Canada Magazine Fund review recommends cuts in aid to literary and arts magazines

Canadian Heritage will be ending Support for Arts & Literary Magazines (SALM) and making major changes to the Support for Editorial Content (SEC).

A review of the Canada Magazine Fund has been underway since last summer. The report has just been released and can be read here. The report includes recommendations from the consultants, management discussion of the recommendations and deadlines for implementation.

The CMF was created in 1999. The review covers the years 2000 to 2005 and was mandated by the Treasury Board to ensure that the funding (now about $16 million annually) is spent in an efficient and accountable way.

• The support for Canadian editorial content, originally intended to offset the impact of foreign split runs coming into Canada, has been ineffective and should be replaced by an incentive-based system. This may include "the use of a reward of PAP funding or a tax credit for the production of editorial content. Alternate forms of support should be explored, although attention should be paid to ensure that the types of support do not disadvantage smaller and/or less profitable publishers." A study is to be completed by December 2006. This may have a significant impact on large circulation magazines such as Maclean's and Chatelaine which now get a major injection of cash from the CMF.
  
• If support for arts and literary magazines is to be continued (and that is a big if) then it should be done through the Canada Council, says the report. " The Department believes that funding for arts and literary magazines should be the sole responsibility of the Canada Council, and that the $1M for SALM should be redirected to other components of the CMF. The Department will have one final SALM funding run in 2006-2007 to ensure that there is sufficient time for client groups to be properly notified about the change." (In other words, CMF is putting the $1 million elsewhere in CMF, not giving it to the Canada Council.)
  
• Mid-range and special interest publications seem to benefit more than other magazines from support for editorial content. A review will be made to rebalance this and direct the money to where it will do the most good.
  
• An efficiency review will be held on CMF. Administrative spending, which at present runs at 11 cents for every contribution dollar is higher than other areas within Canadian Heritage.
• It is recommended that better data be gathered and published about the industry, but it's not clear by whom. Some suggestion is made that a special run may be asked for from Statistics Canada, although Statscan has already said it will no longer gather raw material from the industry in a "census", but merely ask a limited number of questions from a representative sample of magazines.