Major newspaper chain received $5M taxpayers' money while owing $7M in taxes

The financially troubled SaltWire Network newspaper chain reportedly received more than $5 million in taxpayer subsidies within a year, despite facing accusations of mismanagement and tax debts. According to court records, creditors lambasted SaltWire management as incompetent, reports Blacklock's Reporter."Senior management have over the course of the last several years mismanaged the business, used employee pension funds for operations, routinely failed to remit HST as it was collected, instead funding the business with such amounts," creditors stated in their filings with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. They further described SaltWire management as "uncooperative."Once the largest newspaper publisher in Atlantic Canada, SaltWire faced petitions for bankruptcy from creditors on March 11 due to debts exceeding $32 million.Confidential financial documents revealed that in 2022, SaltWire received a total of $5,174,847 in federal subsidies, including funds from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy program and substantial rebates from the Canada Revenue Agency. This financial aid came at a time when the company owed $7 million in taxes, with creditors alleging that SaltWire utilized collected HST from customers to sustain its operations rather than remitting the tax."For several months the media companies have been funding their businesses by deferring payment of HST and certain pension and benefit amounts deducted from employees but not remitted on a timely basis," the Court was informed. "As of January 2, 2024, the media companies owed Canada Revenue Agency approximately $7 million which has been a primary source of capital from which the media companies have funded their businesses."SaltWire's debts extended beyond taxes, including owing $19,223 to Canada Post Corporation and sums to other creditors such as Thomson Reuters, lawyers McInnis Cooper LLP, columnist Gwynne Dyer and the Annapolis Valley Chamber of Commerce.As the publisher of longstanding Atlantic dailies such as the Charlottetown Guardian, Halifax Chronicle Herald and St. John's Telegram, SaltWire had been operating at a loss for years.CEO Mark Lever attributed the company's financial woes to the migration of advertising revenues to foreign digital platforms, particularly blaming Facebook. "A significant percentage of the SaltWire Group’s traditional media advertising revenues have migrated to foreign digital platforms," stated Lever. "The result has been a steady decline in advertising revenue which continues." He noted that in 2017, advertising revenue comprised 43% of total revenue, which had plummeted to just 20% by 2021, mirroring a nationwide struggle against internet media giants such as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.