News

The What, Me Worry? Consultation: Media Quietly Tells Government It Wants Even More Funding With Little Concern for Independence Risks

The government’s ever-increasing financial support for the news media was the subject of a non-public consultation earlier this year, with Canadian Heritage asking funding recipients what they think of the programs, what more needs to be done, and whether they have concerns about the risks to the independence of the press that can come with greater reliance on public funding. If you ask groups whether they want more money, they invariably say yes, so it may not surprise to learn the industry supports expanding the media funding programs and sees little reason to worry about independence concerns. The consultation, which focused on the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) and Canada Periodical Fund (CPF), was not posted on the department’s public consultations page. Instead, the department circulated it to departmental contacts and stakeholders that “included current CPF clients and LJI delivery organizations,” and encouraged them to share it within their networks. Because I was included on that list and provided my thoughts, I received the summary of the results this week, which I have posted here, since the government has yet to make it publicly available.

Years of Uncertainty: Bill C-22’s Missing Regulations and Secret Ministerial Orders

Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, was a focal point of debate in the Senate last week. While companies continue to warn they may exit Canada if the bill passes in its current form, the debate’s biggest revelation was that it may take years for the government to pass the regulations needed to fully implement the law. The delay is notable for several reasons, including the government’s insistence in the spring that passing the bill was urgent (to the point that it shut down committee clause-by-clause review) and the regulatory uncertainty that it creates. Indeed, the Senate is effectively being asked to approve a surveillance and data retention framework without knowing who will be covered, what they will be required to build, what data about Canadians will be retained, or what any of it will cost. If this sounds familiar, it is because it has seemingly become the government’s go-to approach on many of its digital bills, from privacy to social media regulation, where key decisions are left to regulations and regulatory processes that take years to complete.

Three Years After October 7th: Living With the Shockwaves

In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th, Jewish communities around the world shared the shock of Israelis at the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. A year later, I wrote about learning of the attack in real time, hours after a Shabbat dinner, as the Israeli red alert app on my Apple Watch buzzed continuously. The barrage of alerts was so intense that I initially thought the app had malfunctioned. The pain of that day and the days that followed was shared by many who, despite being thousands of kilometres away, felt as if they too had been targeted and were left with a desperate sadness.

Over the past three years, the initial shock has turned into a relentless series of shockwaves, as if October 7th was an earthquake with reverberations that never end. For many Israelis and diaspora Jews, these three years have been dominated by denial, repeated antisemitic violence, and a deep sense of betrayal.