Question Period Note: Canada Periodical Fund

The modernization of the Canada Periodical Fund launched in 2021-22. From 2021–22 to 2025-26, the funding provided will gradually shift from rewarding print circulation to rewarding investment in editorial and journalistic content and reaching readers, regardless of the distribution channel.

• The Covid 19 pandemic hit our magazine and community newspaper publishers hard. Our Government understands the importance of these publications to Canadians. That’s why we took action to ensure that our magazines and community newspapers would be able to weather the pandemic.
• Budget 2022 allocated $40 million over three years for the Canada Periodical Fund to further support the availability of journalistic content and to help these publications adapt to the continually evolving technology and media consumption habits of Canadians.
• We remain committed to supporting the creation of a diversity of content for Canadians, while respecting the freedom of the press.

• The Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) provides financial assistance to Canadian print magazines, non-daily newspapers, and digital periodicals to enable them to overcome market disadvantages and continue to provide Canadian readers with the content they choose to read.
• The program has three components: Aid to Publishers, Business Innovation and Collective Initiatives. The bulk of funding is distributed through the Aid to Publishers component, which uses a funding formula based primarily on the number of copies sold and gives publishers the flexibility to spend funds as they see fit.
• Funding amounts change from year to year, based on circulation and other factors. For the 2022-23 funding cycle, the Aid to Publishers component of the CPF provided funding to 755 periodicals (373 print magazines, 282 print community newspapers, 90 digital magazines and 10 digital community newspapers), including:
o 14 Indigenous periodicals (published in 6 Indigenous languages); 84 ethnocultural periodicals (published in 27 foreign languages); 22 official language minority community periodicals; and 5 LGBTQ2+
• The Business Innovation component provides financial support to eligible small and mid-sized printed magazine and digital periodical publishers. It encourages innovation to adapt to changing market conditions and the diversity of content sought by Canadian readers. In 2021-22, this component provided funding to 124 projects, namely 71 print magazine and 39 digital magazine projects (including 7 digital start-ups), and 14 community newspapers. Among the digital projects were 28 ethnocultural, 2 LGBTQ2+ and 3 indigenous magazines. Projects may include the adoption or use of new media, mobile applications, advertising and promotional campaigns, web design and development, and market expansion.
• The CPF also funded 10 projects through the Collective Initiatives component in 2020-21. One popular theme among many of the submitted projects was the need to identify fake news and disinformation, a serious problem in today’s digital age. An amount of $335,568 was re-profiled from the Canada Periodical Fund’s budget for 2020-21 to the 2021-22 fiscal year budget through the Supplementary Estimates for projects which did not materialize last year.
• Budget 2022 allocated $40 million over three years, starting in 2022-23, for the Canada Periodical Fund. The Special Measures for Journalism component put in place through Emergency funding during the pandemic was relaunched on October 20, 2022, with a November 18 application deadline. The new investment of $38.5 million will be disbursed over three years, starting in 2022–23. A $1.5 million investment is also implemented over three years through the Fund’s Business Innovation component, starting in 2022–23, for projects that focus on innovative ideas to support magazines and community newspapers.
• The 2022-23 Main Estimates provided $72,775,054 in grants and $3,564,678 in contributions for the Canada Periodical Fund.
CPF Modernization
• The Government has launched the modernization of the CPF with the intake of applications for funding under the ATP component in 2021-22. The deadline was December 8, 2020.
• From 2021–22 to 2025-26, the funding provided will gradually shift from rewarding print circulation to rewarding investment in editorial and journalistic content and reaching readers, regardless of the distribution channel. The new ATP formula will be fully implemented in 2025-26.
• Because more and more readers continue to consume content in a digital format, a new sub-component of the ATP has been created to fund qualified publishers who distribute digital-only content. In 2020-21, the first year of the modernization of the CPF, the BI component will broaden the type of eligible periodicals, include community newspapers, and increase its budget by $1 million.
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Magazine and Community Newspaper Industries
• Canadian magazines and newspapers have added financial pressures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of retail outlets, most notably Chapters Indigo, has affected newsstand sales. Many community papers have stopped printing and delivering their copies, and others have closed operations completely. Advertising has also dropped dramatically and will remain low due to the economic downturn from the pandemic.
• In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, the Government provided additional temporary relief over a 2-year period, for these organizations and to help them plan for the future.
• 2020-21: To assist publishers through the pandemic, the Department expedited the processing of ATP applications for 2020-21 and provided the same amount of funding to current eligible publishers that they received in 2019-20.
o The Department provided a top-up to 571 recipients of ATP for a total of $15.4 million.
o The Department also implemented a new CPF component, Special Measures for Journalism ($45.4M) to assist free, digital, and small circulation periodicals (those not normally eligible for ATP). There were 792 recipients.
• 2021-22: The Department provided a formula-based top-up to recipients of the ATP component for the 2021-22 cycle. There were 754 periodicals funded for a total of $10 million. In October 2021, the second year of the Special Measures for Journalism was launched ($23.5 million), providing funding to 765 recipients during the FY.

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