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.
10 a.m.
Executive Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association
There's one anglophone campus radio in our association, CKUT at McGill, and they're not in a minority language situation. But there are community radio stations in Quebec that are.
I just wanted to clarify.
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Executive Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association
There are six.
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Executive Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association
No, those are regional.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Merci beaucoup.
It's now time to resume our meeting with our other witness.
On behalf of the members of the committee, I would like to thank you for appearing and giving us an update.
I saw in the preparation note that there's a strong interest in local newspapers by anglophones and that bilingual readership is high. I have a local radio community in my riding, although they cannot get the rates.
The public appreciates what you're doing. We can see it with the newspapers and I'm sure with the radio as well. Thank you again.
We'll suspend for a couple of minutes to get to our next witness.
Merci beaucoup.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
We'll get started so we can make it on time.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(1), we are now going to hold a briefing session on the Canada Periodical Fund. We are pleased to have with us Jean-François Bernier, Director General, Cultural Industries, and Scott Shortliffe, Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs. We are happy to see that you made it over the bumps in the road, if I can put it that way.
With no further ado, I will invite Mr. Bernier to make his opening presentation.
10:05 a.m.
Jean-François Bernier Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, members of the committee.
My name is Jean-François Bernier. I work at the Department of Canadian Heritage and I am the Director General of policy and programs for cultural industries. As was mentioned today, I am here with Scott Shortliffe, who is the Director of publishing and programs for one of the four cultural industries, the periodical industry.
We are here today to present a technical briefing on the support that the Government of Canada provides for Canadian periodicals. The information relates generally and specifically to periodicals in official language minority communities.
I want to leave a lot of time for questions. I see we have already used 11 minutes of the time we are allowed. I have a brief presentation to put on the table about these issues and I will assume that you have that presentation in front of you to prepare for the discussion we will have in the next few minutes.
Today is not only April 1—the tale of the tires was a joke for my colleague—it is also the first day of the new Canada Periodical Fund. Today is the day it comes into effect. The fund is the result of a merger of two programs: the Publications Assistance Program and the Canada Magazine Fund. The Publications Assistance Program had been in existence for many years and the Canada Magazine Fund had been in existence for 15 or 20 years.
When we talk about periodicals, we are talking about traditional magazines on glazed paper. It also includes more traditional newspapers and community newspapers. For the purposes of the discussion, our program relates only to community newspapers that are not daily papers. So forget about The Globe and Mail, La Presse, and Le Journal de Montréal. We aren't in that business, in terms of government support.
What are the key features of the new Canada Periodical Fund? Essentially, these two funds were merged to simplify the application process, which had become exceedingly complex. It was also to simplify the reporting that recipients had to do periodically to the government on the support they receive. The new Canada Periodical Fund will also provide increased flexibility for publishers of community newspapers or periodicals, i.e. magazines, in their use of resources. In the past, for example, the Publications Assistance Program supported the costs of distributing magazines and community newspapers only. With this new program, we are expanding that to cover a range of eligible expenses, including creating content, transfer to websites, editing, distribution, production, etc. So it is a much broader gamut of eligible expenses.
The Canada Periodical Fund also has the objective of supporting their transition to the digital era. We can talk about that a little later on, if you like. The fund still ties support to the purchasing choices of Canadians. So we are dealing with an industry where we are going to work with the periodicals that Canadians buy.
The annual budget is $75.5 million.
On page 4 of the deck, we have three main components to the program. The first component is the aid to publishers component. This is where most of the money is going. It's a formula-based process. Essentially, we're looking at the number of readers who those magazines or community newspapers are reaching.
I've mentioned that the funds can be used for a wide variety of publishing activities, including creation, production, and online activities. We anticipate that over 900 titles will benefit. There's a new feature under this program. There's a cap per title of $1.5 million. This is a major change from what the two other programs had as program guidelines. The periodicals must sell 5,000 copies per year, with exceptions for aboriginal, ethnocultural, and official language minority publications. We'll talk about that later in the presentation.
There are two other small but important components of the program. The collective initiatives are for project funding for industry-wide initiatives and generic marketing campaigns for magazines. When you travel in an airport, you may see maple leaves on the racks where magazines are. This is the type of project that this component is designed to support. The third component is business innovation. Essentially, it's to help publishers work on their business plans, professional development, market research, etc. We are also going to be working only with online publications. We could take a few questions on that if you're interested.
On page 5, for official language minority publications, we have customized criteria. Essentially, the eligibility requirement of at least 50% of the paid circulation is waived for periodicals from official language minority publishers. The 5,000 copies sold per year has been split in half for those publications, to 2,500. Organizations such as l'Association de la presse francophone and the Quebec Community Newspapers Association can apply to one of the components of the program, which is the collective initiatives program.
Essentially, at page 6, you will see our two programs in 2008-2009: the Publications Assistance Program and the Canada Magazine Fund, which supported 27 official language minority publications. The total amount was a little over $700,000 for those publications. Most of the publications were community newspapers. We anticipate more applicants this year because there will be more publications of this type. The competition is closed and we have already received 35 applications. This is a significant increase. Analysis of those applications is currently underway. We project that funding will be equal to funding in the past, if not higher, for this type of publication. That figure could go as high as about $1 million. By our calculations, official language minority publications might receive as much as $1 million of the total resources.
Scott, do you want to walk us through the last page?
April 1st, 2010 / 10:15 a.m.
Scott Shortliffe Director, Periodical Publishing Policy and Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage
Good morning. I'll discuss some of our special measures for 2010-11.
We had an ongoing process of consultation when we designed the program--we had round tables, we had submissions from groups like QCNA and l'APF--and ongoing discussions since the program launch was announced. It became clear that the number one concern was the gap between the end of the PAP, which was yesterday, and the provision of new funding.
To try to make that gap as short as possible, we decided to launch eight publishers early. Bear in mind that our existing programs were running until yesterday. We created the new program. We launched it on January 19 and gave only a month for people to apply, but we had been advising the various associations for months before that there would be a short application deadline. We received 1,000 applications by February 19 of this year. Normally with a government program, 1,000 applications might take you nine months to process. It's an enormous volume of work. To make that manageable, we decided to use the benefit of the fact that many of our criteria were similar to our existing programs. We had already pre-examined most of these titles under our existing program, so that anyone who was already receiving funding essentially had to fill out an extremely simplified application form, a two-page attestation form.
That meant the number of applications we had to do detailed work on fell from 1,000 to roughly 200. We're working on those right now. Our intention is to run the funding formula in April. That doesn't mean the cheques go out then. That means we'll know how much everyone will receive. There have to be approvals. We have to generate the grants letters. They have to go out. But we've managed to reduce the time immensely.
At least six months ago we had warned all the associations to let their members know that there would be a gap in funding, but that when the funding arrived it would be upfront funding for the year. Under the PAP you got a little bit of funding every time you used a mailing, so you would perhaps get $1,000 or $2,000 a month. With this, you will receive your entire year's funding up front and be able to apply it strategically.
We also let people know for this year only—because we knew people had to adjust to a new program, and they had to have the ability to do financial planning—that the amounts they would receive would be between 90% and 150% of what they had received from our two programs combined in previous years. If you were an existing recipient, you could look at what you'd received previously, and you had at least that surety.
In fact, for smaller titles, it will be more than the 100%. It will be between 100% and 150%. The only exception to this 90% to 150% rule is, as Monsieur Bernier mentioned, that we put a cap of $1.5 million on it. That means some of the large titles are losing close to 50% of their funding for this year, which was a strategic decision the government made, and that funding is being reapportioned among smaller titles, including official language minority titles.
10:20 a.m.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
That concludes our presentation. We are prepared to answer questions, Mr. Chair.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Perfect. Thank you very much.
I would like to remind you that there is no reason for concern. We have the power to call witnesses by subpoena. We were confident that everything would work out even though it is April 1.
10:20 a.m.
Director General, Cultural Industries, Department of Canadian Heritage
Thank you.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Ms. Glover. Is she able to tell us when the government intends to respond to the committee's second report? It was due today, but we have not received the response.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
The one about funding for organizations. It was due today, but it has not been tabled in the House.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
My second question also relates to information about either of them.
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Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
