Government financing of media continued into 2022. What a surprise. Very few, if any, periodicals are actually independent. When Government (or rather, taxpayer) subsidies are built into the budget, it takes away a lot of the autonomy.
The conflict of interest — or at least the appearance of such a conflict — is obvious. Media outlets that are dependent financially on Government cannot be fully trusted to hold them to account. This follows the logic not to bite the hand that feeds.
Anyhow, here are some of the latest from Postmedia:
| NAME | DATE | AMOUNT |
|---|---|---|
| Clinton News Record | Apr 1, 2022 | $12,979.00 |
| The Cochrane Times Post | Apr 1, 2022 | $19,026.00 |
| The Drayton Valley Western Review | Apr 1, 2022 | $23,327.00 |
| Exeter Lakeshore Times-Advance | Apr 1, 2022 | $40,516.00 |
| The Fairview Post | Apr 1, 2022 | $18,195.00 |
| Goderich Signal Star | Apr 1, 2022 | $48,812.00 |
| Hanna Herald | Apr 1, 2022 | $12,190.00 |
| Huron Expositor (Seaforth) | Apr 1, 2022 | $11,038.00 |
| Kings County Record | Apr 1, 2022 | $43,730.00 |
| The Lucknow Sentinel | Apr 1, 2022 | $13,367.00 |
| The Mayerthorpe Freelancer | Apr 1, 2022 | $10,893.00 |
| The Mid-North Monitor | Apr 1, 2022 | $11,958.00 |
| The Mitchell Advocate | Apr 1, 2022 | $34,680.00 |
| The Nanton News | Apr 1, 2022 | $8,193.00 |
| Northern Light | Apr 1, 2022 | $30,161.00 |
| Ontario Farmer | Apr 1, 2022 | $829,881.00 |
| The Pincher Creek Echo | Apr 1, 2022 | $12,024.00 |
| Record-Gazette | Apr 1, 2022 | $9,558.00 |
| Shoreline Beacon | Apr 1, 2022 | $28,816.00 |
| The Standard (Elliot Lake) | Apr 1, 2022 | $29,462.00 |
| The Tribune | Apr 1, 2022 | $32,987.00 |
| The Vulcan Advocate | Apr 1, 2022 | $17,731.00 |
| The Whitecourt Star | Apr 1, 2022 | $18,817.00 |
| The Wiarton Echo | Apr 1, 2022 | $17,342.00 |
Of course, these grants don’t take into account other indirect contributions, just as Government buying up ad space. That was extremely common occurrence over the last few years. Something else came up on that screen.
One thing worth noting: the Canadian Periodical Fund grants for Postmedia appear to have taken off in 2015. That would have been when Stephen Harper was still in power. Strange how this sort of thing only gets blamed on Trudeau.
Don’t worry, the next batch will be coming up in the Spring of 2023. And Postmedia is hardly the only recipient of these bailouts.
Check out the media section on Canuck Law for much more.
(1) https://search.open.canada.ca/grants/
(2) https://search.open.canada.ca/grants/?sort=agreement_value+desc&search_text=postmedia&page=1&year=2022#
(3) https://canucklaw.ca/media-subsidies-and-govt-financing/
Trudeau was prime minister in 2015