Article 2 “Owning Our Stories”

Since before Canada became a Confederation, historically under-represented groups have been creating their own media: the first issue of the Provincial Freeman, which was a weekly newspaper edited and published by Black Canadians in the Province of Canada West (now Ontario), was first published on March 24, 1853, while Ojibwa chief, doctor and publisher Peter Edmund Jones, also called Kahkewaquonaby, launched the newspaper The Indian in 1885.

On the surface, the state of diverse media in Canada looks rosy: a 2013 study for Canadian Heritage reported a total of 427 ethnic media print publications across Canada.^[1] But how good a job are these outlets doing of serving their communities and Canadian society as a whole? Are they promoting multiculturalism or keeping diverse groups isolated? And when media outlets of all sizes are facing tough economic times, how sure can we be that they will even survive?

There’s no doubt that APTN is the great success story of Canadian diverse media. Since it first began broadcasting in 1999, the channel has become an essential way for members of Canada’s far-flung Indigenous communities – not to mention Indigenous people living outside of those communities – to stay connected with Indigenous news and culture. It is part of every Canadian cable and satellite provider’s basic package, thanks to the CRTC’s decision to make it a national network, which means that it is accessible to nearly all Canadians. While in its early days its primetime schedule was dominated by imports such as “Northern Exposure” and “Young Riders,” American-made TV shows with a small number of Indigenous cast members, as well as American-made movies with little or no relevance to the Indigenous community such as “Commando” and “Miss Congeniality,” today it offers mostly Indigenous-made programs like “Michif Country” and “Petroglyphs to Pixels.”

APTN is something of an exception, however. Nearly all Canadian channels that cater to historically under-represented groups depend heavily on imported content, and what original content is created is often of poor quality. In 2017, Rogers contracted Chinese-language programming for its OMNI Regional channel to Vancouver-based Fairchild Television, which depends almost entirely on footage bought from other sources and provides little or no analysis of news. Avvy Gao, director of the Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, argued that this arrangement “means eliminating the opportunity for differing views and possibly reducing access to local news by our communities.”^[2] In some cases there are also concerns about the objectivity of the news being reported: media commentator Gloria Fung has speculated that the Chinese government has taken advantage of the financial instability of some Chinese-Canadian media to influence coverage of events such as protests in Tibet and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.^[3]

A desire to not make waves can hamper journalism in other ways as well. Commentators such as Aaron Braverman have observed that media aimed at persons with disabilities shy away from controversy in favour of inspirational stories and lifestyle pieces. Braverman suggests that they want to avoid offending the advertisers and governments that provide their funding – though these often have the most influence on the lives of persons with disabilities.^[4]

As well, the focus on media by and for marginalized groups can mean that these communities are not portrayed any more or better in the mainstream media: Susan G. Cole, a lesbian who is Books and Entertainment Editor at Now Magazine, has criticized Canada’s gay press for not challenging the mainstream’s view of gays and lesbians.^[5]

A larger concern with diverse media is that it may not, in fact, help to make Canada a more multicultural nation. Sherry Yu, of the University of Toronto, argues in her 2018 book that definitions of ethnic media and mainstream media support “the binary framework in which ethnic media is positioned as ‘media for the Other’ and exists in isolation from mainstream media.”^[6] Jorge Ramos, a journalist for the American Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, makes a similar point, saying that while members of many communities rely on diverse community media to be informed, defining him as an ethnic media journalist marginalizes him and makes him feel like an outsider. Still, Ramos says, diverse community media is essential because “We don’t just report the facts, we also understand journalism as a public service.”^[7]

Similarly, Dave Steward III, founder of Lion Forge Animation (an American company that produced the Academy Award -winning short Hair Love), argues that having production and distribution companies owned by members of historically marginalized communities is essential to achieving true, accurate representation: “It’s representation on the screen. It’s representation on the producing side of things. But then also, and I think what’s always missed, is, there needs to be representation in the executive teams that have the power to be able to push the content through. Because if you have content that’s, let’s say, is from a Black creator and has a Black cast, but you have non-Black executives overseeing the projects… there are stories of those executives using their power to change that content based off of their perception and portrayal of a particular group.”^[8] The same is true in Canada: Nathalie Younglai, founder of BIPOC TV and Film, has argued that large production companies discourage meaningful representations of diversity by defining “Canadian” as meaning “White,” saying “How is this Canadian? How does someone in Saskatchewan relate to this?” Because it is typically cheaper to license foreign content than produce it locally, when diversity is represented on Canadian screens it typically reflects American communities.^[9]

There’s no question that Canadian media needs to better reflect our increasingly multicultural community, not to mention recognize other minorities such as 2SLGBTQINA+ people and persons with disabilities. There’s also no question that some outlets, such as APTN, do a surprisingly good job with limited resources. But those limited resources are the bottom line: none of these outlets are sure to survive or remain in the hands of their communities. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of Chinese-language newspapers in the Greater Toronto Area dropped from 30 to two.^[10] Many publications that have survived, from the 2SLGBTQINA+-focused Xtra Magazine to Sing Tao Daily, Canada’s largest Chinese-language newspaper, have moved online-only as a cost-cutting measure. While digital distribution has allowed diverse communities to produce podcasts, streaming services and other programming that wasn’t possible before, it also is unable to reach people who don’t have a reliable internet connection or lack skills to find and access it.