(Ottawa) The Bloc Québécois is calling for an emergency fund of 50 million to help the news media and the holding of general meetings in the wake of the cuts to TVA. The government does not fully appreciate the seriousness of the situation, deplores MP Martin Champoux, for whom the media crisis is putting Quebec culture in danger.
“It’s a call for awareness,” he said in an interview. The situation is so serious that we must really act without further delay. »
He believes that the government must give “a little air to breathe” to the media while waiting for Bills C-11 and C-18 to come into force. They have received royal assent, but regulations for their application are still being developed.
“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 add an obligation for digital platforms to invest in Canadian and Quebec content. 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 remuneration agreements with news media in exchange for their content. Since its adoption, Meta has blocked news articles on its platforms to avoid legislation and Google has threatened to do the same thing. The law is due to come into force on December 19.
Martin Champoux still believes that C-18 will be useful. “I still have hope that something positive will come out of the discussions the minister is currently having with Google,” he said.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, confirmed last week that discussions are continuing with Google. The Web giant would prefer to finance an independent fund for journalism instead of entering into individual agreements with each media outlet as recommended by C-18.
In the meantime, Martin Champoux proposes that the government pay a sum of 50 million into an emergency fund. This sum would be equivalent to three months of the estimated revenue of 200 million that the media would have earned after the application of C-18 without the blocking of Meta.
The Bloc Québécois is also relaunching an idea taken from its 2019 electoral platform, that of holding a general meeting on the future of the media. This exercise would bring together all the stakeholders 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.
The deputy leader of the New Democratic Party, Alexandre Boulerice, said he agreed with emergency aid for the media during an interview with The Press the day after the VAT cuts. Minister St-Onge did not come forward. Conservative MP Gérard Deltell, for his part, affirmed that such aid cannot be improvised.
Regional information is suffering from the media crisis. The president and CEO of Quebecor, Pierre Karl Péladeau, announced Thursday the dismissal of 547 TVA employees to save the television network. The cuts affect both the in-house production of its shows and regional news stations.
The six regional dailies of the Information Coops are preparing to eliminate around a hundred positions, or around a third of their workforce, by the end of December. They will end their paper editions and will now be entirely digital.
The end of Publisac in Quebec will also have negative repercussions on regional weeklies that used this distribution method.