Official Languages Committee on Feb. 7th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), we are continuing to study the review of support programs for official language minority community media.

It is our pleasure to welcome representatives from the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario: Carol Jolin, president, and Bryan Michaud, policy analyst. We will also hear from Marie Hélène Eddie, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Ottawa, who will testify as an individual.

We will start with you, Mr. Jolin. You will have the floor for 10 minutes. Then we will hear from Ms. Eddie, who will have 10 minutes or so. Lastly, we will go around the table so that members can ask their questions and make comments.

Mr. Paul Lefebvre, go ahead, please.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I did last week, I would like to declare that, as the owner of local newspapers in northern Ontario, I have a conflict of interest and therefore will not take part in this discussion. I will recuse myself once again, will not take part in drafting the report, and will not vote on its adoption.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Let the record show that Paul Lefebvre has declared his conflict of interest and will refrain from commenting on the presentations and from voting.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Jolin.

[Carol Jolin, President, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of the 622,340 Franco-Ontarians, I want to thank the Standing Committee on Official Languages for welcoming us today and giving us the opportunity to discuss a topic of great importance, the survival and vitality of our minority language media. I am here today with Bryan Michaud, our organization's policy analyst.

The Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario has prepared four white papers in recent years to provide an environmental overview and make recommendations on the complex issues that require careful consideration. One of those white papers focuses on the francophone media in Ontario.

The conventional media world is changing, its business model wavering, and that of the online media uncertain. While the situation of Franco-Ontarian institutions has improved over the past 30 years, the reality of our media has sharply deteriorated. Furthermore, Franco-Ontarian media leaders claim that digital platforms generate additional costs but very little revenue. Our media organizations are suffering because they are constantly in survival mode.

Our private and not-for-profit francophone community media make a major contribution to expanding the francophone space across Canada. They enhance the economic vitality of our country by employing 550 professionals across the country. That figure represents only direct jobs and does not include the freelancers, printers, and vendors those media concerns also employ.

Through our Franco-Ontarian media, our population is regularly informed about municipal, regional, provincial, and federal affairs, francophone current affairs, and what is happening in their neighbourhoods. Without those media outlets, our fellow citizens would be deprived of essential information on how their communities function in French. They are part of the social and community fabric of the greater francophone community in Ontario.

Consequently, I would like to ask you a question. What impact would the disappearance of our Franco-Ontarian media have? We can't deny that's where we're headed: down the road to assimilation.

In this presentation, I would like to address three central themes concerning the survival and vitality of our media: government advertising, the digital shift, and minority language media support programs.

The drastic cuts the governments of Canada and Ontario have made to their advertising placements have left our media in an extremely vulnerable financial position. This year, for the first time, the Canadian government's spending on digital advertising represented more than half of its advertising budget.

According to Canada's Commissioner of Official Languages, from 2006-2007 to 2014-2015, francophone newspapers experienced a 78% drop in federal advertising placements, and community radio stations a 73% decline. That trend continued in 2016-2017. The Government of Canada spent $6 million less on advertising placed in the traditional media than in the previous year. Given this major revenue loss, our media are finding it hard to proceed with their digital shift and to hire enough journalists to provide full media coverage.

In our white paper entitled "Francophone Media in Ontario", we make two recommendations to the Government of Canada.

First, the Government of Canada must provide prompt follow-up to the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada’s report to ensure that advertising placements are reinstated as soon as possible.

Second, the Government of Canada must direct 5% of its advertising placement budget specifically to Ontario’s francophone media if the campaign targets Ontario exclusively and 15% of the budget if the campaign targets all of Canada's francophone communities.

The digital shift is a challenge for our media. Although it is essential, it provides few financial benefits. In our white paper, we recommend that the government provide bridge funding equivalent to one half-time salary for all private and not-for-profit community media organizations so they can offer up-to-date and enriched digital content.

We also support the joint request of the Association de la presse francophone du Québec, the Quebec Community Groups Network, and the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada, which are also seeking Canadian government investments in digital infrastructure and training development.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage wants to bring creative Canada into the digital era. The Canadian government could help the country achieve that objective by making these kinds of investments.

Lastly, AFO and its members would like the Government of Canada to establish an assistance fund to enable our media not just to survive, but also to flourish. We recommend that, in the next three months, an assistance fund be created and managed by and for the French Canadian and English Quebec communities.

We would like to see a minimum annual investment of $1.85 million to assist the private and not-for-profit minority language community media.

We also believe it is essential that the Government of Canada establish a permanent official language community media program backed by annual funding of approximately $4 million.

By establishing that program, the Government of Canada could implement a recommendation we make in our white paper, that a financial support program be put in place providing 10 years of guaranteed funding with a possibility of renewal for our community radio stations.

For existing radio stations, the fund would make available an annual operating budget of $50,000 indexed annually to the cost of living. For emerging radio projects, it would provide $100,000 in the start-up year and $50,000 in subsequent years.

Franco-Ontarian and minority language media organizations provide an essential service to our community. That service is not a luxury item. If advertising intended for Canada's francophone communities is placed with social and regional media, if they are assisted in their transition to digital technology, and if assistance funding is established, they will be provided with a solid base from which to enhance the vitality of our communities and to contribute to the social debate.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Jolin.

We will continue with Marie Hélène Eddie.

[Marie Hélène Eddie, Doctoral student in Sociology, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for inviting me today to take part in this consultation, which I consider very important. I am a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Ottawa. My work focuses on the official language communities, the minority media in Canada, and minorities and the way they use the media to mobilize their members.

As you all know, the media today are going through a period of major change. Both the anglophone and francophone media are encountering challenges, a difficult situation that is exacerbated in the minority communities. Minority media organizations face special challenges in addition to those dogging all other media. The readership and audiences of minority newspapers and radio stations are smaller and scattered over larger areas. The minority media generally have fewer means and less resources than other media. The communities they attempt to support need assistance to ensure their vitality and development. Lastly, in some regions, these outlets are some of the few remaining independent media organizations in a context in which media concentration is increasingly common and widespread.

Like David against Goliath, they are fighting to maintain their position in the media landscape. These media outlets play very important and specific roles in their communities. I will mention three of those roles, and I consider the third particularly important in the context of our discussion.

First, they represent those communities, enabling them to see themselves and to remember that they exist and live in French and that the French fact is real.

Second—and this is related to the first role—they bring those communities together. They unite individuals who, in many cases, live in remote geographic areas but who, thanks to their media, are aware they are part of a community. When they get up in the morning, thousands or tens of thousands of individuals scan the front page of their newspaper at the same time, with their coffee in hand, or else turn on the radio and know that thousands or tens of thousands of other people are doing the same thing at the same time. In other words, for people who live in a region where their culture is in the minority, a newspaper or radio station is one way to maintain a strong connection with their community, with "their world" and their culture.

Third, we tend to forget that community media organizations, like the major media, play the role of democratic watchdogs. As you know, democracy is based on three formal powers: the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. We should also remember that the media form the fourth power. In the minority community, that fourth power focuses on the French fact. These media organizations are the watchdogs of francophones' rights.

The francophone media are thus an instrument of combat for these groups. To borrow an image or a metaphor, they are the community's ears and voice. Their ears because minorities learn that their rights have been abused by reading the newspaper or listening to the radio. Their voice because, when minorities decide to organize and mobilize, they do so through the media. They circulate information in the community through radio and newspapers. They also speak to government through their media organizations, drawing the attention of politicians and dialoguing with government representatives. If these organizations are not strong, the community's ability to mobilize is limited.

I have no specific solutions to suggest, since others are in a better position to do so, including the media organizations themselves. However, I would like to offer some guidelines for framing the solutions that are ultimately selected, some concepts or ideas that should guide that process.

The first is compliance with Canada's Official Languages Act. We know that it is important in a democracy to have strong and independent media organizations. In a bilingual country in which one of the two linguistic communities is in the minority, the role of the francophone media is doubly important. Those organizations help ensure that the country's bilingual identity is respected and the Official Languages Act complied with.

The solutions ultimately selected must comply specifically with Part VII of the Official Languages Act. If the government wants to enhance the vitality and support the development of the francophone minority communities, it must ensure those communities do not lose their ability to mobilize and take action. It must remember that these media organizations are the instruments of those communities. They are their ears and voice.

The Official Languages Act also entails a duty of consultation. The government must clearly ensure that the solutions it adopts genuinely reflect the communities' needs by consulting the media, as you are doing.

The second guideline is adherence to the concept of genuine equality. The concept of genuine equality was highlighted in the CALDECH affair. Formal equality means that two groups must be given exactly the same thing, whereas genuine equality entails giving each of those two groups something different in order to achieve genuine equality between them.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

"Equal" does not mean "equitable".

[Marie Hélène Eddie]

The fact that community media play such a specific role and the fact that their situation is also unique are two reasons why they cannot be evaluated in the same way as the performance of other media would be evaluated. We must take their specific situation into consideration and come up with solutions that help address their specific challenges.

The third idea I would like to discuss is the idea of a comparative analysis between languages. When a new media policy or program is introduced, we must consider whether the effects of that policy or program are the same for the francophone as for the anglophone media or whether they are the same for the majority as for the minority media.

For example, the Canada Periodical Fund, which provided financial assistance to media organizations in the form of a Canada Post discount on newspaper delivery, has changed its criteria in recent years to include other periodicals that are not necessarily delivered by Canada Post.

Basically, we could say it is good to subsidize the media to a greater degree, but this change has had a specific negatively differentiating effect on minority francophone periodicals. If a comparative analysis had been conducted based on language, it might have been apparent that this measure benefited a number of English-language Quebec publications to the detriment of francophone minority publications that urgently needed funding, a need that could not be compared to those of the other media. Theoretically, of course, it is not a bad thing to fund other media, but this is an example of a policy that has a significant negatively differentiated impact on minority media.

One government idea circulated widely in the media was that businesses with non-viable business models should not be supported. I think that idea refers to the digital shift. In the community media world, everyone agrees that media organizations must move to digital technology, and everyone has begun that shift, although not everyone is able to do so successfully for the simple reason that very few organizations make money based on that model and do not necessarily have the resources to do so.

Furthermore, in many instances, the readership in minority communities does not follow the shift. Either readers are older or uninterested in digital technology or else they live in places where high-speed Internet access is unavailable.

The decision to fund media organizations that have previously demonstrated their ability to make a successful shift to the Internet would not reflect the specific situation of those media organizations and would not be consistent with the Official Languages Act or the principle of genuine equality. Instead of funding media that have already been successful in making that shift, we should instead fund all minority media businesses so they can do the same. This would help ensure that the government enhances the vitality and supports the development of francophone minority communities in a manner consistent with the Official Languages Act.

Here's another example. When the government decides to concentrate federal online advertising sales, in addition to the fact that it doesn't take into account the impact of its decision on the vitality of the media, it seems to overlook the fact that those media organizations actually reach populations. Consider the example of announcements made in recent years concerning the H1N1 flu. What group is at the greatest risk of catching that flu? Probably the elderly. People think they will advertise online because it will help them reach more people. You may indeed be reaching more people online—I don't know the figures—but you may not have reached the right population. Consequently, we must not forget that these community media organizations reach populations that we cannot simply disregard because they are not part of the majority.

I will stop there. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, both of you.

Now we will move on to questions and comments.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Clarke.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, everyone. We are pleased to have you here today.

First, I will go to Mrs. Eddie.

What exactly is the subject of your thesis?

[Marie Hélène Eddie]

My doctoral thesis concerns the way in which three groups—a francophone group, an indigenous group, and an anglophone group—managed to mobilize against shale gas in New Brunswick and how they used the media to do so.

My master's thesis was on the readers of L'Acadie Nouvelle and the role of newspapers in the minority communities.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

The digital shift and the media crisis are occurring across most of the western countries that have minority languages, such as Switzerland and Belgium, for example. That may be happening in eastern countries as well, but I'm not sure of it.

Can you tell us whether those two countries, Belgium and Switzerland, have specific programs in this area? What are they doing about the media crisis?

If that is the case, can you tell us what those two countries are doing about their francophone minority media? Do they have periodical assistance programs or funds?

[Marie Hélène Eddie]

I unfortunately don't know.

Generally speaking, many countries fund their media more than Canada does. In England, for example, public media are funded to a much greater degree than in Canada.

I unfortunately don't know what Belgium and Switzerland are doing.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

My next question will be for all three witnesses.

An additional $600 million was allocated to Radio-Canada. Does that contribute directly or indirectly to the development of the francophone media outside Quebec?

Is this massive $600 million reinvestment in Radio-Canada helping with the crisis the media are experiencing, the francophone newspapers and radio stations outside Quebec, not Radio-Canada stations, but the others?

[Carol Jolin]

I had a chance to speak with Radio-Canada officers Yvan Cloutier and Pierre Ouellette and to discuss what that entailed. They said it was having an enormous impact because it was helping them retain programs and consider new ones. Remember that Radio-Canada wanted to sever its relationship with Windsor at one point. This kind of investment helps guarantee that a place like Windsor will continue to do the job in its community. We had put other projects on ice, not to say in mothballs, because they no longer really believed in them. This major investment gave francophone officers a second wind because it enabled them to move forward with a number of great initiatives. There was also the issue of modernization. That's what I discussed with Mr. Cloutier.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

You mentioned a $1.85 million media assistance fund. Do you expect that fund to be included in the action plan, or is it completely separate?

[Carol Jolin]

That was in fact an emergency measure that we requested for the next three months.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Oh, I see.

You had a lot to say about federal government advertising placed with francophone newspapers in Ontario, for example. Has the provincial government placed advertising in the newspapers?

[Carol Jolin]

It has also reduced its purchases almost as significantly, in fact by about 75%. We make the same presentations to encourage the provincial government to place its advertising with francophone media organizations, since they rely on that revenue.

A few months ago, I was amused to read that the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star were talking about the cuts in advertising placed in the print media by both levels of government and how that put them in a difficult situation. If those two papers were in a difficult position, what does that mean for a small francophone weekly in a remote part of the province that publishes every week, every two weeks, or every month? The impact is enormous.

There is no more fat to cut right now, and media outlets have been down to the bone for some time. Several small media companies continue to operate thanks to the passionate people who work there and who want the francophone community to stay alive and vibrant.

Here's an example from our part of the province. About a year and a half ago, L'Express d'Ottawa shut down. A few months later, a francophile leader who had made a promise to his grandmother said he wanted to start up something in French.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

That's good.

[Carol Jolin]

He was very emotional at the first meeting. This evening, immediately following this meeting, I'm going to a wine and cheese event to mark the first anniversary of L'Orléanais, a weekly newspaper published in Orleans.

Francophones no longer had a newspaper after L'Express shut down.

The man I referred to earlier had just acquired the English-language weekly and included a French-language section in it every month. It's working out very well. He has a lot of community support, which was really necessary. It made no sense for people in the Ottawa area, particularly in Orleans, to lose a means of communicating with francophones from everywhere else.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Jolin.

Mr. Arseneault, go ahead, please.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Messrs. Michaud and Jolin and Mrs. Eddie, thank you for being here and sharing your respective expertise with us.

Mrs. Eddie, like you, I come from northern New Brunswick. I know just how important the minority official language media is.

I would like to go back to one of your potential solutions. In a few words, can you explain to me what you mean when you say we should first comply with the Official Languages Act?

[Marie Hélène Eddie]

Since the government has an obligation under Part VII of the Official Languages Act to ensure that the policies and programs it puts in place are consistent with the idea of enhancing the vitality and supporting the development of the communities, I think we could argue that the media is a very important part of that vitality and development.

These guidelines and concepts are not all mutually exclusive. They work together. The concept of genuine equality and the idea of a comparative analysis based on the two languages help ensure that a policy that is put in place has no negative impact on the francophone community.