Juno News - May 19, 2019


Justin Trudeau's flawed media bailout package


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

187.87917

Word Count

1,022

Sentence Count

6


Summary

Justin Trudeau has proposed a $600 million tax credit to support Canadian journalism, but there are concerns that it will somehow compromise the media. In this episode, I talk about the problems with the proposed tax credit and offer suggestions on how the government can fix them.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 there's been a lot of questions a lot of consternation about Justin Trudeau's media
00:00:13.920 bailout package a 600 million dollar fund that is in the budget implementation act that will go
00:00:20.580 towards supporting Canadian journalism so he says and so some media organizations and
00:00:25.980 associations support but then other people including individual journalists members of
00:00:31.020 the public and politicians are worried that this will somehow compromise the media try to
00:00:36.360 win favor with them buy them out or somewhat influence the media now I share those concerns
00:00:42.600 they are very much legitimate concerns I had a unique opportunity though a few days ago I was
00:00:48.060 asked to head up to the House of Commons Finance Committee to give a presentation to give a witness
00:00:52.800 testimony on what I thought about the legislation I want to share with you some of those remarks that
00:00:58.140 I gave there now philosophically in principle I think the best relationship between government
00:01:03.840 and the media is none not at all and I would not be heading us down this path but I realized that
00:01:09.480 this is in the budget implementation act meaning the Liberals are going to pass it and what they're
00:01:14.460 going to be doing conceivably is at least amending this legislation so I use that opportunity not to
00:01:20.400 say make an argument up against the whole plan for the media bailout but to talk about the biggest
00:01:25.800 problems in it and the ways that they could revise it to minimize any potential damages first of all I
00:01:32.640 made the point to them that they've done a really bad job actually talking about what's in this
00:01:36.780 legislation and what the purpose of it is because a lot of people think and I can't blame them for
00:01:41.380 thinking this that the 600 million is just a pot that Justin Trudeau and his friends are going to dig into and
00:01:46.800 dole out 10 or 20 or 100 million dollars here and there to whichever company they want sort of on a whim
00:01:53.040 What it actually is is they are making some changes to the tax rules to basically create a tax credit
00:02:00.720 So that various different news media outlets new newspapers primarily are able to actually file tax credits on the cost of
00:02:10.120 Employees this is something that already exists in the film industry to a degree
00:02:14.820 It is not just handing out cash grants of money
00:02:18.060 However, there are some major problems with how they're doing this and this was the substance of my remarks that I gave to the committee
00:02:25.500 And my key recommendations surrounded something called an independent journalist panel that they're setting up to determine the criteria
00:02:33.060 for all of this
00:02:35.060 What is the eligibility? Who's going to be eligible? Which organizations? Why and to what degree?
00:02:41.300 Those are the big questions that people have out there right now
00:02:44.740 How they're going to determine this is they're putting together a panel of independent journalists and I said hold on a second
00:02:51.180 I would much rather be judged by 10 complete strangers than I would other people in the media and quite frankly
00:02:56.180 I imagine other people in the media feel the same way about me and that's fine
00:03:00.180 So we're bringing people in the industry and they're going to set the rules of the game
00:03:04.680 I'm a little uncomfortable about this and I'm also of course uncomfortable about the idea that a politician say the prime minister his cabinet ministers would do it as well
00:03:13.100 So how should they work around all of this?
00:03:15.140 Well, as I said that's somewhat similar to the film tax credit that already exists federally and in a bunch of provinces
00:03:21.180 But the film tax credit it's an administrative mechanism. They have these rules
00:03:26.100 They basically say you have to take off out of these ten different boxes
00:03:29.860 You have to take off at least six of them and then you get your film tax credit and you just file your paperwork into the office
00:03:36.060 It's an administrative exercise that you send in to bureaucrats. It's that that simple. That's it
00:03:41.760 And I believe if they're going down the path of this media tax tax credit and they definitely are so it seems they need to make it as
00:03:49.940 Administrative as bureaucratic as hands-off as antiseptic as possible to avoid any sort of any sort of meddling
00:03:59.120 Whether it's from other journalists who are doing a sort of jury of their peers or from people in the government
00:04:05.120 So scrap that panel I say and just do it as a bureaucratic instrument
00:04:09.820 Now the other big recommendation I make they say they're going to bring out a list of qualified Canadian journalism organizations
00:04:17.180 That's what they're calling it and that list may even go online. I say well, hold on a second
00:04:22.460 Compiling a list of people who you're putting online and basically saying these are the I don't know government endorsed media organizations
00:04:29.900 The optics of that are atrocious now
00:04:33.180 They say that I guess these are just the organizations they are deeming eligible for this tax credit and also another change that they're bringing in for for not-for-profit and charitable status
00:04:42.360 But here's the thing you don't need to compile a list of people who are eligible for a tax credit
00:04:48.680 Any tax credit out there that we claim for our families for ourselves when we're filing our taxes
00:04:54.120 You just tick off a little box saying I'm claiming this credit and you either get it or you don't
00:04:58.840 There's no list of all of us who have gotten the the transit tax credit or what have you again
00:05:03.960 It is just a bureaucratic exercise
00:05:06.140 So that was the substance of the remarks that I made to the committee. This is really about minimizing the politicization of this
00:05:12.940 If they're going down this road, it seems like they are and that this legislation will pass
00:05:17.420 So those were the things that I told them the specific pinpoint issues that they've got to do to try and make sure that the damage is as small as possible