Testimony continued on Wednesday at the National Assembly about the future of print media in Quebec, as they struggle to survive in an era of online tech giants.
The parliamentary commission set up by the CAQ government comes a week after the Groupe Capitale Medias filed for creditor protection, and put a call out for donations from its readers Wednesday morning.
The group presented this morning, as its union approved a takeover project allowing Capitale members to participate in the ownership and governance of the company through a partnership with potential partners.
Metro media, Le Devoir, Neomedia and others presented Wednesday before the commission.
Le Devoir editor Brian Myles made several suggestions about how the provincial government could better support newspapers, including a 25 per cent refundable tax credit on payroll for daily and weekly news media.
Myles also called for a "recycling tax" to be eliminated, saying the tax, which has gone up 125 per cent between 2013 and 2018, is too great a burden for most newspapers to bear.
Neomedia President Claude Poulin testified Wednesday and hopes the government begins taxing the ad revenue of the GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) tech giants.
In addition, Poulin wants the government to force companies that receive provincial dollars to present lasting business models.
Mayors testify
The mayors of Saguenay, Trois-Rivieres and Sherbrooke also testified on Wednesday, saying urgent action is needed to save Quebec's regional newspapers. The dailies in those cities are among the six owned by Groupe Capitale that are threatened by the company's struggles.
The three mayors encouraged the government to examine the possibility of taxing American tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple as a means of generating revenue to support the press.
Those digital platforms have captured an increasingly large share of advertising revenues that were formerly directed to news media.
- With files from The Canadian Press
