A few days after the dismissal of 547 TVA Group employees, federal and provincial elected officials are sounding the alarm. Thus, in Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois demanded on Tuesday that the government set up an emergency fund of $50 million for the news media, the equivalent of three months of revenue from the implementation of the new Online News Act.
“We consider that three months of support for the news media is the least we can do at the moment. And it is even essential to the survival of several media,” declared the Bloc Québécois spokesperson for heritage, culture and communications, Martin Champoux. He called on the Trudeau government to create this fund immediately to “stop the bleeding”.
For his part, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the recent layoffs at Groupe TVA as “really worrying.” “This is one of the reasons why we stand so strongly against the Web giants, who do not want to pay their fair share to journalists who do this essential work,” he said Tuesday before entering the question period.
The federal Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, is not closing the door to federal aid to the media. When asked if such an emergency fund could be considered, the latter said “to look at what we can do to support them more in this transition period”. However, she did not give further details, simply adding that discussions with Google are “progressing well”.
Mr. Champoux claimed to have discussed several times with the minister and felt “an openness to something happening”.
The Online News Act, also known by its former bill identifier, C-18, will come into force on December 19. It would extract approximately $172 million per year from Google and $62 million from Meta to pay journalists in the country. Meta has already blocked news media links from its platforms to get out of this obligation, and Google has threatened to do the same if profound changes are not made to the legislation.
Quebec in a hurry to act
In Quebec, the three opposition parties reiterated their demand for the creation of an aid fund for the media. “What we are proposing is a tax on GAFAM of 3% for a media and culture fund,” recalled interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay. “This is a measure that could have been put in place several years ago,” he stressed.
At Québec solidaire, MP Haroun Bouazzi said he was sorry to see that his party’s proposal was not listened to sooner. Since 2020, solidarity activists have been asking for the establishment of a fund for the media, filled “from taxation proportional to GAFAM turnover”, recalled the elected official. One thing is certain, Quebec should not take inspiration from the federal government’s Bill C-18, which is “poorly constructed” in its opinion. “These companies collect the [taxe de vente du Québec] : it is entirely reasonable to think that we can have a special tax added on top,” he declared.
Will GAFAM – these web giants that are Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft – pay for that much? “I think that at some point, we will have to find how, in fact, we can get this money,” replied Marc Tanguay.
For his part, the leader of the Parti Québécois recalled that his political party has been denouncing the “precarious situation of our media” for “several years”. “There is still nothing concrete from the CAQ,” lamented Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. He insisted on the “essential” nature of journalistic work for democracy. “So it’s disappointing from that point of view. And we will maintain the pressure so that our media have the means to work,” he indicated.
Bad news in the media sector has multiplied in recent months. At the beginning of November, the Information Coops, which bring together six regional dailies, such as The sun Or The rightannounced the end of their weekly printed editions on December 30, and 125 workers from the press group joined a voluntary departure program.
A few weeks earlier, CBC/Radio-Canada announced the immediate suspension of the creation of new positions in order to reduce its expenses. And this summer, the Métro Média group, which includes the newspaper Metro and around twenty local weeklies in Montreal and Quebec, suspended all of its activities.