Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm here today on behalf of 700 daily and community newspapers across the country to address budget measures aimed at supporting Canadian journalism.
The budget measures are very important to daily and community newspapers and we strongly support them. They will help preserve newsrooms while we develop new business models.
lt is important to remember that people across the country still depend on their newspapers. We do not have a readership problem. We have a revenue problem. News Media Canada just released a survey which found that 88% of Canadians read newspapers in some form every week.
The day after we released the study, employees at the Globe and Mail learned that the newspaper needs to reduce its labour costs by $10 million annually. The same day, the Toronto Star released financial results that noted the company cut 32 positions during the first quarter of this year.
lt's not just the big companies. A week earlier, the Westman Journal closed in my home province of Manitoba. We have lost 20% of the community newspapers in Saskatchewan in the past two years.
All of us are engaged in transforming our business models so we can continue to fulfill the key role that a free press must play in a healthy democracy. However, these business models need time to develop. They include new features such as paid digital subscriptions and charitable donations. During the transition, we are finding it increasingly difficult to preserve our capacity to gather the news and information that our communities depend on.
At my own newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press, there were 110 newsroom staff when I became editor 14 years ago. Today there are 55 editorial employees.
We used to cover much of what moved in Winnipeg. Right now, the Manitoba government is conducting a comprehensive review of the kindergarten to grade 12 education system. Neither the Free Press nor any other news media outlet in Manitoba has a single reporter who covers education regularly.
The 25% refundable labour tax credit in the budget for newsroom employees could allow the Free Press to hire 15 or 20 additional reporters and restore coverage of areas such as the public education system.
The personal income tax credit for digital subscriptions would help boost the future base of our business: a paying digital audience.
The possibility of some journalistic organizations receiving charitable donations that Canadians may claim as tax deductions establishes yet another source of support for news organizations that was unavailable in the past.
These measures have been called a bailout by some. I would suggest that this crowd knows very little about the business of operating a newspaper.
My company has an expense budget of $62 million this year. We have estimated the labour tax credit might give us $1 million annually. That is 1.6% of our expense budget. It will not bail us out. We will have to save ourselves, but the tax credit will preserve our newsrooms in the interim.
There has also been the suggestion that newspapers will be beholden to the federal government, not independent, and more likely to give favourable coverage. Well, I have not noticed this happening since the program was announced last fall. Even I cannot get journalists to write what I want, and I sign their paycheques.
Indeed, I have to commend this government or any government that would offer this kind of assistance to journalists. The role of a truly independent press is to expose and criticize. Any legitimate government helping the press is doing so in the interests of democracy, not in the hopes of getting good headlines.
As well, the process outlined in the budget will ensure the program is independent.
We would urge the government to move quickly to set up an independent panel of experts to assist in implementing the measures, including recommending eligibility criteria. We cannot hire anyone or count on new funding until the panel has reported and the program is operating.
Many of our members have raised specific points about budget measures and are anxious to express their views to the panel.
ln conclusion, these budget measures are welcomed by the daily and community newspapers that I am representing here today. I look forward to your questions.