A post-2019 federal tax framework allows 16 specific journalism organizations to issue donation receipts and accept foreign funding. By law, the identities of these foreign donors remain confidential.
Mike, was there any debate around the foreign funding? I notice that the rules use the term Canadian “residents” not Citizens can donate and fund media. So why not limit donations to media to voters? How will that work if a group of people from another country gather together to create a digital news outlet in Canada and fund it through donations from residents around foreign issues that are maybe not in lock step with Canadian values?
Heidi, great question. The resident vs. citizen gap is real and it shows up in an interesting comparison. Under the Canada Elections Act, only citizens and permanent residents can donate to political parties, and third parties face no such donor restrictions at all, though they can't use foreign-sourced funds for regulated activities. Media donation rules aren't tied to voter eligibility, and nobody tested that boundary during C-18 debate. That asymmetry is worth a whole post on its own. I went looking and couldn't find a committee amendment that touched it.
Canadian media has a major foreign funding/ownership/influence problem which is regularly missed because of the mainstream bias around what constitutes "foreign". (Anglosphere is regularly considered "domestic", and it is only non-Western Eurocentric influences that concern many Canadians).
"Postmedia Network: The largest newspaper chain in Canada (owning over 130 titles, including the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, and Montreal Gazette) is majority-owned (~66%) by the U.S.-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management."
The foreign ownership of the Nat Post raises eyebrows. It earns money from ads, subscriptions and also receives money from the Fed Govt like other daily news publications.
The Tyee and Narwhal get grants (from who or what?), money from Fed Govt, and secret donations from foreigners. And tax exempt status, should they have excess revenue.
I wish this and the large number of other government programs to fund new and other media was adequately included in Bill C-18 https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/44-1/C-18 conversations.
The issue should be about funding of Canadian Journalistm, with creating a specialized link tax as a disincentive to linking to Canadian News outlets being extremely counterproductive.
More stable funding is needed that isn't tied to cross-sector subsidies. C-18 is a government program funded by taxes and paid to Canadian media, and the objections are not to taxpayers paying for media but the counterproductive placing of taxes on references/links/etc.
Mike, was there any debate around the foreign funding? I notice that the rules use the term Canadian “residents” not Citizens can donate and fund media. So why not limit donations to media to voters? How will that work if a group of people from another country gather together to create a digital news outlet in Canada and fund it through donations from residents around foreign issues that are maybe not in lock step with Canadian values?
Heidi, great question. The resident vs. citizen gap is real and it shows up in an interesting comparison. Under the Canada Elections Act, only citizens and permanent residents can donate to political parties, and third parties face no such donor restrictions at all, though they can't use foreign-sourced funds for regulated activities. Media donation rules aren't tied to voter eligibility, and nobody tested that boundary during C-18 debate. That asymmetry is worth a whole post on its own. I went looking and couldn't find a committee amendment that touched it.
Canadian media has a major foreign funding/ownership/influence problem which is regularly missed because of the mainstream bias around what constitutes "foreign". (Anglosphere is regularly considered "domestic", and it is only non-Western Eurocentric influences that concern many Canadians).
"Postmedia Network: The largest newspaper chain in Canada (owning over 130 titles, including the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, and Montreal Gazette) is majority-owned (~66%) by the U.S.-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management."
The foreign ownership of the Nat Post raises eyebrows. It earns money from ads, subscriptions and also receives money from the Fed Govt like other daily news publications.
The Tyee and Narwhal get grants (from who or what?), money from Fed Govt, and secret donations from foreigners. And tax exempt status, should they have excess revenue.
I wish this and the large number of other government programs to fund new and other media was adequately included in Bill C-18 https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/44-1/C-18 conversations.
The issue should be about funding of Canadian Journalistm, with creating a specialized link tax as a disincentive to linking to Canadian News outlets being extremely counterproductive.
More stable funding is needed that isn't tied to cross-sector subsidies. C-18 is a government program funded by taxes and paid to Canadian media, and the objections are not to taxpayers paying for media but the counterproductive placing of taxes on references/links/etc.