CHPC Committee Report

Supplementary Opinion of the New Democratic Party

The media is in crisis but it’s not the way it’s told by big broadcaster CEOs or the parties that enable them. New Democrats are concerned about the spread of media deserts – communities need journalists present in their neighborhoods telling their stories.

Postmedia owns more than 80% of the newspapers that operate in Canada. Over the last 2 years, there’s been a series of brutal cuts to media rooms.

As Lana Payne, President of UNIFOR pointed out, “Postmedia cut 11% of its editorial staff; BCE cut 1,300 jobs and closed radio stations last year; Nordstar Capital eliminated two-thirds of Metroland's workforce, converting more than 70 weekly papers to digital only; Corus/Global, just this month, cut more jobs; and BCE just last week announced the layoff of 4,800 employees in both telco and media, including 800 Unifor members. On the media side, the cuts included all but one noon-hour newscast in Toronto and weekend newscasts in most major markets across the country, as if the news stops on Friday at 5 p.m.”

More and more Canadians aren’t getting the news that’s happening in their communities, regions, or provinces. More and more Canadians live in media deserts.

New Democrats are concerned about the harassment of journalists. As Shree Pradakar pointed out, “The continuing reality is that women and other minoritized journalists who challenge the status quo are disproportionately at the receiving end of harassment, threats and abuse, a phenomenon that has been adequately documented, even by the United Nations. Where they were trolled initially by strangers, the attacks that led to dog-piling then began to come from journalists and other professionals and are, regrettably, being normalized by politicians. These intimidation and silencing tactics create a chill in the free expression of a diversity of perspectives. This, in turn, feeds a distrust of media within communities.“

Ms. Pradakar also said, “One of the pleas I make is for Canada to invest in a free press. That is the only way forward. Canada has the potential to be a world leader in being completely free, pluralistic and independent in its press. We have the potential. I think it's going to require a lot of introspection at individual and collective levels for us to make it happen.”

Jen Gerson made clear that a national forum for the media should not be a priority, saying, “I’m not sure why this committee needs to approve this idea… my fear is a national forum would be a public relations exercise to create support for a foregone conclusion”

Instead, New Democrats recommend:

1.      Taking on corporate concentration ensuring jobs are protected and local and regional journalism is protected.

As Jen Gerson said, “It's a media oligopoly. It's a grocery oligopoly. It's a telecom oligopoly. Break it up. I completely agree with that… Use the regulatory powers you have in order to control and dictate some of the content coming out of the major broadcast organizations, which are making billions of dollars in profit, and require them to put some of that money into journalism as a condition of their broadcasting licences.

2.           Effectively fund the CBC-Radio Canada to fill in media deserts across the country so they can invest in local and regional journalism, not to fund executive bonuses.

3.           Support and expand the local journalism initiative to better serve communities across the country.