News Media Canada welcomes the federal government’s ongoing support of quality public service journalism.
Although we note there were no new specific funding announcements for NMC members in today’s budget, we look forward to meaningful actions on the part of the federal government to curb the power of tech giants in the months to come. We fundamentally believe that the federal government can play a critical role in levelling the playing field between tech giants and trusted Canadian publishers.
The 2021 Budget did contain a few elements relevant to news publishers. These include:
- $300 million over two years for the Department of Canadian Heritage to establish a COVID Recover Fund. We hope this fund will provide support to community newspapers.
- A digital services tax of 3% on revenue from digital services that rely on data and content contribution from Canadian users.
- $96 million over five years to enhance the Competition Bureau’s enforcement capacity
- A Canada Digital Adoption Program that will help more than 160,000 businesses with the cost of new technology.
- Extension of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy program until September 25, 2021. The budget proposed to gradually decrease the subsidy rate, beginning July 4, 2021, in order to ensure a phase-out of the program.
You can read the full budget document here.
