By Ahmad Hathout
Culture Minister Marc Miller said Thursday that the $6 billion he said was the projected value of a prospective tax credit for broadcasting news was an “error.”
“On Tuesday, I conflated the projected Film & Video Tax Credits over the next 6 years with the Journalism Tax Credit for the audiovisual news sector, for which we announced consultations in the Spring Update and which has yet to be quantified,” Miller said on X this afternoon. “This error is entirely mine.”
The correction appears to address the confusion about how the minister came up with the figure, which was first provided to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage examining department spending on Tuesday.
Bloc Quebecois MP Martin Champoux, who asked the question that drew it out, was dumbfounded about the number in a later round of questions to Heritage officials. He asked them to provide the details as to how they came up with the figure, which went uncorrected for the duration of the meeting.
Kevin Desjardins, the president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), which represents the largest private broadcasters, told Cartt that day that the expected value of any tax credit for the organization’s members was closer to $100 million per year.
“The value of the tax credit will depend on design of the program, including the percentage of salaries that can be claimed and the ceiling, much as the current Labour Tax Credit is applied to print media,” Desjardins added. “The existing program is valued at far less than the figure stated by the Minister.”
Late last month, in response to an MP question, the Canada Revenue Agency released the figures of the current iteration of the journalism tax credit, which applies only to written news. For 2024, 140 companies claimed credits worth approximately $71 million.
The value of the current version of the tax credit as of April 27, 2026, via Canada Revenue Agency.
The incentive program allows eligible newsrooms to claim a 35 per cent refundable credit on up to $85,000 in labour costs per employee per year for a maximum credit of nearly $30,000 per employee. The credit, which was introduced by the Liberal government in 2019, was increased 10 per cent in the spring of 2024 and is expected to return to 25 per cent for tax years beginning after this year, according to Finance.
The federal government’s spring economic update, released last week, includes a promise to hold a public consultation on expanding the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit to the broadcasting sector.
When asked about the prospect of such a tax credit coming to fruition, Miller said: “For me, it’s not a question of if, but rather of how.”
Extending the credit to broadcast journalism has for years been a cornerstone of the lobbying effort of the CAB, which – alongside others in the industry – has been calling for and has been disappointed with successive budgets without such an extension.
Photo of Culture Minister Marc Miller (right)
