Perfect Storm Led to Decline in Canada’s Newspapers, Committee Hears

Independent publications bought up by corporations disguised as newspaper chains

Journalist Patricia Brooks Arenburg pickets with other union members outside the Chronicle Herald's office in Halifax on Jan. 25, 2016, over proposals to reduce wages, lengthen working hours, shrink future pension benefits, and lay off up to 18 workers. The Canadian Press/Aly Thomson

Canada’s newspaper industry has seen a perfect storm over the last 20 years, leading to the rapid decline in papers across the country, Parliament’s heritage committee was told on March 8.

In the latest testimony on the state of media in Canada, Richard Tardif, executive director of the Quebec Community Newspapers Association and a former journalist, told MPs that over the past 30 years, corporations disguising themselves as newspaper chains have bought up many of the country’s independent newspapers.

“These corporations owe allegiance to shareholders and less and less to readers, all the while steadily cutting back on journalists’ resources, column width, line rates, and shutting down their newspapers,” Tardif said.

“The corporate hope was to attract advertisers to online news platforms, but as it turns out, the method of click-per-thousand across the Internet generated only a few cents of revenue. In the end it was an insurmountable disaster, with no turning back for them.”

Since 2008, cuts have resulted in over 16,000 job losses in Canada's media.