Bill： Supporting Ontario's Community, Rural and Agricultural Newspapers Act, 2023
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, Premier Doug Ford speaks in support of the Supporting Ontario's Community, Rural and Agricultural Newspapers Act, which would allow municipalities to post notices in community newspapers that are published once a month or more frequently.
Transcript
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand here today in the Legislature to talk about the
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Supporting Ontario's Community, Rural and Agricultural Newspapers Act.
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And literally, Madam Speaker, four years ago to this day, on March 28, 2019, I spoke about
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And so I'm pleased to work with MPP Sarrazin, the fantastic Member of Parliament for Glengarry
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Prescott Russell in this session to reintroduce this important piece of legislation.
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Community newspapers bring high-value engagement and trust to all levels of government messaging,
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and some 82 percent of Ontario citizens read their local community newspapers.
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Community newspapers like the Manateek Messenger and Ottawa Community Voice in my riding of
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Carleton are the voice of their community and strong contributors to their local economies.
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Madam Speaker, this proposed private member's bill has its roots in my riding of Carleton.
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This issue was originally brought to my attention by Mr. Jeffrey Morris,
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who owns two local community papers, the Manitic Messenger and the Barhaven Independent.
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And I'd like to thank Mr. Morris for bringing this issue to my attention
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all those years ago and for inspiring me to write my first private member's bill about
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Madam Speaker, community newspapers are vitally important sources of information in Carleton
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and in other rural and northern communities throughout Ontario.
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They're also relied upon by many immigrant and new Canadian communities as crucial sources
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The proposed changes will help ensure the viability of these newspapers, enabling them
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to continue to bring their communities together and to provide residents with crucial local
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Turning now to the content of the Private Members' Bill, municipalities are required
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to post notice to the public for relevant community works, events, consultations and
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These notices are often required to be tendered to the public via postings in community papers.
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The current definition of newspaper in the Legislation Act reads as follows, a provision
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requiring that publication means a document that is printed in sheet form, published at
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regular intervals of a week or less, and circulated to the general public, and consists primarily
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This definition of a newspaper contained within the Legislation Act 2006 is a standard used
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by municipalities for the purpose of providing public notice in the following acts. The City
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of Toronto Act, the Development Charges Act, the Environmental Assessment Act, the Municipal
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Act, the Ontario Heritage Act, and the Planning Act. Increasingly, community papers, particularly
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those in northern and rural Ontario, are published on a biweekly or monthly basis because of
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the disastrous policies made by the previous government, such as increasing red tape,
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hydro bills, increasing taxes, and increasing their overall bottom line, which has led many
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of them to look at cost-cutting efforts in order to maintain their small, independently
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owned businesses. By limiting their publications to biweekly or monthly, municipalities are
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not then able to post notice in these publications anymore because they do not fit the standard
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definition of newspaper. So not only are these community papers losing out on a potential
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source of revenue that would help support local businesses, but it also makes it difficult
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for municipalities to inform local populations of relevant local news.
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To fix this problem, this legislation is proposing to amend the definition of newspaper
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to mean a publication that is published once a month or more frequently.
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This way, Madam Speaker, with this amendment, we are able to increase the number of community
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papers that municipalities will be able to post notices in and to communicate with local
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To clarify, Madam Speaker, this change does not mandate that municipalities must now
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All it does is broaden the scope of potential newspapers.
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The requirement that municipal notices be posted in newspapers with a publishing frequency
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of weekly or less has prevented many smaller community papers from being able to post these
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municipal notices, putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
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Amending the definition of newspaper to those which have a publishing frequency of a month
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or less will help even the playing field for many local community newspapers, like the
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Manatic Messenger and Ottawa Community Voice, and could add to their bottom line.
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We have received broad support for this private member's bill from key stakeholders in Ontario.
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And I'd like to thank Caroline Medwell and everyone from the Ontario Community Newspapers
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I'd like to end my speech by thanking Mr. Geoffrey Morris for bringing this issue to
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I'd like to thank everyone here today for joining me in this debate.
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I'd like to thank the member from Glangarry Prescott-Russell
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for working with me to reintroduce this legislation that I introduced four years ago.
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And I hope that after listening to my comments,
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everyone in the House can join me in supporting Ontario's Community, Rural, and Agricultural Newspapers Act.