Canadian Heritage Committee on April 14th, 2026

[Pierre Harvey, Director, Télé Inter-Rives Ltée]

Despite CRTC initiatives aimed at increasing ILNF contributions with the Online Streaming Act, this measure is currently being challenged in court by foreign streaming platforms. The additional contributions that should have been distributed to independent television stations have yet to materialize.

Furthermore, with CORUS stations now deemed eligible for funding, the ILNF payments to our stations have been reduced by 50% since May 2025. The shortfall amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars, leading to untenable operating deficits and jeopardizing our professional local journalism resources.

It is important to note that three small local television stations went out of business in Alberta last year. Some had been on the air for 70 years. Their owners made the heart-wrenching decision to shut them down due to financial difficulties and a bleak economic, regulatory and governmental outlook.

Should we stand by and allow a population of 40 million Canadians to end up with the public broadcaster as their only source of television news? Alternatively, should we allow the media space to be taken over by the unverified or malicious content circulating widely on social media platforms, which are run by foreign companies?

That is why we are respectfully making the following requests to our elected officials.

First, the Government of Canada should be urged to grant monthly compensation in the form of repayable loans of $1.5 million per month to stations receiving ILNF funding, as requested by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, to forestall further closures of private television stations.

Second, if the Online Streaming Act is repealed, the federal government should implement alternative programs to provide permanent financial support in the amounts estimated by CRTC.

Third, the Government of Canada should take inspiration from the Government of Quebec and grant broadcasters a refundable tax credit on salaries paid to newsroom employees.

In conclusion, private Canadian television stations are not just broadcasters; they are vital pillars of our cultural and democratic ecosystem. They shape our collective imagination, amplify our voices and reflect the values that define Canada. In an era of content globalization, private television stations act as a bulwark, helping us defend our identity. That is why protecting and supporting them should not be an afterthought, but a core priority for the Government of Canada in order to safeguard the vitality, cultural sovereignty and cohesion of our society.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We are available to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

We'll now go to questions from members.

We'll start with you, Mr. Généreux. You have six minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses, particularly Ms. Simard and Mr. Harvey, who are from my riding.

I'm going to ask you a question, Ms. Spring.

I saw you taking notes while Mr. Harvey was making his argument and asking whether we could imagine a day when there was only one media outlet, CBC/Radio-Canada. The others could disappear if they aren't well funded, helped and supported.

You now manage a $100-million fund paid by Google every year over five years. If I understand correctly, $7 million of the $100 million goes to CBC/Radio-Canada, which itself is now subsidized to the tune of $1.4 billion by the federal government.

In light of what all the witnesses are telling us, have told us in the past and will surely tell us in the future, how is it that a government-subsidized company also receives an amount from you? I understand that CBC/Radio-Canada has journalists, but why does this organization receive $7 million from the $100 million fund?

[Sarah Spring]

Under the Online News Act, it was established that CBC/Radio-Canada could receive up to 7% of the fund. Every year, the CJC decides on the contribution that will be made to CBC/Radio-Canada. For the first two years, 7% was the maximum.

As I said, our board of directors represents members from every news sector across the country. Therefore, the board decision is supposed to represent what the members want. This is not a decision made haphazardly. The decision is made after discussions with all the members represented. I am not the one who decides whether the contribution will be 7% or less than 7%. However, for the first two years, that was the maximum.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

I would urge the people on the board of directors to review their decisions in the future, because in light of what we're hearing today, I think that $7 million would be better used elsewhere in Canada to maintain other media. I have absolutely nothing against CBC/Radio-Canada, but I think that the money could be better used among all the members who make up your board of directors.

I will now turn to you, Ms. Simard and Mr. Harvey.

You provide your services in the regions. You cover a huge territory. It's almost a country within a country.

We must remember that this study focuses on media fairness. Do you think that all the government measures taken so far are fair for all media, whether it be print media, broadcasting, television or other types of media?

[Cindy Simard]

I can start with a partial answer, and then Mr. Harvey can add to it.

Obviously, we do advocate for a plurality of media in Canada. We think every media outlet has its place. Do we think it's fair? We obviously feel that it is not.

The government has not put in place a lot of measures for electronic, radio and television media like ours. We don't have access to a lot of the things that have been put in place. Just think of the tax credit for journalists, which is given to print media. We in radio and television are not entitled to it. There are a number of other things, such as the local journalism initiative, which was set up by Canadian Heritage. Print media outlets are entitled to it, but we as electronic media are not.

I don't think that's fair.

As far as Radio-Canada is concerned, we sense that it is looking for ways to invest the last $150 million it received, while TVA, Bell and Quebecor are cutting a lot of positions. That affects the regions. In the regions and elsewhere, TVA and Bell have cut a huge number of newsroom positions. We are fortunate to have retained 100% of our employees. We have not yet had to make cuts, but we see it coming.

Where we don't think it's fair is that, in the meantime, thanks to grant money and the various funds that Radio-Canada can receive, in the past year, the corporation has taken the liberty of creating 29 journalist positions in francophone markets in Canada, including a number in Quebec. Radio-Canada just added journalists in regions where they already existed or in regions where there were already a number of media outlets, such as radio and newspapers. It chose to add journalists to those markets, and it is coming after ours.

I obviously have a staff retention challenge, because Radio-Canada can offer double the salary I can offer a journalist. I train them. I trained 111 of them over 10 years. In 10 years, 111 journalists have passed through my two TVA stations. I train them and I pay to train them, but as soon as they get good, media outlets with more money come and take them from us by offering double their salary.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

I've seen that. We've known each other for a long time. Obviously, I'm from that region.

Do you have any ideas for the committee about things like training or tax credits? I don't know what could be set up. I'm not sure how much of Google's money could be used for training.

I'll let you speak to that.

[Cindy Simard]

Absolutely.

We put some ideas in our brief. We came up with a very long list of simple things that the government could actually do to help the smaller players. It's really the smaller players that need this financial assistance. In our case, it's our only source of revenue. We're not vertically integrated with anyone. All we do is news.

I'll let Mr. Harvey quickly go through the list of ideas that we thought of.

[Pierre Harvey]

Ms. Simard described the situation. We get a lot of young journalists fresh out of school. They come to learn with us, so the training costs are huge.

Folks in our industry say that a journalist is not really functional in a community. In many cases, these are young people who come to a new community but have no contact with it. It takes at least a year, ideally two, before they are fully functional and competent in the job and in the region. That's because our stations work hard to train them.

Obviously, one thing we would have to add to the requests in our brief would be funding for training or some kind of credit to help train new journalists.

By the same token, I should point out that very few journalists show up to our interviews or respond to our job offers because schools are producing far fewer journalists nowadays. I don't know if you're aware, but young people aren't keen on pursuing careers in journalism. They're reluctant to get into journalism. Maybe it's because of everything they're hearing right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

It's because former journalists advise young people not to pursue a career in journalism.

Thank you very much, Mr. Harvey. Mr. Généreux's time is up.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Those former journalists have all become members of Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

I'll give Mr. Al Soud the floor for six minutes.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all for being with us today.

I don't know if you had time to finish your response, so I'd like to give you the opportunity to do so. It's a very important issue, after all.

[Cindy Simard]

That's kind of you.

My answer might be shorter than Mr. Harvey's. I'll list some very simple things you could do.

Mr. Harvey was talking about journalists in remote regions. We need measures that get them to come and work in regions like Gaspé right after graduation. I posted a job offer in Gaspé six months ago, but I didn't get a single CV. There could be a government bonus for journalists who agree to come and work in regions like Gaspé.

We're about to invest $700,000 in news production equipment to improve our newscast because our equipment is at its end of life. The last time we bought equipment was in 2011 during the transition to HD. That's $700,000. Equipment costs me the same as it does the big stations. There used to be a 40% investment tax credit for the purchase of production equipment. Reinstating that tax credit might be a very good idea.

In addition, the selection criteria for the local journalism initiative could be expanded. I talked about this earlier. I think the criteria could be expanded to include small players in the radio and television sectors, at least those that are independent.

There could also be financial assistance for our digital transformation. As we know, print media have received a lot of money to develop apps and websites. We pay for those things ourselves. We created a website, but we can't afford $100,000 for an app. It could be that kind of financial assistance as well.

The last suggestion I have is simply a tax credit for businesses that buy local advertising. Businesses that choose to buy advertising in traditional media rather than on social media could get a tax credit.

This is a list of what I feel are very good ideas. I can give you a copy.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

That would be great. Thank you very much.

Ms. Spring, I will direct my first set of questions your way. Very quickly, I'm going to latch on to something Mr. Généreux spoke to.

You've previously described the model as equitable and fair, empowering “a broad range of voices”. I'd like to give you the opportunity to expand on that model and to speak to how you ensure that smaller, local and regional outlets are not overshadowed by larger incumbents like the CBC when this funding is distributed.

[Sarah Spring]

Essentially, the way we ensure equitable distribution is by landing on a dollar amount for broadcasters and for publishers. The metric in year one was $3.55 per broadcaster hour and $7.89 per publisher hour. This was based on how many eligible applicants there were and how many eligible hours they had. We end up with a pool, and then we divide it equally.

Yes, smaller news businesses are going to get a smaller amount and larger news businesses will get a larger amount, but the dollar amount is the same for everybody. These are news businesses that—I know this because I'm communicating with them all the time—don't feel they would have access to this money if the program wasn't in place.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Excellent. Thank you.

Do you believe the model strengthens journalism's capacity—or slows down the decline, rather? This criticism is often highlighted. I really want to get at that.

[Sarah Spring]

What we hear loud and clear is that this money is fundamental to these news businesses' carrying out their mandate and serve their communities. We hear that if they were not there, it would be absolutely disastrous to these news businesses. We also hear that there aren't a lot of resources to do the transformation the other panellists spoke about in order to transform business models, transform to a digital structure, think about how to become more competitive and then compete against social media for eyeballs in your community. People are telling us that this work takes time. At the moment, they're still using this funding in order to stabilize.

We'll continue to track and consult with applicants and recipients. It will be really interesting: Are they growing their newsrooms? Can they use this funding to transform? The Google exemption is a five-year exemption. We have the opportunity to access information upon submission about the sector. This is the first time we've had broadcasters and publishers within the same collective receiving the same funds. We're sitting on a lot of data that will really help the news industry to understand how it is collectively transforming and meeting the moment.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I have a final question for you. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work you do. Do you fear, though, that tying the financial sustainability of journalism to platform-derived revenue might risk entrenching dependence on the very actors who have so vastly shifted the market in the first place?

[Sarah Spring]

I don't think I would say we're tying the financial stability or future of the news sector to large platforms. What we're administering is an attempt to recalibrate the disparity between what the large platforms are accessing in terms of local news content and what they hadn't been compensating for in the past. It's trying to recalibrate this dynamic.

I don't think it is the magic bullet that will solve the challenges faced by the news sector. It certainly is helping them in a really trying period of massive transformation. It is not the answer but one of a series of answers that are supporting a larger transformation that needs to happen across Canada's newsrooms.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Fantastic.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

I have a question before I turn to you, Mr. Champoux.

We hear a lot of consternation about government funds going to support journalism. The money has to come from somewhere, whether it comes from government or private business that may have the potential for even more influence on a newsroom. When I was a journalist, the ad section was always on a different floor. You didn't cross paths with the people who sold ads. You were very careful about separating the people who raised money to support the journalism and the actual journalism in the room.

Why do you think, Ms. Spring, we have so much consternation about government through tax credits supporting journalism? Why do people think this is riskier than a private business supporting journalism?

[Sarah Spring]

I don't know if I can speak to the tax credit issue, but I can say that the Canadian Journalism Collective supports a diverse spectrum of news businesses across the country who have different opinions on the Online News Act, for example. We're not selectively funding newspapers that have only a specific perspective. Is it original news production? Is there reporting? Is it news of general interest? Is it primarily news production and not just opinion? That's what we're looking at.

In this sense, it's really interesting that—I'm happy to say—every single opinion across the country is being compensated by the Google funds. Some of them are very opposed to government subsidies for news. The big tent model is an interesting model.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Would anybody else like to comment on that question?

In that case, I'll hand it over to Mr. Champoux for six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today for this important study.

We have been sounding the alarm for so long about the media, especially the news media, and especially in the regions. It has been a constant battle for weeklies. This is not the first time that Mr. Poisson and Mr. Chartier have testified before our committee. We've had multiple discussions over the years. Things have improved somewhat for them thanks to the Canadian journalism labour tax credit, among other things, but the situation is still very fragile, as we know.

That's case for the regional news media, as I was saying, but it's also the case for the radio and television sectors. In fact, the representatives of Télé Inter‑Rives and RNC Media could attest to that.

It is very frustrating to see that so little has been done to really help the regional news media after all this time. It makes me wonder whether the government really understands the importance of journalists in the regions. I'm not talking about regional coverage of major events that the media can do from major centres such as Toronto, Quebec City, Montreal or elsewhere. I'm really talking about being on the ground, covering municipal councils, what's happening in our communities, which journalists in major centres certainly can't do and which only journalists at our weeklies and regional TV and radio stations can do.

Earlier, I think it was you, Mr. Ranger, who once again referred to the urgent need for action. You have no idea how tired I am of hearing that phrase. We say it over and over again, but nothing ever happens. The Yale report on the future of our broadcasting system was released in January 2020. The title of the report includes the phrase “time to act”, and there is reference to urgency. Now, it's almost too late to act, because the support provided is insufficient and often comes too late. It is often misdirected, and often ill-considered. You are here, once again, with hope and passion to save the regional media. I commend you for that because sometimes I wonder where you find the strength to keep fighting this machine that barely listens to you.

There are solutions. Ms. Simard, I found that very refreshing earlier, because you came with a list of ideas. That's true. I'm going to ask you to send those ideas to the committee. You have to keep this fight alive.

You provide solutions, such as the journalism labour tax credit, which should have been extended to the radio and television newsrooms long ago. There is the Independent Local News Fund, or ILNF. No one is opposed to Corus stations being eligible for the ILNF, but it was naive to think that the digital giants would contribute to or shore up that fund. I think the CRTC should have provided compensatory measures at that time, at least while the courts were deciding on the challenge that GAFAM is still conducting today.

You provide solutions. Are you sometimes discouraged to see what little attention is given to the entirely reasonable solutions you propose?

Mr. Ranger, I'll begin with you.