National Press And Media Council Urges Strong Unified Front

The historic gathering of ethnic publishers and editors from across Canada in Toronto last weekend marked a strong recognition of the contribution this parallel press is making to Canada's cultural, social and political fabric. The more than 50 gathered newsmen vowed to tackle several challenges facing their industry, mainly that they are having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to keep afloat and should be given assistance by the government.

By R. Paul Dhillon

TORONTO - More than 50 ethnic newspaper publishers and editors gathered in downtown Toronto last weekend for an historic meeting to chalk out a plan to help make Canada's parallel media a vibrant and thriving business entity.

The Forum, which was hosted by the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada in cooperation with Heritage Canada, held numerous sessions during a day-long round table discussions on ethno cultural periodicals, with publishers and editors from across Canada at the Marriott Hotel on Saturday.

Some of the topics for discussion included the challenges of obtaining government and private advertising for ethno cultural periodicals, and, the challenges facing ethno cultural periodical in the short, medium and long terms.

 During the day-long discussion - there were numerous presentations and introductions by several representatives of the industry as well as by members of the academic world.

 "We believe that it was a good opportunity for the concerns and aspirations of the ethnic press to be voiced at the discussions," said Council president Thomas S. Saras - who worked extremely hard to organize the event.

 "And now we can move together in a more unified front to deal with the issues and challenges that we are facing in the ethnic media business in Canada."

A number of resolutions were passed, including the Council lobbying the government on behalf of it's members to provide advertising and other forms of monetary assistance. The group voted unanimously to have the government abolish the GST on advertising for the ethnic media in Canada.

During the evening's reception, The LINK along with other members of the ethnic press were honoured with Awards. The LINK won the Award for Best Editorial (English language) for it's editor R. Paul Dhillon.