Rogers Communications Inc., one of Canada’s largest telecom companies, has petitioned Parliament to fund radio and TV employees with ongoing media subsidies. Ottawa, which allocates $595 million annually in media subsidies, has been scrutinized by the opposition for its financial support of media corporations.

“The tax credit as it stands leaves the most sought news content in Canada, that of broadcast journalism, behind,” Rogers wrote in a submission to the Commons finance committee. Subsidies were too “narrowly focused on print media,” it wrote.

In 2019, parliament amended the Income Tax Act to pay rebates of up to $13,750 per employee of cabinet-approved newsrooms. Payroll rebates this past April 1 were doubled to a maximum of $29,750 per employee, with rebates set to expire after the next election.

The Trudeau government allocates $595 million in media handouts annually to broadcasters and media outlets, which include Postmedia, the parent company of the Post, as well as TorStar, and the Globe and Mail. 

Rogers estimated it had “over 450 full-time Canadian employees who produce 935 hours of broadcast news content each week.” This makes its rebates worth up to $13.4 million annually, reported Blacklock’s Reporter.

Isn't that convenient?

The media bailout that was to end before the next election has been extended to well beyond the next election.

Trudeau needs his mainstream media enablers polishing his turds like their jobs depend on it.

Because they do. https://t.co/TyWD0xWPOE

— Sheila Gunn Reid (@SheilaGunnReid) November 23, 2023

“Rogers plays a vital role in the creation and distribution of important local, regional and national news and information programming both through the news content we produce … and through the priority carriage our cable networks provide to all local news stations,” the telecom giant wrote MPs.

The petition follows a similar, unsuccessful 2022 appeal for direct cash grants by Corus Entertainment Inc., the parent company of the Global TV network. 

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters also pleaded for rebates in TV and radio newsrooms in 2020. “Additional forms of assistance should be devised and implemented as quickly as possible because those local stations are important,” said an Association report, The Crisis In Canadian Media And The Future Of Local Broadcasting.

“Our members compete with newspapers,” Lenore Gibson, then-chair of the Association, said in a 2019 interview. “If the government is going to support one industry then we feel they should support others.”

“Print will receive government money,” said Gibson. “From a fairness and equity point of view, we find that arbitrary. If you value local news, who is to say that print is more important?”

Trudeau rants about Bell Media's 5,000 layoffs despite his Liberal gov't granting bailouts to media companies, claiming this is "eroding our very democracy."

"I'm furious. This is a garbage decision by a corporation that should know better," the PM says.https://t.co/1YG82sBZQ2 pic.twitter.com/i8tqjQ2IDs

— Rebel News Canada (@RebelNews_CA) February 9, 2024

Notably, the architect behind the media handout lost more than $6.258 million in operating expenses last year, records show. FP Newspapers Inc., the publisher for several Manitoba publications, received $989,000 in payroll rebates last year, reported Blacklock’s Reporter.

“We will have to save ourselves,” then-publisher Bob Cox, chair of News Media Canada, testified at 2019 hearings of the Commons finance committee. 

“All of us are engaged in transforming our business models so we can continue to fulfill the key role that a free press must play in a healthy democracy,” he added.

At the time, Cox recognized taxpayer support would be temporary. “The program itself is envisioned to be for five years and I felt that was an appropriate period of time for the transition,” he said. “There does need to be a deadline.”

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa think tank published an Ottawa Declaration signed by nine Canadian newsrooms opposed to federal subsidies on May 30. The Audit, Blacklock’s Reporter, The Broken Typewriter, Sam Cooper’s The Bureau, The Hub, Tara Henley’s Lean Out, Quillette, True North and the Western Standard were signatories. 

Critics of the subsidy fund include the Official Opposition Leader and other journalists who work independently of handouts. 

“Our Party does not support tax dollars for media outlets,” Poilievre told reporters last April 13. He accused them of pandering to the Prime Minister’s Office rather than delivering “real news” to taxpayers.

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The Official Opposition maintains that future Conservative governments would cut off all media handouts. 

“Sell subscriptions and advertising, get sponsorships and do what media have done for, I don’t know, 3,000 years,” Poilievre told The Lake Report, a subsidized weekly.

“How has the media funded itself for 3,000 years?” the publication asked the MP Thursday. “Subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships,” he replied.