I was only a few years into my journalism career when the future began to visit the present. Newspapers were going through a hard time, and the layoffs were just starting.

Normally you’d think they’d start at the bottom, laying off rookies like me. Instead, they looked at the most senior journalists in my newsroom and unceremoniously sent them off to an early retirement.

I remember thinking: Who’s going to mentor the newbies?

About three years later, the writing was indisputably on the wall: print newsrooms were laying off journalists of all ages. I exited the field before they got to me, but I knew this was a harbinger of worse things to come.

Fast forward some 30 years later and my fears have come to life. The Moose Jaw Times Herald, my first daily newspaper as a journalist, has shuttered. Next stop, the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal. It was once a training ground for some of Canada’s best known journalists; now a hollowed out newsroom. Then Kingston Whig-Standard, once considered one of Canada’s best newspapers; now a shell of its former self.

A shrinking news universe is bad news for our democracy. 

In this issue of the Monitor, we look at Canada’s shrinking media environment and the role that Canada’s public broadcaster could play under a renewed mandate.

Heading into the spring federal election, the CBC’s fate was in the balance. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised to defund the CBC. Given the shrinking presence of privately owned media in Canada, that didn’t make sense. Now that the Liberals have been re-elected, the CBC has a reprieve.

The sun isn’t setting on the CBC, but will it rise to its potential—and the moment—in the coming months and years?

High-profile CBC radio host Carol Off, now retired, has written: “As for the CBC, I’m part of a chorus of people, inside and out, who would like to see the public broadcaster go through a rethink.”

During the election, Prime Minister Mark Carney seemed to agree. On X/Twitter, Carney wrote: “CBC/Radio-Canada is a pillar of our Canadian identity. We’re going to strengthen our public broadcaster with more long-term funding, and a modernized mandate—to deliver more local news and keep Canadians informed during emergencies.”

In an October 2024 national survey, the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy asked Canadians what they think of the CBC. The biggest insight: most Canadians wanted to preserve it. 

That finding echoes what the CCPA heard when we conducted focus groups with Canadians about the CBC in February of this year. In this Monitor, I write about those findings, and how the CBC is about as Canadian an icon you can get.

But that national survey also showed Canadians want the CBC to deal with public criticisms about the broadcaster. (There was, however, no consensus on what the main criticisms are—you may have your own.)

Conservative respondents in that survey were more likely to have harsh views of the CBC—”too woke”—but only 40 per cent of them wanted to reduce or eliminate funding.

That said, public broadcasting has been in the crosshairs of the extreme right for quite some time. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May seeking to cease federal funding for public broadcasters NPR and PBS.

Given how many Canadian Conservatives are willingly taking a page out of the Trump playbook, we can expect the CBC will continue to be one of their targets. But if we value local news, at the very least, cutting the CBC would be a disaster.

“You may argue that in your region you are not well-served by local media including the CBC, and I wouldn’t dispute it,” says Carol Off. “But the solution isn’t to kill the messenger, it’s to pay for it, one way or another.”

As we grapple with a surge of Canadian pride and renewed economic sovereignty, expanding legitimate news sources will be key. It’s an optimal time for CBC renewal.