Today on The Hub’s YouTube election show, veteran journalist and former CRTC vice chair Peter Menzies signalled how Liberal and Conservative support for government subsidies for private media outlets could signal the death of independent journalism.
“The era of a free, independent, trusted media in Canada is finished,” he told Hub co-founders Rudyard Griffiths and Sean Speer.
As political parties embrace millions more in subsidy programs, Menzies painted a bleak picture of media outlets becoming government-dependent institutions that will struggle to serve democratic needs.
Here are three key takeaways from the discussion:
- Subsidies create permanent government dependence: Menzies argued that Canada’s independent media “finished,” as subsidies create a more permanent dependence on the government. Both major parties now treat media funding as non-negotiable, he explained, prioritizing political survival over press freedom.
- Zombie media distorts the market: Postmedia’s failing newspapers, kept alive by subsidies, crowd out competitors while producing little original journalism, asserted Menzies. These “walking dead” publications prevent authentic local media from emerging.
- Subsidies fuel a trust deficit: An erosion of trust could lead to a growing group of people drifting towards unprofessional online news sources.
Subsidies create permanent government dependence
He traced this collapse to the success of media organizations in pressuring political parties into maintaining subsidy programs like the LJI.
The tipping point came yesterday when Poilievre abandoned his reform promises and pledged to increase LJI funding by $25 million during his platform’s release.
Menzies said the decision was a political calculation. With both major parties now committed to subsidies, he predicts an endless cycle of expansion.
“It won’t be whether or not they get money, it’ll be how much—it’ll be an auction,” he said.
Menzies said this dependency creates dangerous incentives. By funding production rather than consumption (through mechanisms like subscription tax credits), subsidies reward outlets for simply existing rather than producing journalism the public actually wants to consume. The result, Menzies warns, is a growing trust deficit that drives audiences toward untrustworthy online sources.
Postmedia’s “Zombie” outlets distort the market while begging for lifelines
Menzies reserved special scorn for Postmedia, describing its vast network of struggling publications as “staggering around like zombies.” Many titles survive only through subsidies while publishing minimal original content, he explained—sometimes just a few stories per month.
These “dead but still walking” outlets create market distortions by crowding out potential competitors who could better serve local communities, maintaining brand recognition that deters new market entrants, and justifying continued subsidies through the threat of widespread closures
Menzies revealed that many independent publishers actually want Postmedia to fail so they can purchase its defunct titles and rebuild local journalism. Instead, subsidies prolong the “death march” while enriching the American hedge funds that control the conglomerate.
Subsidies fuel a dangerous trust deficit
The most insidious consequence, according to Menzies, is the erosion of public trust. As audiences grow suspicious of subsidized media, they abandon traditional outlets for untrustworthy online sources.
“The really scary part is that if public trust declines with that group…the less people will leave them and they’ll go elsewhere—and elsewhere might be kind of nasty,” Menzies warned.
This exodus risks a broader collapse in institutional trust that could destabilize democratic discourse, he added.
Menzies explained the current subsidy model exacerbates this by prioritizing government-approved content over audience demand, creating an information vacuum in local communities, and driving audiences toward potentially unreliable alternatives.
Polling conducted by The Hub and Public Square Research found that seven-in-ten Canadians are not supportive of the government funding the salaries of journalists.
In 2024, federal subsidies for the private and non-profit media totaled more than $325 million between the Canada Periodical Fund ($86.5 million), Canada Media Fund ($154.1 million), and Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit ($65 million) and Local Journalism Initiative ($19.6 million).
Generative AI assisted in the production of this summary. If you are quoting from or referencing this summary, please refer to the audio to verify.
