TORONTO – While welcoming Netflix Canada’s pending $500 million investment in Canadian content, Unifor said that Canada’s news industry also needs help, and quickly.
Canada's largest union in the private sector represents some12,000 journalists and media workers in TV, print and online. Unifor national president Jerry Dias said that the cultural and newspaper review must move faster.
"We have to move a lot more quickly on long-term solutions for our news and entertainment industries as audiences and advertising dollars move to the Internet”, Dias said in a statement. “France has done so, Canada should too."
Dias called the absence of a more significant commitment from Google or Facebook to invest in the Canadian news industry “disappointing”, adding that the struggling newspaper industry requires “strong action”.
"Journalists are being laid off and news coverage is sinking because Google and Facebook are grabbing the advertising dollars”, Dias continued. “This government has to respond before it's too late."
