The only French-language daily newspaper in Ontario, The right published its latest paper edition on Saturday. The printed version became weekly in 2020. According to some, the material disappearance of this newspaper “essential” to the “great Franco-Ontarian battles” is an “invaluable loss” for elderly readers, who, by obtaining information, could recognize the “early signs” of threats to French.
“My mother reads The right for almost 75 years. […] For her, it is an inestimable loss,” says Michel Prévost. The president of the Outaouais Historical Society writes a historical column every two weeks in the pages of the newspaper. “Between the disappearance of the paper newspaper and then the disappearance of Rightthere is still quite a step,” he adds, but he fears that the more than century-old daily will lose its “most loyal” readers with its digital shift.
“ People are no longer used to looking at paper. Then they don’t need it », As for the editor-in-chief of the daily, Marie-Claude Lortie, referring to consultations carried out with the readership of the Right. But for those “who love paper, it’s really a big loss,” she admits.
According to Mme Lortie, the digital shift, which was “accelerated by the pandemic”, has “been underway for a long time”. Several elderly people contacted by The duty indeed claimed to have already got into the habit of consulting the news online. “It’s certain that there are some who do it. But [il ne] We must not forget those who will not do so,” specifies Mr. Prévost.
It was “first and foremost” financial reasons that led to this decision, announced in March, says Mme Lortie. And, “in 2024, there is something that is a little against the times to put so much energy and resources into an object whose life is absolutely ephemeral,” she adds. The daily editions had not come off the presses for three years.
The digital shift was “unavoidable”, recognizes the president of the Assembly of the Francophonie of Ontario (AFO), Fabien Hébert, but he worries about it, because “the loss of a paper edition” for an elderly person “represents a loss of ability to obtain information”. And informing elders is all the more “important” because “they are capable of recognizing warning signs of cultural change […] that the younger generation doesn’t see.”
“Combat Diary”
“A true institution for Franco-Ontarians and the Outaouais”, the daily was first a “combat newspaper”, recalls Mr. Prévost. The right was founded in Ottawa in 1913, in reaction to the adoption of Regulation 17, which banned French in the province’s schools.
“The guiding spirit of the newspaper was Father Charles Charlebois,” who used the media as a “tool” for his French-Canadian Association of Education in Ontario, created three years earlier to fight against the said regulation, adds the independent researcher in Franco-Ontarian history Diego Elizondo. “Charles Charlebois is a bit like the Henri Bourassa of Duty », he adds, explaining that the Ottawa daily was greatly inspired by the Quebec newspaper founded in 1910.
Thanks to its sharing of editorials between the two sides of the river, or to the holding of an edition for three years in the north of the province at the end of the 1960s, The right has always maintained great coverage of Ontario issues, he believes.
The newspaper was “part of the great Franco-Ontarian battles”, underlines the AFO, whether in 1990, after the adoption by the Sault-Sainte-Marie municipal council of a resolution declaring the city “unilingual English” , during the school crisis in Cornwall, in 1973, or during “Black Thursday”, in 2018. He also “supported fundraising campaigns” during crises at the University of Ottawa, adds Mr. Prévost, former chief archivist of the establishment.
The fight for the survival of the Montfort hospital at the end of the 1990s was a “great return to basics”, according to Diego Elizondo. The right “left aside his neutrality a little to really have an unambiguous bias for the cause.” “The impact has been significant, that’s for sure. »
“The combat mission emerged more clearly when there were direct threats to the survival of the French language and services in French. […] If there was such a fundamental affront, it is certain that The right would take up this torch,” says Mme Lortie, who affirms that “the defense of French will always be at the heart of the mission” of the Right.
A “broken link”
Today, not everyone agrees that the media is still fighting alongside Franco-Ontarians. Mr. Elizondo believes that the “link [avec les francophones] was broken.” “The attachment is no longer the same. People get their information from other media, especially English-speaking ones,” he says.
Without determining the breaking point, he indicates that the move of the daily’s offices from downtown Ottawa to Gatineau, in 2020, was “really a loss”, even if he recognizes that The right “had no choice”. Threatened with closure like the five other newspapers of the defunct Capitales Médias Group, The right settled on the Quebec side to benefit from financial aid from the Legault government.
Already at that time, The right derived some 80% of its subscription revenue from Quebec. In order to maintain a foothold in Ontario, he launched a mentoring project in partnership with the French-speaking college La Cité and opened a position as parliamentary correspondent at Queen’s Park. “But for day-to-day coverage, it’s more like it was,” Mr. Elizondo maintains.
For Michel Prévost, the move did not change the coverage. What he regrets most is the loss of a third of the members of the editorial room, who chose to take advantage of a voluntary departure from programs. “How are we going to continue to adequately cover what is happening on both sides of the river when we keep cutting staff? »
A shift across the province
The survival of the media is particularly difficult in a minority context, according to Mr. Elizondo, in particular because the pool of Francophones who can support them financially is smaller.
The French-speaking history and heritage review The Chain, which has around 400 subscribers, says it is “torn” in its choice to abandon the paper. “There are some who are still very attached […] in this format. But sometimes, there are economic imperatives that end up imposing themselves,” explains Mr. Elizondo, former project officer at the Franco-Ontarian Heritage Network, which produces the magazine.
The historian also cites the digital shift of the only French-speaking agricultural media in the province, Agricom, started in 2022 “for labor and cost reasons”. “It’s clear that there is a strong trend that is taking hold [en contexte minoritaire]. It will be difficult to continue in the absence of state aid. »
But in such a vast province, it is sometimes “more convenient to have an electronic medium to reach different people than to distribute the physical version,” he emphasizes.
In Hearst, the newspaper The Northwhich ended its paper edition in 2020, has found a happy medium: it publishes a digital version for free on its website while offering a printed version on demand.
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.