RECOMMENDATION 1

The Committee recommends that the Minister of Canadian Heritage explore the existing structures to create a new funding model that is platform agnostic and would support Canadian journalistic content.

RECOMMENDATION 2

a) The Committee recommends that an Indigenous journalism initiative be created with the purpose of training Indigenous journalists to cover Indigenous government institutions and other relevant issues for Indigenous media outlets across Canada.

b) The Committee recommends that the responsibility for creating this initiative be embedded with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Networks, and that this initiative be financed from programs supporting Canadian programming.

RECOMMENDATION 3

The Committee recommends that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada continue their efforts to improve affordable broadband Internet access in Canada, with an emphasis on Northern Canada and rural and remote regions.

RECOMMENDATION 4

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada amend sections 19 (newspapers), 19.01 (periodicals) and 19.1 (broadcasters) of the Income Tax Act to allow deduction of digital advertising on Canadian-owned platforms.

RECOMMENDATION 5

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada introduce a tax credit to compensate print media companies for a portion of their capital and labour investments in digital media. This would be a temporary five-year measure.

RECOMMENDATION 6

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada level the playing field among industries publishing Canadian news, on all platforms, by ensuring that foreign news aggregators, which publish Canadian news and sell advertising, directed to Canadians, are subject to the same tax obligations as Canadian providers.

RECOMMENDATION 7

The Committee recommends that the Department of Canadian Heritage make the following changes to the Canada Periodical Fund:

• make daily and free community newspapers eligible;
• offer greater support for the online distribution of magazines and newspapers;
• offer greater support to Indigenous, ethnic and official language minority print media; and
• increase the budget of the program in the event that a review of the program’s eligibility criteria and guidelines leads to an increase in the number of recipients.

RECOMMENDATION 8

The Committee recommends that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission collect more data on the state of local broadcasting in Canada.

RECOMMENDATION 9

The Committee recommends that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission review its policy framework for local and community television to determine its impact on funding for the community television sector.

RECOMMENDATION 10

The Committee recommends that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rigorously track and enforce non-compliance with licence requirements regarding locally reflective news and programming.

RECOMMENDATION 11

The Committee recommends that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission identify other sources of funding for the community radio sector.

RECOMMENDATION 12

The Committee recommends to expand the current 5% levy for Canadian content production on broadcasting distribution undertakings to broadband distribution.

RECOMMENDATION 13

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada set aside a part of the revenue from the 600 MHz auction to support locally reflective news and programming.

RECOMmEndation 14

The Committee recommends that CBC/Radio-Canada prioritize the production and dissemination of locally reflective news and programming by expanding its local and regional coverage, including unserved areas across all of its platforms.

RECOMMENDATION 15

The Committee recommends that CBC/Radio-Canada eliminate advertising from its digital news platforms.

RECOMMENDATION 16

The Committee recommends that federal institutions increase their dissemination of information in official languages, ethnic and Indigenous communities.

RECOMMENDATION 17

The Committee recommends that there be a new section in the Competition Act to deal specifically with news media mergers, which would require a panel of experts in media to do a “diversity of voices” test to ensure there is no dominance in any media market.

RECOMMENDATION 18

The Committee recommends that the vigilance of existing ethics guidelines and press councils must apply equally to digital media.

RECOMMENDATION 19

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada change the definition of a registered charity in the Income Tax Act to include not-for-profit media or foundation.

RECOMMENDATION 20

The Committee recommends that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada provide start-up funding for new digital media companies.