$100-Million Fund Fuels Row Between Ethnic Press and Gov't

Volume 7, Issue No. 26

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . 

Our latest as of Friday, November 14, 2025 

~ The federal government has apparently left out Canada's mostly print-based ethnic media from accessing the $100-million contribution by Google to the implementation of the recently-passed Online News Act, sparking hostility and condemnation from local press officials. In another development, meanwhile, the conjugal editors at a Filipino tabloid appear to have been delisted from a media list, setting off speculation they were being rebuked for their lies and deception that had victimized two of their writers. 

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ONLINE NEWS ACT 

Gov't Excludes Ethnic Press

From $100-Million Funding

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“The only thing that hurts about a rebuke is the truth.” ― Karl Marlantes

TORONTO - The National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) is up in arms over its claim that it had been excluded from new funding by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The not-for-profit organization consisting of over 300 members (based on listing on its website) across the country said the non-inclusion amounted to a repudiation of its status and a denial of "equality rights" enjoyed by mainstream and indigenous publications.

It's considering pleading its case "before the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the UNHCR (sic) to ensure the respect of the provisions of the Canadian Charter of rights." (By UNHCR, did it mean United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or it meant United Nations Commission on Human Rights now replaced by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights?)

The evolving dispute centers on $100 million Google Search is allocating as its annual contribution to various news businesses in line with Canada's Online News Act passed by Parliament in June 2023.

According to the government, the act "aims to ensure that dominant platforms compensate news businesses when their content is made available on their services."

It explains that the act "creates a bargaining framework to ensure that platforms compensate news businesses fairly. It encourages platforms to reach voluntary commercial agreements with a range of news businesses."

The NEPMCC maintains that Canadian Heritage "completely excludes ethnic publications from the distribution of the amount of 100 million dollars."

Canadian Heritage "is deliberately discriminating against Canadian print outlets operating in and for clientele publishing in a third language (non-English or French)," NEPMCC said in a resolution dated November 10, 2025.

" . . . such action is not only offensive to all the ethnic communities of Canada, it also denies them the rights to equal and equitable funding access and benefits of government cultural and linguistic programs now skewed disproportionately to mainstream Anglophone and Francophone publications," the resolution stated.

An electronic copy of the resolution, leaked to this reporter this week and not available on the NEPMCC website, was signed by Dr. Mohammad Tajdolati, chair of the Special General Meeting; Neel Nanda, secretary general; and Thomas S. Saras, president and CEO. The three officials were not immediately available for comment.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in a separate but related development, the names of Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia, co-editors of the moribund The Philippine Reporter (TPR), and their friends that included Veronica Cusi, Lui Queano, and Rick Esguerra, were significantly missing in the October 2025 list of members in the NEPMCC website.

It's not clear if the names were purposely delisted since only the Garcias are connected to what a ranking NEPMCC official called "technically criminal" activities as recipient of LJI funds. 

(Full story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/09/nepmcc-official-condemns-lies-by-tpr.html)

A former TPR staff writer, Michelle Chermaine Ramos, exposed their deception in managing LJI grant money and lying about it for months, telling her and another writer in Edmonton, Alberta that their salaries - paid by Canadian Heritage in advance in one lump sum - were being withheld by a "grant guy" at Canadian Heritage. It turned out to be fictitious.

(Full story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/06/lies-deceptions-by-philippine-reporter.html).

* * * * *

Most members of NEPMCC - self-described as "Canada's other voices" - are print periodicals serving an estimated three million Canadians who speak neither English nor French, the two official languages.

The NEPMCC said it will initiate measures so that Canadian Heritage "will abandon this policies of discrimination against the ethnic Canadian Communities and their publications and media."

The organization contends Canadian Heritage "is now enforcing policies discriminatory against the ethnic communities and their publications."

Except for an auto generated response, the federal agency has not addressed questions raised by this reporter as of this writing.

NEPMCC president Thomas Saras has also been tasked to work with Canadian Heritage to insure it "will respect the rights, the dignity and integrity of the individual members and of the organization, as they are struggling to inform their communities in their mother tongs (sic), about the Canadian political system, democracy and the Canadian culture."

The $100 million Google contribution is the latest to be made available to electronic news outlets. This could mean that only a few, if ever there is, could qualify among NEPMCC members as most of its members are print-based.

The government considered the fact that most Canadians get their news online, thus the Online News Act. It noted that "in 2022, online advertising revenues in Canada were $14 billion, with two platforms receiving roughly 80 percent of these revenues."

Presently, the NEPMCC is receiving money grants through the Canada Periodical Fund and the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI). In fact, for the period 2021-2025, it received $4.2 million from Canadian Heritage. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).