this program distributed approximately $75 million of our taxpayer dollars to qualified applicants, yet it is virtually impossible for us to qualify. Because we are classified as a third-language publication, we are relegated to the periodicals section, and we are automatically disqualified because we publish every day.