As part of the Action Plan for Official Languages, an envelope of $14.5 million over five years was allocated to official language minority community media. Of this amount, $4.5 million was allocated to youth internships and $10 million to strategic projects. We were asking for operating funding—that was what was missing—but, unfortunately, the government did not see fit to provide us with any. Fortunately, we still received $14.5 million.
New measures were put in place when new legislation was introduced last June—the Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1—to facilitate the registration of journalistic organizations. Unfortunately, they apply to only some of our media outlets, about 10% of them. Ninety percent of our newspapers haven't met the many criteria for a variety of reasons: they are small media outlets that have changed their business model; they no longer have any staff reporters; they use freelancers because they have no money; and they don't have the minimum number of employees. It should be kept in mind that, under these conditions, the payroll tax credits no longer apply.
In terms of the local journalism initiative, a $50 million fund over five years was allocated in 2018 to all newspapers. Radio stations have also been included, and that's a good thing. However, most of the envelope was allocated to The Canadian Press and News Media Canada, or $7 million per year, with the rest going to small groups in Canada's ethnic press and community television stations, for example.
The funding has been very helpful for community radio and newspapers, but it doesn't go far enough. In the absence of advertisements—because they are still non-existent—we need to find another way to provide resources to our media so that they can do their work in their respective regions.
Towards the end of my presentation, I was saying that the local journalism initiative is an easy measure to invest in. The program is already in place, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It fills a need, and it works. However, our media can't receive the small amount of $8,500 per media outlet, when the Toronto Star receives $60,000 per outlet. It doesn't work.