Canada’s local news collapse is a threat to political accountability

In too many communities, Facebook outrage is replacing real news

Canada is losing both local newsrooms and the journalism programs that train future reporters, deepening a growing crisis in democratic accountability. Unless governments step in, more communities will be left without reliable local coverage or meaningful scrutiny of public institutions.

Langara College in Vancouver is now considering pausing its journalism program, and faculty believe the pause could become permanent. It is the latest in a long list of such closures. More than 40 journalism programs in Canada have been suspended or shuttered since 2020, according to the Durham Chronicle.

These cuts in training and education are happening at the same time that local news in Canada is collapsing, and millions of Canadians are living with little or no local journalism coverage. Together, the disappearance of local newsrooms and of the programs that train journalists are threatening democratic life in Canada.

The collapse of local news in Canada is not itself news. My research shows that nearly 2.5 million Canadians live in areas with only one or no local news outlets, and the collapse of the funding model is to blame.

Since the rise of the internet, the advertising dollars that once supported local news have migrated to social media and search companies.

Similarly, the funding model for post-secondary journalism programs has faltered. As those universities and colleges came to rely on high international student tuition—because provincial governments failed to ensure that funding kept up with rising costs or they actively cut it—they became dependent on a single and uncertain source of income.

When the federal government drastically cut the number of international student visas in 2024, university and college budgets began to run dry.

Journalism training programs are essential to maintain. They produce the local reporters, editors and writers whose work informs Canadians about their government and society.

Closing journalism schools during a local news crisis deepens democratic decline. And pivoting training programs away from journalism and toward communications, as Langara College has said it may do, risks supplanting the public-service mission of journalism with the market-driven priorities of public relations.

Without trusted local journalism, community oversight diminishes and misinformation spreads more easily online. Statistics Canada says nearly half of Canadians find it difficult to distinguish between true and false news. This will only worsen.

Experts warn this is already becoming a serious threat to Canadian democracy and stability.

The Toronto suburb of Vaughan already shows us what the future without journalism looks like. It is among the cities in Canada with the most news deprivation. It houses a third of a million people, and yet has only one print outlet.

In the place of local reporters who would once have broken stories about gaps in protections for new homebuyers due to faulty building codes, it’s now left to Vaughan’s local residents to pen outraged posts on Facebook. This shows how the lack of consistent, dedicated, professional news coverage allows developers and special interests to influence municipal policy with minimal oversight.

Reversing this trend is essential to preserve Canadian democracy and stability.

David Macdonald is a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, specializing in Canadian public policy and fiscal analysis.