Thank you.
As a little background about me, I'm a former broadcaster. I used to work for Bell Media and Corus Entertainment. I started my career in the second-smallest market in this country, in northwestern British Columbia, in the town of Smithers. Before leaving mainstream media, I worked for Bell Media in the largest market in this country, in Toronto.
I have a unique experience working for our largest broadcasters in this country, but I also have a unique experience because I left, in the midst of the pandemic, to start my own digital media company, called Gonez Media. Since then, we've acquired legacy publications and turned them digital. We have a team of nearly 20 folks. More than half are journalists, with many of them coming from legacy organizations, having been laid off and severely impacted by the media crisis.
I want to talk about the impact of legislation on this country, particularly Bill C-18. As a digital-first media company, we never asked for this legislation. We found a new model that worked for us, that was sustainable and that was providing new opportunities, especially for journalists of colour in this country, who for far too long have been told that they don't belong in newsrooms across this country or who have experienced discrimination and racism. We changed that model, and we're now one of Canada's fastest-growing online media companies.
When Bill C-18 came about, we were severely impacted. We lost our pages on Meta-owned platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, which were literally the platforms we built our business model on. Our revenue impact was a more than 40% loss. We were at risk of literally doing the exact same thing that legacy media companies had done to our staff.
One of the issues I have in particular is that the heritage minister at the time was quoted as saying that media companies affected by this block would be made whole. We have not been made whole. In fact, we have had to be agile, to innovate and to find new ways to sustain our business and our model.
One thing I would like everybody here to really focus on is that a lot of digital-first media companies are really agile. They don't have the resources to hire lobbyists to be here in Ottawa to advocate for them like legacy media companies do. When we and this government are approaching tech giants for funds, coming from the legacy sector, I do understand the importance of supporting that. I think there is an ecosystem that can sustain all different facets of media. However, if you're trying to draw money from tech giants and the bulk of that money is going to legacy companies that didn't adapt and build a business model that can be sustained in this current environment, and then you're leaving digital-first companies on the sidelines, that doesn't make sense.
What I've always wanted is for Canada to be a leader in the world, to foster a whole new ecosystem where we can have digital-first companies providing news, entertainment and culture content right to Canadians, right to their fingertips, using the devices they use. Everybody in this room has a cellphone. We found a way to create, in a different medium, the exact same content my peers have been doing for years and found a way to do it sustainably and profitably, creating a growth industry.
Th legislation put forth and the rules around it have literally harnessed and chained us, and it's really disappointing because a lot of digital-first companies are led by people who look like me—people of colour—and women. I can tell you we are one of the larger organizations, but when I talk to my peers, whose companies are a lot smaller, I hear they are at the brink of closing their doors, meaning we are going to be left with an ecosystem of companies that are living only because of government funding.
Before this legislation came into place, we did not accept one dollar from the government. We did not apply for any of that. We were sustainable and profitable.