With only about one in five Canadians willing to pay for digital news, a new report argues for a menu of policy solutions to keep fact-based journalism sustainable.

Making News Media Sustainable: Options for the Long Term, by Sen. Andrew Cardozo and MediaPolicy.ca editor Howard Law, sets out 15 policy ideas. They range from requiring federal and provincial governments to place at least half of their advertising with Canadian media to strengthening copyright protections against AI companies that use journalism without compensating its creators.

The report’s premise is stark: The advertising model that long supported Canadian journalism no longer generates enough revenue, while subscriptions have failed to fill the gap. Many Canadians instead get news from free sources, including CBC/Radio-Canada, social media and other digital platforms.

Cardozo and Law argue that the contraction of the news industry undermines democracy. Public policy, they write, must recognize the “democratic imperatives of a strong news ecosystem and independent journalism.”

Between 2008 and October 2025, 603 news outlets closed in 388 communities across Canada, according to News Media Canada. Some 440 of those closures were community newspapers that published fewer than five times a week.

The industry’s decline can also be measured in thousands of job losses in the past decade as newspapers shuttered or cut back and broadcasters such as CBC/Radio-Canada, Bell Media and Corus reduced staff.

The report nevertheless points to new digital news outlets as bright spots in a declining industry.

The Cardozo-Law report recommends maintaining existing public funding and tax incentives for media outlets. It also suggests tax law incentives could make it easier for charitable foundations to support journalism.

The report also discusses policy and transparency, funding private media debt, community broadcasting, freelancers and AI.

When it comes to AI, the report suggests the government should strengthen intellectual property rights for news organizations — something that was not mentioned in AI for All, the federal government’s national strategy released in June. World Press Freedom Canada raised the same concern in response to the report.

Cardozo and Law argue the Online News Act should be amended to include “AI companies and their chat products as digital news intermediaries.”