Quebecor will not appeal the decision by the Quebec Supreme Court, which ruled in February that the Quebec Press Council can handle complaints about all media, including Quebecor’s.

This was announced by the Quebec Press Council (CPQ) in a statement published on Thursday.

“The public can therefore continue to rely on the Press Council as a means of filing a complaint if they believe that a Quebecor media outlet — or any other Quebec news outlet — has failed to respect ethical standards of journalism, as described in the Guide de déontologie du Conseil de presse du Québec”, stresses the Council.

In an interview with The Canadian Press on Friday, Quebec Press Council President Pierre-Paul Noreau said he was “extremely pleased with Quebecor’s decision and, of course, extremely pleased with the verdict first rendered by the Honorable Judge Bernard Joline.” .

By judgment of February 17, the court dismissed the 2018 motion for injunctive relief and damages brought by Groupe TVA and MédiaQMI, which publishes notably the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec.

These two Quebecor entities wanted the CPQ to stop handling public complaints about them since they had withdrawn from the organization. They also sought several hundred thousand dollars for reputational damage caused by unfavorable decisions.

Judge Bernard Jolin concluded that the “Council enjoys the freedom of expression protected by the Charter” and that “the decisions taken at the conclusion of its appeals process are the result of the exercise of that freedom”.

He also argued that “nothing compels MédiaQMI and TVA to join this organization”. Your right to freedom of association and the right to freedom of association are not violated by the complaint-handling mechanism, the judge continued.

Mr Noreau reiterated that this decision allows the Press Council to “look ahead”.

“It came down to legitimizing the work of the council, it came down to giving more credibility to our work, since we were challenging certain decisions and the judge, for his part, said it was really done in a normal and reasonable way and with freedom of speech had the right to speak up,” he emphasizes.

Quebecor did not respond to a request for comment from The Canadian Press.

Groupe TVA and MédiaQMI left the Press Council in 2008 and 2010, respectively. To justify their departure, Quebecor newspapers said they were dissatisfied with the complaints-handling procedure, and in particular criticized the weak justification of the decisions and their arbitrary nature.

Despite her absence, the CPQ continued to investigate the complaints against her. Two of them were reprimanded by the Press Council.

These decisions regarding the Journal de Montréal were at the heart of Quebecor’s legal action. In his eyes, they damaged the reputation of the media.

The Quebec Press Council has now been operating for 50 years. It constitutes a self-regulatory mechanism for the print and electronic press, but has no judicial, regulatory, legislative or coercive powers. It acts as a court of honor and therefore imposes no sanction other than the moral sanction.

Increased Funding

The CPQ also recently initiated a “major shift” by deciding to seek outside donors to support its mission. It continues to be funded mainly through membership fees from its members – journalist organizations – and government grants.

The latter, from the Department of Culture and Communications, has risen from $250,000 to $350,000 a year, the CPQ announced in its latest annual report.

“We want to look for external donors because we want to secure the future of the Council in the medium and long term. In terms of profitability, the media faces a challenge that has not yet been resolved,” said the President of the CPQ.

Mr Noreau assures that despite a small deficit the Council is not experiencing financial difficulties this year but that demand is increasing.

“The Press Council receives more complaints than before (…) and we are responsible for making decisions on these complaints relatively quickly, so we brought in an analyst and computerized our complaints system,” he explains.

The council received 470 complaints from the public and opened 230 cases in 2022.

The CPQ understands external donors in particular to be large companies and organizations “who want democracy to be well protected and for the media to fulfill their role of providing quality information,” says Noreau.

However, he assures that these bodies will have no say in the CPQ’s decisions.

“The process is not fully complete, but it is clear that there is a perfectly watertight wall between you, the donors, and us, the members, in the sense that you stick to the mission but have no control over how we work,” emphasizes Mr. Noreau.

The CPQ also welcomed two new members in 2022: Groupe Contex (Les Affaires) and La Presse Canadienne.