Federal Liberals will be debating whether to provide more subsidies for "approved" media at its policy convention in Ottawa this weekend..On the agenda this year is an item sponsored by the BC wing of the party under the guise of “combatting disinformation in Canada.”.It reads: “Whereas the United Nations Secretary-General recognizes disinformation as an “existential risk to humanity.".One recent poll found 44% Canadians believe much of the information from news organizations is false and 71% believe official government accounts of events are untrustworthy..The motion requests the government provide additional public funds to support advertisement-free news and information reporting by Canadian media through an arm’s-length non-partisan mechanism..It’s not exactly clear what constitutes “advertisement-free news and information reporting” considering there are none. Even the CBC doesn’t qualify under that broad definition..But the number, and amount of funding, has grown exponentially in the past two decades..In 2021, the federal government offered mainstream media $595 million, mostly in the form of tax credits, to subsidize journalist salaries, in addition to a billion dollar subsidy for the CBC..That’s on top of the $50 million Local Journalism Initiative, the $10 million Special Measures for Journalism top up and the $60 million pandemic Emergency Support Fund..This despite, the fact that Postmedia told shareholders in 2021 that “subsidies are for ‘welfare slackers’, but insisted ‘government support’ is central to its business model..And these are in addition to the Canada Media Fund, which shells out $366 million annually to the cable television industry, which supports made-in-Canadafinances audiovisual and interactive digital media projects by television production companies and gaming studios to produce video content. Its roots go back as far as 1995..According to Maxims Ruel, the group’s communications manager, it will match this level again in 2023..In April, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre succeeded in having the CBC labelled “government funded” media — in whole and later in part — by Twitter..Speaking before he became CPC leader: “Canadians' trust in the news media has reached an all-time low. And when we look at … coverage of these issues, it's easy to understand why.”.Although it is eligible, Western Standard doesn’t receive government funding of any kind and doesn’t solicit it. Nor would it accept it.
