Finance Committee on April 29th, 2019

[Maude Lavoie]

The government wanted to support the print media because the sector is facing great challenges right now. It therefore wanted to put in place certain measures to help members of the industry through a very difficult period in terms of employment, such as layoffs of journalists and newspaper closures. The goal was therefore to target the members of the industry most affected by what is happening right now.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

According to this definition, would the government assistance be available to television and radio broadcasters, who also do print media? For example, some broadcasters produce reports and publish texts, online, of course. Broadcasters also do print journalism on their websites. Is that also taken into account and recognized under the government assistance?

[Maude Lavoie]

For now—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Lavoie, I don't want you to.... It was a decision by the government on the policy side. I don't think you can answer why we went one way or the other, but you can certainly answer what the implications are on radio versus print, etc.

Go ahead, and then I have Mr. Leblanc.

[Pierre Leblanc]

Thank you for your questions.

These organizations would be eligible for one of the measures applicable to qualified donees. Only non-profit organizations would be eligible for any of the three measures.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Did you want to add anything, Ms. Lavoie? You were starting to answer before I interrupted.

[Maude Lavoie]

The only thing I was going to say is that the government has announced it would appoint an expert panel to provide advice to the government on who would qualify for the tax incentives. Currently, as Pierre mentioned, the broadcasters would be eligible for one of the three measures, but there's advice that's coming from an expert panel on the eligibility criteria.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I see Mr. Langdon came to the table. Did you want to add anything?

[Blaine Langdon, Director, Charities, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

No, I think Pierre and Maude have covered that nicely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

Pierre.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

So this wonderful expert panel will recommend or approve applications for eligibility for those tax measures. Has it been set up? If not, is there a timeline for setting up the panel? How will journalism organizations be able to apply and start the process?

[Maude Lavoie]

The details of the panel have not yet been made public. We have been told that it would be done in the coming weeks. Depending on what is being considered, an expert panel will advise the government on what the tax credits should look like. Then, an administrative entity will be responsible for receiving applications from organizations and checking whether they meet the criteria set out in the legislation.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Civil society's main concern is about the need to ensure the independence of this famous committee, independent panel or administrative entity, call it what you will. How can we protect the independence of the decisions to be made by this body, about which we will have more detailed knowledge in a few weeks?

[Maude Lavoie]

We will have to wait for the decisions with respect to the committee. They have not yet been made public.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

The bill we are studying will not contain the decisions about the committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Dusseault might have asked part of the question that I wanted to ask, but I'll ask this question regarding broadcasters. Why would broadcasters not be eligible for the proposed digital subscription and labour tax credit?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who's going to go with it?

[Trevor McGowan]

We are all jumping at it.

As was noted earlier, there are three measures. There's the qualified donee measure for which broadcasters could qualify and then the two tax credits for which they would not.

As was noted, the measures relate to written journalism. That was a decision that the government made. In terms of balancing priorities, looking at issues like the need for assistance as well as the cost of the measure and after having weighed all the relevant criteria, the government decided to support written news organizations as being those that would most benefit by those two measures. Again, as has been noted earlier, broadcasters could qualify for the qualified donee measure.

[Pierre Leblanc]

Maybe just to build on what Trevor said and to emphasize, for the qualified donee measure, they would have to be non-profit or not-for-profit broadcasting organizations, which might look pretty different than a for-profit broadcasting organization.

I think that's why the qualified donee measure is being applied a bit differently.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you.

To be eligible for any of the three measures, an organization has to be first designated as a qualified Canadian journalism organization. It has to be engaged in the production of original news content, but also, I think you want to stay away from any of these organizations focusing on a specific or a particular topic.

My question is regarding indigenous programming. We have a lot of media that focuses on indigenous only. Does that rule them out of this program? Does that leave them on the sidelines?

[Blaine Langdon]

I can respond to that.

I think as we first framed this up, we did want to ensure that the policy targeted general news organizations and didn't support overly narrow subject matters.

I don't want to prejudge in any way, shape or form the work of the independent advisory panel that's to come. They will look at issues like this. I would say that, in general, an organization that provided news and information aimed at a particular community would be sufficient. It would be general enough to qualify.

I would note already, with respect to registered charities and to loop in the issue of qualified donee status for journalism organizations, those organizations already qualify, like an organization that focused on first nations issues and provided news and information. That already qualifies due to a decision of the courts for registration as a charity. Certainly in terms of the proposals that we brought forward, I don't believe, when we were thinking about these things, that an organization directing news and information at a particular community would be excluded from this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have on my list, Mr. Fragiskatos, Ms. Rudd, Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Dusseault.

Mr. Fragiskatos, go ahead.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At first glance, some might feel that this particular measure is unique, but there is ample evidence to suggest that we've looked at other jurisdictions here, correct? Other jurisdictions have implemented similar approaches, have they not?

[Blaine Langdon]

In a sense we're certainly ahead of the pack, but the jurisdiction that is most advanced would be the United States. There's been a considerable amount of movement in the United States because its news agencies are suffering from the same problem, the main problem being a crisis of financing largely related to the collapse of the advertising business model that they had. We've looked at the issues within the United States. There have been other announcements in other jurisdictions where they're looking at the same issues; the United Kingdom and Australia are looking at the same issues. While we are ahead of the pack, in some sense, other jurisdictions are looking at this, and we've built from that.