Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for your invitation to appear before you today.
I began my career in journalism 40 years ago in the Gaspé. At that time, we were trying to get a minority-language newspaper created. There was no English media whatsoever at that time, and CBC, the only English radio, was coming to them from New Brunswick. There was no way for people in the Gaspé to have any information about the policies that were affecting them, so we started a newspaper there in 1977. I'm happy to say it's still going strong. CBC is also there. We got them up Mont Carleton over the Baie-des-Chaleurs, and everything is fine with them there.
The newspaper I'm with is The Sherbrooke Record. You may know it. It's probably one of the storied newspapers. It was the first newspaper of Conrad Black, David Radler, and Peter White. The newspaper was also owned by the Bassett family, who are very important in newspapers, and by Pierre Péladeau. We talked to Pierre Karl about the English-speaking community, because he would come to visit us often. It is also the newspaper, again, of the same corporate owners.
The Record celebrated its 121st anniversary last month by launching a user-friendly digital archive of every publication since 1897. The pages of our newspaper are as valuable as any archival resource in documenting the development of our communities. Woven together, they tell a story of a once vibrant English-speaking community that built an institutional network of schools, churches, hospitals, and community centres, many of which have disappeared now. As a historic tool, they provide first-hand accounts of the formation and evolution of our communities.
While access to English media is not an issue for the English-speaking Quebecker as it is with the French-language minority outside of Quebec, the content of English media is rarely relevant to English-speaking people living off the Island of Montreal. For that reason, the presence of community papers is vital, particularly in remote areas, where the local newspaper is the key source of news and information. We appreciate Minister Joly's saying that local journalism is a factor that she is considering.
Every day, readership surveys tell us that even with digital media, the print newspaper, a community newspaper, is the key source of news.
We've had difficulties and challenges over the decades. The new digital media age is the not the only challenge we've had. In the seventies it was the proliferation of French-language weeklies. In every community in Quebec, the small but mighty subscriber-based English-language newspapers were quickly vanishing in the face of French-language small newspapers that were being distributed free of charge. This changed the playing field for all of us. Many English publishers responded by abandoning their own subscription base and going to free distribution. With a readership of only 10% in some areas of Quebec, the minority-language paper had to send out 50,000 copies of a paper to reach 5,000 people, so you had to be very selective in how you did your distribution.
The changes in technology have been a constant challenge. Technology not only changed the way newspapers were produced but also gave consumers a number of electronic alternatives to newspapers that fitted with their fast-paced lifestyles. For minority-language newspapers struggling to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace, the introduction of the Internet and social media presented new obstacles as well as new opportunities, which in themselves present challenges when pitted against giants like Google and Facebook.
We also face demographic changes in Quebec. The declining number of English speakers in the province continues to be a major factor. At our paper, we all mourn when we read the obituary page, because we know that when this generation of older anglophones is gone, unless there is some miraculous intervention, the paper will require another reincarnation to survive. Attracting and retaining new readers is a challenge for all newspapers in a changing landscape regardless of size or language, but more so for a minority publication, which must also contend with readers at one end dying, and at the other end leaving the province or using social media to get their news.
The distribution of a minority paper requires creativity, in-depth knowledge of the community, and a lot of money. Unlike majority-language publications that have well-defined geographic borders, the minority community is dispersed in small pockets over a vast territory, and not all of it in a straight line. The introduction of e-editions of our newspaper has helped us in many ways.
Community papers have benefited from the federal government's publications assistance program for over a century, but that program is also in need of revision to respond to changes within the industry.
Another hardship facing minority newspapers is the absence of a sustained policy or a commitment on the part of the federal government to reach the minority population through newspaper advertising. For example, when a freeze on government advertising was imposed by a previous government, decision-makers failed to recognize the impact such a freeze would have on minority newspapers, both in terms of advertising revenues and on the dissemination of vital government information to the minority community. A special commission was launched to study the impact, and the freeze was partially lifted, though never fully reinstated.
More recently, the federal government's decision to use electronic media to transmit its messages has virtually shut out English-speaking seniors and thousands of others living outside of urban centres. The lack of visibility of the federal government in local newspapers also signals a lack of confidence in our papers, and the loss of those revenues for newspapers has threatened their very existence.
Why, you may ask, with all the challenges facing English-language newspapers in Quebec, do we continue to publish? Well, it's because we must. As long as there is an English-language community, there will be a need, with an expectation that the newspaper will always be there. When we were assessing our losses at the Record the day after we had a major fire in 1999, I received a call from one of our elderly subscribers. She didn't get her paper. I explained to her that last night our presses, the equipment, and everything we had had burned, and the paper was gone. She said, “Well, am I going to get it tomorrow?”