Industry committee  I think there are two or three ways. If you look at it right now, we've seen examples in Germany and Spain where government has moved to limit copyrighting titles and things like that. The European Union is looking right now at a new copyright directive that has a publisher's right, a publisher's stand-alone right, such that publishers would have a separate right to control their content.

Industry committee  Good afternoon. My name is John Hinds, and I am the president of News Media Canada. We represent over 700 daily community and weekly newspapers from across the country, from coast to coast to coast, in both English and French. We're very pleased that you're holding these hearings because it's a critical time for the newspaper industry.

Government Operations committee  Certainly. I think in terms of the ASC limits, most large campaigns would be over the $500,000 mark. In our view, we would like to see smart government advertising in terms of advertising government programs and services. I don't think there's much partisan advertising around now.

Government Operations committee  I think print advertising is still the mainstay of most small newspapers, and I would encourage you to advertise in the newspaper. Obviously it's an effective thing. Most newspapers also have a digital platform. Digital advertising is much less lucrative. The challenge of the newspaper industry is it has traded print dollars for digital cents.

Government Operations committee  I think there are a couple of reasons for that. I think there was a directive on the part of government to go digital. The reality is, in many cases, it's all about a lack of ROI. The private sector is very clear about ROI, and we see this with big advertisers. If they pull out of a market, they notice that because their sales go down.

Government Operations committee  We do, yes.

Government Operations committee  I think we'd ask for a smart policy, really targeting who you are advertising to. As we said earlier, if seniors are reading and boomers are reading newspapers, you should be targeting to the people you want to target. If you're targeting people in rural Canada, you should be using the most appropriate medium for that.

Government Operations committee  We haven't seen a lot of it. If you look at Canadian media, whether it's newspapers or magazines, and where daily and community newspapers are at 1.5% and 1.7% each, when the marketplace is investing about 17% of their ad dollars in it, I wouldn't think there is much of a consideration there of Canadian media.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. Good morning. My name is John Hinds, and I'm the CEO of News Media Canada. We're the voice of Canada's newspapers, and we currently represent over 800 daily, weekly, and community papers from coast to coast to coast in English and French.

Government Operations committee  What we say is that there's less being done in rural post offices. The postal transformation agenda means that if you're mailing to a neighbourhood town that is five or six kilometres away, instead of them sorting the mail in the rural post office, which was traditionally done, it's now trucked hundreds of kilometres to places like Edmonton or Gateway, sorted there, and then trucked back to the neighbourhood community.

Government Operations committee  I don't think anti-competitive behaviour should be.... Unless that's a specific policy: I mean, if you want to say you're going to charge a surcharge to urban customers to support rural customers and that's a public policy discussion, then that's a public policy discussion. But in terms of a kind of arbitrary decision by a corporation to do this...?

Government Operations committee  No, because with the community mailbox, we have access to the household, and for alternative delivery, actually, it's a competitive advantage for us because we will be the only piece reaching the household. What we find in suburban Canada, where there are community mailboxes and we have large carrier forces who deliver the newspaper to the door, is that it's more effective if it goes through the door.

Government Operations committee  In small communities, we only have Canada Post. For a small community newspaper there is no other option. Any newspaper in this country that has had an option to move to carriers or other things has moved. In terms of what has happened, 25 years ago, mail to suburban Canada was delivered by Canada Post.

Government Operations committee  I'll answer in English. I think it comes down to this issue. I think that in urban Canada we do believe that there is competition and the competition should be encouraged. Again, it is a subsidy no matter what. If you're subsidizing Canada Post by taking away competitive business, you are essentially going to be subsidizing Canada Post either way.

Government Operations committee  What we see is that every newspaper delivers flyers. Canadians love flyers, as you probably know. It's very true. It's a real challenge for a newspaper when someone says, “I didn't get my newspaper” when it has been sent and the customer says, “But you didn't have the flyers inside it.”