Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. In this past year's budget are a number of supports for journalism that we think are terrific. One is the local journalism initiative. Our adjudication panel is chaired by Duff Jamison of Great West publishing in Alberta. He's a terrific journalist. That program, which was

Canadian Heritage committee  Listen, I agree with you. It's a huge problem with the CBC in terms of pilfering talent. Local papers develop talent. Given your own background, you know this first-hand. Then they take them. They are making far more money with the CBC. It's a big issue. That's why it's importan

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. They are very well informed. We put the question to Liberals, Bloc members, Conservatives and New Democrats, and all the respondents thought that local journalism was very important and that legislation was needed to support it.

Canadian Heritage committee  We would like all the newspapers in Canada, whether large, medium or small, to establish a broad coalition. In Quebec, the case of La Presse, whose president is Pierre-Elliott Levasseur, is an interesting one because the newspaper is one of North America's great innovators becaus

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, and there's one thing I'd like to pick up on. Dr. Geist referred to the QCJO, saying there's nothing about journalism in here. He might want to read paragraph 27(1)(a), which refers to “a qualified Canadian journalism organization as defined in subsection 248(1) of the Incom

Canadian Heritage committee  Not at all, no more than.... If General Motors would run an ad in The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star and if someone from GM phoned up The Globe and Mail and said, “Hey, I don't like your coverage and I'm going to pull my advertising”, I think the publisher would tell him to g

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. On behalf of News Media Canada, our member publishers, and the 3,000 journalists we employ, who inform Canadians across the country every day, we are pleased to participate in your study of Bill C‑18. During the 2021 election campaign, the Libe

Finance committee  This is an important step—this type of Australian legislation—but it is not a silver bullet. There are certainly other issues that need to be addressed. I think we need to make sure that the Competition Bureau has the tools it needs to go after and look at these big tech companie

Finance committee  We believe it can be adapted to Canada on a very straightforward basis. What we're looking for, essentially, is the ability to negotiate collectively with the big tech platforms, backed up by baseball-style final offer arbitration. There may be some unique tweaks that could be re

Finance committee  Certainly. Right now, as Jamie outlined, the decline in ad revenue has been going on for the better part of a decade, but the pandemic has exacerbated this situation. It's really an urgent situation for publishers. We were certainly heartened this summer, during the election,

Finance committee  That's correct. We're not seeking government money with this. The Australian model doesn't involve taxpayer dollars.

Finance committee  We would see that whatever the body is that they're essentially putting forward a list of arbitrators who are independent of government, and that the news media publishers and the platforms would choose from that list. We see it as independent from government, but obviously the g

Finance committee  Thank you. We expect our government to introduce legislation very soon. With all political parties in agreement on the overall direction, we are asking you to work with your colleagues in Parliament to ensure it receives royal assent by the end of June. Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Irving. During the 2021 federal election campaign, the Prime Minister promised within the first hundred days to introduce an act that would require digital platforms earning revenue from publishing news to share part of their earnings with Canadian media. The act