Evidence of meeting #30 for Canadian Heritage in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was stations.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
Perhaps you can submit that to us in a separate brief because we've run out of time for this question. I apologize, Ms. Royer.
For all of you, at the end of today, if there's something you've forgotten to mention or if there's more information you'd like to provide, please send it to our committee via the clerk, and our analysts can include it for our consideration of the report at the end of this session.
I will now turn the floor over to Mrs. Thomas for five minutes.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
Thank you very much.
Ms. Spring, my question is for you. One comment that you made earlier in this session was that you're sitting on a lot of data that has been collected from these different news organizations. I'm curious. What type of data are you sitting on?
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
When someone submits for compensation, when they submit for funding, they're stating how many newsroom employees they have. They're stating which region they operate in. They're stating their business model. Are they not-for-profit? Are they for-profit?
There are various parts of our program administration that they share with us upon application. Some of this is shared when we post our information publicly about who received the funding. We're also going to share in the next round what member class they're a part of. This will be helpful for people who are looking for transparency and who's getting funding. You'll see how many community radio stations, how many large publishers, how many broadcasters, etc., there are.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
I'm curious, then, about what exactly this data will be used for. You've outlined some of that use, but are there other uses for this data?
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
No, it's really just program administration. If we're going to share any information, it would be thought through carefully with the board of directors as to what would be helpful for the news sector to know about itself, considering that we're sitting on a cross-section of information about the broadcasting and publishing sectors.
We're not an advocacy organization. We're really thinking about what is in service of our mandate and what is going to be helpful to the news communities we serve. We're not publishing anything at the moment, but we're thinking about whether it would be useful for some of this information as the news sector is trying to understand how it needs to meet the moment.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
Bill C-18 never came into effect. Google actually made a deal with the government that it would be exempt for five years as long as it created a fund of $100 million per year that would go through the collective and then be distributed to news organizations. Interestingly enough, Bill C-18 was a flopped bill, and it ended up being shelved because it applied to no one. Now this fund is in effect for a total of five years before, of course, the government will have to revisit this. You, as a collective, have been put in place by whom?
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
Google decided to work with the collective to distribute the funding. There was a collective that was formed.
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
Are you looking for the names of the founding board members?
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
Google was required to create a fund of $100 million, and it decided that an entity called the collective would be responsible for rolling out the money. Who put that collective in place? Who was the initiator of the terms of reference?
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
There was a collective that formed, and they put—
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
It didn't appear out of nowhere. Who formed the collective?
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
I'm trying to answer your question. Essentially, there were several proposals that Google received in terms of how it would be administering the funding. One of the proposals was put together by a group of journalists, of news producers, who formed a collective. Google ended up choosing this collective. These founding board members created the organization, and I'm happy to send you the list of names, if you like, following this session. They incorporated a not-for-profit. They set up the governance structures. Then an elected board was put into place to represent the entire news sector, and the founding board termed out. The first meeting of the elected board was in April 2025, and that's who runs the organization.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
With regard to the original collective that was put together to work with Google to roll this out, you said that there was a group of journalists who got together and formed this collective. Was that just organic? Was it the minister who initiated that, or was it Google that initiated that? Who initiated it? Did they just magically decide that they were going to join together in one room and form a collective? How did it happen?
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
There was a group of people who began a conversation about how they would like to see the Google money administered.
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
The origins of how this conversation started.... It was before I was at the CJC. I've been there for only a year. This predates my time there. There were various journalists who started a conversation about how they would like to see the Google money disbursed and about some of the guiding principles they would like to introduce.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
It was very organic. The minister had no involvement, and Google had no involvement.
Executive Director, Canadian Journalism Collective
As far as I know, this was an entirely independent, organic conversation not related to the government and not related to Google in any way. This was a conversation that started amongst publishers and broadcasters who wanted to ensure that when the Google money—or the Meta money that didn't come through.... They wanted to ensure that when the funding went out, it was adhering to certain principles of equity and of representation. That's why they put into place the structure with the board of directors I was talking about earlier: to make sure that every sector had a seat at the table. The origin story of the collective is something for which I don't have the narrative at the moment. If you want to know more about it, I'd be happy to follow up in writing.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
You have a lot of homework from us today. I'm sorry, Mrs. Spring.
Mr. Myles, you have the floor now for five minutes.
Liberal
David Myles Liberal Fredericton—Oromocto, NB
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thanks, everybody, for being here. This is a great conversation. I'm glad we're doing this.
Maybe I'll start with Mr. Wood, to be followed by Madame Simard and Monsieur Harvey. The question I'm presented with is, what's the future business model for local media in Canada outside of subsidization?
You need to be profitable. Mr. Wood, you spoke about how you've managed to find a profitable business model, given all the challenges. What I'm asking is this: There are a lot of things we can do, but outside of that, from the business perspective, where is there hope in terms of its becoming...? What does the future of the business model look like?
Vice-President, News Talk Programming, Rawlco Radio, As an Individual
I can start if you like.
The business model is not my area of expertise. You have to understand that I'm a journalist by training, but I would say that our business model is based on one reason that we have continued to function and to be profitable. It is that we're very local. Our revenue comes from local businesses and people in our communities. I would suggest to you that our future is going to be in the same vein.
That's why I think, though, that as we look at how the advertising dollars are changing, we're clearly seeing an increase in digital advertising. That's no surprise. When we look at the federal government's distribution of its ad budget and we see a majority of it going to digital, which in many cases is going to be out of the country, we think there's an imbalance. If the federal government really does view local journalism as a priority, as being important to Canadian values and as being important to our culture, it should also make sure with its ad dollars that are currently leaving the country that at least a portion of those would come back and ensure local journalism is supported through the companies that are providing the service to their listeners and audience.
Liberal
David Myles Liberal Fredericton—Oromocto, NB
Certainly, though, there's been a trend in advertising dollars from the private sector as well that have drifted towards the digital media sector. This is a trend that has happened both in the public sector and in the private sector at the same time.