Submitted by Barry Rooke, Executive Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA/ANREC)

Canada’s journalism-support system contains a basic contradiction. 

A reporter covering a municipal council meeting for a newspaper may qualify for federal journalism support. A reporter covering the same meeting for a licensed community radio station may not.

The public value is the same. The eligibility is not. 

This reflects a persistent blind spot in federal media policy. Canada continues to design journalism programs around particular types of organizations and distribution methods, rather than the reporting produced, the communities reached, and the public need served. 

That matters as access to local information becomes increasingly unequal.

According to the Local News Map, led by Toronto Metropolitan University researcher April Lindgren and the University of British Columbia’s Jon Corbett, 624 local news outlets closed in 395 Canadian communities between 2008 and Aug. 1, 2026.

Canada has more than 260 licensed community, Indigenous, and campus radio stations. The National Campus and Community Radio Association represents 122 of them.

These stations serve urban neighbourhoods, campuses, small towns, rural and remote regions, and Indigenous communities. They provide civic news, public-affairs programming, cultural and health information, emergency updates, and programming in dozens of languages, including Indigenous languages.

They also reach Canadians who may not subscribe to a newspaper, regularly visit a news website, or reliably encounter local reporting on social media.

Yet federal policy does not consistently recognize their contribution.

Temporary funding cannot sustain a permanent need

The Local Journalism Initiative has shown what targeted public investment can accomplish.

During its first five years, the program supported an average of approximately 470 journalists and extended reporting to about 1,500 additional communities. Community broadcasters have participated, putting journalists in places where local advertising revenue alone cannot sustain consistent reporting.

But the initiative is scheduled to end in March 2027. Local information needs will not end with it.

When funding disappears, Canada risks losing more than a position. It can also lose the relationships, trust, sources, and institutional knowledge developed through that journalist’s work.

Short-term programs can demonstrate what is possible. They cannot, by themselves, sustain an essential public function.

Journalism should not be defined by its delivery technology

The Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit provides another example of unequal treatment.

Licensed radio broadcasters are effectively excluded from this significant federal support mechanism, even when their journalists are producing the same kind of public-interest reporting as eligible print and digital newsrooms.

The platform should not determine the value of the journalism.

 A reporter covering a local election for radio is still a journalist. So is a reporter interviewing residents displaced by a wildfire or explaining a school-board decision through audio rather than print. 

If the federal government intends to support public-interest journalism, eligibility should follow the work, the professional standards applied to it, and the public benefit it creates.

The Online News Act exposed another imbalance

Google’s contribution through the Canadian Journalism Collective provides approximately $100 million annually for Canadian journalism. That is a significant investment in the news ecosystem.

However, figures reviewed by NCRA/ANREC raise questions about how equitably that support reaches community radio. From a $30-million broadcast allocation, NCRA/ANREC members received approximately $240,000, or 0.79 per cent. Only 28 of the association’s 122 member stations received funding. 

At the same time, Meta responded to the Online News Act by blocking Canadian news from Facebook and Instagram. Community broadcasters lost access to distribution channels that had become important for reaching local audiences.

Many stations were therefore affected by the consequences of the legislation without receiving meaningful support from the system created alongside it.

This is not an argument that other news organizations should receive less. It is an argument that Canada must examine whether its support reaches the full range of organizations producing public-interest journalism.

Emergency broadcasting cannot be built during an emergency

The policy gap becomes particularly serious during fires, floods, severe weather, prolonged power failures, and other emergencies.

An alert can tell residents that something has happened. It cannot answer every local question.

Which road remains open? Where is the evacuation centre? Is the drinking water safe? Is the information circulating online accurate? What do emergency officials need residents to do next?

Local radio stations can relay warnings, interview trusted officials, correct rumours, and explain changing conditions throughout response and recovery. Radio also provides valuable redundancy when cellular networks, internet service, or electricity are disrupted.

But a station cannot suddenly become emergency infrastructure when the smoke appears on the horizon. 

That capacity requires functioning equipment, backup power, trained people, established protocols, and relationships with local authorities and Indigenous communities. Those elements must be in place before a crisis begins.

We would not maintain other emergency infrastructure by hoping enough advertising arrives before the next wildfire or flood. Local emergency information should not be treated differently. 

Three practical federal reforms

Ottawa can begin correcting its radio blind spot without constructing an entirely new support system.

First, the federal government should review journalism-program eligibility across delivery platforms. Licensed community, campus, and Indigenous broadcasters producing public-interest journalism to recognized standards should have equitable access to federal support, including the journalism labour tax credit.

Second, federal departments and agencies should deliberately include community, Indigenous, and other local not-for-profit media in government advertising and public-information strategies. Governments already spend money to reach Canadians. A fair portion should flow through trusted local outlets capable of reaching audiences that national platforms may miss.

Third, Canada should establish sustained support for local emergency-broadcasting readiness. Eligible investments should include backup power, resilient connectivity, portable reporting equipment, training, emergency protocols, and year-round relationship-building.

Public funding must protect editorial independence. Support should be administered through transparent, arm’s-length mechanisms, with accountability based on public outcomes rather than favourable coverage.

Canada already applies this principle to public broadcasting, cultural institutions, and universities. It can support independent community media without controlling what journalists report.

Community radio has learned to accomplish a remarkable amount with limited resources. That resourcefulness deserves recognition, but it should not become an excuse for permanent underinvestment.

Canada cannot say that local journalism, emergency information, linguistic inclusion, and democratic participation matter while maintaining policies that exclude many of the broadcasters delivering them.

The next phase of federal journalism policy should be platform-neutral, equitable, and designed around public value.

Radio journalism is journalism. It is time Ottawa funded it that way.