Publishers of local papers say Canada Post's new joint venture with Transcontinental Inc. is siphoning off advertising.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Community newspaper owners claim Canada Post is helping to drive some of them out of business thanks to a new partnership it forged with the country’s largest printing firm.
Last month, the Crown corporation launched a joint venture known as Raddar with Transcontinental Inc. TCL-A-T, which saw Canada Post start delivering discount-deal leaflets across the country.
Community newspapers have traditionally relied on flyer bundles to fund their publications, which are delivered free to millions of readers in urban and rural communities.
Paul Deegan, CEO of News Media Canada, which represents scores of community papers among the 550 news titles it advocates for, says those outlets are now losing ad clients after being undercut by a government-backed enterprise. The revenue loss threatens to shutter news outlets and leave residents less informed about their communities, he said.
“Essentially what’s happened is that publishers that would have had a number of flyers as commercial inserts, those orders have all but dried up. It’s literally fallen off a cliff,” said Deegan.
“Our folks feel it’s anticompetitive behaviour. They’re trying to squeeze us out.”
As the latest casualty, Deegan points to Winnipeg’s Community Review, a hyperlocal paper with east and west editions that was slated to shut down on Friday. The closure will end delivery to 200,000 households and leave more than 800 part-time delivery workers out of a job less than two months after Raddar’s arrival, according to the industry association.
Community papers farther west are feeling the pinch too. Great West Media, which owns nine publications covering Alberta communities from Banff and Barrhead to suburban Edmonton and Calgary, has seen large retailers abandon its flyer offering and switch over to Raddar – which offers a sleek, thinner package that’s easier for mail carriers to haul than traditional flyer bundles.
“That’s cut our flyer volumes by about 80 per cent, because now all that volume has shifted over to Canada Post,” said Evan Jamison, co-owner and vice-president of manufacturing at Great West Media, a family operation going back to the 1960s.
“It could be existential for some of them,” he said of the newspapers. “Some of them may not survive.”
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Canada Post notes that many community news groups have relied on it to bring papers to doorsteps rather than on their own delivery systems. As some news companies opt to shut down papers or scrap private delivery – even before Raddar’s arrival – the Crown corporation said it has stepped in to help fill the gap in flyer distribution.
“We understand the challenges facing community newspapers and continue to work with them. The entire flyer industry is undergoing a massive shift following the closure of some major players, which is affecting all who rely on this business – from papers to printers to distributors,” said Canada Post spokesperson Lisa Liu in an e-mail.
Montreal-based Transcontinental said Raddar’s national rollout gives retailers an alternative to digital ads and means more Canadian households will have access to savings on products ranging from groceries to home decor.
“In recent years, flyer distribution has undergone a significant transformation with the successive withdrawal of news organizations such as Glacier Media, Metroland and, most recently, Postmedia from the business,” said Patrick Brayley, Transcontinental’s chief operating officer.
“In the wake of these changes, our customers have welcomed Raddar and Raddar.ca as a cost-effective national mass media platform with national reach and local precision.”
The company respects the role of local newspapers, he added, noting that Transcontinental has played a role in publishing and distributing local papers for decades.
News Media Canada (whose members include the owners of The Canadian Press) has called on the federal government to ensure Canada Post is offering community papers comparable pricing to what Transcontinental receives.
Industry insiders also say the House of Commons heritage committee should conduct hearings into how the Crown corporation can help sustain print news.
The challenges are not new.
“It’s sort of a multi-threaded story of the decline of local print and the Canada Post ad mail program essentially siphoning off revenue that supports editorial product, particularly in the free, hyperlocal community market. And that started back in the ’90s,” said Howard Law, a media advocate and former union representative.
For community papers, however, the bleeding has worsened in recent years and many closures predate Raddar’s rollout.
Postmedia said on May 12, two days before Raddar announced its countrywide expansion, that it would cease all flyer distribution by the end of August, costing 250 employees their jobs, 50 of them full-time positions.
In 2023, Ontario residents learned they would lose more than 70 local print papers after Metroland Media Group announced it would move to a digital-only model, ending its flyer business and prompting more than 600 layoffs.
The same year in British Columbia, Glacier Media shut down print operations for three papers in the Lower Mainland and two more in the province’s northeast.
In Quebec, 17 hyperlocal print papers closed in the province’s two largest cities after then-Montreal mayor Valérie Plante said Transcontinental’s weekly flyer bundles – and the newspapers wrapped around them inside a plastic bag – would be delivered only to residents who request them. The bylaw marked a win for environmentalists but the last straw for Métro Média, which declared bankruptcy in September, 2023.
The Raddar joint venture is not beholden to municipal bylaws because Canada Post is a Crown corporation.