LIVEļ¼ Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms
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1 hour and 4 minutes
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Summary
Bill C-18, the Online News Act, is a bill that would force Canadian newspapers to pay for delivery of the latest and greatest news and information on the internet to be delivered to readers at no cost. The bill has the support of the Prime Minister, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and the opposition party, the Green Party of Canada.
Transcript
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We should just all get on with moving to digital sources of information.
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In your community, what are the barriers to digitalization from your readership?
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Are they able to use online as freely and as effectively as my grandchildren?
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Senator, I'm publishing for 64 years in Canada, Canada and the United States, and I never
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before had any problem and i don't have even today with my publications if i can put out a million
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copies they will go but the problem is that the million copies needs money and the from the other
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site we lost advertisement private advertisement every day we are losing so therefore we cannot do
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anything eventually i mean the last two years 67 to 80 publications from different languages
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they sat down some of them moved to online but online it's only for a very small number of
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people that are going to work through computer and so on the immigrant who comes tomorrow to canada
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doesn't have access to online and he or she is going always to look to get a paper a hard copy
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to her hands to get the news this is exactly the problem and this is whatever i'm trying to
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communicate with you guys thank you thank you uh mr mohammed ms devoe ms lozon mr saras very much
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appreciate your time with us here today. We will suspend for a couple of minutes to change panels.
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we are now resuming our meeting in public to continue our examination of bill c18 the online
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news act for our second panel we are pleased to welcome the western standard derek filibrand
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publisher president ceo from alberta weekly newspaper association evan jameson president
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who's joining us by video conference dennis morrell executive director by video conference
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and the coalition of canadian magazines la coalition the magazine du canada nicola lapierre
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we have nicola lapierre who is a member of the associate association this editor of the magazine
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quebecois no nicole dusette consultant who's joining us so sorry i had my notes a bit mixed
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Each organization will have five minutes for opening statements
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and then we will turn it to questions and answers
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Honourable senators, thank you for inviting me to testify
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before your committee today concerning Bill C-18, the Online News Act.
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I come before you today representing Western Standard New Media Corporation
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which includes a growing body of regional publications
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We are a publication highly unlike the large corporate media that have lobbied for this bill.
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As a so-called qualified Canadian journalism organization, we are eligible to receive the
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full suite of taxpayer subsidies that media are now entitled to in Canada, but we refuse to accept
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them. We believe that for media to be independent, we must be independent of the state. While the
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legacy media in Canada cry poor and claim that they're unable to make ends meet in the challenging
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environment of our industry we have thrived we have gone from a small group around my dining
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room table in 2019 to the most read online publication in alberta we have a large newsroom
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in our calgary headquarters bustling with activity and breaking original stories every day
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we have bureaus in vancouver edmonton regina and ottawa and we did it all without the help of the
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government i'm here today to plead with you to help stop the government from forcing its help on
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to their customers in 2013 and 2023 facebook is the new paper boy albeit a very rich one
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they deliver our products to our customers but they do it for free but greedy newspaper
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executives not content with the existing massive bailout of their failing businesses
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have come cap in hand to the government for even more what they got was bill c18 which would force
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facebook and google to pay them for their content for delivering their content to their customers
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If the government had passed a law in 1995 requiring paperboys to pay the local paper
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for the privilege of delivering their products, I obviously would have quit. It should come as no
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surprise then that that is what today's paperboys Facebook and Google have promised to do. Of course
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they will not pay the legacy media for helping the legacy media. It's asinine. There will be no free
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money from these tech giants. They'll simply turn off the news in Canada and independent media in
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We never asked for this bill and we were never consulted in it.
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But we will have a massive source of our traffic turned off
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as Facebook and Google retaliate for this naked rent-seeking operation.
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Bill C-18 should be killed but I understand that the Senate
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generally prefers to amend legislation rather than defeat it.
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Please amend the bill to ensure that those of us
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are not collateral damage please amend the bill to make it explicitly opt-in so that only media
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that want to partake in this shakedown are included importantly this includes removing or amending
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section 51 which prohibits facebook or google from treating news media outlets differently
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this is important because these platforms should not be required to shut down content from media
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outlets like the western standard that are not trying to fleece them let goliath fight with goliath
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but do not require that the Davids here get caught in the crossfire of their squabble.
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One of the most important principles of our common law is that the government cannot force
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two unwilling parties to enter into contract with one another against their will,
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but that is precisely what Bill C-18 attempts to do. The free press must be free to enter into its
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own contracts of its own free will and government's only role whatsoever must be in upholding those
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contracts in court. More subsidies direct and indirect from taxpayers or other industries will
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not save the legacy media competition adaptability and innovation will if anything can all these
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lifelines thrown to big media do is to stifle the ability of startup new media to compete
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parliament has no place in regulating the media the state has no place in the newsrooms of the
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nation i thank you for taking the time to hear me out and i beg of you let the remaining free
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press remain free and please for the love of god stop trying to help us thank you mr phillibrand
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and now i turn it over to alberta weekly newspaper association
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hello i'm edmund jameson thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee
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today i'm president of the alberta weekly newspapers association i'm also the third
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generation of my family within the newspaper business and the third generation of my family
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to sit as is the president of our local association our association represents all
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but a few of the community papers in alberta today we've come to advocate on behalf of those
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businesses considered by many to be an important part of the communities they serve the patches of
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c18 is an important is important to the media landscape in canada and can help short declining
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revenues at many newspapers especially the larger ones there is however significant concern amongst
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our membership regarding the level of support it will deliver to smaller publishers we have heard
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encouraging reports out of australia regarding deals signed by publishers of all sizes however
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there's a lot of secrecy around those deals and the level of support being provided to any given
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news outlet we have seen different estimates regarding the level of funding that could come
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from c18 and where most of those funds will end up considering those estimates and the nature of the
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value exchange calculation between publishers and platforms it appears the revenue to small
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medium-sized outlets could be very low we are also concerned the major platforms will try to reduce
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the value of these deals as similar legislation is considered in different jurisdictions many
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different countries are looking at this and the cost of all those agreements will accumulate
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amongst the platforms it appears to many that meta has avoided new deals with news outlets
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they've also stated they will stop hosting content if c18 is passed in its current form
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the move would significantly reduce the level of funding coming through c18 and impact traffic to
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many new sites google has stated that their news showcase is not a fit for small and medium-sized
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publishers google and meta state that they gain little revenue directly from news however there's
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a strong argument that news does add value to both their platforms even if it's not direct
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more time on sites more data collected from users etc we must all keep also keep in mind that the
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digital world and platforms are constantly evolving it is difficult to say which platforms
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and technology will be dominant into the future governments and private lawsuits around the world
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are challenging the major platforms that have concern for anti-competitive practices privacy
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and misinformation how will recent developments and recent and ongoing developments in generative
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artificial intelligence impact this bill and news up and the news operation it supports it's a very
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quickly moving field we are encouraged to see amendments to the bill allowing norm non-arms
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length owner operators to qualify there are many of these small operations across canada
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and they are often the only source of news in the communities they serve
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we are also very concerned about the timelines projected by the crtc upwards of two years to
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have regulations in place to facilitate arbitration this is far too long given the precarious state of
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our industry as it's been pointed out in previous hearings there is no single solution to support
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all news outlets the business models and scale at which they operate very greatly it is a very
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diverse industry serving many different types of communities what may work at a national scale with
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broad audience will not necessarily work in a small town with a limited pool of interested readers
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the situation is dire for many news outlets some would blame this on an inability to adapt
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too often we get described as legacy or dinosaurs may marry to the old way of doing things this
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isn't the case many operators are experimenting with different business and distribution models
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newspapers have long been adopters of early adopters of technology the problem is that there
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isn't a clear path to success especially for smaller local publishers good journalism takes
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time is expensive to produce and ephemeral in nature while there are some encouraging signs
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that new models are evolving it is too too early to know their longevity and what types of
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communities will be able to support them we often hear about the latest and greatest new model only
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to have them fail after a period of time they can also vary greatly in their quality and type of
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news they produce simply regurgitating news releases isn't enough we must rebuild and
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strengthen news outlets they've been decimated by many years of revenue decline we need not only to
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preserve what exists but find adequate resources to provide quality news and information to local
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communities not just for existing players but new ones as well in digital or printed form
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we support c18 but think more is needed through the continued expansion of existing proven programs
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in addition to others the government has long supported local media through aid to publishers
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and more recently through special measures for journalism the local journalism initiative has
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been very important for many of our members serving small rural communities and underserved
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communities in general but that program is not necessarily set to go on
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permanently perhaps other funding methods such as a refundable subscription
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tax credit could be a real benefit for small weekly newspapers helping to
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restore subscription revenues that have steadily drained away over the past 10
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to 15 years today's non-refundable digital news subscription tax drive but
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tax credit primarily benefits Canada's large metropolitan daily newspapers
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Other things that have been brought up would be perhaps a tax on digital advertising sold
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in the Canadian market that could be redistributed through a fund to Canadian news outlets.
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We're working with Canada Post to improve delivery timelines and reduce costs, especially
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Canada Post has also become a significant competitor for flyer distribution.
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Perhaps they should be required to support local journalism and become part of the solution
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rather than the problem as has been echoed by many other witnesses and members of this
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community we fundamentally believe that quality news coverage however it is served is vitally
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important to all communities and we are encouraged that the federal government is working on ways to
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support our industry in a great time of need thank you thank you mr jameson now i will turn it over
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to the coalition of canadian magazines monsieur lapierre madame doucette hello and thank you so
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much for inviting us here today to give us this opportunity of sharing our values with you in a
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country like ours from the pacific to the atlantic where there is great diversity we have to be who
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we are we have to conserve the wealth of our uniqueness and our identities to we want to
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allow canadians from diversities to survive throughout the regions in canada and i'm going
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to get into the subject of magazines but i know that there have been some moments of bias with
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respect to magazines that is to say some people think that magazines are just for women and they're
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not very serious but i can tell you that they are part of our coalition we have the association
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quebecoise des Ć©diteurs des magazines and from alberta we have the alberta magazine publishers
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Association and from BC, the magazine Canada from BC, and also the umbrella organization
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representing magazines throughout Canada. I think that you all have received a copy
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of the amendment. It's on page 27.1. We know that the first part of this issue of eligibility.
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will be created through a tax return, but ultimately it will be the CRTC that will
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determine the eligibility. What we are suggesting is that there should be OR added that would
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specify where it says meeting the general conditions and in in the draft it we would add
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or and three i's the three little i's that should be withdrawn in that particular clause
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because it is the same subject that we are proposing and on page that is to say in clause
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31.1 c you would have that withdrawn and with a b the take away the and replace it with or in
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the text and well i'll leave it up to the clerk of the committee to
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deal with all that but i wanted to submit that to you and i hope that
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that will allow us to participate in the legislation itself.
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Yes, thank you so much, Madame Gisette. With respect to the magazine industry, our coalition
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represents some 400 editors west to east in Canada at small and large undertakings as
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well as my colleague has said very much there will be very much that will affect our industry
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in terms of this legislation our issues are these and our challenges that we face are very much like
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periodicals those faced by the periodicals and newspapers but we do not have the funding
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Magazines play a very important role in Canada in propagating the news ecosystem and they supply
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quality information often supplying a rather unusual take on a newsworthy event. That's what
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we do in our alliance and we want to provide complete but nuanced coverage. Also there's the
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cultural aspect because magazines offer a variety of coverage uh it they can go into depth on events
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they reflect our culture our way of life uh what we like and not and also our concerns
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that social justice women's issues uh food security and so on and magazines are a very
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important source of education for canadians because they are able to affect the overall
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collectivity of canada both on a national and individual basis
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we listened to the other witnesses this morning and we know that there is some concern about
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the elephant in the room that is ai there can be twists in the same way that would affect our
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and one last word on that knowing that we are in a hyper competitive environment
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two editors we know have used ai to produce a magazine of 136 pages in two days so uh technology
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should really is out of our control thank you thank you each senator will have five minutes
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to ask questions and that does include the answer senator meville addition thank you very much chair
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um a first question it's a short short question for you mr derek fildebrandt you said you wanted
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an opt-in clause. How about, you know, other media have talked to me about this. How about an opt-out
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clause in section 27? Because I understand that the CRTC can decide at any point who's in. So
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would you be satisfied with an opt-out clause for a media like yours? And we've talked before,
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so I understand your question. It would be an improvement over the current bill but my my concern
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is in my discussions with Meta and Google that their retaliation is I really hate that I have
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to sit here and defend two companies I really don't like but I'm not here to defend them they're
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just the least bad guy in this but they're going to retaliate for this as they have a right to do
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And they're probably not going to go through a list
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I know some of the senators here have sub-stack pages.
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Those could very plausibly be considered news to some extent,
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or at least opinion on news and caught within media
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they're not going to hire a whole team of people
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to crawl through every little page and say okay well these guys have opted out these guys are in
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they're just going to blanket ban it which is why if we make the bill opt in it makes it possible for
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us to contain this fight between the goliaths to those who want to have the fight i don't want to
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have the fight and i shouldn't have to enter the ring and say i shouldn't be by default in the ring
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I should not have to walk into it if I don't want to walk into it.
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I suppose another interesting alternative would be to take the advice of one of the previous witnesses.
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And I will voluntarily have us labeled as a hate group if that will get us out of this bill.
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Now I will turn to the representatives of the magazine industry with a few maybe difficult
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questions. When you look at the definition of what constitutes news, and I know that it depends
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to an extent on interpretation but to include magazines what does that mean does that mean
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mclean's which is an info information based magazine uh i don't know what type of research
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you've done about that but how can you think that a magazine magazine is set like is set a jour
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which just has pictures of the stars in Quebec. It's very popular, it's very much read,
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but does it contain news? Perhaps, but maybe not. How can you bring those two together
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when you speak to magazines in quotation marks? Because you can have a magazine that includes
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gossip about stars plus hard news. How can that be included? I could perhaps answer partially
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the question. If you look at other examples of magazines that do journalism and do news as well,
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it's you always have to confront this type of bias about gossip magazines but they exist
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yes yes they do but you can't neglect the others because of that particular type of content
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that is followed up by others so you say a case-by-case basis well case by case maybe so
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yes to my mind but uh the magazine you mentioned you could go into the their editorial room to see
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who's reading the text who's going over it does it meet journalistic standards but uh i i i think
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that there are people that write those texts. They are general interest texts. But I think
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that those people who are writing it do fall under the description. Well, the second part
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of my question deals with news. Are they magazines? Yes. Yes, there are news magazines. Definitely.
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So it's not all magazines that would be excluded of the various types. Would some be
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covered. It's what we think right now is that it would be fewer than 10. Your time is over,
00:30:37.960
You know, I'm sorry, the time is over. Senator Simons.
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such nice alberta representation today uh i want to start with mr jameson in st albert
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uh you've expressed support for c18 but also pointed out that smaller newspapers like yours
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and like the ethnic media groups that we heard from earlier this morning may be disadvantaged
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in comparison to the goliaths to use mr vildebrandt's term you also mentioned a variety
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of other things that you thought might be more targeted and useful to small publications like
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yours up we obviously c18 doesn't include a fund model but i can't help but think when i listen to
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you and when i listen to our previous witnesses from the uh from the minority language and ethnic
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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,
00:31:56.280
We have members that serve all sorts of communities, right?
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And it's difficult because there's a lot of unknown with C-18.
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We have some idea of what's happened in Australia, but no one really knows the details of it.
00:32:10.080
I mean, it's kind of built on a two-way value exchange.
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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
00:32:58.980
there are a lot of great magazines in this country that combine
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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?
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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
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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
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as you well know because back when i was a journalist and you were a politician um i
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And I realize I'm putting you in an awkward position
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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
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there are challenges it's the cra right sorry i meant cra not crtc uh yeah forgive me um
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there are challenges uh advertising i hate to cut you off mr filibrand but i have the
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unenviable task of being the gatekeeper today cut off press and former politicians
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.
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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
00:38:25.520
Our revenue was split, it varies month to month, but on average we're roughly 50% subscriptions,
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
00:39:14.440
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
00:39:23.440
But conversely, we absolutely need subscriptions.
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
00:42:37.960
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
00:53:53.600
Just describe, rather than talking about clauses,
00:54:01.680
And just, if you could just describe which ones,
00:54:15.060
ProtƩgez-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.
00:54:38.320
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.
01:03:18.500
I'd like to thank our panelists all for being here
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