Quebec Liberals call for $1 million bail out for Metro Media

Quebec’s official opposition is calling for $1 million in aid to bail out Métro Média group, which operates more than 20 hyperlocal publications in Montreal and Quebec.

In a press release published Friday morning, the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) says that this amount would allow the press company to complete its digital transition within six months.

Earlier this month, Métro Média announced “the immediate suspension of the activities of Métro, all its newspapers and community websites.”

The PLQ says government assistance would guarantee the long-term maintenance of existing jobs and journalistic coverage, “for the benefit of citizens.”

Michelle Setlakwe, Official Opposition Critic for Culture and Communications, and Filomena Rotiroti, Critic for the Metropolis, said Métro newspapers “play an essential role” in Montreal and Quebec, at a time when the “local information is unfortunately very scarce.”

Métro “is a staple of information that employs local journalists who do essential work to inform the community,” added Mount-Royal—Outremont MNA Setlakwe.

“The government must find funds to give the company a chance to complete its digital transition and look to the future,” she said.

Urging CAQ ministers Pierre Fitzgibbon and Mathieu Lacombe to act, Setlakwe and Rotiroti fear that people left unemployed by Métro will relocate, and that the relaunch of the newspaper will become even more difficult.

“This is very bad news for citizens. Access to local sources of information is important. The Ministry of Culture and Communications will continue to support local newspapers, as it has done for several years,” said Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, himself a former journalist, last Friday.

Métro Média was created in April 2018 with the acquisition of the daily Métro as well as 11 metropolitan publications and five publications in Quebec City. Some of those publications were almost a century old.

The company had about 100 employees, more than half of whom were unionized.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 18, 2023