The newspaper lobby organization wants the government to double the $595 million “temporary” aid and extend it..“Address this,” lobbyist Paul Deegan, CEO of News Media Canada, wrote MPs..“The financial situation for most news publishers is extremely challenging,” Deegan wrote the Commons Finance committee. .“It will remain so for many in the short to medium term.”.In 2019, the government changed the Income Tax Act to give cabinet-approved publishers a 25% payroll rebate, up to $13,750 for each newsroom employee..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Deegan said that the rebate should go up to 35% and be based on a higher amount, up to a maximum of $29,750..Parliament must also reward cabinet-favoured publishers with advertisers’ tax credits and “earmark 25% of the Government of Canada’s domestic advertising spend towards trusted news sources,” he wrote. .According to a 2022 Annual Report on Government of Canada Advertising Activities, the federal government spends $140.7 million annually on advertising, the most recent data..Out of the $140.7 million the federal government spent on advertising, they only spent $6.5 million on newspapers..If the federal government raised the amount of newspaper advertising to 25% in News Media, the industry would get $35.2 million annually, a sixfold increase..“The recommendations are concrete steps the government can take to address this,” wrote CEO Deegan. .“Given the precarious state of (the) news publishing industry, these necessary steps should be addressed.”.On May 30, a newspaper lobbyist told the Senate Transport and Communications committee that the publishers need help from the government to run their companies..“We have a market failure here,” said Deegan. .“We do need them.”.News Media Canada asked for a bailout in 2019, saying it would only be for five years, until March 31, 2024..“I don’t like the idea of a long-term subsidy for newspapers that becomes permanent,” Bob Cox, then-CEO, testified at 2019 hearings of the Commons Finance committee..“The program itself is envisioned to be for five years and I felt that was an appropriate period of time for the transition because, of course, there will be news outlets, newspapers, that fail the transition, and you can’t give them forever. We will have to save ourselves.”.“There does need to be a deadline,” said Cox. .“Deadlines can also focus you and get you moving to where maybe you aren’t moving now. I think it’s important. I see this as a transitional program and temporary help.”.People have criticized the program and say it's a bad idea. John Miller, formerly the foreign editor for the Toronto Star, said it was “dangerous.”.“Direct aid to people who report the news, that’s dangerous,” Miller, professor emeritus at Ryerson University, testified at 2019 Senate National Finance committee hearings. .“This constitutes one of the gravest threats to freedom of the press that I have seen in this country.”.“If I’m a reporter and I’m on to a story about some scandal in government and for various reasons it’s not there, and I back off, and one of my readers finds out about that, how am I going to defend myself when the reader says, ‘Oh, that’s because you get money from government’?” asked Miller.
