Canadian Heritage Committee on April 14th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 30 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Before we begin, I ask all in-person participants to read the guidelines written on the updated cards in front of you on the table. There are measures in place to help prevent feedback incidents to protect the health and safety of all participants, especially our interpreters. You will notice a QR code on the card; it links to a short awareness video, if you need that.

Pursuant to the routine motion adopted by the committee, I can confirm that the witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of this meeting.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before you speak. All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, September 22, 2025, the committee is meeting to study the state of the journalism and media sectors.

We have a full panel with us today.

As an individual, Murray Wood, vice-president of news talk programming, Rawlco Radio, is with us by video conference.

Welcome, sir.

From the Canadian Journalism Collective, Sarah Spring is with us in the room today.

I understand, Ms. Spring, that you have to leave at 12:30 p.m.

Members, if you have questions for this witness, you might want to get them in earlier rather than later.

We also have representatives from Hebdos Québec, Benoit Chartier and Sylvain Poisson, who are participating by video conference.

Good morning, gentlemen.

From RNC Media, we have Robert Ranger and Sébastien Côté, who are with us in the room.

Welcome.

From Télé Inter‑Rives, we have Cindy Simard and Pierre Harvey, who are with us in the room as well.

You will all have five minutes to do your—

Just a moment, I see that there is a point of order.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I let the witnesses make their opening remarks, I would just like to clarify a point about future invitations.

I understand that the minister has been confirmed, as part of this study, for May 5. I would like to know if the clerk can confirm that.

However, we also have another invitation to send to the minister to come and talk about the estimates, and we have until May 31 to do so. I would like to see if we agree on a date to propose to him, so that the clerk can send the invitation and to make sure we meet the deadlines. The Standing Orders require us to hear from the minister before May 31. We're going to start running out of dates, given that on top of that, in May, we're going to have a two-week break.

I just wanted us to deal with this quickly before starting the meeting, so as not to be rushed at the end.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

It's not really a break, Mr. Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You'll have a break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

If the clerk has anything to add, I'll turn it over to him.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Jean-François Pagé]

The date is fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Does everyone agree that the committee should invite the minister to appear on the main estimates?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Clerk]

Would it be May 26 or May 28?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes, there are two dates that would allow us to meet the deadlines, May 26 and May 28. Do we have a preference? We can also leave both options open and then determine the date according to the minister's schedule.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

That's fine.

Was there anything else?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

No, that's it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

That's great.

Each organization has five minutes for an opening statement, so if there's more than one person representing the organization, you have a collective five minutes.

We will begin with Murray Wood, vice-president, news talk programming, Rawlco Radio.

You have the floor for five minutes. Go ahead.

[Murray Wood, Vice-President, News Talk Programming, Rawlco Radio, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation.

Listen, I don't pretend to be an expert on the state of Canadian media, but I'll offer a bit of perspective based on my experience. I've spent 45 years in radio news, from small markets like North Battleford to larger markets like Calgary and Ottawa. I've been on the front lines and on the strategic side of local news, specifically radio news, and that's where I'll focus my remarks today.

The decline of radio news in Canada is pretty well documented. Across the country, entire news talk newsrooms have been laid off. Some stations have gone dark, turning their licences back in, and hundreds or even thousands of journalists have been laid off.

In Saskatchewan, the two main newspapers have cut the number of days they publish. They used to employ hundreds; it’s now a handful. There is no longer a live, local TV newscast on weekends that originates in Saskatchewan.

My stations—CKOM and CJME—are live and local seven days a week, 365 days a year. If something happens on a Sunday afternoon, we have live newscasts with reporters to cover the story. No one else in our province does that.

We do over 200 newscasts a week in each market, so clearly there can be a business model, but it requires ownership that recognizes the revenue case for being a source of local information. We're in a time when people are deluged with news from around the globe, and—this is important—I would say it requires ownership that views providing local information as a responsibility to the community we serve. Saskatchewan is lucky to have such ownership from Rawlco Radio, which has been owned by Gordon Rawlinson and the Rawlinson family for almost 80 years.

We've found that there is not just a strong desire for local information; there is a need for it. When the Humboldt Broncos bus tragedy occurred, we did 30 hours of live programming that we hadn't planned to do at five o'clock on a Friday afternoon. We realized, over the course of that awful weekend, that we were doing more than giving information; we were providing a service. People across Saskatchewan tuned in not just as a way of finding out the latest but as a way of coming together to grieve. We had many emails afterwards from people thanking us for the coverage.

When tornadoes threaten and when blizzards affect highway travel, we're there to tell people. When COVID struck, we covered it with the information that our audience needed. We carried the daily news conference from health authorities live for over a year. It was a service, and people relied on it, which underlines that a strong local media is essential to the health of a community and society. By doing these things, and by covering the day's news, we provide value to our communities. We're relevant in a way that social media sites that don't generate content can never match.

Trust and credibility are serious issues online. Skepticism is at an all-time high. People don't know what or whom to believe. What's real? Is this paid content or objective journalism? Who's behind this? Unlike many social media sites, no one listens to our news and has to question, “Is that true?” We've earned their trust. In fact, in a time of fairly rampant misinformation and intentional disinformation, it's been observed that real news is the antidote, but it doesn't come easily. Real news requires people and professional journalists who do the hard work, day in and day out.

I have a couple of suggestions that I would offer to this committee.

One, find ways to encourage investment in local, independent journalism. Real news ensures better, more informed decisions, which is especially important in our knowledge economy. Measures are required to help ensure existing local news organizations don't just survive but thrive. Governments should view a healthy media sector as being as important and as deserving of measures to help it succeed as it views many other vital industries.

Two, governments across this country could do something very meaningful to support local journalism immediately. Private local media companies are entirely dependent on ad revenue, virtually all of it from local business. Our largest competitor is no longer the local newspaper or TV; it's Google, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube—digital platforms based in other countries that make no contribution to local journalism.

In 2023, as you know, Canadian news outlets were banned from sharing stories on Meta, and abruptly, an important way to share critical local news was taken away. Now what passes for news content on Meta is, frankly, often disturbing, and government is helping fund it.

In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the Government of Canada spent about $78 million on advertising, of which 63% was directed towards digital media—over $40 million. Foreign companies like Google, Meta and TikTok got a big share of that.

The federal government rarely advertises on local radio, but when emergencies happen and critical information needs to be communicated, radio is the first point of contact because of its ability to reach the masses quickly and efficiently.

I'll leave you with this. Government talks about valuing local media, but it isn't supporting it when it comes to spending ad dollars. The federal government could meaningfully support local journalism immediately by deciding to allocate a significant percentage of its total advertising budget that now leaves the country and dedicate at least a portion of it to local, Canadian-owned media.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

As a former local news reporter, I very much identified with your statement, sir. Thank you very much.

Saskatchewan is very lucky to have you. I'm sure Kevin Waugh must agree.

We turn now to the Canadian Journalism Collective and Sarah Spring.

You have five minutes.

[Sarah Spring, Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective]

My name is Sarah Spring. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Journalism Collective.

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to share with you some of our work in support of the Canadian and indigenous journalism community.

The Online News Act came into force in 2023. In October 2024, the CRTC granted Google a five-year exemption on the basis of an agreement Google reached with the CJC that commits $100 million annually to eligible Canadian and indigenous news businesses.

The CJC is the independent collective created to receive and distribute these funds on behalf of news businesses across the country. We are governed by a board of directors elected by our membership. The board is structured to represent every sector of the Canadian news industry: large and small publishers, television and radio broadcasters, start-ups and not-for-profits, French language and official language minority papers and radio stations, indigenous publishers and broadcasters, Black and racialized news outlets, and community and campus radio. The diversity of our governance model is a deliberate reflection of the diversity of Canadian journalism.

In terms of our program administration, news businesses apply to us for funding each year. We assess eligibility against criteria set out in the act, covering several categories of publishers and broadcasters. Applicant newsroom hours are independently verified to confirm the number of employees—our metric for payment—and we distribute their funds accordingly. We provide funding to the most widely read newspapers in the country and to the largest broadcasters, as well as to many smaller news outlets. In fact, most of the recipients are local news outlets with only a couple of employees—small local papers, community radio stations, local television and independent broadcasters. Across the country, news producers large and small have been telling us how vital these funds have been.

In a fall 2025 survey about the impacts of the first $100 million of disbursements, a majority of respondents said the money they received helped them to maintain operations but not yet to expand them. A few months after the first survey, we held consultations with news producers across the country. During these conversations, we heard some success stories that point to the Online News Act funding as starting to have some significant impacts.

I would like to read a few statements from some weekly newspapers.

One said, “We have been able to increase the wages of our staff to a more realistic number, allowing us to retain a key employee rather than experience the churn we've had for the last number of years.”

Another paper said, “Quite simply, it has allowed our publication to continue publishing a daily newspaper in a minority market where we are the sole source of daily news in English.” An indigenous radio station shared, “Funding allowed us to hire an Indigenous journalist on a part-time basis. Increased funding will allow us to retain [them].”

We also heard, “The CJC has had a direct and positive impact on our ability to hire additional journalists and expand into communities that were underserved previously. Since 2024, we have started print newspapers in [four new regions] thanks in part to the CJC.”

The CJC is still quite new, and within less than 18 months, we've gotten a start-up off the ground, built and launched two rounds of the program, and in the last two weeks, already sent out $52 million of the second round of funding. I'm happy to provide the committee with any additional information about our work to support Canada's newsrooms.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today, and I look forward to answering your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Bravo. Thank you.

I now give the floor to Benoit Chartier and Sylvain Poisson, from Hebdos Québec, who are attending by video conference.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Benoit Chartier, Chair of the Board, Hebdos Québec]

Good morning.

My name is Benoit Chartier. I am joined by Sylvain Poisson, general manager of Hebdos Québec. I am the chair of the board of Hebdos Québec.

Thank you for welcoming us to your committee.

Hebdos Québec is a group of about 40 independent newspaper owners. It includes 137 print and digital media outlets spread across 16 regions of Quebec and several other provinces in the country. Every week, we distribute some two million printed copies to every household in Quebec.

We now have stability for the first time in many years thanks to the Online News Act and the Canadian journalism labour tax credit, which amounts to 35%. This gives publishers more certainty to invest in their newsrooms. At the same time, we are expressing our deep concern that the tax credit will decrease to 25% on January 1, 2027.

Now on to Canada Post. Quebec's French-language weekly press is calling on you and sounding the alarm as the business model of our print media has been seriously shaken in recent years and continues to be jeopardized by the ongoing dispute at Canada Post and the overall conditions that affect our distribution by the Crown corporation.

Our print media is being subjected to unfair rates that jeopardize its future, as well as a status that exposes us to the stoppage or complete absence of distribution, as was the case during the Canada Post labour dispute.

Canada Post is critically important for the distribution of our print media to reach our readership and serve our advertisers every week. Its usefulness is undeniable, and we have no other private distribution network as exists elsewhere in Canada, such as the Postmedia distribution network.

We need to benefit from a single, advantageous rate that would remain in effect and that would enable each of us to opt for broad and blanket distribution. That would ensure our survival at a time when the quality of information is being undermined and journalistic deserts pose a real threat to social cohesion, as does artificial intelligence, for that matter.

We would also like to be able to obtain special status in relation to door-to-door delivery in order to avoid any interruptions, including the exclusion of neighbourhood mail as a media outlet. That status would also insulate us from any delivery stoppage.

At this point, I will give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Poisson.

[Sylvain Poisson, General Manager, Hebdos Québec]

Thank you, Mr. Chartier.

I, too, would like to thank you for welcoming us.

I will continue the presentation by talking about government advertising.

We are also sounding the alarm about the sad state of federal government advertising in recent years, and we deplore the fact that it has reached an all-time low. That poses a serious threat to the survival of our local and regional media, in addition to obscenely and unfairly enriching the web giants.

In concrete terms, in 2024-25, according to a report from the government itself, print media ads amounted to a very meagre $222,000, only 1% of the $78.15 million in total spending over that period. It has nothing to do with the $25.69 million spent on programmatic and non-programmatic display and the $7.55 million spent on social media, of which the vast majority, if not all, ends up in the pockets of American web giants.

Specifically, ad investments in Réseau Sélect, which is the national sales representative agency serving all members of Hebdos Québec, were $30,566 in 2024, or $22,437 excluding Elections Canada-related ads, which, as you know, are ad hoc, irregular and non-recurring.

If you can imagine, purchases of $347,252 in 2025 drop in real terms to $50,653 for the same year excluding all the Elections Canada ads. Those amounts obviously have to be distributed among the media we represent. It's peanuts, shall we say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

I will now go to Robert Ranger and Sébastien Côté from RNC Media, who are here in the room.

Gentlemen, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Robert Ranger, President and Chief Executive Officer, RNC Media Inc.]

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. My name is Robert Ranger, and I am the president and chief executive officer of RNC Media. With me is Sébastien Côté, general manager of information for the Gatineau-Ottawa market.

RNC Media is an independent Quebec broadcaster that will soon be celebrating its 80th anniversary, making it the oldest private broadcaster in Quebec. Our four television stations in Outaouais and Abitibi-Témiscamingue are affiliated with the TVA and Noovo networks. The news sector at RNC Media currently has a team of about 40 full-time employees. We produce almost 20 hours of 100% local television news programming every week.

RNC Media believes that supporting local news, particularly on television, is a real societal choice. We consider ourselves an essential service for the communities we serve. The federal government has the power to act, but especially the responsibility to protect Canadians' access to credible, diverse and accessible local information.

[Sébastien Côté, Director General, Information, Gatineau-Ottawa Division, RNC Media Inc.]

A strong democracy depends on well-informed citizens, particularly in their own communities. A recent report from the Public Policy Forum clearly showed that the collapse of local news poses a direct threat to Canadian democracy. In that light, television remains an essential pillar for news. It still reaches 90% of Canadian adults every month. In Quebec, 77% of adults are still getting their news from television every week, and their level of trust exceeds 85%. With the advent of artificial intelligence and the rise of disinformation on social media, trust in television news becomes even more valuable.

The modernization of the Broadcasting Act was supposed to provide tangible support for local news by integrating digital platforms into the Canadian system. However, the situation has deteriorated. The contributions planned for the Independent Local News Fund, the ILNF, are still not forthcoming as a result of the digital giants' endless appeals to the Federal Court. Meanwhile, stations are closing, newsrooms are disappearing and job losses are mounting.

The decision to integrate Corus stations into the ILNF without the funding being available had a major impact. For RNC Media and other independent stations, this represents a further loss of 50% of the ILNF's revenue this year and a loss of over 60% of revenue next year. These losses are creating unsustainable structural deficits.

However, since the ILNF was created in 2017, the fund has helped us double our production minutes, add a live noon newscast and keep newsrooms open in our regions. Without the ILNF, our stations would simply not be operating today.

The current redistribution of the ILNF also penalizes francophone broadcasters. The francophone share of funding has gone from over 24% originally to just 12% today. However, francophone stations represent more than 23% of the eligible stations. In a number of federal cultural programs, the minimum threshold for francophone funding is nonetheless 30%. This principle should also apply to our stations.

[Robert Ranger]

Today, our stations are facing a critical financial situation. Urgent action is needed.

We therefore respectfully request that you call on the Government of Canada to provide monthly compensation in the amount of $1.5 million to stations benefiting from the ILNF, as requested by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. That amount would raise income for the fund's original recipients to the same level they had prior to Corus's admission into the fund. Let's not forget that Canadian Heritage quickly set up assistance in the form of emergency funds during COVID‑19.

We are also asking that eligibility for the Canadian journalism labour tax credit be extended to holders of a broadcasting licence and that it apply to the salaries paid to employees working in the production and presentation of newscasts.

Lastly, we propose that a government advertising distribution act be adopted that sets a 50% maximum threshold for budget spending on digital platforms. Without swift transitional measures, other independent stations will have to shut down in the short term, creating new media deserts and giving foreign algorithms free rein.

You have the opportunity today to act to protect the plurality of voices, which is a fundamental principle enshrined in the Broadcasting Act.

Thank you for listening. We are now available to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Next, it's the turn of the Télé Inter‑Rives representatives, who are also in the room.

Cindy Simard and Pierre Harvey, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Cindy Simard, Vice-Chair, Information, Télé Inter-Rives Ltée]

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Thank you so much for having us.

Hello. My name is Cindy Simard, and I am the vice-president of news at Télé Inter‑Rives, which owns three local television stations in eastern Quebec and New Brunswick: CIMT-TV and CFTF-TV, which are based in Rivière-du-Loup, and CHAU-TV in Carleton-sur-Mer.

With me today is Pierre Harvey, the station manager at CHAU.

Our local television stations serve some of the largest territories in Canada. The regions we serve are home to approximately 550,000 residents, including 230,000 Acadians in New Brunswick, a francophone population that is considered an official language minority community.

Télé Inter‑Rives is one of the biggest privately owned news companies in eastern Quebec and the Maritimes, employing 18 journalists and 11 camera operators, editors and directors on a full-time basis. Our stations produce 22 hours of local news per week, 52 weeks a year. Our news content is 100% local, and the number of hours of local news we broadcast each week is more than double the amount that Radio-Canada’s public service television offers in the same territory.

In our regions, television is still the main local medium available across the region on a daily basis, reaching residents, leaders, organizations and institutions in our communities with coverage of current events on the ground. Television news requires the most equipment and the highest travel expenses and costs the most to produce.

Yet private television stations are currently experiencing an unprecedented decline in advertising revenue. This crisis began with the advent of digital several years ago, but it has been getting worse lately, and the financial pressure this is putting on the viability of our stations is alarming. This is an emergency.

Independent television stations need other sources of revenue. Without the financial support of the ILNF, which is our stations’ biggest source of revenue outside of advertising, we simply would not still be operating today.