The Ottawa Declaration on Canadian Journalism

A call for Canadian media to reject government payroll subsidies

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If you read Lean Out regularly, you know that I am against government subsidies for private newsrooms — and that I recently testified at the House of Commons Heritage Committee on this.

I have argued that the subsidies are ineffective, as they have not stemmed the tide of outlet closures and layoffs. I have also argued that they are counterproductive, as they prop up failing business models and create an uneven playing field for competition, stifling the innovation that we most need right now. But most importantly, I have argued that these subsidies have had a negative impact on public trust in our Fourth Estate — an issue that I cover in the 2024 Massey Essay on the state of the media.

Earlier this month, I attended a national conference in Ottawa on the future of news, hosted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in partnership with The Hub. It was an invigorating day of discussion and debate. And, while there was much we disagreed on, there was a sense among many of us that we needed to collectively assert the importance of an independent press.

Today, I join a group of leading independent journalists and digital news and current affairs start-ups — including Lean Out guests Rudyard Griffiths, Holly Doan, and Paul Wells, and investigative reporter Sam Cooper — in calling on our industry to reject government payroll subsidies for journalism.

You can read more on the Ottawa Declaration here.

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The Ottawa Declaration on Canadian Journalism

• A free and independent press able to hold the powerful, including government, to account is an essential feature of Canadian democracy.

• Recent federal legislation and regulation could soon see up to half or more of the salaries of full-time journalists and editors working for digital news outlets funded by government coordinated subsidies. 

• These large-scale subsidies, totalling hundreds of millions of dollars to date, are in addition to the federal government’s direct funding of the CBC/Radio-Canada, which currently employs one in ten journalists in Canada in its news divisions. 

• The widespread subsidization of news journalism is happening against a backdrop of plummeting confidence in the news media, with 37 percent of Canadians indicating they “trust” the press and less than one in five supporting government funding of newsrooms. 

• The broadly unpopular subsidy regime represents a challenge to our democratic process insofar as it raises questions in the public’s mind about the independence of the press, thereby undermining the perceived veracity of reported news. 

• The subsidy regime also creates an uneven playing field whereby some news outlets, primarily legacy media companies, are able to qualify for government support and others are not, stifling much needed innovation and private investment in the sector. 

• To ensure Canadians have access to news free from the appearance of government influence, and therefore more likely to garner public trust, our media companies will not accept the per employee subsidies currently on offer from government and industry.

• We acknowledge that outlets serving some minority communities may need to avail themselves of the subsidies to provide their audiences high quality news in absence of a viable commercial market for their journalism. We pass no judgement on these groups. 

We encourage other digital news media outlets to sign this declaration and reject the payroll subsidies. In trying to “save” journalism, these subsidies damage the independence of the press, stifle much needed innovation and private investment, and fail to rebuild readers, listeners, and viewers’ trust in our industry.