Federal budget announces supports for news publishing industry

Today’s federal budget contains $55 million in supports for the news publishing business, broken down as follows:

  • $10 million in 2023-24 for the Local Journalism Initiative to continue to support the production of local journalism for underserved communities across Canada.
  • $5 million in 2023-24 to launch a new Changing Narratives Fund to break down systemic barriers in the media and cultural sectors and help racialized and religious minority journalists, creators, and organizations have their experiences and perspective.
  • $40 million (over three years) to Canadian Heritage for the Canada Periodical Fund to support the availability of journalistic content and to help these publications adapt to the continually evolving technology and media consumption habits of Canadians.
In addition, to facilitate the regime to require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to share a portion of their revenues with Canadian news outlets, the federal government will provide $8.5 million over two years, starting in 2022-23, to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.