I hope that you are starting the new year with some pep in your step. Here at QCNA, we are leaving the starting gate in a full gallop.

I’m referring directly to the advocacy work that the Consortium of Official Language Minority Media is deeply involved in on behalf of the minority language community media across this country. QCNA President Brenda O’Farrell and myself are attending these meetings to represent all of our QCNA member newspapers and make sure our concerns are heard directly by the ears of Minister Pascale St Onge and Minister Randy Boissonault.

Some of our concerns have been felt for years now. Some are new and urgent. All of them reflect a series of “direct negative impacts” that structuring decisions made by various federal institutions have had on the media that it represents. And so we are asking the ministers to hold an urgent meeting to draw up a recovery plan.

The uncertainty around the Local Journalism Initiative (“LJI”) threatens OLMC media; drastic cuts in federal advertising in favour of Google, META, etc.; the definition of qualified Canadian journalism organizations (QCJO) makes the tax measures supporting journalism (tax credit) inaccessible to over 90 percent of OLMC media; the adoption of Bill C-18 and the very harmful consequences of the boycott by META on OLMC media, and certain measures resulting from its regulation, are the matters that we will table and demand be addressed.

The situation is critical, and the Consortium is therefore requesting an urgent meeting with both Ministers before the end of January in order to identify solutions to mitigate the past and the potential future damages to OLMC media.

We at QCNA are committed to making the most impact possible in 2024. We want to see real and meaningful change happen now. But we all need to pitch in if we are going to beat this forest fire.

Ilka de Laat, General Manager, QCNA

January | Gatineau, Quebec