Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[Peter Menzies]

Well, there are a number of things that I think people should consider. I think expanding the tax deduction for subscribing to a newspaper or making a donation to a newspaper under a not-for-profit model should be examined. If any government considers news to be a public good, I think having a 15% write-off for your newspaper subscription is insufficient, to put it kindly.

I think I talked The Globe and Mail into campaigning for 70%. It would be the same as for political parties. If the political parties think that news is truly valuable, they might think it's as valuable as they are. Allow me, for my subscriptions—and I spend a lot on them—to get a 70% tax deduction.

If you do something like that, then you're subsidizing the behaviour you want, which is the consumption of credible news. You're subsidizing the reader to do it. There's a flow through of positive impact on the employer, because they can sell more subscriptions.

I'll give that as one example of something that public policy-makers might consider, so that we are incenting the sorts of behaviour we want without creating a direct dependence on the government of the day for funding.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Is there a belief that there is going to be news in the public sector? Will it happen?

[Peter Menzies]

I'm not quite sure I understand that.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Do you believe there's a positive direction that we're going to go in to create what you're talking about as news?

[Peter Menzies]

Yes, as long as we don't get too bogged down in the present. I think if we throw some energy in and people from all points of the spectrum get together and bank some ideas together, then I have great faith that people will be able to get through this. There are a lot of smart and creative people around, from all different types of perspectives. We all need to get in the room and bash this out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I will now go to Mr. Noormohamed, for five minutes, please.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Menzies, I have been following your words and your commentary today with great interest.

I want to get your sense and perspective on a few things. Do you think that government should be subsidizing journalism?

[Peter Menzies]

No.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

You don't.

What would you say, then, to the publishers in Mr. Shields' riding who would be dependent—ideally—on funds like this to help support them, if you don't believe in government supporting journalism?

[Peter Menzies]

Are you talking about the Google fund? That's a different thing.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'm talking about any fund.

[Peter Menzies]

The Google fund is a different fund. The way I conceive of a web giant-supported fund is that it would be administered only by the industry itself. You would keep politicians, for their own good and the good of people, at distance—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Absolutely.

That is what's been proposed, Mr. Menzies. It's that the industry would actually administer the fund itself. The industry would propose the fund.

[Peter Menzies]

Actually, that's with the CRTC's oversight.

I'm not having a big problem with the Google fund as it is. It's ended up as a fund and not as a commercial negotiation between two companies. That's okay if that's where it ends up. It actually looks a lot like the fund that Konrad and I proposed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

That's why I was surprised. In what you proposed with Konrad, in fact, I think a lot of it is mirrored in this. I think that is a good thing.

I want to go back to your point about—

[Peter Menzies]

I never said I was opposed to it.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Okay, I think there was an understanding in the room that you.... I just want to make sure you are supportive of that concept.

[Peter Menzies]

I am supportive of a fund funded by web companies. I'm not supportive of, as your initial question indicated, direct government funding to newspapers.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Okay, let's separate the two for clarity. To make sure we're not misrepresenting what you're saying, you are supportive of the fund that is being created as a result of the $100 million a year from Google.

[Peter Menzies]

I'm supportive of that kind of fund, yes. We proposed it ourselves.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

That's great.

You talked about the notion of fairness and about how the distribution needs to be fair through this fund. What would fairness look like for you?

[Peter Menzies]

Oh, yes. I mean, what we proposed was what I said, that you take out the people who are already subsidized, like the CBC. You can subsidize them however you want through direct subsidy, but take them out of that fund. You apply it so that only companies that are primarily engaged in the news business qualify for it. It's not people who might run a billion-dollar business and have one reporter, whom they are perfectly capable of supporting on their own if they wish.

Then it would be done on a non-judgmental basis, so nobody perceives you as biasing against a Conservative news outlet or a Liberal news outlet or a Progressive news outlet. You just do it on a per capita per journalist basis. If you have 100 journalists and it's $10,000 a journalist, then you get whatever that adds up to. If you have one journalist, then you'd get $10,000.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I think that's helpful. These are all important pieces of consideration that I'm sure will go into the process.

I asked you this question earlier about whether government should subsidize journalism.

Do you think the Government of Canada should cut all funding for all journalism—period, the end?

[Peter Menzies]

I think that our proposal in the paper was to see a phase-out period for that funding. Having built the dependence, it would be rash to suddenly whip the carpet out from beneath them.

I think it's unfortunate that the dependence has been created. The original journalism labour tax credit, for instance, was designed to be for five years, and that was on the recommendation, in part, of the industry itself.

I remember Bob Cox saying that eventually we're going to have to—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Menzies. With the time we have left, I just want to get clarity on one point.

Under what you are proposing, at the end of this phasing-out period, the CBC and Radio-Canada would receive zero dollars from the federal government.