Evidence of meeting #7 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was newspapers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage
I don't think so. I can check in a minute.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I have always been told not to ask a question if I didn't already know the answer.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
When did publication of this new weekly begin?
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
So we should have that information. If we don't have it at our fingertips, we will be able to answer through the clerk.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
We don't discriminate, except that it has to be under Canadian ownership and control.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
I understand.
NDP
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
It has to be under Canadian ownership and control. We don't fund Time Warner newspapers. But there are the Irvings, Quebecor, Rogers...
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
The great poverty-stricken ones in our society who receive government money.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
I would like to draw your attention to a very important change made this year, though. There is a limit of $1.5 million per publication.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
But still, it's going to be the small newspapers that are having trouble.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
Applying a limit of $1.5 million is going to mean that four or five publications will lose out. They were receiving $3 or $4 million, but they will now receive $1.5 million. The $3 million freed up will go to L'Étoile, Le Montagnard or others. That will help to increase public assistance for small papers.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
The fact that a paper is published only once a week doesn't make it a small paper. I can guarantee you that more than 5,000 copies are distributed free of charge to New Brunswickers. It's distributed to every family.
Mr. Shortliffe, you said earlier that you cover costs for what you called in English "mailing". Does that cover situations where they use Publi-Sac?
Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage
Well, to start with, you have to have paid distribution to qualify for the program overall. So if you have free circulation only through Publi-sac, you won't make it.
If you are selling copies on the newsstand or through subscribers, you will get funding, but only based on the copies you sell. Once you receive that, as a company, if you want to invest it in putting more free copies in Publi-sac you could, but the result of that would be that you would probably end up losing your paid subscribers and you'd end up getting no more money in future years.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Are you saying that the money only goes for papers that are sold and not given?
Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yes, this program only supports--
Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage
Okay. Yes, then we are not funding it. I can guarantee you that.
The only distinction we made is that to be eligible at all you have to sell a minimum of 50% of your copies, for most papers. For official language, aboriginal, and ethnocultural papers, we said that you can sell fewer than 50%, but the funding you get is only based on the copies you sell. It is not based on your free circulation.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
What disadvantage is there in the 50% figure? You said it was going to come back later. There has to be a disadvantage.
Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage
The reason we looked at that is there are some papers that are either in the middle of trying to change their business model.... It is difficult to get past a 50% paid circulation. What you tend to see are papers that are either 10% paid circulation or 90% paid circulation. We set the bar at 50% because you do see a transition where a paper tries to move in the space of a year from free circulation to paid circulation. They'll keep up a certain amount of free distribution just to keep their name out there for advertising, and that's why we said it's normally 50%. For these communities--because they have frankly more trouble getting paid circulation--we'll take a look at under 50%. But what we typically see is that there is a quick evolution where you go from an unpaid model to a paid model within, say, two years.
So we were trying to recognize that the reality is that you're either usually completely unpaid or completely paid. If a magazine is in transition, we'll let you come in at 52% paid circulation. If you're an official language minority title lower than that, we'll let you in because you may have gone from 10% paid circulation to 40% to 80%, and we want to make sure we can help you during that transition period.
