Evidence of meeting #88 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was resdac.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Okay.
On behalf of all committee members, I would like to thank you for the information you have shared, Ms. Lopez and Mr. Robillard. We will follow up on it. Thank you very much.
4:25 p.m.
Representative, Réseau pour le développement de l'alphabétisme et des compétences
Thank you.
4:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Coalition ontarienne de formation des adultes
Thank you very much for the invitation.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Let us resume.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we shall begin our review of support programs for official language minority community media.
We are pleased to welcome, from the Coalition pour la pérennité de la presse d'information au Québec, Mr. Pierre-Paul Noreau, president and publisher of Le Droit.
Welcome Mr. Noreau.
4:35 p.m.
Pierre-Paul Noreau President and Publisher, Le Droit, Coalition pour la pérennité de la presse d’information au Québec
Thank you.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
We also welcome Ms. Sophie Gaulin, Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of La Liberté.
Before we begin, I would like to say two things.
First, copies of Le Droit have been provided. If you wish to take one after the meeting, please go ahead.
Second, Mr. Lefebvre asked to say something at the outset.
Mr. Lefebvre, please go ahead.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As the owner of a newspaper and community radio station, I would like to declare a conflict of interest regarding this study. As a result, I will not ask any questions, will not vote, and will not take part in drafting the report. Although I am in the room, I will recuse myself and will not make any comments.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Some hon. members
Ha, ha!
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
He moved that you should be expelled.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
We are all agreed.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Very well, Mr. Lefebvre. The record will show that you declared your conflict of interest.
Mr. Noreau, you have about ten minutes for your presentation. We will then move on to a round of questions and comments from committee members, except for Mr. Lefebvre.
Mr. Noreau, you have the floor.
4:35 p.m.
President and Publisher, Le Droit, Coalition pour la pérennité de la presse d’information au Québec
Thank you for your warm welcome, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the members of the committee for their interest in the media that serves official language minority communities.
We do not want to be alarmist, but the situation is nonetheless extremely serious. As you will see, Ms. Gaulin and I are in general agreement about the critical situation of the minority media, and we have a number of joint solutions to offer.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am part of the Coalition pour la pérennité de la presse d'information au Québec, a coalition fighting for the survival of news media in Quebec. Above all, though, I am here as the president of a newspaper that serves francophone Ontario. In other words, I serve the Franco-Ontarian community.
Let me say a few words about Le Droit. The newspaper is a hundred years old, and its first edition was published on March 27, 1913. Its history is closely linked to that of Franco-Ontarians. You will recall Regulation 17 which, at the time, sought to ban French as a language of instructions in Ontario. You will also recall the Montfort hospital. The newspaper Le Droit was directly involved in these fights.
When it comes to the interests and aspirations of Ontario's francophone community, we are there and are listening. You may have read in our newspaper over the past year articles from Ontario's French-language university about making Ottawa a bilingual city and about the revision of Ontario's French Language Services Act. We serve the Franco-Ontarian community.
If you ask Franco-Ontarians today what they think of Le Droit, you might hear something like this: Le Droit is a serious daily newspaper that provides quality information, a daily newspaper that has surprised us by publishing a monthly business magazine, but that focuses too much on Quebec. Money is king, they say. As the City of Gatineau has grown, Le Droit has found readers and business partners on the Quebec side, so much so that nearly three out of four readers are now Quebecers. But we have not forgotten Franco-Ontarians. We were born of the Franco-Ontarians' struggle and we are still focused on it.
The daily Le Droit is part of the Groupe Capitales Médias, whose sole shareholder is Mr. Martin Cauchon. The other dailies in the group are Le Soleil, in Quebec City, Le Quotidien, in Saguenay, Le Nouvelliste, in Trois-Rivières, La Voix de l'Est, in Granby, and La Tribune, in Sherbrooke.
Le Droit is the only daily published in Ontario. Our offices are nearby, on Clarence Street, in the Byward market. That is where 74 of our 78 employees work. We have sales of about $13 million. Le Droit offers the news on several platforms: the print edition, the tablet and cell phone app, and of course the website.
How far does Le Droit reach? Every week, it reaches at least 215,000 individuals, which is more than half the francophone population in the national capital region, on both sides of the river, that is.
When I was asked to be the president of the daily Le Droit, Martin Cauchon specifically told me that I had to recapture Franco-Ontarian readers. We have made a tremendous effort to do this, and Franco-Ontarians have taken note.
It has been a tough period. We are trying incredibly hard, but it is difficult. In the two and half years I have been in the job, we have cut 15 positions, including five in editorial. It is difficult to increase our service to the Franco-Ontarian community when we cut five editorial positions.
Being profitable is a formidable challenge. We are questioning our business model, which is based on two things. A newspaper has two sources of revenue: subscriptions and the advertising space that business partners buy in the newspaper.
As to subscriptions, it is clear that information is available, abundant and free on the Internet. That is why subscription rates have fallen by 10% every year for the past five years.
As to advertising, there is local advertising, which is purchased by our business partners, which has also dropped by 10% every year, and I will explain why. Second, there is national advertising, such as Air Canada, the Royal Bank or Ford, which has fallen by 25% per year in recent years. So money is tight and we have to fight to stay afloat. The problem is that Google and Facebook claim more than 70% of advertising dollars in Canada; that is nothing new to any of you. Their prices are so low that they are sabotaging the value of the market.
How are governments responding to this critical situation? Honestly, I have to say that our concerns are growing. The proof is that we are here before you today talking about it. For my part, I also appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. The concern expressed is real, but there has been no action so far. It is time for action. The government has a very clear responsibility to official language minority communities under the Official Languages Act. Federal institutions have to take positive measures to enhance the vitality of English and French linguistic minority communities and foster their equal status in Canadian society.
What supports the development of a language and culture? It is of course family, friends, school, the workplace and the media. If the media are taken away, a major instrument for the transfer of culture is lost. The media are a mirror; they provide an open forum for people to meet, get to know each other, and talk; they are a meeting point. It is in the media that we discuss our successes and the challenges we face. To be blunt, right now the federal government is not living up to its responsibility for supporting the media that serve official language minority communities. In my opinion, it is failing all media in Canada.
Of course no one wants the government to control the media by controlling their finances. Yet steps can be taken to prevent that from happening. Many countries that are much more generous than Canada are in fact able to prevent the media from being controlled and becoming propaganda tools.
It is primarily the Minister of Canadian Heritage who is in charge of this file. She said the government cannot invest in a business model that is not viable. What business models are viable? Aside from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, which newspapers make money? I do not know of very many that make enough to be worth the effort. Is La Presse a viable newspaper? Without venturing out onto thin ice, I can tell you that community and regional media do not have sufficient sales at this time for long-term profitability.
That said, are we relevant and useful to democratic life? Do we support the cultural life of our communities? We firmly believe so.
As to the solutions, there are several.
The first solution would be for the government to give our media a reasonable share of its advertising. We have been urging the government to do this since this topic has been under discussion. From 2006-2007 to 2014-2015, in eight years, federal spending on advertising in community newspapers fell from $1.9 million to $430,000. The government has divided its budget by four. For radio, spending on advertising fell from $730,000 to $200,000. Once again, the government has divided its budget by four. At the same time, spending for all advertising for federal institutions on the Internet is increasing by millions of dollars.
Do not say that newspapers do not reach their communities. With an equation of a + b = c, I could prove to you that newspapers reach their communities and that the communities read them.
My second point pertains to a tax credit for the production of original Canadian information. This exists in the film world. As you know, we sometimes hear that things are not going well in the aerospace or automotive sector and the government has to step in. Should the government step in when it comes to building strong information technology pillars? Yes, but only tax credits are offered. If the media are not of particular interest to the government, we have serious problems. A tax credit for the production of original information would be another approach.
Would it not be possible to quickly establish a program to partially refund our investments in digital technology?
4:45 p.m.
President and Publisher, Le Droit, Coalition pour la pérennité de la presse d’information au Québec
I think my time is up.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Yes, your time is up, but you can continue with these explanations when you answer questions from the MPs around the table.
Ms. Gaulin, do you have anything to add?
4:45 p.m.
Sophie Gaulin Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief, La Liberté
Do I also have ten minutes or did he use up my speaking time?
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief, La Liberté
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.
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you very much, Ms. Gaulin and Mr. Noreau.
We will try to keep things moving along fairly quickly, since we still have a lot of questions and comments.
Mr. Généreux, you can start us off.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Noreau and Ms. Gaulin, I would put you in two completely different categories. Let's be very clear. Ms. Gaulin, you work for a community organization, and you, Mr. Noreau, work for a private company.
