(Ottawa) The Bloc Québécois is calling for an emergency fund of 50 million to support the news media and the holding of general meetings in the wake of the TVA cuts. The government is not fully aware of the seriousness of the situation, regrets MP Martin Champoux, for whom the media crisis is endangering Quebec culture.
Posted at 6:57 p.m.
“It’s a call for awareness,” he said in an interview. The situation is so serious that we really need to act immediately. »
He believes the government needs to give the media “a little breathing room” while it waits for Bills C-11 and C-18 to come into force. They have received royal assent, but the rules for their application are still being drawn up.
“These are essential tools, they are tools that are useful and that will really change the situation to rebalance the forces in the market, but that cannot be enough in the current model,” he argues.
C-11 amended the Broadcasting Act to require digital platforms to invest in content from Canada and Quebec. Consultations to modernize the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s regulations begin this week.
C-18 on online news forces web giants to enter into compensation agreements with news media in exchange for their content. Since its launch, Meta has blocked news articles on its platforms to avoid legislation, and Google has threatened to do the same. The law is scheduled to come into force on December 19th.
Martin Champoux still believes C-18 will be useful. “I still have hope that something positive will come from the discussions the minister is currently having with Google,” he said.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge confirmed last week that discussions with Google were continuing. The web giant would prefer to fund an independent fund for journalism rather than enter into individual agreements with each media company, as recommended by C-18.
Meanwhile, Martin Champoux proposes that the government pay an amount of 50 million into an emergency fund. This sum would be equivalent to three months of the estimated 200 million in revenue that the media would have achieved after the application of C-18 without the Meta ban.
The Bloc Québécois is also reviving an idea from its 2019 election manifesto, namely holding a general assembly on the future of media. This exercise would bring together all actors affected by the crisis, the two levels of government and experts to try to find solutions that would ensure the survival of all traditional media.
New Democratic Party deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice said in an interview with La Presse the day after the TVA cuts that he agreed with the emergency aid for the media. Minister St-Onge did not answer. For his part, the conservative MP Gérard Deltell reiterated that such help cannot be improvised.
Regional information is suffering from the media crisis. Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau announced Thursday the layoffs of 547 TVA employees in a bid to save the television network. The cuts affect both the in-house production of its programs and regional news channels.
The information cooperatives’ six regional daily newspapers are preparing to cut around a hundred jobs, or around a third of their workforce, by the end of December. They will end their paper editions and will now be completely digital.
The end of Publisac in Quebec will also have a negative impact on regional weekly newspapers that have used this distribution method.