Canadian Heritage Committee on April 23rd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Good morning, friends. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 33 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Before we begin, I would ask all in-person participants to read the guidelines written on the updated cards on the table in front of you. These are measures in place to help prevent feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, especially our interpreters. You'll notice that there's a QR code on the card, which links to a short awareness video.

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. I think we have some witnesses online today, although I don't see them yet.

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.

Before we begin, let me wish you a happy birthday, Mr. Généreux.

Mr. Champoux, the floor is yours.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I just want to say that we are all hoping to look as fit as Mr. Généreux when we get to his age.

Congratulations, Mr. Généreux. We want to know your secret.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

We have with us today Marie-Philippe Bouchard, from CBC/Radio-Canada. We also have Local Independent Television Stations with us online. We have Calvin Millar, president of Channel Zero. As full disclosure, Channel Zero is the company that owns CHCH, where I worked for 20 years. I know Cal well. We also have with us Rod Schween, president of Pattison Media, and Angus Frame, president, Torstar Corporation, here in the room. Also, from The Hub, Rudyard Griffiths joins us online.

Welcome, everyone. You will each have five minutes as a group, if you're here with a group, to give us opening statements.

Ms. Bouchard, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBC/Radio-Canada]

Madam Chair, members of the committee, at my last appearance, we discussed the challenges facing Canadian media organizations.

As previous witnesses have highlighted, foreign giants are monopolizing digital ad revenues—to the tune of 96.5%.

This has enormous repercussions for Canadian media at a time when traditional ad revenues continue to decline.

In this rapidly shifting landscape, CBC/Radio-Canada is especially mindful of its responsibility as Canada's public broadcaster.

Today, I'd like to draw your attention to how CBC/Radio-Canada is contributing to the Canadian media sector. From content sharing and journalist training to advertising and joint advocacy on common causes, we are prioritizing collaboration with other Canadian media.

In terms of content, for example, CBC and the Toronto Star have partnered on a new investigative crime podcast about Ryan Wedding, the Canadian Olympian turned FBI most wanted fugitive.

CBC/Radio-Canada also shares content with other media. In Tumbler Ridge, for example, we organized the camera pool at the memorial service, providing live video to other media covering the story and keeping the number of cameras to a minimum out of respect for the community.

Similarly, several CBC daily newsletters link to articles from private local media, such as in Fort St. John, Medicine Hat and Sault Ste. Marie.

In certain places, notably Iqaluit and Rimouski, we offer our hourly radio newscasts to community radio stations.

In terms of publicity, CAB/Radio-Canada gives media partners free ad inventory to promote their news content to a wider audience.

CBC/Radio-Canada also contributes to training initiatives. For example, Radio-Canada invited other media outlets to participate in Journalisme 6x5, an event organized with the news group Les Coops de l’information, where Radio-Canada professionals shared their expertise on investigative journalism, social media and artificial intelligence.

Our contribution to the Canadian media ecosystem also includes helping other media outlets in official language minority communities. We recently reached an agreement with Envol 91 FM, Winnipeg's French-language community radio station, to allow them to continue broadcasting their signal from our antenna.

CBC/Radio-Canada has also spearheaded the defence and promotion of causes we have in common with other Canadian media. We have collaborated with Corus/Global News, Torstar, La Presse and Bell Media, among others, to combat online harassment of journalists.

As Canada's public broadcaster, we have a mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain. To do this, we need to keep up with how and where Canadians consume content, while also supporting the media sector.

Our strategy focuses on three priorities: proximity, digital agility and bringing people together.

In January, to improve our proximity and services to Canadians, CBC News opened 11 new bureaus to better serve and reflect the concerns of people in communities such as Châteauguay, Dawson City, Richmond, Peel Region and Swift Current.

CBC has also strengthened its local coverage in Hamilton, Fort Smith and Lloydminster.

Radio-Canada has done the same, adding more resources in 22 communities, including Calgary, Charlottetown, Gaspé, Kelowna, Saskatoon, Shawinigan, the Montérégie region and Moncton.

We continue to bring Canadians together. What better example is there than our coverage of the Winter Olympic Games?

In a Leger survey, 80% of Canadians said that it is important for Canada to have a public broadcaster to cover major sporting events like the Olympics, and 71% said that our Olympic coverage allowed them to follow athletes from their regions. In total, the games attracted over 89 million streams on our digital platforms.

This shows that the public broadcaster is listening and adapting to reflect the changing consumption habits of Canadians.

We are adapting to these changes by collaborating with other Canadian media outlets, as with our Olympic coverage, which was done in partnership with TSN, Sportsnet and RDS, and by ensuring that our content is discoverable and accessible on the platforms Canadians use.

On this subject, the committee has invited me to speak at a later date about our agreement with Amazon to carry ICI RDI and CBC News Network on Prime Video. But I am happy to answer any questions you may have about this today.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that the diversity and vitality of the Canadian media ecosystem are central to our strategy and mandate. We are fully committed to playing our part in supporting a healthy and diverse media landscape in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to Calvin Millar and Rod Schween with Local Independent Television Stations.

Together, sirs, you have five minutes. Go ahead.

[Calvin Millar, President, Channel Zero, Local Independent Television Stations]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning. My name is Cal Millar. I'm here in my capacity as chair of the Local Independent Television Stations group, or LITS. I'm also president of Channel Zero, owner and operator of CHCH.

With me today is Rod Schween, president of Pattison Media, with television stations in Kamloops and Prince George, as well as 51 radio stations spanning the four western provinces.

You heard from LITS members RNC Media and Télé Inter-Rives on April 14. A fact sheet on LITS has been provided with this statement.

All independent broadcasters operate through a combination of entrepreneurship, commitment to a community and optimism.

As many of you will remember, in 2009, the late Izzy Asper's Canwest Global was found to be bankrupt. Shaw Media bought most of Canwest's local stations, but a handful, including our CHCH and CHEK-TV in Victoria, were orphans. They were redundant in a national network that favoured reach over local service, and they were slated to close.

We acquired an unprofitable CHCH at the time. Our management team grew up watching CHCH. We knew—or at least we gambled—that CHCH could have a future and took it back to its past, where it was rooted in its community, anchored by local news and run locally and prudently.

Almost two decades later, I think it's fair to say that we have had a measure of success. We produce and air 30 hours of local news and information weekly, which is probably more than any other local broadcaster across the country.

Up until recently, we ran this as a private business that made some money and mattered in our community. We believe we matter more than ever, but this year, we will lose millions of dollars.

[Rod Schween, President, Pattison Media, Local Independent Television Stations]

Here at Pattison Media, we first got into the business of local television in 1987, when we acquired our Kamloops station. Both Kamloops and Prince George are much smaller markets than Hamilton, each with approximately 100,000 people. I trust you can appreciate that providing local news to markets of this size, with advertising as the only commercial revenue, has never been easy. However, what we at LITS all have in common is that our past challenges pale in comparison with the challenges we face today.

When Pattison bought Kamloops, the Internet effectively didn't exist. When Cal's company took over CHCH-TV—we're only talking about 2009—total revenues for TV stations in Canada were $2.1 billion. Today they are $1.5 billion. This might not sound like a big drop, but realize that after inflation, it represents a 50% drop. For LITS, this 50% drop has resulted in the closure of five local stations to date.

How did this happen? Did we forget how to run TV stations? Did we lose our relevance or our collective competitive edge? No, I don't think so. What happened is that Internet advertising grew from $1.8 billion in 2009 to a whopping $20 billion today. Let that sink in. Over the course of a couple of decades, Google, YouTube and Facebook, platforms that have almost zero content costs and infinite advertising inventory, grabbed almost 75% of Canada's advertising market. We didn't lose this advertising because we have nothing to offer Canadians; we lost it because U.S. tech giants figured out how to monetize Canadians' attention in a way that costs them virtually nothing. The implications are huge. They go well beyond the impact on LITS and our ability to provide local news.

The relevance to this set of hearings, however, is blindingly simple. If Canada wants to maintain a Canadian-owned and controlled broadcasting ecosystem, something this committee insisted remain a policy objective in its review of the Online Streaming Act, and if we want a truly sovereign nation—a democracy in which Canadians make decisions based on facts and considered analysis, not fake news and foreign influence—we have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.

[Calvin Millar]

You've already heard from a number of witnesses who have helped diagnose the problems and proposed solutions. Absolutely vital is that the government does not give away either the Online Streaming Act or the Online News Act in trade negotiations. On the latter, in February, LITS filed an application with the CRTC to bring Meta under the Online News Act.

We have a number of specific recommendations for government. We also have commentary on each of these recommendations in our written opening statement, which we do not have time to read, unfortunately.

First and foremost, we ask you to support the CAB's request for emergency bridge funding of the ILNF. Going forward, we have three recommendations to build a viable and sustainable news ecosystem for all broadcasters. One, extend the journalism tax credit to broadcasters. Two, have the federal government commit to directing at least 25% of its advertising budget to trusted domestic professional news organizations. Three, eliminate advertising tax deductibility on foreign platforms.

In their earlier appearances, RNC Media and Télé Inter-Rives spoke about the urgency of the situation, saying that if support isn't imminent, cuts in news hours and journalists and ultimately station closures are all but inevitable. Thunder Bay's TV stations are at a similar risk, as are those of Miracle Channel and Pattison. We ourselves, CHEK and NTV have a bit more runway, but as things stand, news cuts are likely this summer or possibly fall. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians in smaller communities will lose a significant amount, potentially their only source, of local news. We are here to ask you to help ensure that this doesn't happen.

Thank you. We'd be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thanks to both of you, and thank you for reminding us of this story.

Mr. Millar, I lived through the whole process. I will never forget the day we were all brought into a room and told, “If we don't find a buyer for you, in a month you're going black.” Thank you for the reminder.

We will now start questions with Mrs. Thomas....

Oh, I'm sorry. Next is Torstar Corporation. I'm a bit discombobulated because my timer went off. I apologize for that.

Mr. Angus Frame, you now have the floor for five minutes. I'll try to make sure that my timer doesn't make noise this time.

[Angus Frame, President, Torstar Corporation]

Thank you for having me.

My name is Angus Frame. I'm the president of the Torstar Corporation. I spent the first 12 years of my career as a journalist before moving into digital leadership and product building. I've spent my career at the intersection of journalism and technology, building the platforms that deliver the news to Canadians.

I'm here today to represent Torstar's more than 350 journalists, all of whom are based in Ontario. From the Toronto Star and The Hamilton Spectator to our suite of hyperlocal community brands, including The Smiths Falls Record News, the New Hamburg Independent and many more, our reporters are often the only ones in the courtroom or at city hall. Without them, many Ontario communities would simply have no local reporting at all. The stories we tell—such as Brendan Kennedy's story of prisoner abuse at Maplehurst correctional institute or those on a Peabody-nominated podcast, Left To Their Own Devices, about online harms—are not possible without the talent of dedicated journalists and the resources to support them.

Over 11 million Canadians come to our network of sites, apps and feeds every month. We are deepening our relationship with them and diversifying our business through new digital products, partnerships and events.

We are investing in the next generation. This year, we are hiring 40 new or student journalists. The stability provided by federal programs has given us the predictability needed to make these hires, expand our footprint and invest in local news and high-quality journalism.

However, our resilience is challenged by an increasingly abusive environment. Canadian journalism faces multiple market failures caused by big tech monopolies.

U.S. courts found that Google maintains a monopoly over the ad tech stack. It acts as the buyer, the seller and the exchange, taking a massive cut of every advertising dollar. The court also found that Google had engaged in several unlawful schemes, including manipulating its ad exchange auction and rigging bids so that its own customers would win. This has deprived publishers of billions in ad revenue worldwide. Foreign giants control the entire tech stack. They have inserted themselves as an unavoidable gatekeeper, controlling who can compete in digital markets and who can be seen and heard.

Google has controlled traffic for years and has wielded the power to make or break publishers with changes to its core algorithm, which remains veiled in secrecy. Google's more recent AI Overviews summarize content and present it to users in a way that discourages a click-through. Publishers don't get traffic, attribution or revenue from this practice, which effectively steals our content under the guise of innovation.

We are fighting the theft of our content, but we cannot do it alone. We need the regulatory environment to recognize that journalism is not just another content type but fundamental infrastructure for a functioning democracy. When big tech undermines the business model of local news, it replaces it with AI slop and a fractured ecosystem in which misinformation and disinformation thrive. This makes it increasingly difficult for Canadians to operate from a place of shared knowledge.

We see the Ontario government taking a positive step with its ad set-aside program, prioritizing local media. Ottawa must follow suit. The federal government is weakening our information sovereignty by turning away from Canadian media and platforms while funnelling millions of tax dollars into the coffers of foreign tech monopolists.

I will leave you with a challenging scenario. Imagine that tomorrow, the government faces an emergency and needs to communicate urgently with Canadians. The only way to do so will be through channels owned and controlled by Silicon Valley billionaires and the Trump administration. This is no mere hypothetical. These actors can exercise control over Canadian institutions, our press and our civic life.

I ask each of you to remain vigilant about big tech's power over Canadian policy-making. Many so-called Canadian associations are dominated by U.S. big tech.

As Canadians' elected representatives, I urge you to guard against the false narratives about Canada's best interests. You can do this by asking, does a proposal counter big tech's power over Canada, or does it ignore or even accept that power? If it's the latter, you are not hearing the solution. You are being urged to surrender.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

That was very well said, sir. Thank you very much.

Finally, we go back online to Mr. Rudyard Griffiths with The Hub.

You have five minutes, sir.

[Rudyard Griffiths, Publisher, The Hub]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear today.

The study you have under way examines journalism and media in Canada, including—I want to focus on the words of your motion—“issues of fairness and competition”. This is where I want to focus my remarks.

First, I'll say a brief word about The Hub by way of background. I'm its publisher and co-founder, with my colleague Sean Speer. This month, we marked our fifth anniversary as a digital news and commentary start-up. We're pleased that in the last 12 months, there were over 28 million engagements with our platform, predominantly by Canadians from coast to coast. At 300,000 monthly downloads, our podcast feed is one of the country's largest, dedicated to the issues this committee cares about: Canadian politics, economics and public policy.

We think that growth tells all of us something important. There's clearly a real public appetite for new voices and new perspectives in the national media mix. We're proud that we built our national audience through private grants, subscriptions, advertising, sponsorship and events. Unlike virtually all of our peers, large and small, we have not utilized government subsidies to fund our news journalism and public commentary. To this extent, we believe The Hub's continuing success is a powerful proof point that high-quality journalism and serious policy analysis can thrive independent of government subsidies.

However, this may not remain true for much longer, not only for the few remaining non-subsidized outlets but ultimately for the Hub. This brings me back to the topic of fairness and competition, which is at the heart of your study.

By refusing to use subsidies to fund our journalism, we compete on an uneven playing field. To state the obvious, the labour tax credit is not tied to any meaningful performance metric. It is allocated on a journalist head count alone. This conveniently rewards incumbents that have had decades to build subscriber bases to sustain their newsrooms. This is great for them; I congratulate them. Start-ups, meanwhile, have to build their audiences from scratch. They have to go from zero to one, 100 and, in our case, over 30,000 subscribers. They have no subscriber base to fund the newsroom in a way that would qualify them, were there meaningful support in the first place when they start out, as we started out five years ago.

Adding insult to injury, large incumbents engage in predatory subscription pricing. You've all seen it. It's one dollar for six months or one dollar for a year. They do this knowing that taxpayer supports will make them financially whole at the end of the day. Inexplicably, this payroll tax subsidy scheme is also anonymous. Recipients are not disclosed. This means that outlets like The Hub, which believe that journalism not funded by government largesse is a key selling point to potential readers, cannot differentiate themselves on the very issue of press independence because of the anonymity of the subsidies and how they're given out.

Think about that for a moment. At The Hub, we've come to accept the reality that, despite undermining public trust in the media—I can speak to that; I have hard data on it—freezing incumbents in their dominant positions and stifling innovation among new digital start-ups, these once temporary government supports are now permanent, and they are likely to continue to expand. Between the Canadian labour journalism tax credit and the local journalism initiative alone, Canadian taxpayers are spending close to $100 million a year on news subsidies.

Let me offer four quick, practical reforms to make better use of this money.

First, end anonymity. If the media industry believes, as it says all the time, that transparency is the basis of public trust in all institutions, including the government, it should apply this standard to itself. Canadians deserve to know which outlets are receiving public money vis-à-vis the labour tax credit and how much.

Second, stop subsidizing the head count. If you're going to subsidize the press, reward outlets for growing their audiences, not their overhead. Tie a meaningful portion of the credit to reaching engagement and subscriber growth. Reward outlets that Canadians are choosing to read, like The Hub.

Third, require a code of conduct. Outlets taking subsidies should declare them openly and regularly in their mastheads, on their websites and in their annual reporting. They should be discouraged from using their own platforms to lobby for more government money. This is now pervasive across much of mainstream media. It's a conflict of interest, and it further erodes public trust.

Finally, I'll conclude with this: Mandate that payroll subsidies go to funding journalism, not cash payouts to owners and bondholders. The Canadian Journalism Collective already requires this of Online News Act funds. The same rules should apply to the labour tax credit and be tightened to require mandatory financial disclosure by recipient outlets of exactly how they are spending the public's funds on their news and journalism operations.

I'll stop there. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you, sir.

Now we will move to questions from members, starting with Ms. Thomas for six minutes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you so much.

Ms. Bouchard, in one of the comments you made in your opening remarks, you said foreign giants are monopolizing ad revenue. Further to this, another witness added that about 75% of Canadian ad dollars are going to foreign giants. Certainly, we see this as an issue, and it is concerning.

My concern goes further, though. It doesn't seem to be just advertisers that are choosing these foreign giants. Our Prime Minister is as well. On Sunday, he came out with what seemed to mimic a state of the union address, similar to something Trump would give in the United States. Instead of choosing the CBC—which I would think of as his natural choice, given that it's Canada's broadcaster—he chose to put it out on YouTube, which belongs to an American tech giant.

I'm curious to know what you make of this and why you think this choice was made by the Prime Minister and his office.

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I'm not privy to why the Prime Minister chose this particular vehicle. Of course, there are processes for the government to address the nation through the CBC for official announcements of various kinds. Otherwise, we have standing invitations for most politicians to come to our various programs.

I don't know. I can't speculate on the question.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay.

It's well known that trust in the CBC's media provisions is down with the general public and viewership is down. Do you think any of this had to do with the reason?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I want to qualify your statement. The trust in the public broadcaster, in general, holds relatively steady at around 75%. I don't have the precise numbers, but that's a significant number. Usage, in general, across platforms, is relatively steady as well.

We see movement from conventional services, such as linear television, and movement towards digital platforms, podcasts, FAST channels or websites, so I wouldn't characterize it as a downward trend in general.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Does it concern you that the Prime Minister chose to go with an American platform, YouTube, instead of coming to Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I don't have a particular position, as the public broadcaster, as to where the Prime Minister chooses to address his concerns. He comes to our stations. He has come to various programs. There are plenty of journalists from the CBC who are able to ask questions and provide some exposure for his statements, but I can't explain this particular statement.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Right. I think most of us are having a hard time explaining it.

Interestingly enough, you're talking about ad revenue being monopolized by these foreign giants. The current government also spends the vast majority of its advertising budget with these same foreign giants, instead of coming to Canadian companies.

I'm curious. Are you in support of this decision by the government?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

I am fully in support of my colleague broadcaster's position that there should be an effort made by all public undertakings to support Canadian media through advertising. I think that's a wise way to spend it.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm sorry. I'll pose my question again.

This current Liberal government puts the vast majority of its advertising dollars into big American tech giants. Overwhelmingly, it does not choose Canadian companies. What is your position on this? Do you agree with the decision by the government?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

As I said, I am in agreement with the position of the CAB and other Canadian media, encouraging government to invest in Canadian media. That is my position.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay.

One thing the CBC loves to talk about is supposed news deserts. You listed a number of cities that the CBC has put a presence into over the last couple of years. You listed places like Lloydminster, Calgary and Moncton. We've heard from numerous witnesses at this committee that there is local coverage in these places and that they feel quite targeted by the CBC, quite under attack by your organization, because the CBC comes in with $1.6 billion of taxpayer money plus ad revenue and is able to then dispel local organizations that are doing good work. These are local people who live in the community. They are a part of the community, and they're reporting on the community. The CBC comes in with transplants and puts people there for maybe six months or up to a year. Then these people usually transfer out to other jobs or opportunities. They're not a part of the community. They're not living there long term. They don't understand it.

The CBC has this unequal playing field that is created because it's coming in with government dollars and ad dollars, and then it's able to dispel smaller players that have been there for years, sometimes decades or even up to a century. How do you feel about that?

[Marie-Philippe Bouchard]

Well, I would qualify a lot of the statements you have made. First of all—