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Unifor's Media Council celebrated its 31st anniversary in Victoria, B.C. this year at Victoria’s Empress Hotel, bringing together delegates from across the country to talk about the impact of the U.S. trade war on the media sector, battling misinformation, and reporting on sensitive topics.
Unifor National President Lana Payne told the council that the “shakedown is real” when it comes to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and extortion tactics.
“It’s become painfully clear that the goal of the Trump administration is to severely weaken the Canadian economy, drive production and manufacturing work to the United States. But it will not stop there,” said Payne in her address.
“He will come for the media industry. He will come for our telecommunications. He will make sure that he is coming for dairy and everything else.”
Payne closed with a message of solidarity to media workers.
“We are truly the democracy the world needs right now,” she said.
“We must have the courage to push back and fight for the kind of world that we actually know is possible.”
In her address, Unifor Media Council Chair Julie Kotsis said the media industry is under attack on many levels, including artificial intelligence.
“Funding, regulation and the monopolies of giant American corporations changed the game,” Kotsis said.
She urged the council to endorse Unifor’s Protect Canadian Jobs campaign, noting that "92% of digital dollars are now going to non-Canadian platforms, which puts the sustainability of Canadian media in jeopardy."
Kotsis provided a message of solidarity to all in the room.
“Get a news subscription, get cable, watch your independent news, buy a newspaper, and protect Canadian media — to protect Canadian jobs,” she said.
The first day of the council opened with Indigenous drummers Christine Sam and Bertha Dick.
Unifor Western Regional Director Gavin McGarrigle gave delegates updates on current strikes and victories, Unifor's role in political change across Canada, and celebrated the rise of laid-off worker-built news outlets, inspired by journalists who turned Glacier Media’s March 2025 closures into a worker-owned Tri-Cities news co-op.
“I stood with Local 2000 at their press conference and fundraising launch this summer,” he said. “Their story embodies what happens when journalists and communities take their future into their own hands.”
McGarrigle also criticized B.C. Premier David Eby for failing to exempt newspapers from recycling fees – an act which the Ontario government stopped in 2022, but B.C. has yet to catch up.
“We’ll keep pressing until the Eby government exempts newspapers and steps up to protect local journalists,” he said.
Keynote speaker and CHEK News journalist and media producer Tchadas Leo shared his non-linear career trajectory starting from age 12, volunteering at a community TV network, later, working in a restaurant and as a car salesperson, before returning to journalism during Covid.
He described his mixed-heritage—Homalco First Nation, Peruvian, and Argentinian—and how it shaped his identity and storytelling. It led to creating the “Our People, Our History” and “Indigenous Voices of Vancouver” podcasts, where his work eventually earned national awards.
“I never saw somebody like myself behind the desk, somebody who would look like me,” he said.
“I just would love to see somebody who looks like me. And I'm realizing now that I've always had it in the back of my head and it's really fuelling a lot of what I do now. I became the first Homalco person to anchor and speak our language on our territory.”
He emphasized that reconciliation in media means collaboration, not isolation.
“If it was just Indigenous people telling these stories, there wouldn’t be enough. We would miss 100 or 1,000 more stories…why not do it together?” he said.
After Leo’s presentation, delegates toured the B.C. Legislature.
The second day of the council began with a thought-provoking panel discussion on how to report with empathy on social crisis issues.
The panel explored how journalists report on the housing, addiction, and overdose crisis — particularly in Victoria, BC’s Pandora Avenue area. Reporters Kori Sidaway from CHEK News in Victoria, Nancy Macdonald from the Globe and Mail’s Vancouver bureau, and Olivier Laurin from Black Press Media in Victoria and Courtenay, B.C., shared personal experiences, ethical challenges, and lessons on trauma and representation when covering communities in crisis.
Building trust means listening first, recording later, and showing people they’re seen, not used.
“You try to approach your stories with a level of empathy but also with the humility that you don’t really understand — you haven’t walked in their shoes,” said Sidaway.
“We’re very aware of our 5 p.m. newscast showing up on people’s dinner tables. We don’t need to show someone shooting up. The story is how they got there.”
Delegates broke out into smaller groups to participate in two workshops – mental health toolkit for media workers; and owning your own media outlet.
In his report, Unifor Media Director Randy Kitt warned the group about political threats to media policy.
“The Americans don’t want to pay at all and want a completely free ride here,” Kitt said.
“There are many stakeholders attending these [Canadian Radio-Television and Communications Commission] hearings and there are many different visions for the future of Canadian broadcasting. But Unifor is one of the only voices that talks about workers and employment. It is not a given that these hearing will yield the results necessary to ensure a healthy Canadian media landscape—that includes properly-funded local news.”
Kitt also put the spotlight on AI.
“It's not just a media [sector] problem, it’s bigger than all of us, but make no mistake—we're right in the middle of the storm,” he said.
“But if we're active in our union, our union will be active for us on that front. I think that AI will have a place in all our futures, but if we have our way, it will not displace workers. It will support workers. And when we talk about guardrails on AI, that must mean human oversight.”
Trevor Dixon from Media Action Plan shared its recent hard-hitting Fact-Checked campaign, which aims to remind Canadians that news from a trusted news source is news that has been fact-checked, reviewed, and verified.
Rob Germain, the CEO of CHEK News, shared the uplifting story of when CanWest announced the TV station's closure in 2009, the majority of employees who invested in saving the station were Unifor members, who still hold nearly $300K in CHEK shares today.
"Here we are, more than 16 years later. Still independent, still local, and still employee-owned,” he said.
Germain credits the outcome to the heavy-lifting of then-Unifor Media One President Richard Konwick, who led the charge, “the glue that helped the employees stick together, who never gave up.”
"CHEK is redefining media not through technology or branding, but through ownership and trust," added Germain. "When the people who gather the news own the newsroom, their only loyalty is to their community, not to shareholders chasing quarterly profits."
Economist Jim Stanford began the final day of the council with a talk on U.S. President Donald Trump’s lies to justify his attack tariffs on Canada.
“Trump is shooting himself in one foot by making inputs more expensive for U.S. businesses, and in the other foot by damaging the economy of his biggest customer,” he said.
“The unemployment rate has grown from 5% to 7%...purely because of Donald Trump.”
Stanford encouraged a tougher “Elbows up” strategy for the Canadian government and linked economics to media freedom.
“Right-wing forces in America have used misinformation to get where they are,” he said. “They want to do the same thing in Canada. Defending the viability, the accountability, the Canadian-ness of the media, and the safety of media workers…that’s so central to the fight for the Canada that we want.”
Delegates heard Unifor Indigenous Relations Director Gina Smoke give information on how journalists can be respectful and empathetic while engaging in Indigenous reporting.
Unifor National Representative Jennifer Moreau gave an update on campaigns and actions from the International Federation of Journalists.
Unifor Local 614-M in Quebec received the council’s Organizing Award this year for Montreal radio station CJAD-800 — a station that 90% of the English-language market relies on — for showing courage in getting workers to sign union cards despite decades of intimidation from their bosses, misinformation and inequity in the workplace.
“For decades, if somebody was to whisper the word, ‘union,’ they would automatically get fired on the spot by management,” said Stephane Giroux, president of Local 614-M, noting the members hope to get their first contract before Christmas.
