OTTAWA—The newspaper industry has reacted negatively to a Senate committee recommendation that the Competition Act should be changed so that media mergers are reviewed and then approved by the government.
Calling the recommendation "troubling," Anna Kothawala of the Canadian Newspaper Association said yesterday that the committee was being inconsistent.
"In one breath they say that they are not interested in having governments in the newsrooms of the nations, but in the next breath they apparently are," she said in an interview.
On Wednesday, the standing Senate committee on transport and communications presented its final report on the Canadian news media. The report called for the enactment of a new section of the Competition Act to deal with the mergers of newsgathering organizations.
The mergers would be assessed on the basis of cross-media ownership in particular markets, development of a dominant position in a particular market, or the acquisition of more than a particular percentage of audience or subscribers, such as 35 per cent.
Once certain thresholds in those areas were reached, a review of the merger would be triggered automatically, a panel would be created and a recommendation made to the government — which would decide if the merger should be allowed.
Kothawala said it was troubling that the report said freedom of expression is enhanced, encouraged or more easily exercised if there are more media owners.
"It is not the role of government to define the parameters of press freedom, nor under which ownership models there is more or less of it," she said. "Section 2b of the Charter (which protects freedom of the press) is not applied selectively to certain types of media owners."
She argued that the Senate committee had not substantiated its claim that press freedom is enhanced by having more media owners.
"There's not necessarily a correlation between the style of ownership and freedom of the press and quality of news content," she said.
"They say in one breath `We're not saying big is bad,' and on the other hand they're recommending favouring smaller family-run newspapers with tax deferrals."
Robert Prichard, president and chief executive officer of Torstar Corp., called the recommendation "deeply flawed," saying that the problem it purports to solve doesn't exist, and that its proposed solution would make the situation worse.
"The recommendation would abandon the rule of law and have the cabinet — an openly political body — decide in its executive discretion who can own newspapers and on what terms," he said in a statement. "This would be intolerable state intrusion in a free society in which newspapers are a central pillar of maintaining our freedoms."
Representatives of CanWest Global and Bell Globemedia would not comment on the report.
Senator Joan Fraser said the committee is responding to a gap that exists in public policy terms. "All we want is to set up a public policy framework that will help to ensure a healthy diversity for Canadians," she said.
"At the moment, public policy frequently overlooks the impact of regulatory decisions on newsgathering operations. We think that needs to change."
She pointed out that the cabinet now rules on appeals of CRTC decisions.
"But at the moment, the public has no input in that process, and no way to understand why the cabinet ends up making whatever decision it ends up making," she said.
The committee recommended that the minister be required to explain the decision before parliamentary committees. "We believe that transparency is the best protection for the public interest, and for the interests of the proprietors," she said.
New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton applauded the report yesterday.
"We've been concerned about over-concentration of power and ownership in the media for a very long time," he said. "Unfortunately, we've seen successive Liberal and Conservative governments unwilling to act on this."
He said the NDP would try to bring some of the ideas in the report forward to the House of Commons.
The report also recommended long-term stable funding for the CBC, enough to remove commercial advertising from television, and it said the CBC should stop broadcasting professional sports.
Private broadcasters argue that CBC's sports agenda drives up broadcast costs for all.
The government is not required to respond to the Senate report.
A spokesman for Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda said she would study it before commenting.
