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This year's federal budget makes one thing painfully clear: Ottawa would prefer to fund a candidate Eurovision Song Contest than addressing the growing crisis in Canadian local and multicultural media.
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Negotiations have been underway for two years with the Department of Canadian Heritage about the collapse of independent third language public television – programs that serve audiences in Ukrainian, Punjabi, Chinese, Farsi, Russian, Italian and more than 75 other languages. We spoke with the minister's top advisers, shared research and proposed solutions.
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However, the government continues to claim that “great support” is already in place. Not really, unless you count the money that is currently being spent promoting one Canadian singer in Europe as a substitute for maintaining a vital part of our democracy.
Local public service journalism is dying. Survey after survey confirms that Canadians want more local news, not less.
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Large Majorities Say Local News Is Important
An Ipsos survey this year found that 87% of Canadians believe local news is essential to democracy. And in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, nearly half the population speaks a language other than English or French at home.
However, local third language media remains completely excluded from federal support programs.
Some may ask why these programs deserve funding at all. But the answer is simple: they are on the front line of the fight against disinformation. When trusted local voices are silenced, the vacuum is filled by foreign propaganda designed to manipulate diaspora audiences.
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I know because I was taught this. In the early 1990s, when we studied journalism in Moscow, we were taught how to combine truth and manipulation to achieve success. the propaganda is plausible. The same formula is now fueling online misinformation, amplified by artificial intelligence and social media algorithms.
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The best antidote is not another task force or AI filter. This is strong local journalism – with face, integrity and a deep understanding of the communities it serves.
For those who have never listened to ethnic television, it may be difficult to understand its influence. But within their communities, these anchors are as recognizable and trusted as Peter Mansbridge once was among English-speaking Canadians. Their credibility is what keeps people aware of facts and not fake news.
CSIS warned that Canada “continues to see sustained, and in some cases increasing, activity of foreign interference by state actors.” However, our government prefers to invest in the Eurovision Song Contest rather than in journalists at home.
If we allow these public third language programs to die, the loss will be not only cultural, but strategic. We will give the information space of multicultural Canada to those who want to turn it into weapons.
It's important to trust local voices
And once trust in authentic local voices disappears, no amount of artificial intelligence filters or social media regulation will bring it back.
And we need to not only save it, but help it transition into a digital future driven by artificial intelligence—one in which Canadian voices in all languages ​​remain credible, visible and free.
— Igor Malakhov – executive director of the Empower Canadian Ethnic Media campaign and editor-in-chief of the magazine Vestnik.ca, weekly Russian-language television program on the OMNI 1 channel and its online platform
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