A media subsidy introduced as part of the massive 2019 newspaper industry bailout could soon be extended to broadcasters, despite them being mostly owned by our highly-profitable telecom companies, and the cost to taxpayers could be billions. A recently released Senate report that appears to support the move, however, contains notable omissions and framing choices that warrant closer scrutiny.

The cost to extend the newspaper labour subsidy to radio and TV reporters was first estimated by Marc Miller, our Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, at an astonishing $6 billion. He quickly walked that figure back, however, posting on X that he had “conflated the projected Film & Video Tax Credits over the next 6 years with the Journalism Tax Credit for the audiovisual news sector.” Consultations on extending to broadcasters the Journalism Labour Tax Credit that newspapers have benefited from for years were announced in the government’s recent spring economic update, with details to come, but events suggest that the move may be a foregone conclusion. “Broadcast journalism in particular is a key part of our community fabric,” reasoned the update. “Supporting the important work of journalists is crucial in our democratic system, ensuring accountability and a well-informed public, especially during a period of global uncertainty.” Such wording led one expert to conclude that the extra expense may be a fait accompli. “It will mean tens of millions of dollars for Bell, Rogers, Corus and other broadcasters,” predicted University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist on his blog. “The bigger question is whether the federal government should be paying more than a third of the news payroll at the country’s largest vertically integrated communications companies.” The president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters estimated at $100 million a year the cost of extending to radio and TV stations the tax credit that pays 35 percent of journalist salaries at newspapers. “The existing program is valued at far less than the figure stated by the Minister,” Kevin Desjardins told the industry publication Cartt.

The Journalism Labour Tax Credit was introduced as part of the $595 million bailout package Ottawa granted to the newspaper industry in 2019 after an intense lobbying campaign. It initially paid 25 percent of a journalist’s salary, to a maximum salary of $55,000, but it was raised after more lobbying to the industry’s original ask of 35 percent of a maximum salary of $85,000, which more than doubled the possible benefit. It handed out $71 million at last count in 2024. The bailout, which was first set to expire after five years but was later extended to a decade, came after newspapers dismissed the $50 million Local Journalism Initiative, which had been introduced the previous year to fund reporters to cover underserved communities, as a “Band-Aid solution.” Their lobbying campaign, as I chronicled in my 2023 book The Postmedia Effect, was orchestrated by the then-CEO of Postmedia Network, which is by far Canada’s largest newspaper chain but is somehow owned 98 percent by US hedge funds. Hiring a heavyweight Liberal insider brought publishers immediate access to the corridors of power, which resulted in a reported 79 meetings with senior officials, including in the Prime Minister’s Office. Postmedia and Torstar, our second-largest newspaper chain, had already flexed their muscles in 2017 by trading 41 titles and closing 36 of them, for which they somehow escaped prosecution under the Competition Act despite smoking gun evidence. A........

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