Keep Federal Support of Literary, Scholarly and Arts Magazines

We, the undersigned residents of Canada, wish to bring to your attention the following:

From policies pre-dating Confederation, the Government of Canada has supported programs to help Canadians both receive and create periodical publications about arts, literary, and scholarly matters created by Canadians devoted to enriching and informing our cultural and intellectual life at home and around the world.

If funding is indeed restricted to magazines with 5000 or above in paid circulation, virtually all of our Canadian arts, literary, and scholarly journals will be denied the funding they have been receiving for many years through the Canada Magazine Fund and the Postal Assistance Program, both of which programs the new Canada Periodical Fund will replace.

Proposed eligibility criteria, while apparently designed to achieve efficiencies, will cause long-term damage to the capacity of these important and unique periodicals to remain a source for readers and a vehicle for Canada’s writers, artists, and researchers.

We petitioners do not believe that the commercial success of for-profit magazines equals a greater level of cultural relevance than award-winning not-for-profit publications. We value the development and support of Canadian writers, artists and scholars that these magazines provide. THEREFORE, we petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to ensure that the criteria of the new Canada Periodical Fund sustain current federal funding investments in Canada’s vital arts, literary, and scholarly magazines.