Canada. Royal Commission on Newspapers : The Royal Commission on Newspapers was established under Orders in Council P.C. 2343, 3 September 1980 and P.C. 2483 and P.C. 2484, 15 September 1980, under Part I of the Inquiries Act (R.S.C., 1970, c.I-13) and on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. The Commission was mandated to inquire into and report upon the daily newspaper industry in Canada, specifically into the concentration of the ownership and control of the industry and into the recent closing of newspapers, with particular reference to: (a) the degree to which the present situation in the newspaper industry has affected or might affect fulfilment of the newspaper industry's responsibilities to the public; (b) the consequences of the elimination of daily newspapers for individual citizens and community life in those cities where a newspaper has been eliminated in recent years; (c) the consequence of the present situation in the newspaper industry for the political, economic, social and intellectual vitality and cohesion of the nation as a whole; (d) and such measures as might be warranted to remedy any matter that the commission considers should be remedied as a result of the concentration of the ownership and control of the industry and the recent closing of newspapers. The commissioners were Thomas Worrall Kent, Chairman; Laurent A. Picard and Borden Spears. The secretary was Nicholas Gwyn.
On 27 August 1980, the Ottawa Journal, owned by Thomson Newspapers Ltd, and the Winnipeg Tribune, owned by Southam Inc., ceased publication. The closure of these two long-established newspapers eliminated direct competition in Ottawa and Winnipeg between Thomson and Southam. The closures not only marked a decline in the number of dailies published in Canada, but the ownership and control of the newspaper industry was becoming concentrated in fewer hands.
Almost immediately, Joe Clark, the Leader of the Opposition, and Senator Keith Davey, the former chairman of the Special Senate Committee on the Mass Media of 1970, called for some type of federal inquiry into the closing of the newspapers and into the concentration of ownership of newspapers in Canada. As a result, on 3 September 1980, the Government of Canada appointed a Royal Commission to determine whether the elimination of competition and the concentration of newspaper ownership seriously affected the role of the press in informing the public.
A separate investigation, launched under the Combines Investigation Act (R.S.C., 1970, c.C-23), led to charges being laid under the conspiracy and merger provisions of the act. The defendants included Thomson, Southam and a number of other companies involved in newspaper ownership (see Globe and Mail, Toronto, 29 August and 1 September 1980; Royal Commission on Newspapers, Hull, Supply and Services Canada, 1981, p. xi; and I.A. Litvik and C.J. Maule, "Competition Policy and Newspapers in Canada", the Antitrust Bulletin, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, Summer 1983, pp. 461-481). RG33-126 General Inventory
