'Hard to imagine what our democracy would look like without vigilance of journalists'

Joly commented, while addressing  an audience of journalists at the annual Canadian Association of Journalists conference Friday, that there had been job cuts in Canadian news outlets due to decline in its profits in recent years and said it was too early to predict what Ottawa will do to help, theStarNews reports said.

She added that government should work as catalyst to redefine change of our business practices.

A range of options existed from tax changes to the creation of a fund for media projects.

A report, published in January on the declining media sector, said Google and Facebook, were responsible for huge portions of digital ad spending.

Keeping this in mind, Joly said, the government should include journalists in media industry as well as big agencies like Google and Facebook, in all its decisions.

A Parliamentary committee, has explored these questions for several months and is expected to make recommendations on how to respond to changes of the ascendancy of digital platforms such as Google and Facebook, which publish news for millions of users collectively, and the downfall of newspapers and private broadcasters in smaller markets.

In late January, the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum released a report on the media industry.

The report said in almost a decade, ad revenues for community and daily newspapers in Canada dropped from $3.8 billion to $2.3 billion, while private broadcasters also saw declines.

It recommended several ways the government could support Canadian journalism including the application of sales tax to the sales of digital subscriptions of foreign media outlets, such as the New York Times website, and the introduction of fund to support digital news innovation local news and indigenous reporting.

The fund would start with $100 million from Ottawa and then run on $400 million per year, and the money could come from the digital subscription tax revenue.

It could also be funded by a suggested 10-per-cent levy on advertisements purchased from digital platforms that don’t spend enough money on news reporting in Canada.

Joly said Friday that the report’s recommendations are being considered but would not say which ones, if any, the government may act on.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)