Western Standard - LIVE： Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms

00:00:00.080 We should just all get on with moving to digital sources of information.

00:00:06.720 In your community, what are the barriers to digitalization from your readership?

00:00:13.760 Are they able to use online as freely and as effectively as my grandchildren?

00:00:23.600 Senator, I'm publishing for 64 years in Canada, Canada and the United States, and I never

00:00:47.820 before had any problem and i don't have even today with my publications if i can put out a million

00:00:58.060 copies they will go but the problem is that the million copies needs money and the from the other

00:01:07.820 site we lost advertisement private advertisement every day we are losing so therefore we cannot do

00:01:18.620 anything eventually i mean the last two years 67 to 80 publications from different languages

00:01:30.540 they sat down some of them moved to online but online it's only for a very small number of

00:01:40.780 people that are going to work through computer and so on the immigrant who comes tomorrow to canada

00:01:48.220 doesn't have access to online and he or she is going always to look to get a paper a hard copy

00:02:01.220 to her hands to get the news this is exactly the problem and this is whatever i'm trying to

00:02:07.940 communicate with you guys thank you thank you uh mr mohammed ms devoe ms lozon mr saras very much

00:02:17.940 appreciate your time with us here today. We will suspend for a couple of minutes to change panels.

00:02:47.940 Thank you.

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00:07:17.940 we are now resuming our meeting in public to continue our examination of bill c18 the online

00:07:27.780 news act for our second panel we are pleased to welcome the western standard derek filibrand

00:07:34.180 publisher president ceo from alberta weekly newspaper association evan jameson president

00:07:41.060 who's joining us by video conference dennis morrell executive director by video conference

00:07:48.580 and the coalition of canadian magazines la coalition the magazine du canada nicola lapierre

00:07:54.900 we have nicola lapierre who is a member of the associate association this editor of the magazine

00:08:01.060 quebecois no nicole dusette consultant who's joining us so sorry i had my notes a bit mixed

00:08:06.820 Thank you and welcome to the panellists.

00:08:09.820 Each organization will have five minutes for opening statements

00:08:12.820 and then we will turn it to questions and answers

00:08:15.820 and we will start with Western Standard.

00:08:18.820 Mr. Filibrand, you have the floor.

00:08:21.820 Honourable senators, thank you for inviting me to testify

00:08:24.820 before your committee today concerning Bill C-18, the Online News Act.

00:08:28.820 I come before you today representing Western Standard New Media Corporation

00:08:31.820 which includes a growing body of regional publications

00:08:33.820 including the revived Alberta report.

00:08:36.460 We are a publication highly unlike the large corporate media that have lobbied for this bill.

00:08:41.900 As a so-called qualified Canadian journalism organization, we are eligible to receive the

00:08:46.780 full suite of taxpayer subsidies that media are now entitled to in Canada, but we refuse to accept

00:08:52.460 them. We believe that for media to be independent, we must be independent of the state. While the

00:08:57.980 legacy media in Canada cry poor and claim that they're unable to make ends meet in the challenging

00:09:02.780 environment of our industry we have thrived we have gone from a small group around my dining

00:09:07.900 room table in 2019 to the most read online publication in alberta we have a large newsroom

00:09:13.100 in our calgary headquarters bustling with activity and breaking original stories every day

00:09:17.580 we have bureaus in vancouver edmonton regina and ottawa and we did it all without the help of the

00:09:23.660 government i'm here today to plead with you to help stop the government from forcing its help on

00:09:29.580 We were able to grow so quickly

00:09:31.620 was the availability of platforms

00:09:33.620 like Facebook to deliver our

00:09:35.620 content to potential readers

00:09:37.620 at no cost.

00:09:39.620 Facebook made it possible for

00:09:41.620 startups like ours to get our

00:09:43.620 products in front of potential

00:09:44.620 customers without the need for

00:09:46.620 large, costly delivery

00:09:47.620 operations.

00:09:48.620 My first job was as a small

00:09:50.620 town paper boy.

00:09:51.620 In the winter I even delivered

00:09:53.620 papers to a makeshift dog sled

00:09:54.620 with my husky.

00:09:55.620 The local paper paid me to

00:09:57.620 deliver their product to their

00:09:58.580 to their customers in 2013 and 2023 facebook is the new paper boy albeit a very rich one

00:10:06.100 they deliver our products to our customers but they do it for free but greedy newspaper

00:10:11.140 executives not content with the existing massive bailout of their failing businesses

00:10:15.540 have come cap in hand to the government for even more what they got was bill c18 which would force

00:10:21.060 facebook and google to pay them for their content for delivering their content to their customers 0.57

00:10:27.380 If the government had passed a law in 1995 requiring paperboys to pay the local paper

00:10:31.940 for the privilege of delivering their products, I obviously would have quit. It should come as no

00:10:36.980 surprise then that that is what today's paperboys Facebook and Google have promised to do. Of course

00:10:42.420 they will not pay the legacy media for helping the legacy media. It's asinine. There will be no free 0.99

00:10:48.820 money from these tech giants. They'll simply turn off the news in Canada and independent media in

00:10:54.580 will be collateral damage for their greed.

00:10:57.620 We never asked for this bill and we were never consulted in it.

00:11:00.620 But we will have a massive source of our traffic turned off

00:11:04.620 as Facebook and Google retaliate for this naked rent-seeking operation.

00:11:09.600 Bill C-18 should be killed but I understand that the Senate

00:11:12.600 generally prefers to amend legislation rather than defeat it. 0.95

00:11:15.600 So here's my ask.

00:11:17.600 Please amend the bill to ensure that those of us

00:11:19.600 not trying to grift our way to profitability

00:11:22.580 are not collateral damage please amend the bill to make it explicitly opt-in so that only media

00:11:29.140 that want to partake in this shakedown are included importantly this includes removing or amending

00:11:35.140 section 51 which prohibits facebook or google from treating news media outlets differently

00:11:40.580 this is important because these platforms should not be required to shut down content from media

00:11:45.380 outlets like the western standard that are not trying to fleece them let goliath fight with goliath

00:11:51.220 but do not require that the Davids here get caught in the crossfire of their squabble.

00:11:56.100 One of the most important principles of our common law is that the government cannot force

00:11:59.700 two unwilling parties to enter into contract with one another against their will,

00:12:03.620 but that is precisely what Bill C-18 attempts to do. The free press must be free to enter into its

00:12:08.660 own contracts of its own free will and government's only role whatsoever must be in upholding those

00:12:13.940 contracts in court. More subsidies direct and indirect from taxpayers or other industries will

00:12:19.220 not save the legacy media competition adaptability and innovation will if anything can all these

00:12:25.780 lifelines thrown to big media do is to stifle the ability of startup new media to compete

00:12:31.140 parliament has no place in regulating the media the state has no place in the newsrooms of the

00:12:36.660 nation i thank you for taking the time to hear me out and i beg of you let the remaining free

00:12:42.660 press remain free and please for the love of god stop trying to help us thank you mr phillibrand

00:12:51.620 and now i turn it over to alberta weekly newspaper association

00:13:00.340 hello i'm edmund jameson thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee

00:13:04.740 today i'm president of the alberta weekly newspapers association i'm also the third

00:13:09.940 generation of my family within the newspaper business and the third generation of my family

00:13:14.100 to sit as is the president of our local association our association represents all

00:13:19.060 but a few of the community papers in alberta today we've come to advocate on behalf of those

00:13:23.300 businesses considered by many to be an important part of the communities they serve the patches of

00:13:28.740 c18 is an important is important to the media landscape in canada and can help short declining

00:13:33.620 revenues at many newspapers especially the larger ones there is however significant concern amongst

00:13:39.140 our membership regarding the level of support it will deliver to smaller publishers we have heard

00:13:43.700 encouraging reports out of australia regarding deals signed by publishers of all sizes however

00:13:48.100 there's a lot of secrecy around those deals and the level of support being provided to any given

00:13:52.660 news outlet we have seen different estimates regarding the level of funding that could come

00:13:56.820 from c18 and where most of those funds will end up considering those estimates and the nature of the

00:14:02.100 value exchange calculation between publishers and platforms it appears the revenue to small

00:14:06.820 medium-sized outlets could be very low we are also concerned the major platforms will try to reduce

00:14:12.260 the value of these deals as similar legislation is considered in different jurisdictions many

00:14:16.500 different countries are looking at this and the cost of all those agreements will accumulate

00:14:21.620 amongst the platforms it appears to many that meta has avoided new deals with news outlets

00:14:27.460 they've also stated they will stop hosting content if c18 is passed in its current form

00:14:32.340 the move would significantly reduce the level of funding coming through c18 and impact traffic to

00:14:36.580 many new sites google has stated that their news showcase is not a fit for small and medium-sized

00:14:43.060 publishers google and meta state that they gain little revenue directly from news however there's

00:14:48.260 a strong argument that news does add value to both their platforms even if it's not direct

00:14:53.540 more time on sites more data collected from users etc we must all keep also keep in mind that the

00:15:00.180 digital world and platforms are constantly evolving it is difficult to say which platforms

00:15:04.340 and technology will be dominant into the future governments and private lawsuits around the world

00:15:09.060 are challenging the major platforms that have concern for anti-competitive practices privacy

00:15:13.300 and misinformation how will recent developments and recent and ongoing developments in generative

00:15:18.740 artificial intelligence impact this bill and news up and the news operation it supports it's a very

00:15:23.540 quickly moving field we are encouraged to see amendments to the bill allowing norm non-arms

00:15:29.380 length owner operators to qualify there are many of these small operations across canada

00:15:33.940 and they are often the only source of news in the communities they serve

00:15:38.100 we are also very concerned about the timelines projected by the crtc upwards of two years to

00:15:42.660 have regulations in place to facilitate arbitration this is far too long given the precarious state of

00:15:48.500 our industry as it's been pointed out in previous hearings there is no single solution to support

00:15:53.780 all news outlets the business models and scale at which they operate very greatly it is a very

00:15:58.820 diverse industry serving many different types of communities what may work at a national scale with

00:16:04.180 broad audience will not necessarily work in a small town with a limited pool of interested readers

00:16:10.020 the situation is dire for many news outlets some would blame this on an inability to adapt

00:16:14.820 too often we get described as legacy or dinosaurs may marry to the old way of doing things this

00:16:20.580 isn't the case many operators are experimenting with different business and distribution models

00:16:25.700 newspapers have long been adopters of early adopters of technology the problem is that there

00:16:31.540 isn't a clear path to success especially for smaller local publishers good journalism takes

00:16:37.220 time is expensive to produce and ephemeral in nature while there are some encouraging signs

00:16:42.980 that new models are evolving it is too too early to know their longevity and what types of

00:16:47.700 communities will be able to support them we often hear about the latest and greatest new model only

00:16:52.580 to have them fail after a period of time they can also vary greatly in their quality and type of

00:16:57.940 news they produce simply regurgitating news releases isn't enough we must rebuild and

00:17:03.860 strengthen news outlets they've been decimated by many years of revenue decline we need not only to

00:17:09.380 preserve what exists but find adequate resources to provide quality news and information to local

00:17:14.500 communities not just for existing players but new ones as well in digital or printed form

00:17:20.020 we support c18 but think more is needed through the continued expansion of existing proven programs

00:17:27.040 in addition to others the government has long supported local media through aid to publishers

00:17:32.800 and more recently through special measures for journalism the local journalism initiative has

00:17:38.740 been very important for many of our members serving small rural communities and underserved

00:17:44.800 communities in general but that program is not necessarily set to go on

00:17:49.780 permanently perhaps other funding methods such as a refundable subscription

00:17:54.280 tax credit could be a real benefit for small weekly newspapers helping to

00:17:58.840 restore subscription revenues that have steadily drained away over the past 10

00:18:03.340 to 15 years today's non-refundable digital news subscription tax drive but

00:18:07.520 tax credit primarily benefits Canada's large metropolitan daily newspapers

00:18:14.080 Other things that have been brought up would be perhaps a tax on digital advertising sold

00:18:22.420 in the Canadian market that could be redistributed through a fund to Canadian news outlets.

00:18:28.120 Advertising has long supported journalism.

00:18:31.080 We're working with Canada Post to improve delivery timelines and reduce costs, especially

00:18:34.840 for rural areas.

00:18:36.560 Canada Post has also become a significant competitor for flyer distribution.

00:18:40.700 Perhaps they should be required to support local journalism and become part of the solution

00:18:43.880 rather than the problem as has been echoed by many other witnesses and members of this

00:18:48.680 community we fundamentally believe that quality news coverage however it is served is vitally

00:18:53.560 important to all communities and we are encouraged that the federal government is working on ways to

00:18:57.400 support our industry in a great time of need thank you thank you mr jameson now i will turn it over

00:19:03.800 to the coalition of canadian magazines monsieur lapierre madame doucette hello and thank you so

00:19:14.680 much for inviting us here today to give us this opportunity of sharing our values with you in a

00:19:22.600 country like ours from the pacific to the atlantic where there is great diversity we have to be who

00:19:31.000 we are we have to conserve the wealth of our uniqueness and our identities to we want to

00:19:42.440 allow canadians from diversities to survive throughout the regions in canada and i'm going

00:19:51.240 to get into the subject of magazines but i know that there have been some moments of bias with

00:19:58.120 respect to magazines that is to say some people think that magazines are just for women and they're

00:20:05.080 not very serious but i can tell you that they are part of our coalition we have the association

00:20:12.360 quebecoise des éditeurs des magazines and from alberta we have the alberta magazine publishers

00:20:20.920 Association and from BC, the magazine Canada from BC, and also the umbrella organization

00:20:30.640 representing magazines throughout Canada. I think that you all have received a copy

00:20:38.120 of the amendment. It's on page 27.1. We know that the first part of this issue of eligibility.

00:20:50.340 will be created through a tax return, but ultimately it will be the CRTC that will

00:20:56.660 determine the eligibility. What we are suggesting is that there should be OR added that would

00:21:09.060 specify where it says meeting the general conditions and in in the draft it we would add

00:21:18.260 or and three i's the three little i's that should be withdrawn in that particular clause

00:21:27.140 because it is the same subject that we are proposing and on page that is to say in clause

00:21:37.620 31.1 c you would have that withdrawn and with a b the take away the and replace it with or in

00:21:51.620 the text and well i'll leave it up to the clerk of the committee to

00:21:55.380 deal with all that but i wanted to submit that to you and i hope that

00:22:00.180 that will allow us to participate in the legislation itself.

00:22:09.380 Yes, thank you so much, Madame Gisette. With respect to the magazine industry, our coalition

00:22:16.020 represents some 400 editors west to east in Canada at small and large undertakings as

00:22:26.840 well as my colleague has said very much there will be very much that will affect our industry

00:22:35.960 in terms of this legislation our issues are these and our challenges that we face are very much like

00:22:43.640 periodicals those faced by the periodicals and newspapers but we do not have the funding

00:22:50.520 Magazines play a very important role in Canada in propagating the news ecosystem and they supply

00:23:01.320 quality information often supplying a rather unusual take on a newsworthy event. That's what

00:23:10.760 we do in our alliance and we want to provide complete but nuanced coverage. Also there's the

00:23:19.400 cultural aspect because magazines offer a variety of coverage uh it they can go into depth on events

00:23:31.080 they reflect our culture our way of life uh what we like and not and also our concerns

00:23:38.520 that social justice women's issues uh food security and so on and magazines are a very

00:23:45.720 important source of education for canadians because they are able to affect the overall

00:23:55.400 collectivity of canada both on a national and individual basis

00:24:05.560 thank you

00:24:05.960 we listened to the other witnesses this morning and we know that there is some concern about

00:24:18.920 the elephant in the room that is ai there can be twists in the same way that would affect our

00:24:30.760 identity our culture our popular culture

00:24:39.000 and one last word on that knowing that we are in a hyper competitive environment

00:24:47.480 two editors we know have used ai to produce a magazine of 136 pages in two days so uh technology

00:24:57.960 should really is out of our control thank you thank you each senator will have five minutes

00:25:06.120 to ask questions and that does include the answer senator meville addition thank you very much chair

00:25:14.040 um a first question it's a short short question for you mr derek fildebrandt you said you wanted

00:25:20.600 an opt-in clause. How about, you know, other media have talked to me about this. How about an opt-out

00:25:29.180 clause in section 27? Because I understand that the CRTC can decide at any point who's in. So

00:25:38.840 would you be satisfied with an opt-out clause for a media like yours? And we've talked before,

00:25:48.600 so I understand your question. It would be an improvement over the current bill but my my concern

00:25:56.840 is in my discussions with Meta and Google that their retaliation is I really hate that I have

00:26:07.280 to sit here and defend two companies I really don't like but I'm not here to defend them they're

00:26:11.800 just the least bad guy in this but they're going to retaliate for this as they have a right to do

00:26:16.700 and as I would expect them to do.

00:26:18.980 And they're probably not going to go through a list

00:26:21.920 of the thousands of Alberta publications.

00:26:24.620 I know some of the senators here have sub-stack pages.

00:26:27.940 Those could very plausibly be considered news to some extent,

00:26:33.020 or at least opinion on news and caught within media

00:26:35.100 and then blocked on these platforms.

00:26:38.820 And in my discussions with Meta and Google,

00:26:41.840 they're not going to hire a whole team of people

00:26:45.040 to crawl through every little page and say okay well these guys have opted out these guys are in

00:26:50.720 they're just going to blanket ban it which is why if we make the bill opt in it makes it possible for

00:26:57.520 us to contain this fight between the goliaths to those who want to have the fight i don't want to

00:27:04.160 have the fight and i shouldn't have to enter the ring and say i shouldn't be by default in the ring

00:27:09.240 I should not have to walk into it if I don't want to walk into it.

00:27:13.220 I suppose another interesting alternative would be to take the advice of one of the previous witnesses.

00:27:19.300 And I will voluntarily have us labeled as a hate group if that will get us out of this bill.

00:27:26.540 Okay, thank you for this short answer.

00:27:29.860 Thank you for clarifying that.

00:27:31.440 Now I will turn to the representatives of the magazine industry with a few maybe difficult

00:27:43.840 questions. When you look at the definition of what constitutes news, and I know that it depends

00:27:53.680 to an extent on interpretation but to include magazines what does that mean does that mean

00:28:01.520 mclean's which is an info information based magazine uh i don't know what type of research

00:28:08.560 you've done about that but how can you think that a magazine magazine is set like is set a jour

00:28:17.040 which just has pictures of the stars in Quebec. It's very popular, it's very much read,

00:28:24.720 but does it contain news? Perhaps, but maybe not. How can you bring those two together

00:28:33.840 when you speak to magazines in quotation marks? Because you can have a magazine that includes

00:28:42.400 gossip about stars plus hard news. How can that be included? I could perhaps answer partially

00:28:58.080 the question. If you look at other examples of magazines that do journalism and do news as well,

00:29:08.000 it's you always have to confront this type of bias about gossip magazines but they exist

00:29:16.960 yes yes they do but you can't neglect the others because of that particular type of content

00:29:26.480 that is followed up by others so you say a case-by-case basis well case by case maybe so

00:29:32.720 yes to my mind but uh the magazine you mentioned you could go into the their editorial room to see

00:29:45.580 who's reading the text who's going over it does it meet journalistic standards but uh i i i think

00:29:54.520 that there are people that write those texts. They are general interest texts. But I think

00:30:02.760 that those people who are writing it do fall under the description. Well, the second part

00:30:08.680 of my question deals with news. Are they magazines? Yes. Yes, there are news magazines. Definitely.

00:30:17.660 So it's not all magazines that would be excluded of the various types. Would some be

00:30:24.280 covered. It's what we think right now is that it would be fewer than 10. Your time is over,

00:30:36.760 Senator.

00:30:37.960 You know, I'm sorry, the time is over. Senator Simons.

00:30:48.760 such nice alberta representation today uh i want to start with mr jameson in st albert

00:30:55.000 uh you've expressed support for c18 but also pointed out that smaller newspapers like yours

00:31:01.320 and like the ethnic media groups that we heard from earlier this morning may be disadvantaged

00:31:07.000 in comparison to the goliaths to use mr vildebrandt's term you also mentioned a variety

00:31:12.040 of other things that you thought might be more targeted and useful to small publications like

00:31:17.400 yours up we obviously c18 doesn't include a fund model but i can't help but think when i listen to

00:31:26.040 you and when i listen to our previous witnesses from the uh from the minority language and ethnic

00:31:31.560 press that there must cert there must surely be a more tactical surgical way to support

00:31:40.600 small publications rather than forcing them to bargain with meta and google

00:31:47.400 Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of debate amongst the industry and different players because,

00:31:54.160 I mean, like I said, it's very diverse.

00:31:56.280 We have members that serve all sorts of communities, right?

00:32:00.800 And it's difficult because there's a lot of unknown with C-18.

00:32:03.780 We have some idea of what's happened in Australia, but no one really knows the details of it.

00:32:08.480 This legislation is different.

00:32:10.080 I mean, it's kind of built on a two-way value exchange.

00:32:13.780 we look at small communities say uh one of our papers out in barhead alberta that's serving

00:32:18.980 3500 people that live in that rural area um you know what does that value exchange look like what

00:32:25.620 is that act what support is actually going to come from on the other side we have existing like

00:32:30.900 members within our association that have existing deals with platforms um but may operate at a

00:32:36.660 different scale than than some of our smaller members um so i mean there's just great unknown

00:32:42.500 as to what might actually come out of c18 knowing that there might be other ways of supporting

00:32:47.460 small low traffic communities

00:32:58.980 there are a lot of great magazines in this country that combine

00:33:03.380 news and lifestyle i'm thinking about toronto life in montreal edify in edmonton

00:33:12.500 Has the government provided any information to you about whether or not a magazine, like Toronto Life, which combines lifestyle with current affairs, like Maison Neuve, like Edify, how are they going to be classified?

00:33:26.960 we don't have any specific information about this we have asked heritage heritage and

00:33:40.960 to see you know who they see as eligible as you but they're saying that it's going to be the crtc

00:33:48.000 and that we should be speaking to them but it's it's going to be at another step of the you know

00:33:55.040 and they're going to look at eligibility so we want to talk about it now because it we we think

00:34:01.200 that if we take out the article um on 27 you know the 27 the article number three is going to help

00:34:10.400 us to bring in more magazines as you said the mainly um toronto life and others that also do

00:34:18.480 current affairs also popular culture but but serious subjects and all that yes

00:34:25.440 mr fildebrandt you were in the room when we heard the last witnesses talking about

00:34:30.880 what they felt to be a need for a code of ethics

00:34:35.680 as you well know because back when i was a journalist and you were a politician um i

00:34:42.560 I, I, we've, we've, we've changed roles here.

00:34:49.620 It's really important that the press be free

00:34:53.780 to report without fear or favor.

00:34:58.140 And I realize I'm putting you in an awkward position

00:35:00.020 since you have stated very plainly here 0.99

00:35:02.340 that you do not wish the help of C-18.

00:35:06.120 But what challenges do you perceive

00:35:09.140 in your new role as journalist

00:35:11.320 the idea of the crtc deciding who's legitimate and who is not thank you senator uh we already have

00:35:22.520 so-called canadian qualified journalism organization status i applied for it as a joke just to see what

00:35:28.120 would happen i had no intention of accepting the subsidies but we did get it and the kind lady

00:35:33.160 from crtc asked me if i would like any help and now filling out the forms for the different

00:35:36.840 subsidies and i just said no we it was all a gag and uh thank you i thank the crtc for it but um

00:35:44.840 there are challenges it's the cra right sorry i meant cra not crtc uh yeah forgive me um

00:35:53.480 there are challenges uh advertising i hate to cut you off mr filibrand but i have the

00:35:58.760 unenviable task of being the gatekeeper today cut off press and former politicians

00:36:03.160 So freedom has its limits in the Senate.

00:36:07.440 Senator Cormier, followed by Senator Cardoso.

00:36:09.620 Thank you very much, Chair.

00:36:13.420 My question is for Madame Gisette and Monsieur Lapierre.

00:36:17.280 Clearly, according to the current bill, how many of your magazine's members would be eligible?

00:36:28.960 if changes to C18 would be accepted, how many would be eligible? Figures, please.

00:36:38.080 We can come back to you with figures, but presently I can say that it would be the

00:36:46.160 majority with the changes that we are proposing would be eligible.

00:36:50.240 three on the question of exclusion for specific types of magazines. You want to see that removed

00:37:02.220 from the bill. Can you explain why briefly? Because I think that the press in general

00:37:09.540 covers these subjects and what magazines do is target certain subjects. So, but

00:37:18.400 to, they are working towards the same end. When you look at a newspaper or when you look

00:37:25.700 at a magazine, and the magazine may reference a lifestyle as well as news. So it's difficult

00:37:33.700 to see the place that magazines would hold within this type of legislation. It would

00:37:39.800 have to be more specific. Thank you. I have a question for Mr. Hildebrandt. You explained

00:37:48.280 your funding model. As I have just said, how do you assess that? How do you assess the

00:38:05.000 revenues that you get in terms of advertisement and how much do you get from subscriptions?

00:38:12.920 I want to know exactly how to evaluate the amount of money you get from publicities and

00:38:21.520 how from the subscriptions.

00:38:25.520 Our revenue was split, it varies month to month, but on average we're roughly 50% subscriptions,

00:38:33.920 50% advertising.

00:38:36.300 It's fluctuated over time.

00:38:40.360 know it's it's taken us a long time to build up our our capacity to sell all advertising i mean

00:38:44.600 i i'm not entirely without sympathy for media that have talked about the collapse of the advertising

00:38:50.440 model google has come in like when we first started the western standard we tried building

00:38:55.160 google ads uh you know that auto populate from google and and they just paid pennies on the

00:39:00.120 dollar it wasn't worth it just made the website look ugly and gave virtually no money so we took

00:39:04.440 But we had to painstakingly over a few years build our ability to directly sell ads to

00:39:10.440 customers.

00:39:11.440 And that's very difficult work.

00:39:13.440 I hate it.

00:39:14.440 It's really hard to find people who are good at that.

00:39:17.440 But it is necessary to do for the media if they want to have any advertising side of

00:39:22.440 it.

00:39:23.440 But conversely, we absolutely need subscriptions.

00:39:25.440 That's roughly 50% of our revenue.

00:39:27.440 We refer to it as memberships, but it's the same thing, subscriptions.

00:39:31.440 uh and it's like 10 not to make this a commercial but it's ten dollars a month and uh we have to

00:39:36.240 we have a limited paywall mechanism in place uh so that we're able to between those two sources

00:39:42.480 fund our operations okay so what i see from the advertising income that you get uh you have

00:39:54.640 uh reached independence that even if united conservatives uh take out ads so you are

00:40:04.320 nonetheless uh journalistically independent you're not uh um affected by that ad that is

00:40:13.680 on your site they're willing to pay our uh our posted rate uh we've offered to sell ads to the

00:40:20.400 the Alberta New Democratic Party, other smaller political parties. We have private businesses

00:40:26.260 that advertise, not-for-profit organizations. Now, the independents, you know, Senator Simons,

00:40:35.240 others here who have been around the business know that you have to do your very best to try

00:40:40.780 to have a firewall in place between your advertisers and your newsrooms. And most

00:40:48.080 journalists will also know especially particularly in smaller publications where it's not

00:40:51.280 a you know hundreds of people in a building where you can physically separate each other back in

00:40:56.700 you know the 90s maybe the advertising part would never meet the news department

00:41:00.120 but you have to try your very best to have a firewall in place but it is impossible to 100%

00:41:07.580 separate it any publisher who tells you otherwise is probably lying which is one reason that direct

00:41:13.720 government funding of the media is so dangerous and now the proposal in c18 to bring in

00:41:18.600 tech giants funding the media is dangerous because then we'll have these uh i mean no one advertiser

00:41:25.000 for us makes up a critical portion of our revenue but the government is making 33 now i don't want

00:41:31.240 you to be cut by the chair so i want to thank you for your for your answer thank you very much for

00:41:40.360 being so kind, Senator Cardoza. Thank you, Chair.

00:41:44.920 I'll take a step back and just ask you a general question. Certainly, Mr.

00:41:50.120 Philebrandt has made the case for the bill not going into effect. And I'd like to get

00:41:58.680 Mr. Jameson, your thoughts about what the future of your media is in this world of

00:42:05.560 online media and artificial intelligence how do you see the future of uh your media

00:42:19.240 in terms of ai and its use i'll begin with mr jameson please

00:42:25.400 just give a larger picture of what's happening if this bill doesn't go into effect

00:42:29.560 Well, I think we'll just see continued decline and continued loss of papers in many of our

00:42:36.960 communities.

00:42:37.960 I think there's a lot of operations that are running on the ragged edge as it is, and we

00:42:42.760 will just continue to see that decline in advertising, the increasing cost of production

00:42:48.400 in the physical world of putting out newspapers and more closures without more intervention.

00:42:55.200 because I think we need to bear in mind that when we look at a lot of our membership

00:42:58.920 we're secondary or tertiary sources of news in the world you know people are looking at the

00:43:04.720 Globe and Mail or the New York Times for that very high level you know national international

00:43:10.560 coverage and then you get into kind of the provincial side of things and then you get

00:43:14.420 down to your local community and we're all fighting for attention you know people's limited

00:43:19.540 attention spans and it makes it especially difficult as you start serving smaller and

00:43:24.260 smaller communities. As far as AI, I think it's really difficult to understand how that's going

00:43:31.480 to affect us other than the proliferation of content and the difficulties it's going to cause

00:43:37.260 in reporting and sussing out what is true and what isn't true, especially when you get into

00:43:41.760 generative AI video and whatnot. It's just going to make reporting ever more difficult and it's

00:43:47.160 just going to create ever more content for people to have to sift through. To make of the dinosaur

00:43:52.860 argument that I don't mean to be rude, but some will say you're dinosaurs and we should just let

00:43:58.360 you go. Well, I think this is where people need to spend time and actually look at what people

00:44:03.320 are doing. Many of our members have digital agencies, digital operations. They run in both

00:44:09.920 worlds, much like many successful models that we might see with the Globe and Mail. They still

00:44:13.860 print papers, although they're very successful on the digital side. It's a matter of serving

00:44:18.480 your readers wherever they are. If we thought we could get away with just digital, I wouldn't go

00:44:23.140 through the headache of having to print and distribute newspapers every day. It's a major

00:44:27.560 challenge and major expense, but in the digital world, it's very difficult to attain enough

00:44:32.640 advertising revenue, especially in smaller markets. Much going back to how C-18 is going to fund

00:44:39.500 small publishers, we are not high traffic. When we're writing about what's happening in the town

00:44:44.140 of Bonneville, Alberta, it's generally only the people in Bonneville, Alberta who are interested

00:44:48.180 in that but it's very important information to those people in that community we're not trying

00:44:53.060 to reach the broad canadian audience i'm just going to cut you off before the chair does but i'm just

00:45:02.820 i think we share the same opinions and what will be true and what will not be true

00:45:09.220 uh what is of concern to me particularly i could see that in the canadian press

00:45:18.820 la presse canadienne there are scholarships it's almost as if it has infiltrated

00:45:28.100 canadian press there are crtc bursaries that are being offered and i think that magazines though

00:45:38.020 will continue to exist, but we are in a time of change in terms of just paper or not.

00:45:47.780 All Canadian citizens are not really comfortable with the digital world. So they turn to paper

00:45:57.940 still i just want to add this the dinosaur model does operate and people think it doesn't but

00:46:10.660 there are models dinosaur models that tried to move towards a digital digital model but weren't

00:46:17.220 able to do so and successfully so you have a two-speed type of model so you have one that is

00:46:25.860 digitized and one that is a hard copy paper and so it is difficult to juggle those two models but if

00:46:36.580 I to come back to artificial intelligence that you brought up it is coming on so fast that it's scary

00:46:47.060 as I mentioned there are magazines I spoke to a magazine that that was created

00:46:51.620 in five days, 136 page long magazine. And so people aren't being hired. It's because AI can

00:47:00.840 do it faster. And that is actually happening now. When we talk about time lost, it's just

00:47:09.400 too late. It's already too late. It's the matter of speed, the speed of technology. And that is

00:47:16.600 making our uh publishers afraid thank you sir thank you very much chair and my question is to

00:47:23.400 mr jameson as well but before i ask my question uh the previous panel and you and your commentary

00:47:30.680 uh expressed concern that the small ethnic or small rural newspapers and and media may be

00:47:39.720 disadvantaged in a program such as the one we're discussing i just want to put on the record that

00:47:44.920 in australia which is the basis of this although it's somewhat adjusted in australia there are

00:47:52.040 large organizations that did not succeed in reaching agreements and the small organizations

00:47:59.160 that did and if you look at the highest per journalist uh payment it was to the australian

00:48:07.160 country press australia which has 180 rural newspapers and publications that gained the

00:48:17.800 largest proportion of of subsidy from per journalist just on the record i think it's

00:48:24.280 important for us not to look at just the big numbers but what are the implications of of the

00:48:29.640 process that that hopefully we'll be able to put in place but my question mr jameson is

00:48:35.560 the following could you describe in a little more detail than you did to my colleague senator

00:48:40.360 cardoso the drop in revenue that you've experienced and you've expressed concern for the time that

00:48:47.320 it'll take to implement this regime should parliament pass it i i would like to have a

00:48:54.520 bit of commentary from you as to what the pace of decline is and how we could shorten the the

00:49:02.600 introduction of the of these measures uh even if uh we don't manage them as a senate individually

00:49:10.120 we can collectively uh underscore to the government the importance of moving faster

00:49:15.160 uh than uh than inertia mr james yeah yeah i don't have the exact numbers sitting in front

00:49:22.360 of me at the moment but we could gather um looking at that but i mean this has been a

00:49:25.800 rate of decline over many years i mean more more than a decade you know we've seen the

00:49:29.800 you know online classifieds probably being one of the first things that were really hit and so on

00:49:35.160 so forth as as things have gone over the years we've seen an industry that's been decimated

00:49:39.160 over a very long period of time and one that's been grappling and adjusting to over time and

00:49:44.920 one that's been experimenting with new advertising models and different ways of doing things

00:49:49.140 and we've seen a lot of members disappear I mean Dennis might be able to give us an exact number

00:49:53.860 but our association used to have over 120 members now we're just over 90 some of that through you

00:49:59.740 know aggregation of small towns into regional titles and some from just

00:50:03.820 things disappearing over time and with the Australian side I mean no one really

00:50:08.520 know I mean I think this is the big problem there's great uncertainty what

00:50:11.840 this means to small publishers because from what we know about offers that have

00:50:16.660 been deals that have been made already and offers that have been made is

00:50:20.160 generally built around traffic you know the online platforms generally work

00:50:24.620 around traffic selling ads against many eyeballs um and and small newspaper sites don't drive a lot

00:50:32.060 of traffic they're generally driving it's like i was saying before it's just of what's interest to

00:50:37.260 the local community we serve local communities we're not trying to reach very broad audiences

00:50:42.780 across canada or even the province um you know so it's this great uncertainty as to what this

00:50:48.380 actually means but when we look at some of the forecasts have been done for canada because the

00:50:52.140 legislation's a bit different and i believe that the platforms are probably going to treat this a

00:50:56.620 bit differently as they look at their exposure across many different jurisdictions it's not

00:51:00.780 just canada and australia looking at this it's california it's many many other countries around

00:51:04.940 the world that these platforms are either going to as mr philbrandt said and has been indicated

00:51:10.780 in it by by their own witness testimony that they're going to walk away from news

00:51:15.260 but also that they're going to try to drive much harder bargains because they're looking at how

00:51:19.420 much this is going to cost them across the world as these as this type of legislation rolls out

00:51:24.060 it becomes extremely expensive and and we just don't know how that's going to um affect us and

00:51:29.820 and how much different deals we are able you know the deal deals we're able to achieve might be quite

00:51:34.220 a bit different than what's been seen in australia mr merrill uh yes just to put uh some numbers to

00:51:43.340 uh the question from mr harter uh the decline as evan mentioned has been slow and steady over

00:51:50.380 10 12 years like as an example our association has been involved in what we describe as national

00:51:56.860 advertising that we place in the newspapers and in 2010 to 12 it would would have been in the 14

00:52:03.900 million dollars a year annual rank you know annually today it's maybe one to two million so

00:52:10.140 so in terms of that form of advertising the decline has been probably 70 80 percent locally

00:52:17.180 what i hear from publishers is that it's probably more like 30 to 50 percent but they're still

00:52:23.340 operating on far far less today than they were even a few short years ago so so it's pretty dire

00:52:30.700 as evan has pointed out senator dasko followed by senator clement thank you mr chair um my question

00:52:39.260 My first question is for Madame Doucette and Monsieur Lapierre. Just a point of clarification,

00:52:45.660 are you asking for all magazines to be covered in this bill or just for some? And if it is just for

00:52:53.740 some, which ones? If you could just describe that because I'm not exactly clear.

00:52:59.100 um it's um we have the the how it's proposed the law how it's proposed but we we um we know that

00:53:10.380 the for the first criteria um when we talk about yeah i'm going to speak in french it's easier for

00:53:19.580 me. When we talk about taxes, it's quite easy to get to the list of eligible businesses.

00:53:29.180 We think they are fewer than 10. I can't give you all the information because some information

00:53:35.560 is confidential, but it's fewer than 10, I would say. But if you could add clause three

00:53:48.500 in clause three, add magazines.

00:53:52.760 Okay.

00:53:53.600 Just describe, rather than talking about clauses,

00:53:57.940 do you want all magazines or just some?

00:54:01.680 And just, if you could just describe which ones,

00:54:06.460 which type, just which type.

00:54:08.880 Of course, thank you.

00:54:12.020 Yes, I spoke about Protégez-vous.

00:54:15.060 Protégez-vous, for example, is a magazine that talks about consumers' affairs,

00:54:22.160 what kind of laundry machine you should buy or whatever.

00:54:27.140 So it's really a consumer affairs magazine.

00:54:31.400 It doesn't deal with opinions.

00:54:34.220 It really deals with facts and logic.

00:54:38.320 I talked about Quebec Science because it is one of the magazines

00:54:43.260 that is really important for young people and for you know to to to get people interested in

00:54:51.180 in science um maybe you have other examples we do have other examples but i think your question if

00:54:56.940 i can say is if i can try to answer it is right now there's a minority in less than a minority

00:55:03.340 of our members that would be eligible if eligible and now like i said this in a talk on me it would

00:55:08.940 be the majority i don't think we want to include every single one magazines that we represent

00:55:15.500 but if we can get more involved i think it helps the industry and i think it it definitely helps

00:55:22.380 our members you're you're going well beyond news well beyond news is that correct in terms of what

00:55:30.540 you're looking for because this is supposed to help news operations so you're you're saying

00:55:37.100 any type like any type of interest it just just didn't correct again it goes down to the definition

00:55:45.020 of news and general interest content and that that's where we stand where we go in depth in

00:55:51.020 a subject uh that's our speciality with magazines um and you know we do cover news uh though minority

00:56:00.460 of our membership do cover news on a day-to-day basis but they still do it um and as of right now

00:56:05.500 i don't think they would be eligible so they should be so yes so let's just say chatelaine

00:56:11.580 magazine i remember i mean they they have some news in there but it's almost probably 90 90

00:56:18.540 lifestyle would would they do you feel they would they should be magazine but newspaper has different

00:56:24.700 categories of content in them right um you get sports in newspaper so so essentially you're

00:56:31.420 looking to cover almost all magazines is because there's a lot of magazines in this correct yeah

00:56:42.140 we're saying at the present time that there is more opacity than we think there is between

00:56:47.580 magazine and news and that we're doing more and more the same thing in a different way

00:56:53.820 and so we're saying that the law as it is proposed is too narrow to include some magazines that could

00:57:00.940 be important i'm sorry i don't have the list of the 400 or less that would be eligible but we

00:57:09.260 think that if we were really talking about eligibility now and it's it's just going to

00:57:14.780 it's another step it's going to be yes i understand sir you don't mind like something

00:57:19.900 like excuse me like a mechanics time is up unfortunately i wish we had more time

00:57:26.220 with this with this panel for being here full disclosure i love dinosaurs and pterodactyls

00:57:38.060 and i was a paper girl i was a paper girl decades ago i delivered the montreal star

00:57:43.420 um so yes um my question is for the coalition of magazines so in a small market like in my

00:57:49.900 home community of cornwall ontario um we have a couple of magazines like cornwall living

00:57:55.740 like Perch Magazine, blend of news, blend of lifestyle, very limited editions. So they will

00:58:02.060 sit in restaurants and in newsstands for the whole year. People love them and they sit in their homes

00:58:09.900 and they go in depth into local issues. I guess my question is Meta was here last week saying

00:58:17.580 that they would cut off, you know, links to news. How does that impact your industry? Like your

00:58:25.100 industry is very important to local communities um does what meta has said affect you do you have

00:58:32.220 any comment on that um yeah i read the what meta said um a bit of a threat um absolutely um we um

00:58:43.260 mainly because avala publishers do um they use those platforms and some of those contents

00:58:50.300 appear on those platforms without even the publishers posting them right um so i guess

00:58:57.580 um a short answer would be yes absolutely it it will affect them um to what capacity is to be

00:59:05.660 defined but it will it will definitely hurt to hurt the overall industry do you have something

00:59:13.420 to add no i think that the giants the web giants shouldn't be managing our news nor our magazines

00:59:26.060 or local local news our local coverage even as compared with a national coverage we support what

00:59:37.740 is there i guess the question i have with the couple of minutes that are left is is has to do

00:59:43.900 with cbc which of course gets over a billion dollars a year in government funding and

00:59:48.780 simultaneously they compete in the same marketplace that your magazines and your

00:59:53.580 local newspapers are competing for advertising dollar and now we have a bill which we are going

00:59:58.460 to be giving them additional funding uh from digital giants in order to continue to compete

01:00:05.180 and of course i'd like to know what your views are on that

01:00:13.020 um this is a sort of a follow-up to the question i didn't get to complete from

01:00:19.420 senator simons about what are the challenges we're facing the biggest challenge by far

01:00:25.340 we face at the western standard at least is that our competitors are subsidized with our own tax

01:00:31.740 dollars we are a relatively small company paying taxes to ottawa that are then redistributed to

01:00:38.780 our competitors so for instance cbc um i'm not going to get to whatever anyone thinks about them

01:00:45.660 but they're clearly a competitor and while they're technically a broadcaster the distinctions

01:00:50.780 between what is a broadcaster a magazine a newspaper they're irrelevant today i fought with

01:00:56.060 the workers compensation board about if the western standard was a magazine or a newspaper well we're

01:01:00.460 kind of neither we used to be a magazine at one point but we had a fight over because that

01:01:04.540 determined what our premiums were they're all the same thing we're all online some have a physical

01:01:09.500 manifestation with our crtc license some might have a physical print product but you can't tell

01:01:14.540 the difference with them anymore so the cbc is not just competing with c ctv and global they're

01:01:19.820 competing with the edmonton journal the western standard the toronto star um but then post media

01:01:26.780 you know, the Heralds, the Journals, the Suns, they're competing with us as well. And they're

01:01:30.840 doing so with our tax dollars against us. C18 wouldn't necessarily be our tax dollars against

01:01:36.640 us, but still giving a leg up to our competitors over us, theoretically, if the money is actually

01:01:42.640 there. I'm very skeptical that the money will actually be there and just that we're going to

01:01:46.920 be collateral damage in their fight between them. But if there really is anything that Ottawa can do

01:01:53.560 to help independent publishers the innovative ones the guys who are selling light bulbs not

01:01:58.840 candles is to stop funding the candle industry stop trying to advantage our competitors over

01:02:05.240 us with our own tax dollars and and let nature let the market sort it out anyone else

01:02:11.960 um i'm not here to open a debate here but um you know his competitors he's talking about

01:02:19.880 some of them are my members and they're barely keeping their head above water i think it's

01:02:25.080 crucial for democracy to have many voices not just one so to me it's crucial to have help

01:02:33.720 to have as many voices as possible and that's through some funding um and my question is about

01:02:40.920 concentrating so much capital into one voice how do you help all the other voices

01:02:49.880 I sincerely think that Radio Canada, CBC, are both very important for democracy.

01:02:58.320 And that voice is going to remain essential for many, many people, for facts, to speak to them.

01:03:08.800 Want to weigh in?

01:03:14.660 No.

01:03:15.500 so

01:03:18.500 I'd like to thank our panelists all for being here

01:03:24.520 thank you for being here today

01:03:29.040 we went over our allocated time so I thank everyone for their

01:03:33.420 cooperation so with that I adjourn this meeting

01:03:45.500 Thank you.

Western Standard - May 10, 2023

LIVE： Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms

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