An urgent message to the Government of Canada from the publishers of Canada’s newspapers

Around the world, governments are moving to correct an historical inequality that dates back to the birth of digital media platforms. In April 2020 alone, Australia and France both announced plans to make sure Google and Facebook pay their fair share, instead of exploiting tax loopholes while making billions of dollars off the back of original content producers.

Canadian publishers are encouraged to join the effort urging our federal government to take immediate action to make digital giants like Facebook and Google share their advertising revenues with Canadian media companies.

All newspapers are welcome to sign and publish the full page ad available below in their own publications.  The letter copy can also be downloaded to run editorially.

Click here to download resources to publish in your paper.

A recent op-ed by Jerry Dias, the National President of Unifor, is also available by clicking here.

“Facebook and Google have pillaged the Canadian digital advertising market over the past decade. Between them, they have scooped up the vast majority of the revenue in Canada’s $6-billion-plus online advertising market — advertising that has been the chief source of revenue for Canadian media organizations. They use content that is created by those organizations to do so, and they don’t pay a cent for it. Their actions have been one of the main causes of carnage in the Canadian media landscape.” 

If you would like to run this op-ed in your publication, you are more than welcome to do so.