Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you for inviting us.
I do not want to be alarmist, but the situation is alarming. I know you hear this all day long. I simply want to tell you a story, the story of a hamster who is constantly being asked to do more, but with less food. At some point, the hamster will fall down. That is our story. That is the story of official language minority newspapers.
In Manitoba, there is a minority French-language community newspaper called La Liberté. It has been around for 105 years. Franco-Manitobans have been producing a quality, credible newspaper for 105 years. I will pass around some copies because I think it is important for you to see it. For 105 years, if you asked Manitobans what they thought of La Liberté, they would say that it is too Manitoban or very Manitoban. We are closer to our readers than other official language minority newspapers or community newspapers are.
I am happy to be here today because the situation is critical. In fact, there are two things that I think the government does not properly understand. The first is the definition of local media, media that are close-by, that serve the community. Sometimes, when you are in a bubble somewhere else or far away, it seems that the community media are nice to everyone, that they feature someone you know well, and so forth. That is true at times. But community media also work to defend linguistic rights when they are under attack in their region.
Let me give you a few examples. A few weeks ago in Manitoba, La Liberté discovered from a few sources that the provincial government was going to dismantle the Bureau de l'éducation française, its French-language education bureau. Not only did we uncover the whole story about the dismantling of this bureau, but we published dozens of letters to the editor in the newspapers I am distributing.
People react in their newspaper. That is their way of protesting. They do not have access to a CBC microphone to say what they have to say. The only place they can do that is in their newspaper. They can do it on Facebook if they are members; they can do it on Twitter if they are members. But people do not have to subscribe to La Liberté to sound the alarm, to send a distress signal to say that the French-language education bureau is important to them.
It is the same thing with the French-language express clinic. It was locked up, shut down. It is finished, gone. La Liberté was there to cover the whole event. Otherwise no one would have noticed.
In 2012, a Service Canada office was quietly closing its doors, and no one was taking notice. La Liberté was able to breakdown the rumours and show that the government was indeed about to close the Service Canada office right in Saint-Boniface, the bastion of the French language in western Canada. That is another role that a community newspaper serves.
I can tell you that, in 10 years, if we do not recognize this important role and, if La Liberté no longer exists, if La Voix acadienne and Le Courrier de la Nouvelle-Écosse are shut down, along with many others, no one will speak out, and that will destroy the vitality of our communities. When a newspaper closes, it does not reopen.
I have strayed from my notes, but it does not matter.
Another thing that concerns me is when I hear the government, the minister, talk about the digital transformation. Let me tell you something: at La Liberté we have made that transformation so fully that we have made a complete circle. We have a website that can be accessed from all devices, an IOS application and an Android digital edition, a newspaper for the visually impaired, and 100 years of La Liberté issues have been digitized and indexed through a partnership with the University of Alberta, so that Franco-Manitobans and researchers the world over can now do research into the francophone communities of Manitoba. As proof, I can tell you that someone from Barcelona is in the process of writing a thesis about Franco-Manitobans thanks to this partnership.
We have filmed round tables on election issues that affect French-speaking Manitobans and posted those discussions on the Internet. We make community events, concerts and business contests available for viewing, not to mention midnight mass for people who can no longer make it to church. They watch in French, not an hour later, but live, thanks to our production company partnerships.
We are currently working on a cartoon. In the paper, you can read a comic strip about an African's arrival in Manitoba and his integration into society. It deals with integration and reception. It was such a resounding success that we were asked to create a cartoon. La Liberté is in the midst of becoming incorporated so it can produce a cartoon. The only thing we don't do is make pizza.
At La Liberté, we do everything. I hope I've shown you that we've made the digital shift, so much so that we've done just about everything you can on a digital platform. Therefore, when I hear a minister talk about the digital transition, my inclination is to invite her to pay our newspaper a visit.
The Internet is not the solution. In fact, it's a problem for newspapers, and this is why. At our weekly paper, we had one or two journalists, an editor, and a graphic artist. When a weekly newspaper becomes a daily newspaper because it has to supply its website with content once or twice a day, every single day, more journalists, more proofreaders, more fact-checkers, more outings, more photographs, more video editors, more software, and more powerful computers are needed. How much money does all of that take? The same amount as before? No, half that amount.
Well, I'm here to tell you that the department of miracles is closed. It's time you realized that. Does the government want Canadians to be equipped to vote as responsible citizens, yes or no? That is the real question. That is not possible without newspapers.
Since 2008, La Liberté has been in a stranglehold. Allow me to illustrate. The decrease in the number of federal government ads has already been mentioned. Also dropping dramatically is the number of ads taken out by the province and non-profit organizations—which have no money left because their funding hasn't gone up. Postage has increased, and we are not talking by 10%. The cost to mail a copy of La Liberté has risen from 62¢ to a dollar.
Now for some good news. Everyone said that, once the transition to digital had been made, everything would be fine. That's true, except for the fact that people in Ste. Rose du Lac, in northern Manitoba, can't access the digital platform. What's more, no one will go there to deliver three newspapers. Whether we have three, 10, or 100 newspapers to deliver in Ste. Rose du Lac, must we tell the people there that the government no longer wants them to get their copy?
The other thing is that the only federal support we had—through the Canada periodical fund—was reduced. The funding we receive to help with mail distribution costs went from $120,000 to $55,000. I thought things would get better under the Liberal government, but they haven't. In fact, our funding has dropped by a further 10%, leaving a small community newspaper with a $125,000 shortfall.
Today, we make a profit of $5,000. I will tell you how we manage that. We set up an advertising, communications, and marketing agency. We went from six employees to 15. Thanks to that, we managed to turn a profit of $5,000. It's tenuous. We put out 30 special issues a year. We produce advertorial content for the websites of 40 organizations, in addition to developing animated content, videos, posters, brochures, video booklets, and calendars. We perform communication audits, we build communication plans, and we supply social media content for our clients. Again, I would point out that the only business we aren't in is the pizza business.
Owing to the lack of federal government advertising, the La Liberté newspaper has shrunk from an average of 40 pages to 27. That translates into a yearly loss of 600 articles that our readers will never get the chance to read. That means 600 articles they will not read about the issues that matter to them or their community. I'll let you reflect on the impact that has locally.
Thank you.