It’s a delicate balance — ensuring information is publicly available in a timely manner and tax dollars are wisely spent and municipalities are looking at ways to more efficiently get provincially mandated notifications out to the public.
But critics are concerned that municipal bylaw changes could inhibit transparency in communities and also impact the local media scene.
At the end of April, two Alberta municipalities — the Town of Banff and the Town of Sylvan Lake — brought forth motions to make changes to their public notification bylaws.
The ability to make these changes comes after legislation changes to the Municipal Government Act (MGA) in 2017.
Changes in the act allowed municipalities to choose their own method of communicating bylaws, council meetings, and public hearings, including through social media and their own websites, while potentially bypassing local newspapers.
Ultimately, Banff town council unanimously voted down the proposed public notification bylaw whereas councillors in the Town of Sylvan Lake voted in favour of a proposed bylaw change.
The change in the bylaw means the Town of Sylvan Lake can advertise legally required notices in a newspaper, by mail or delivered to every residence in the area, or on a website or social media.
“Any two of those methods. That leaves things open for them to simply put the notices on their website and on their social media channels and omit the newspaper entirely," said Dennis Merrell executive director of the Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association (AWNA).
“That is what we expect will happen."
Merrell said they have always had concerns about the change to the MGA and the potential for municipalities to exclude newspapers.
“We know there are municipalities out there that are only doing this notification through digital media channels. And that's not good enough,” he said.
Merrill worries the townspeople of Sylvan Lake and other municipalities won’t be aware of things like development permits or bylaws and will not be able to have their say in a matter.
“A good percentage of people might not even know (council) approved that permit or passed that bylaw,” he said.
Merrell argues that social media and municipal websites aren’t always accessed by the public and that the intended audience won’t necessarily be reached.
Under the MGA municipalities are required to publish notices at least once a week for two consecutive weeks “in a locally circulating newspaper, mailed or delivered to every residence in the area, or by another means adopted by council in a bylaw (advertising bylaw),” said Kim Devlin, director of planning and development for the Town of Sylvan Lake in an email.
Devlin said the intent of the bylaw was to have options available to make decisions as effectively as possible in the best interests of the community, and because the local newspaper runs only once weekly, they have had to delay council meetings to meet advertising requirements.
“Urgent bylaw changes during COVID-19 took over two weeks before we could hold a special meeting of council. The new advertising bylaw will allow us to post a notice of a meeting on the town’s website and hold the meeting quicker than if we had to wait for weekly publishing timelines in the newspaper,” she said.
Devlin said they still plan to advertise public notices in the newspaper as well as on their Sylvan Lake website.
“What might change is the length and detail of newspaper ads,” she said.
Changing media in rural communities
Paul McLauchlin, president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) said the change to the MGA has been positive as small-town media has changed.
Distribution has changed and his farm in Rimbey no longer receives the local newspaper.
“People are looking to the websites of their councils, looking for other media connections, and other ways to get their information. We’ve actually seen rural municipalities develop their own apps that are pushing out notifications to their communities based upon (bylaw changes),” he said.
McLauchlin said communication methods are changing and in the case of natural disasters they have been able to “shore up their communication channels.”
“A majority of the rural municipalities have really shored up their communication channels, whether it's Twitter, Facebook, I don't think there's Tik Toks out there yet, but it’s definitely upped the game as it relates to media channels and information channels,” he said.
McLauchlin acknowledged there is a downside to the shift to social media channels.
“If you start using social media as your local media channel, unless it's an authorized media channel, and you've got misinformation you need to provide as much authorized information as possible to counter misinformation,” he said.
He is also very concerned with losing the “local media touch.”
“Civics 101 is to have an informed public. I think we’re probably losing touch with that — having an informed public."
“I think in the long game, misinformation is really a threat to local informed democracies. We have to work harder as elected officials to ensure that more information is flowing out to people — and the correct information,” he said.
Municipalities across the province have slowly been passing bylaws to change the way they notify the public.
Merrell said he anecdotally, he knows from AWNA members that communities have passed the bylaw, but the exact number isn’t being tracked by anyone.
The Municipal District of Bonnyville passed their own public notification bylaw back in February. And other communities that have passed notification bylaws include Rocky View County, the City of Edmonton, Leduc County, the City of Lacombe, the Town of Morinville, and the City of Chestermere.
“I would say that we can safely say that in excess of 20 or 30 municipalities have enacted bylaws, a lot of them haven't done it because they don't see that they don't see any need to do it — like St. Albert and Banff that have defeated the bylaws. It's not a case of every municipality out there has done this, but we know lots have,” said Merrell.
Jason Lyon, publisher for the Rocky Mountain Outlook, said he was caught off guard when Banff town council proposed the public notification bylaw.
“We didn't understand why they were proposing it and then really seeing no objection coming from the public or anyone else kind of reinforced the fact that we felt that this was something that was just being brought forward by administration and really not based on any true need,” he said.
Lyon said they looked at surveys on the town of Banff and how people wanted to get their information, and newspapers traditionally and continue to be one of the highest-ranking ways the public wants to receive that information.
Lyon said his main concern was with public engagement.
“We had a few concerns, mainly centered around the public's need to have certain information available and readily available for them to make proper decisions on things that are happening and occurring in their community.
“We felt that this bylaw even though it purportedly would give the Town of Banff another option to advertise on their website or use other means…we felt that some of those methods such as just putting something up on the Town of Banff website didn't satisfy the need to essentially inform substantially all people within the Town of Banff,” he said.
Revenue Concerns
Another concern for Lyon is what the lack of advertising dollars from municipalities means for local newspapers.
“Over the last 10 years…federal government and provincial government funding has stepped away from community newspapers and it has been spent in other mediums such as social media, web advertising — it’s something that's obviously incredibly cheap, but we're not really confident that that's reaching people,” he said.
“Is this the start of slippery slope,” Lyon continued, “that could lead to municipal governments also choosing to step away from local community newspapers and —as most people are aware— funding that pays our salaries that keeps the light on comes from advertising directly. Any loss is, is something that we get concerned about.”
Dr. Alfred Hermida, a professor at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism, said one of the challenges facing local newspapers is the decline in traditional advertising revenue and advertising has been a major source of income for media both regionally and locally.
“In some ways, it increases this reliance on local government advertising as a source of revenue to support and sustain the print operation,” he said.
Hermida said “local government advertising has been a mainstay of essentially an indirect government subsidy of the media.”
“It’s a broad discussion here: is it the role of local government to indirectly subsidize your local newspaper by advertising in it? Or is the role of local government to try to inform and reach Canadians and go to where they are in the ways that works for those Canadians?” he said.
Hermida said the main source of news for most Canadians is online.
“Municipalities are under a duty to try to alert audiences about what's happening there. And you know, they have a duty to post an announcement. I think it makes sense to go where the audience is,” he said.
Online advertising also costs less than traditional print and if a municipality runs their own social media accounts and posts their own media notices, they are not paying for advertising, he said.
Part of the larger debate, said Hermida is what the role of local government or regional government or national government, is in supporting media.
“You would expect your counsel to spend your property taxes in a responsible way. If they can advertise online, it's going to cost less than in print then you could argue that's a good use of my money as a citizen as a member of that community.
“At the same time, local government advertising has been an indirect form of subsidy for local newspapers that serve a purpose in that community and help our community to flourish. There's no right or wrong. Essentially you're balancing one thing against the other,” he said.
Hermida said Nordic countries, 50 per cent of a newspaper’s costs are subsidized by the state.
“And that is seen as fine because a vibrant local ecosystem of journalism is seen as an important part of civic life. And in Nordic countries, they see it as part of the role of the government to support that sort of media ecosystem,” he said.
The broader debate of the debate in Canada is what is the role of local news.
“Who are the audiences and then what is the role of government, either through indirect subsidies like advertising, or more direct subsidies?” he said.
Both Lyon and Merrell disagreed with the notion of municipalities giving newspapers indirect subsidies through advertising revenue.
“You could flip that around,” said Lyon. “Are municipalities subsidizing businesses that are not even based in Canada or based in those communities. I would think that if a municipality wanted to support a business, that they would choose to support a business that is located within their community.”
Lyon said newspapers need to take responsibility for what they’re doing and produce good quality newspapers and the community needs to trust what those newspapers are reporting.
“I think if that that trust isn't there, or if they're not putting out good quality publications, then I think it's much easier for a municipality to step away and just say, ‘Listen, this local newspaper that used to be wonderful and great isn't what it used to be; therefore, we've had to look somewhere else.’”
