REPORTS - NEWS
Canada: RSF calls on parliamentary candidates to make specific commitments to counter threats to the safety and sustainability of journalism
Canadians will head to the polls on 28 April at an inflection point for Canadian media. Traditionally a country that performs well on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, Canada is nevertheless confronting challenges to the safety of journalists and the long-term sustainability of their craft. RSF urges candidates for parliament to take steps to ensure their country leads the way globally in press freedom at a time when journalism is being threatened around the world.
Canada’s long history of protecting press freedom gives the country an opportunity to establish itself as a true global leader in the space at a time when both political and economic forces are arrayed against journalism. First, however, Canadian leaders need to take certain concrete steps to shore up protections for press freedom and invest in quality, independent journalism.
“The RSF World Press Freedom Index has long documented Canada’s strong protections for press freedom, as Canada has consistently ranked among the top 20 countries. Notably, Canadian journalists enjoy relatively safe conditions, with no journalists killed or imprisoned in the last decade. However, for Canada to maintain its position at the top of the Index and become a global leader in press freedom worldwide, policymakers need to tackle some of the larger existential problems confronting Canadian media.
Clayton Weimers
Executive Director, RSF North America
Given the threats facing journalists and journalism in Canada today, RSF makes the following recommendations for the next Canadian government:
Strengthen law enforcement training to prevent unlawful arrests of journalists.
The incoming government should exert its political will on Day One to commit to the creation of national guidance and training for all federal and local police on how to respect the Charter rights of journalists, particularly to avoid arrests and confrontations during public demonstrations.
Journalists covering protests and public demonstrations face a heightened risk of police interference in their work. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), as well as other provincial and local law enforcement agencies, are making a growing habit of arresting and/or detaining journalists reporting on matters of public interest.
This pattern of behavior is unacceptable. RSF has noted two recent high-profile cases that illustrate the problem.
In 2024, police in Edmonton arrested Brandi Morin as she reported on their sweep through a homeless encampment in a public space. The RCMP arrested another journalist, Amber Bracken, while she was covering an indigenous protest against the construction of a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia, and detained her for three days. The RCMP argued that Bracken was not a journalist, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
These arrests and others that RSF has documented illustrate a lingering uncertainty for Canadian police in how to interact with members of the media in the field and in defiance of established legal precedents.
2. Uphold the funding and editorial independence of public broadcasting.
At a time when small newsrooms across the country are shuttering and citizens are turning increasingly to unreliable sources of information online, Canada should reinforce the strengths of its public broadcasting services while respecting its independence.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) plays a vital role in ensuring that citizens have access to reliable non-commercial news and information. Defunding the CBC, as one candidate has already suggested, would create more news deserts and where mis- and disinformation spread like wildfire. The CBC is able to reach Canadians from coast to coast living in sparsely populated areas of the country where the media are not commercially viable and in eight Indigenous languages.
3. Develop a more cohesive approach to support the sustainability of quality journalism
With increasing economic pressure on all media, quality journalism plays a critical role in the proper functioning of democratic society. Over the past several years, governments across Canada have taken actions to support the production and dissemination of quality journalism.
At the federal level this has consisted of numerous programs, including: the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit, the Local Journalism Initiative, and the Subscription Tax Credit. The federal government has also introduced the Registered Journalism Organization (RJO) designation so news organizations can act as qualified donees. Similarly, in March 2025, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted Google a five-year exemption under the Online News Act, a law which aims to make platforms compensate news media for their content, in return for $100 million CAD annually to be disbursed to qualified news organizations. Legislation has also been passed compelling streaming platforms to reinvest in local news.
What is needed amidst this patchwork of policies is a comprehensive and consistent strategy that helps enable the media to innovate and find news models of sustainability. To this end, RSF supports the recommendations of the Foreign Interference Commission led by Quebec judge Marie-Josée Hogue, which suggest modernizing “media funding and economic models to support professional media, including local and foreign language media, while preserving media independence and neutrality.”
4. Ban spying on journalists
Canada has no legislation regulating spyware use. That must change. A recent report from CitizenLab found that multiple police services across Ontario alone were secretly purchasing commercial spyware products. Parliament should enact safeguards against the abuse of commercial spyware, require more transparency from the agencies using spyware, and ban the use of spyware against journalists.
5. Reform the federal Access to Information Act
Canada’s Access to Information Act was designed to “enhance the accountability and transparency of federal institutions in order to promote an open and democratic society and to enable public debate on the conduct of those institutions.” Forty years later, experts agree that Canada’s federal Access to Information Act is broken. Generations of Information Commissioners, journalists and politicians of all stripes have noted the delays, exemptions, and fees standing in the way of transparency. RSF calls on all political parties to explain to Canadians how they will strive to modernize the federal Access to Information Act once in government.
