MONTREAL -- Weekly newspaper deliveries could stop if flyer packages, like the Publisac, are only delivered to those who ask for them.
The City of Montreal is considering recommendations from a commission that said the flyers should only be delivered to those who explicitly ask for them--which would jeopardize the flyer's existence, according to Transcontinental CEO Francois Olivier.
If that happened, weekly newspapers like The Suburban wouldn't be delivered along with the flyers, and they may struggle to survive, Olivier added.
"A lot of weeklies in Quebec, unfortunately, will not survive if the Publisac is not around," he said.
Without those deliveries, The Suburban would need to find another way to get the paper to its readers, according to editor-in-chief Beryl Wasjman, who insisted the delivery of the Publisac doesn't bother anyone.
"This wasn't an issue for anybody," he said. "The flyers are recyclable; the sacs are recyclable, the material it's printed on is made from recycled material."
Instead of coming with flyer packages, newspapers could be placed in public places, the commission suggested.
But many of the weeklies may not survive a shift in their business models and distribution costs would likely climb, Olivier said.
If the remaining Quebec weekly newspapers failed, some towns would have no source of local news, a dangerous prospect according to Michael Nguyen, president of the Federation of Quebec journalists.
"All the public information, if it's not published, people don't know about it, so what we think is journalism is very important for democracy so people can make choices," he said.
With files from CTV Montreal's Matt Grillo
