Who pays for Canadian news

The money behind the newsrooms, and why Second Reading exists.

Last verified 2 September 2026 · Figures are federal unless stated · Every number links to a source in the sources at the end of the page.

Why this page exists

Most Canadian news is now produced by newsrooms that receive money from the federal government, from a federal tax credit, or from a fund that a federal statute created.

A story is shaped by what a newsroom chooses to report and by what it leaves out. When a newsroom’s payroll depends on one of those pipes, the reader deserves to know that before reading.

Second Reading compares what funded newsrooms reported with what was already on the public record and with what independent outlets and writers said. This page maps the pipes so a reader understands why an exclusive can sit for a day in one place without a follow anywhere else.

It is meant to be a reference. It is refreshed after each set of Main Estimates and after each annual report from the Canadian Journalism Collective. Where a figure could not be traced to a primary document, the page says so rather than smoothing it.

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What “funded” means on this site

A newsroom is funded, in Second Reading’s usage, if it sits on at least one of four pipes:

1. A parliamentary appropriation. That is CBC/Radio-Canada.
2. A Canadian Heritage program: the Local Journalism Initiative, or the Canada Periodical Fund and its Special Measures for Journalism.
3. The Canadian journalism labour tax credit, reached through Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization status.
4. A payment from the Google pool under the Online News Act, distributed by the Canadian Journalism Collective.

The Google money is not a Crown grant. It counts here because a federal statute put the outlet on a cheque, and the outlet’s interest in that statute is the same whether the cheque is signed by Ottawa or by Google.

Independent means an outlet or author outside all four pipes.

Some titles sit in both columns, and this page names the pipe when they do. Postmedia is funded. Global News is funded through its parent, Corus. The Hub, which now takes Online News Act money into a reserve, is funded by the same rule. None of that says anything about the quality of their journalism. It says where the money comes from.

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The traced money

Each line above traces to a primary document listed in the sources: the Main Estimates, the Income Tax Act and CRA, the Online News Act regulations and the Collective’s disclosures, Canadian Heritage program pages, CRTC decisions, and the federal advertising annual report.

Dave Snow’s tally for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute puts federal support for journalism and media above $1.7 billion a year, CBC included. That is consistent with the table.

One caution. The Canada Media Fund, at $127.5 million over three years in Budget 2025, is for film and television, not news. It is sometimes added to these totals. It should not be.

Untraced or partly traced. The year-by-year labour-credit figures further down come from a parliamentary return as transcribed by Rebel News; the sessional paper itself is the primary document and has not been independently read for this page. The Bell, Corus and Rogers shares of the Google pool come from Collective data as cited by Michael Geist, not from a Collective table read directly. The $58 million figure for the Independent Local News Fund is a CRTC projection, not a realized amount, and the streaming levy behind it has been challenged in court.

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The short version

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Three kinds of money

The public debate usually lumps everything together as “the media bailout.” That is a mistake. There are three different legal pipes, and they behave differently.

1. Voted public money: CBC/Radio-Canada

CBC is funded by a line in the Main Estimates that Parliament votes on every year.

The jump in 2025–26 came from two temporary items: a $42 million operating top-up and the $150 million that Budget 2025 gave CBC “to strengthen its mandate.”

Neither carried forward. The 2026–27 Main Estimates dropped back to $1,383.3 million, essentially the 2024–25 level. Trade press reported this as a $192 million cut.

The Liberal platform in April 2025 promised to make CBC’s funding statutory and to raise it toward the level of other public broadcasters. As of September 2026, no such bill has been tabled.

CBC also earns its own money. In 2023–24, government appropriations were 74 per cent of its $1.93 billion in total funds. The rest came from advertising, subscriber fees and other income.

Advertising is shrinking. In the nine months to December 2025, CBC’s ad revenue was $189.8 million, down 29.5 per cent from the same period a year earlier. Part of that drop is the loss of one-off Olympic revenue from 2024, but the trend is down.

By international standards CBC is modestly funded. A 2024 Nordicity comparison put Canada’s public-broadcaster funding at $32 per person, 17th of 20 countries, against an average of $79.

CBC is not eligible for the Local Journalism Initiative or the journalism labour tax credit. It is eligible for the Google fund, but capped at 7 per cent.

2. Tax credits: taxpayer money without a cheque

Budget 2019 created a set of tax measures for news. The gateway to all of them is designation by the Canada Revenue Agency as a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization, or QCJO.

To be a QCJO an outlet must be Canadian-owned and controlled, produce original news of general interest, and regularly employ two or more journalists at arm’s length from the owner.

An Independent Advisory Board recommends and the CRA decides. In 2025–26 the board made 32 recommendations covering 54 publications.

The CRA does not publish a list of QCJOs. It publishes only a list of qualifying digital subscriptions and a list of registered journalism organizations. That opacity is a recurring complaint.

The labour tax credit is the big one. A qualifying organization gets back 35 per cent of eligible newsroom salaries, up to $85,000 per employee. That is a maximum of $29,750 per journalist per year.

The 35 per cent rate runs from 2023 to the end of 2026. It falls to 25 per cent in 2027. The enhancement came from the 2023 Fall Economic Statement.

Broadcasters are excluded. So is anyone who does not produce mainly written news. That is why CBC, Bell, Rogers and Corus do not claim it.

That may be about to change. In June 2026, Finance opened a consultation on extending the credit to audio and audiovisual news. Michael Geist has noted that this would open tens of millions of dollars to the big broadcasters.

How much does it cost? A parliamentary return (Order Paper Q-942, answered 27 April 2026) gave these figures, as transcribed by Rebel News:

Read the last row carefully. The cost doubled while the number of subsidized positions fell. Part of that is the rate rising from 25 to 35 per cent. Part may be late filings for 2024. But the direction is clear: more money per job, fewer jobs.

Finance’s own estimate, reported in January 2025, was that the credit had cost $275 million to the end of 2024.

Two smaller credits sit beside it. The digital news subscription credit gave readers 15 per cent back on up to $500 of subscriptions. It expired after the 2024 tax year.

Registered journalism organization status lets a non-profit newsroom issue donation receipts. Sixteen outlets hold it, including La Presse, Le Devoir, The Narwhal, Ricochet, The Tyee, The Local and The Canadian Jewish News.

Quebec runs its own version: 35 per cent of print-newsroom salaries, capped at $26,250 per employee, costing about $27 million a year.

3. Google’s money: private, but created by statute

The Online News Act (Bill C-18) received royal assent on 22 June 2023. It forced large platforms to bargain with news businesses or face CRTC-supervised arbitration.

Meta refused and blocked news instead. Google negotiated an exemption.

Under the deal announced 29 November 2023 and written into regulation that December, Google pays $100 million a year, indexed to inflation, for five years. The CRTC approved the exemption on 28 October 2024.

The money goes to the Canadian Journalism Collective, a non-profit built by publishers and chosen by Google. Heritage and the Collective both say no Crown money flows through it. The CRTC has no role in deciding who gets paid.

This is the key point: the Google fund is a statutory levy on one private company, distributed by a private body. It is not a government grant. Calling it “Ottawa’s money” is wrong. Calling it “free-market money” is also wrong, because it exists only because of a federal law.

The regulations fix the split. No more than 30 per cent may go to broadcasters. No more than 7 per cent may go to CBC. The CRTC’s decision caps the Collective’s own costs at 2 per cent. The rest is allocated by the number of full-time-equivalent staff producing news.

Year one: Google paid $100 million at the turn of 2025. By 19 December 2025 the Collective had paid out $96.2 million to 459 news businesses.

Year two: Google paid $102.4 million in December 2025. By June 2026 the Collective reported more than $190 million distributed in total.

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The smaller pots

None of these is large on its own. Together they matter, and each has its own eligibility rules.

Local Journalism Initiative. Taxpayer money to hire reporters in underserved communities. Budget 2024 renewed it at $58.8 million over three years, or $19.6 million a year through 2026–27. Between 2019 and 2024 it funded an average of about 470 journalists a year. Heritage’s page is blunt: “Private non-community broadcasters and the CBC/Radio-Canada are not eligible.”

Changing Narratives Fund. A $10 million, three-year add-on running to March 2027, part of it through the LJI. Its stream funds “Indigenous, Black, racialized, ethno-religious minority, people with disabilities and 2SLGBTQI+” journalists “in diverse-owned and mainstream news organizations.” This is the one program with an explicit identity screen. The core LJI does not have one. Heritage says the fund will not be renewed.

Canada Periodical Fund. Aid to Publishers pays about $70 million a year to magazines and community papers based on circulation. The Special Measures for Journalism stream got $12.8 million in 2025–26, and Budget 2025 added $38.4 million over three years from 2026–27.

CRTC Independent Local News Fund. Not tax money. Cable and satellite companies pay 0.3 per cent of revenue, roughly $18 million a year, to independent private TV stations. Since 2024, streaming services with more than $25 million in Canadian revenue must also contribute. The CRTC projected the fund could reach about $58 million. Court challenges to the streaming levy mean the actual figure should be checked before it is quoted.

Federal advertising. In 2024–25 the government spent $78.2 million on advertising. Of the $64.2 million in media placements, 63 per cent went digital and only $222,000 went to print. Heritage estimates Canadian media get 40 to 60 per cent of the total. The Central Advertising Fund rose from $25 million to $80 million in Budget 2025 and to $115 million in 2026. Ontario, since July 2024, directs its agencies to put 25 per cent of ad spending with Ontario publishers.

Northern Aboriginal Broadcasting. $7.9 million a year, unchanged since 1997.

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Who actually gets the Google money

The Collective publishes recipient names and amounts. The first public disclosure, on 30 April 2025, covered a 60 per cent advance to 108 businesses. The largest cheques went to incumbents:

CBC’s share was reported at about $6.8 million, close to its 7 per cent cap. Among broadcasters, Collective data cited by Michael Geist show Bell received about $8.1 million in year one, Corus $5.4 million and Rogers $3.4 million.

At the other end, The Tyee received about $128,000 and The Logic about $170,000 for year one. The Hub’s first payment was $22,248.

The Logic’s chief executive, David Skok, summed up the formula: “The big newsrooms get bigger and the little ones get strangled.”

So the Collective is not a fund for small progressive outlets. It is a headcount pool. Chains with hundreds of employees take the large shares. Tiny rooms take scraps. The biggest private cheque goes to Postmedia, a chain owned by a New Jersey hedge fund and widely regarded as the most conservative newspaper group in the country.

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Who stays out, and why

Most independent commentators on X, YouTube and Substack are outside every pipe. Not because a minister crossed them off, but because they fail the tests: two arm’s-length journalists, a Canadian corporate operator, original news as the main business.

A few outlets refused the money on principle. In May 2024, Blacklock’s Reporter, The Bureau, The Hub, Lean Out, True North, Western Standard and Quillette, joined by the columnists Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne, signed an “Ottawa Declaration” rejecting per-employee subsidies from government and industry.

That front has thinned. Western Standard reversed in September 2025. The Hub, which had donated its first Google payments to charity, told subscribers in May 2026 it would now take both the tax credit and the Google money, citing “softening advertising revenues.” It says it parks the money in a segregated “rainy day” fund walled off from operations. By MediaPolicy’s count, only Juno News and Blacklock’s still refuse.

Rebel News is the case people cite most. The CRA denied it QCJO status after reviewing 423 items and finding only 10 were original news. The Federal Court upheld that denial in September 2024.

In August 2025 Rebel asked the CRTC to declare it eligible under the Online News Act. On 19 December 2025 the CRTC declined. Because Google is exempt, there is no bargaining for the CRTC to oversee, and “the Commission does not have the authority to participate in the CJC’s funding determinations or to override them.” The Collective has said Rebel had not applied to it.

That is the opposite of “Ottawa handed Rebel a cheque.” It is Rebel trying to get into a private formula and being told to ask the private body.

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Does the money change the coverage?

This is the question that matters, and the honest answer has three parts.

The case that it doesn’t

The credits are formula-based. The CRA’s advisory board looks at whether an outlet does original journalism, not at what it says. There is no partisan box on any form.

CBC’s independence is written into the Broadcasting Act. Heritage’s own line is that “the government cannot tell Canada’s national public broadcaster what content to make or broadcast.”

Subsidized newsrooms have hurt the government badly. The Globe and Mail’s 2023 series on Chinese interference, based on CSIS leaks, forced a public inquiry. CBC’s reporting on ArriveCan and GC Strategies ran for more than a year. Global News reported the Han Dong allegations.

And the recipient list is not a party list. Postmedia is the largest private beneficiary.

The case that it does

The concern is not that a minister phones an editor. It is structural.

First, dependence. Snow’s arithmetic is that the 35 per cent credit plus a proportional Google share can cover about half of an $85,000 salary. A newsroom in that position has a stake in the programs continuing, and in the party that continues them.

Second, access. In March 2026 The Hub found that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Global Affairs Canada had posted media guidelines saying officials would answer only journalists from QCJOs “or criteria similar to it.” A tax designation had become a press pass.

Both departments removed the language within three weeks. IRCC said it “created some confusion.” The CRA said the designation exists “for the sole purpose of determining eligibility for tax measures.” The episode shows how easily a subsidy list becomes an access list.

Third, path dependence. The formulas reward newsrooms that already had two salaried reporters in 2019. Those newsrooms shared a professional culture: journalism school, union desks, Toronto and Ottawa. The money freezes that industry in place, including its median politics. Peter Menzies warned in 2024 that locking allocations would leave the industry “fossilized in the past, severely handicapping startup efforts and innovation.”

Fourth, the public does not trust it. In a 2023 Angus Reid survey, 59 per cent of Canadians said government should not fund newsrooms “because it compromises journalistic independence.” Only 19 per cent supported funding.

What nobody can show

No Canadian peer-reviewed study measures whether subsidized outlets cover government differently from unsubsidized ones. The evidence on both sides is anecdotal.

Dave Snow’s August 2026 review of six years of CBC corrections found that of ten corrections with a partisan effect, eight had initially disadvantaged Conservatives. That is suggestive, but ten cases is ten cases.

Nobody has counted how much coverage each Auditor General or Parliamentary Budget Officer report receives, or compared subsidized and unsubsidized outlets on that count. Second Reading’s issues are one small contribution to that count, one story at a time.

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What readers don’t see

Two other facts shape what Canadians know, and neither is about bias.

The Meta blackout

Meta has blocked links to Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram since August 2023. It still does. It pays nothing into the Google fund.

The effects, measured by the Media Ecosystem Observatory: Canadian outlets lost about 85 per cent of their Facebook and Instagram engagement and about 43 per cent of engagement overall, roughly 11 million views a day. About a third of local outlets went dark on social media.

Smaller places were hit hardest. A 2026 follow-up found news engagement in rural areas and mid-sized cities fell 89 per cent after the ban, against 48 per cent in large cities. Only 41 per cent of Facebook users know the ban exists.

The space did not stay empty. During the 2025 federal election, influencers produced 47 per cent of political content on major platforms; news outlets produced 28 per cent.

The government’s own ad boycott of Meta, announced in 2023, quietly ended in February 2025. Washington named the Online News Act a trade irritant in December 2025. Ottawa says talks with Meta are “very preliminary.” No amendment has been tabled.

The local news collapse

Between 2008 and June 2026, 613 local news outlets closed in 391 Canadian communities. Nearly three-quarters were community newspapers.

Newspaper industry revenue was $1.6 billion in 2024, down 18 per cent in two years. Advertising revenue was $723 million, down 26 per cent.

Trust is low and falling. The 2026 Reuters Institute report puts Canadian trust in news at 37 per cent. Forty-five per cent of Canadians say they sometimes or often avoid the news.

Every subsidy on this page was justified as a response to that collapse. The subsidies have not stopped it. What they have done is decide which survivors get help.

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How to read this site

Five things follow from the record above, and they shape every issue Second Reading publishes.

CBC is the big line, but not the only one. A reader who thinks only of CBC is missing roughly $250 million a year in other federal support, plus the Google money, spread across most of the country’s newsrooms.

The tax credit and the Local Journalism Initiative pay wages, not story slates. Nobody in Ottawa approves copy. The risk is dependence and access, not dictation, and this page says that precisely or not at all.

The Google pot is a levy, not a grant. Parliament created it; Google pays it; the Collective decides who gets it. All three facts belong in any sentence about it.

Independents are outside the pipes because of the tests, not a blacklist. The two-journalist rule and the corporate-operator rule exclude a solo reporter whether that reporter leans right or left.

When a story sits in one place, the line is “these funded desks did not include it.” Not “the media ignored this.” If Global ran it and CBC did not, that is what the issue will say, by name.

The caveat

Public money does not make a story false. Private money does not make it true.

A funded newsroom can be right and an independent can be wrong on the same day, and often is. The Globe’s foreign-interference series, CBC’s ArriveCan reporting and Global’s Han Dong story were all produced on subsidized payrolls. Second Reading’s job is to show what each side left out, not to decide in advance which side to believe.

How Second Reading is funded

Second Reading takes no public money, no journalism tax credit, no Google money and no platform money. It is published by Webhaller Inc. and paid for by its publisher. If that changes, this page will say so.

Refresh rule

This page is revised after each set of federal Main Estimates and after each annual report of the Canadian Journalism Collective, and whenever the CRA, Canadian Heritage or the CRTC publishes new program figures. The verification date at the top tells you how current it is.

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Sources