Author: Alex Dhaliwal
The Carney government is funding a directory designed to help Canadians find local news they can trust, as Ottawa increasingly casts state-funded media as a defence against disinformation and threats to “social cohesion.”
According to Access to Information records obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, the Department of Canadian Heritage is funding researchers to build a “comprehensive, regularly updated Canadian local news directory.”
“The information will help policymakers and others make more data-informed decisions about where interventions are needed and will help people struggling to find local news they can trust,” said an April 26 departmental memo.
The three-year project is being compiled by researchers at Toronto Metropolitan, Laval and Concordia universities. Canadian Heritage had spent $100,000 on the initiative at the time of the records, while the total budget was redacted.
The memo said the directory would reflect “qualified journalism organizations,” a Canada Revenue Agency designation used in determining eligibility for federal journalism tax measures.
Qualifying organizations can claim the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit, currently worth up to $29,750 per eligible newsroom employee annually.
“The Directory will serve decision-makers,” said another Heritage memo. “For Canadian Heritage, the directory will help guide the department’s policy and program decisions.”
The project comes amid separate disclosures that federal departments have acknowledged inconsistencies in their media accreditation rules.
“None of us has criteria that reflect the reality of independent journalists,” read a March 11 Immigration Department email cited by Blacklock’s.
Another email said accreditation rules were intended to ensure government resources “genuinely support access to high-quality information,” while acknowledging “inconsistencies across departments.”
The disclosures come as Heritage Minister Marc Miller has defended taxpayer-funded media as essential to combating disinformation and maintaining “social cohesion.”
Appearing before the House Heritage Committee, Miller warned of falsities spread through media sources “both legitimate and illegitimate” while defending the CBC as “ferociously independent.”
“Integral to a healthy democracy, the fourth pillar of our democracy, is a healthy media ecosystem,” Miller said. “Integral to that is a state-financed public media. That is the CBC, or Radio-Canada.”
Miller was pressed by Conservative MP Rachael Thomas over his claim that part of the CBC’s role is to foster “social cohesion.”
Thomas noted the term is “often used by the People’s Republic of China to mean state control and zero tolerance for challenges.”
Miller rejected that characterization.
“Social cohesion is the ability for people to trust their institutions, to not feel like society is falling apart, that we are all living together and able to exercise the rights, in the case of Canada, that define us,” he said.
A September Heritage briefing note separately warned that “certain segments of the population remain disengaged” and cited foreign disinformation, divisive social media content and reliance on foreign-owned platforms as threats to Canada’s “information sovereignty.”
“The CBC is a pillar of our cultural identity and a cornerstone of our sovereignty,” the note said.
During the 2025 election, the Liberals pledged an additional $150 million annually for CBC/Radio-Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney has called the broadcaster “the most important of Canadian institutions.”
Miller is a fucking idiot who threw awy our bible and he is as corrupt as CrimeConCarney the fucking liberals have to go by any means posible
So anyone that disagrees with Carney is spreading misinformation 🤔. Is that why Carney doesn’t let you post/share news articles on Facebook? Or is it communism?