Businessman Mitch Garber pitches taking over Montreal Gazette as paper faces more cuts

Businessman Mitch Garber says he's ready and willing to buy the Montreal Gazette either by himself or with a group of local shareholders as the city's oldest newspaper could soon lose up to a quarter of its staff.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Garber, a Montreal-based investor, lawyer, and minority owner of the Seattle Kraken hockey team, said executives with the Gazette's owner, Postmedia Network Corp., have "ignored" an offer to explore local investment of the newspaper.

In a brief text message exchange with CTV News on Wednesday, he said, "I want to be part of a group that could pursue some [or] all ownership of The Gazette as a means of saving the paper."

The future is as uncertain as ever for the Gazette, Quebec's only English-language daily newspaper and one of the oldest papers in North America. Last month, Postmedia, which owns the Gazette, The Ottawa Citizen, The Calgary Herald, and several other papers across the country, announced it was laying off 11 per cent of editorial staff across the company. Postmedia employs about 650 journalists across Canada.

Sources have previously told CTV News that Gazette is expected to take an even bigger hit, with about 25 per cent of staff cut.

• READ MORE: Montreal Gazette expecting 'up to 10' layoffs as Postmedia makes cross-country cuts

Garber says he wants to stem the bleeding at the storied newspaper, but suggested on Twitter that it would be an uphill battle to get local advertising dollars to prop the paper up when it's owned by a "foreign hedge fund."

Quebec businessman Mitch Garber, right, speaks at a news conference on April 20, 2015 while Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte listens. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz)

The remark was in reference to Postmedia's majority-owner, Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey hedge fund, which has spent years shedding editorial positions across the chain of newspapers to cut down on expenses and pay off millions in debt.

"The Gazette is profitable and worthy of investment , but the owner needs to be willing to sell it rather than choke it to near death. At the moment , they are not," he wrote on Twitter.

Postmedia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CTV News about Garber's tweets and the imminent cuts at the paper.

Garber told his followers that he never dreamed of owning a newspaper, but said he "can help put together a local group which as equity owners would be able to attract advertisers both for business and as a civic contribution."

His tweets were in reaction to a report on Wednesday by The Rover, an independent news outlet, that said the cuts at the Gazette could come this week as staff fear it will spell the beginning of the end of the award-winning paper.

"I am a capitalist, I believe in smart investments and I know that investing in the print news business isn’t a big money making investment. But some things are more important than money and I think this city needs an English language daily," he told the publication.

He isn't the only local figure who has reached out to the paper's owners amid serious concern for its future in Quebec.

Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP for the Montreal riding of Mount-Royal, said in late January that he hoped to continue the dialogue with Postmedia and spare the paper from "unreasonable" cuts.

"One of my jobs as a member of parliament is to speak for my community," he told CTV News on Jan. 26. "I'm just using my voice as a citizen, but as a citizen who is privileged to be able to reach the upper echelons of Postmedia because of who I am."

PETITION LAUNCHED TO SAVE NEWSPAPER

With the cuts on the horizon, Friends of the Gazette, a group of politicians, businesspeople, and community organizers, recently launched an online petition to draw attention to the fate of the newspaper.

"Postmedia has benefited greatly from subsidies by the federal government to preserve jobs, yet now it is eliminating many of those jobs. Should this cut go through, it will likely be only a matter of time before the newspaper joins the ranks of the many dailies that have folded in recent years across Canada and the U.S." reads a description of the petition.

"For all these reasons, we urge you and Postmedia to reverse the cuts to the Montreal Gazette before it’s too late."

In an interview on Tuesday with CJAD 800, Eric Maldoff, a lawyer and longtime advocate for anglophone rights in Quebec, said the Gazette needs all the support it can get right now, either through signing the petition, subscribing to the paper, or advertising dollars, in order to save the publication from decisions by "foreign owners who don't understand the importance of the institution."

• Listen on CJAD 800: Community mobilizes to stop staff cuts at Montreal Gazette

"It plays a vital role. It's a newspaper of record. It's a place where issues can be explored, and examined, and facts can be put on the table," Maldoff said.

"And the five-second clip that you get through social media and all that is no substitute for good journalism, good editorial comment, and a vehicle where the community can write thoughtful pieces and engage in really important discussions, like our future in Quebec."

As of Wednesday night, the petition has collected more than 2,600 signatures — a sign that the community really wants to see the paper continue to serve the one million anglophones in Quebec, according to Jonathan Goldbloom, co-founder of Friends of the Montreal Gazette.

"We're really getting down to the bare bones at the Gazette and if we don't say enough is enough, the paper will just disappear," he told CJAD 800.

"It's time to stand up and and work with the community to rebuild it." 

• Listen on CJAD 800: Community players launch petition in an effort to reverse layoffs at Montreal Gazette