Partisan squabbling over support to local journalism

In November 2024, the Wab Kinew government announced its intention to establish an all-party committee to study support to local journalism. In May 2025, four government and two opposition MLAs were named to serve on the committee.

During the summer the committee held in-person and online hearings at which 43 persons and organizations made presentations. On Dec. 19, a report from the committee was released. To date, a formal government response to its recommendations has yet to be issued.

Initially, I applauded the appointment of the committee. The steady decline in the number of media outlets and in the amount of new coverage provided by the struggling remaining outlets is an important topic on which there should be substantial cross-party agreement.

Also, in the past I had argued for the appointment within the legislature of special all-party committees to study relatively non-contentious topics with the goal of producing consensus-based recommendations for government actions.

My hope was that such committees would involve more MLAs in policy development, would encourage them to work constructively across party lines, and might over time moderate the excessively confrontational, at times toxic, culture within the legislature.

That did not happen in this case. From the outset, the committee was a government-led initiative (not a creation of the legislature), which the Opposition was invited to join. During all stages of the committee process — setting the terms of reference, staging the hearings and writing the report — direction and control apparently resided mainly with the governing party, which led the PC opposition to complain throughout that the government majority was acting unilaterally.

For me, both the process and the product of the committee’s work were disappointing. In addition to the partisan infighting, which weakens the legitimacy of the committee’s report, I found its content to be mainly descriptive of what the committee heard. Unfortunately, there was almost no empirical analysis of the current state of the Manitoba media. And, therefore, it was unclear how far the committee’s recommendations, if adopted by the government, would go in alleviating the challenges facing the different types of media in the province.

To be clear, I was not looking for an academic treatise, but greater analysis would have enhanced the credibility of the report and its educational value. Here in condensed form are some things that I wished the committee had examined more fully.

A January 2025 survey from the Public Policy Forum reported that 87 per cent of respondents agreed local news is important to a properly functioning democracy and 75 per cent believed democracy would be threatened without local news.

The committee heard from many presenters that independent, local media outlets are not just desirable, they are essential institutions within a free, informed, engaged, democratic and cohesive society. Listing the names of presenters and mentioning some of their efforts to sustain media operations would have been valuable.

A November 2025 Statistics Canada report indicated that from 2022-2024 newspaper advertising sales declined by one-third, circulation declined by 7.6 per cent, operating expenses fell by 19 per cent and spending on wages and benefits dropped by 17.6 per cent.

Despite these concerns, only 30 per cent of respondents in an earlier 2023 poll were very or somewhat supportive of subsidies to private media outlets, whereas 70 per cent opposed them. It was unclear from the poll whether subsidies were seen as a misuse of scarce public dollars or whether there was fear that subsidies would make media less critical of government.

It is not clear from the report whether the committee examined such existing national programs such as the Online News Act, the Local Journalism Initiative, the Journalism Labour Tax Credit and how any Manitoba program of support might complement such assistance.

The committee makes only three recommendations.

The first calls on the government to consider a tax credit program similar to what exists in two provinces. The committee does not examine how those programs work and what they might cost government in terms of foregone revenue. Recognizing that the Manitoba government is already under severe financial stress, one wonders how much new spending on local media it can afford and how much the public would accept.

The second recommendation is to ensure that a minimum of 25 per cent of government advertising goes to local journalism. This was an obvious, politically easy recommendation to make because the government already spends at that level, and therefore, no new money is required. No doubt such support is welcome, but the report gives no indication how far government advertising might slow the decline of local media.

The final recommendation was that the government consider a regular reporting mechanism for government advertising — a useful but not very exciting idea.

When the report was released, the PCs immediately complained they had no input into the draft and that their recommendations were ignored. Unfortunately, they did not describe their recommendations or whether they supported the three recommendations made by the committee, which means some critics will dismiss their complaints as more political gamesmanship.

While I appreciate and thank the chair and the other five MLAs for their work. I had higher expectations for the committee process. Probably those expectations were more wishful thinking than realistic based on the unhealthy polarized state of the legislature.

Paul G. Thomas is professor emeritus of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba.