Canadian Heritage Committee on April 16th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

So everyone on this committee has to be bilingual.

Mr. Généreux is suggesting that we not speak too closely to the microphone or too loudly into the microphone.

Are we good to continue? All right.

I'm sorry, Ms. Gunn Reid. You have five minutes. Please continue.

[Sheila Gunn Reid]

Great.

I'm here on behalf of independent, reader-funded journalists who are being pushed out of Canada's media landscape, not by the market but by their own government. Canada already has a two-tiered media system. On one side are government-subsidized outlets. On the other side are independent journalists who rely entirely on their market and their audience. We are increasingly denied equal access to both government and the public square.

Federal departments have decided who gets answers and who does not. An independent journalist was told by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada very recently that his organization does not qualify for these services. The services were answers to his questions. Global Affairs Canada has also done the same. The message is clear: If you're not approved, you're not entitled to answers.

The same pattern exists at the political level. We have seen elected officials refuse to answer questions from independent outlets. We have seen reporters arrested for attempting to question ministers. We have been denied access to federal leaders debates and forced to go to court, successfully twice, just to do our jobs. Increasingly, independent journalists are not just excluded; they're also treated like a problem to be managed.

The discrimination does not stop on Parliament Hill. Our journalists are routinely blocked from political events, not because we're disruptive but specifically because we're independent. At the Liberal convention, our journalists were refused accreditation. When they then were forced to conduct walk-and-talk interviews outside the venue, security was called on them at least twice—outside, in public, peacefully talking to people. In Edmonton, at Mark Carney's campaign kickoff, police were called on independent journalists simply for trying to ask questions—no disruption, no threat, just questions.

This is the pattern: Deny access, treat reporting like trespassing, and then escalate it to a security issue. Meanwhile, legacy outlets are waved through.

When independent journalists are shut out, it's not just reporters who are excluded; it's the millions of Canadians they represent. The distortion, however, goes deeper. The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing legacy media. The money overwhelmingly flows to outlets that already receive preferred treatment. This creates a closed loop. Subsidized media get access, and access reinforces their dominance. Independent media, who reject government funding as a matter of principle, are left to compete in a tilted market. I reiterate that we do not want these subsidies. We reject them, because government money in journalism is political contamination.

Government policy is also interfering with how we reach our audience. Legislation like the Online News Act has disrupted how news is shared online. When platforms block news links, independent outlets lose a critical connection to their audience.

Then there's Parliament Hill itself. The parliamentary press gallery, a taxpayer-supported institution made up largely of our competitors, controls access to the Hill. Independent journalists are routinely denied membership, blocking us from press conferences and daily government proceedings.

Let's be clear about what this system in Canada produces. Government decides who is a journalist. Government funds those it prefers. Gatekeepers control access to power. Policy limits how the rest of us reach the public. This is not a free press. According to Reporters Without Borders, Canada has fallen from eighth place in 2015 to 21st place in 2025.

Independent journalists are not asking for special treatment. We're asking for equal treatment. End discrimination in media access, ensure that no journalist is blocked from public institutions by their competitors, and stop using public policy to interfere with how independent media reach their audience. A free press is not funded, filtered and approved by the government; it is free to challenge it. Right now, that freedom is under pressure, and it's time to restore it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Next, we go online to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Peter Menzies, you have the floor for five minutes, sir.

[Peter Menzies, Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute]

By now you have been informed by several people that the health of many news organizations in Canada is poor. The situation, if the mounting requests for subsidies are anything to go by—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

I'm sorry, sir. We have a point of order. I think it's because we don't hear you well in the room.

Mr. Myles, was that your point of order?

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

That's correct. I was wondering if we could just turn it up in the House, so we can hear it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

We'll see if it's the volume in the room that's the problem. You're our only online witness.

Could you speak again, sir? Start from the top, and we'll make sure that we can hear you.

[Peter Menzies]

Sure.

The cow jumped over the moon. The moon jumped over the cow. The cow jumped back over the moon and the moon jumped back over the cow. Then the cow jumped over the moon. How's that going?

Would you like a weather report? It's snowing here today. It's terrible. There's 20 centimetres of snow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

All right. Please start from the beginning, sir. I'll start your time over.

[Peter Menzies]

Thank you very much.

By now, you've been informed by several people that the health of many news organizations in Canada is poor. The situation is that if the mounting requests for subsidies are anything to go by, it is even more dire than it was in 2018, when publishers first convinced the government to get involved. That might indicate that while current solutions have provided hospice care for several companies, most journalists are now reliant on the corridors of power they are expected to patrol on the public's behalf.

Unless significant changes are made, that dependence is only going to grow stronger as the list of organizations asking for more money grows and grows. As it does, the playing field for the news industry will continue to be unstable and its content viewed with increasing suspicion. That, in turn, will suppress investment by innovators looking to create new, independent and sustainable 21st-century-appropriate platforms.

That has been the pattern since 2019, when the “temporary” five-year journalism labour tax credit for newspapers was introduced. Enhanced in 2023, it is now in its eighth year.

The local journalism initiative, which was initially announced as a five-year, $50-million plan in 2019, also continues, enhanced.

The CRTC, meanwhile, is working on more financial support for broadcast-based news, while the CBC, the nation's largest employer of journalists, has received an additional $150 million. Then there's the $100-million Google fund, which partially offsets the loss of revenue created when Facebook was lost as a delivery platform. Of course, there is also the Canada periodical fund.

It adds up to a lot of money, but sooner or later news media will run out of other people's money to spend, so this is a good time to pause and reflect upon whether current approaches are achieving the desired public good outcomes, what those are, and what those who are experiencing success are doing differently.

If the public good is to sustain companies with broken business models, it must be accepted that this tilts the industrial playing field to the disadvantage of those trying to create sustainable, independent and trusted models. If, on the other hand, the public good the government is trying to support is a nation of well-informed citizens, an entirely fresh approach is needed. That begins with policy-makers developing an industry-wide policy platform focused on the 21st-century reality that all news media are converging on the Internet.

Surveys also indicate that a large plurality of Canadians worry that media dependence on government negatively impacts objectivity. Since 2018, trust in news in Canada has been in decline. Correlation is not always causation, of course, but this coincides with government funding of news organizations.

Alternative positive suggestions can be found in a Macdonald-Laurier Institute policy paper I co-authored, entitled “...and now, the news.” It details an alternative path forward to achieve a sustainable, trusted, innovative and independent news industry. I ask that you read it.

In the meantime, I propose the following steps to promote a sustainable, independent and trusted news industry. First, create a national news industry policy that views journalism organizations as a single sector. This would necessitate the industry forming a new all-encompassing association that could, instead of a government-appointed panel, determine what constitutes a qualified Canadian journalism organization.

Next, phase out direct subsidies and implement policies that not only encourage the production of news and employment of journalists but also ensure that what news is produced is actually consumed. Subsidizing consumers through enhanced subscription tax credits and/or tax deductions is agnostic, while encouraging news consumption, choice and competition. Portugal, for instance, pays for two-year digital news subscriptions for 15- to 18-year-olds.

Next, demand that companies benefiting from funding or government contracts are publicly accountable and prominently post details of these relationships; limit access to production-based benefits to not-for-profit organizations; insist that all recipients of direct taxpayer support provide space for rebuttal commentary, particularly as it applies to discussions of public policies impacting news organizations; and enhance copyright protections for news subscriptions.

The path the industry and the government are currently on is only going to produce increased demands for more golden handcuffs.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thanks to you.

We will now turn to questions from members, starting with MP Diotte for six minutes.

You have the floor, sir.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I want to start with Sheila Gunn Reid.

Sheila, you're both the editor-in-chief of Rebel News as well as president of the Independent Press Gallery. I know your organization has been in business since 2015. You're very well known, and you break news stories, yet you say you're being shut out by the Liberal government and others. Tell me a few specific examples of how you've been shut out.

[Sheila Gunn Reid]

I can speak directly to the Liberal Party of Canada. I mentioned in my opening statement that our reporters were denied accreditation at the most recent convention. They were subjected to doing walk and talks outside the venue. However, that's not the only way that we're shut out of being able to hold politicians to account on behalf of the public in this country.

Press galleries, including here in Ottawa and in legislatures across the country, keep our members from joining. Alberta is a specific exemption to that sort of practice. Even though the Alberta legislature press gallery voted to keep Rebel News journalists out, we were able to be accredited through the Speaker's office, because the Alberta government has a commitment to engaging with journalists across the political spectrum.

It is bizarre that a cabal of your competitors can get together after receiving government subsidies to protect their exclusive access to politicians. That's not how journalism is supposed to work.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

It seems that these days the vast majority of media outlets are getting direct funding from government. Isn't it inevitable that this would impact their objectivity?

[Sheila Gunn Reid]

We listened to the opening statement from the Canadian Media Guild, which implied very strongly that the majority of newsrooms in this country are government-subsidized, directly or passively, through tax credits through the qualified Canadian journalism organization tax credit structure. Where is the incentive, then, to hold the government to account, if your newsroom is reliant on the government for its survival?

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Tell us a bit about Rebel News and the size of your organization. I would guess that you might be a larger organization than some of the press gallery members here in Ottawa. Can you give me some specifics about your audience, your reach, etc.?

[Sheila Gunn Reid]

Depending on the day, we are Canada's largest independent news organization. We have journalists all across the country. We have journalists in Australia.

I'll give you an example. During the “freedom convoy”, despite the fact that the CBC building is right across the street from where we're sitting right now, our coverage of the “freedom convoy” dwarfed the CBC's, because we had independent journalists, first-hand, in the streets, talking to people.

The media landscape is changing. You don't need satellite trucks or expensive newsrooms anymore, yet these organizations are not experiencing the market correction I think they so rightly deserve because of the government subsidies to failing news organizations. They are not innovating, because the government is hindering that innovation through subsidies.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I was a member of the press gallery in Alberta, and I find it personally really galling that the Ottawa press gallery won't allow you to be a member. How does that even happen?

[Sheila Gunn Reid]

The press gallery itself is self-governing, but with that self-governance comes a certain level of protectionism. If working journalists in this country, from all parts of the political spectrum, want to hold their government to account, they should be able to. They should be able to work on the Hill. They should be able to scrum politicians from the left and the right and speak to their audience. The fact that this doesn't happen is reflected in the failing of the media landscape. Nobody watches the mainstream media anymore.

The viewership of the CBC is a statistical rounding error. Why do they think that is? It's because it does not reflect the diversity of this country and the political spectrum, regardless of the fact that the CBC mandate says it should. People are not tuning in and watching the mainstream media anymore, because they don't think the media cares about them. They are not being treated honestly by the media. That's why the media keeps coming hat in hand to the government, looking for more.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Shouldn't Canadians and other journalists be troubled by this?

[Sheila Gunn Reid]

Absolutely. When we see the decline in the trust in the media in this country, we can point directly to how the media behaves. I'll give you an example of this. During the leaders' debate, there was some controversy that broke out in the media room. Now, all of that was caught on video. Independent journalists were subject to workplace harassment inside the media room at the debates commission. Rebel News journalists were at the heart of that. The CBC went on air, accused our journalists of misinformation and then denied us the right of reply. In fact, instead of offering us the right of reply, they called the SPVM on us. That's not appropriate journalism—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you. Our time's up for that question.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

A point of order, Madam Chair.

I have left the speaking rotation so that my Conservative colleagues can finish. But it's impossible to carry on like this. It's intolerable. It's impossible to follow the interpretation adequately.

I really am asking for the problem to be fixed or for us to change rooms because, at the moment, we can't work like this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

All right. We will suspend and possibly change rooms, because the audio situation is untenable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

I am resuming this meeting. Thank you all for your patience.

I will turn now to Mr. Al Soud. You have the floor for six minutes.