Once again, Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today.
The Canadian Media Guild represents thousands of media workers across Canada. These can be journalists, producers, editors, technicians, digital creators, administration staff and more working at institutions like APTN, CBC/Radio-Canada, The Canadian Press, TVO, TFO, BuzzFeed and Canada's National Observer, just to name a few.
To identify our members' priorities, we conducted an online survey in February. The findings provide a timely snapshot of media workers whose labour underpins Canada's cultural sovereignty. The survey results, while not surprising, were deeply concerning. Permanent jobs are being replaced with contract, casual and freelance work offering fewer protections.
Media workers are expected to produce more content across more platforms around the clock, but their hearts are still in the work, with 90% saying they are proud to work in Canadian media and 87% believing their work is valuable. The commitment to public service remains strong, but the conditions they face do not: 88% are concerned about job security and describe the industry as unstable, and nearly everyone—99% of respondents—says wages must keep up with the cost of living, not because workers are seeking immense wealth but because they are trying to survive in this industry.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the media sector in fundamental ways. Workers are concerned about AI systems being trained on their work without consent or compensation. The misuse of AI can destroy the audience's trust and take away meaningful work, and 90% of media workers say they want protections as technology and AI change their work.
Having the government defend existing copyright laws and put out transparent policies on AI use will help the public have more trust in the media sector. We encourage the government to include human content standard language around AI use in the Canadian journalism labour tax credit.
This tax credit has already helped sustain journalism jobs. Adding a human content standard will ensure the credit is supporting Canadian workers and not their artificial replacements. Supporting CBC/Radio-Canada is vital for protecting cultural sovereignty. Our public broadcaster provides local journalism where private media has withdrawn, reflects communities across the country and delivers trusted information, yet ongoing financial uncertainty has resulted in repeated layoffs, reduced local programming and increased precarity for workers.
Of our members, 92% support increasing CBC/Radio-Canada funding towards levels comparable with other G7 public broadcasters, and 85% support moving to legislated, stable, multi-year funding. We urge you to follow through on the 2025 government paper, “The Future of CBC/Radio-Canada”. It provides a clear road map to protect and enhance our public broadcaster, independent of political change.
For many journalists, especially women, minorities and 2SLGBTQ+ members, the toxicity we face online and in person while doing our job is becoming overwhelming. Many are also routinely exposed to traumatic content, violence, tragedy and hate, leading to high rates of burnout, and 89% of members say they need supports in health, safety and mental well-being.
We urge the government to support stronger protections through the upcoming online harms act, particularly with journalist safety and mental health as explicit priorities. This would have to be a balanced approach to have harmful content removed from online platforms while not silencing charter-protected rights of freedom of expression or limiting freedom of the press.
Among media workers, 95% believe government action is essential to support the media sector—action like protecting both the Online News Act and the Online Streaming Act. We need you to resist pressure and coercive tactics in trade negotiations with the U.S. that seek to amend or water down this legislation.
Change happens all the time in the media. I started as a youngster, splicing film reels together with tape at a movie theatre. An early job for me was right here on Parliament Hill, as a physical camera operator for Senate committee meetings. I could now do a broadcast-quality video with the tech contents of my purse.
As media workers, we are all keenly aware of the inevitability of change. The Canadian Media Guild urges this committee to continue its leadership by centring workers in media policy decisions. This is not a workforce resisting change; this is a workforce asking for stability, fairness and a future.
Thank you.