Canadian Heritage committee  Madam Chair, honourable members, thank you for inviting me to talk with you today. By way of introduction, you may note from my accent that I was born in the United States. I immigrated to Canada in 2001, and became a Canadian citizen a few years later. You'll see from my submis

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. I say this with a tremendous amount of respect for The Tyee and for The Walrus and for everyone trying to create a charitable structure that works for them, but I think right now those structures limit the kind of journalism they can do. In my opinion, they change the qualit

Canadian Heritage committee  When people contribute to the National Observer or to the Vancouver Observer, which they've been doing for years through crowdfunding, and sometimes just through the fundraising campaigns we run.... I never know whether to call it a donation or a gift, but it's really a gift, be

Canadian Heritage committee  If I may, I wanted to add that in the U.S., their structures are different. There is less of a demand on journalism companies and projects in the U.S. that do go with a non-profit structure or a charitable structure. They can get tax deductions for contributions without such narr

Canadian Heritage committee  I think I would have to get back to you. I'd be happy to follow up in a written statement on that. From what I know, it's just to do with the tax law. We just have different [Technical difficulty--Editor] charitable.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think that problem has escalated dramatically over the last year in the U.S. It was probably going on longer than we really knew it was going on. We didn't really understand the ramifications completely, until now. I think part of the problem is that when you have a small com

Canadian Heritage committee  No, I formed my company in 2011, with the Vancouver Observer. The Observer Media Group has been around since then. At that time I was managing the Vancouver Observer, which is a local publication. In April of 2015 I founded the National Observer as a national publication.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  Initially, when I first started, I really believed that the ad dollars were going to migrate from print to digital. I bootstrapped the publication in the early days, thinking that day would come, but that day never came. At that point I was faced with the fact that we were winnin

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  There's The Globe and Mail as well. We try to scoop The Globe and Mail. They don't like it when we scoop them.

Canadian Heritage committee  Our subscriptions are $12.99 a month, and there's a reduced yearly rate, 20% off.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's such an interesting question. I think the honest answer is that we're all competing against each other now. It often seems crazy, because our budget is so tiny, but we do compete with Postmedia. We had six million readers in Canada alone in our first year from the National

Canadian Heritage committee  For sure.

Canadian Heritage committee  Honestly, it's hard to get my own personal feelings out of the way on this. As an American who immigrated to Canada, I'm so grateful for all the things Canada has given and is giving me. CBC is just such a fundamental part of Canada that I hesitate to criticize it. However, the