Yes, the Georgia Straight's a paper, but....

Editorial

Last week, the Georgia Straight received a bombshell: A provincial government audit determined that the Straight was not a newspaper under provincial sales tax legislation and assessed fines and penalties that will total more than $1 million. This is discouraging and scary news for any business to receive and we at the Bulletin empathize with the Straight's predicament. However, the response of the Straight has been hard to take.

In the Oct. 9-16 edition of the publication, an article by editor and publisher Dan McLeod graces the cover and, on page 17, there is a non-bylined article called "Q & A about the B.C. Liberals' plan to terminate the Straight." These two pieces combined serve to make the issue less clear, while bringing into focus the arrogance not only of the Liberal government but also of the Georgia Straight.

The issue is whether the Straight is a newspaper. To be considered a newspaper under provincial sales tax legislation, 25 per cent of a publication's space must be devoted to editorial, i.e. non-advertising content. Newspapers that fulfil this obligation do not have to pay the sales tax on their printing costs. The auditor, however, determined that the Straight does not meet this criterion because the auditor doesn't consider the Straight's Time Out section to be editorial content, but rather advertising material, even though the listings in this section are offered at no charge. The Straight is now facing the prospect of having to pay a $1 million penalty, plus adding some $250,000 to its annual costs.

This situation is appalling and it brings fear to a community paper such as the Bulletin because we, too, benefit from the sales tax exemption. What if we are unwittingly considering as editorial content items that an auditor would classify as advertising? For example, we consider our free Community Calendar listings as editorial, and they are similar in nature to the Straight's Time Out section, albeit much less extensive. On this point, we support the Straight fully – the Time Out section should be considered as editorial content. The Georgia Straight should be treated as a newspaper under the tax law.

However, in giving its side of the story, the Straight presents many red herrings, exposes its own identity crisis and launches into mud slinging.

In its Q & A article, the Straight brings up such non-salient points as the fact that the publication has won many journalism awards, so doesn't this make it a newspaper? Answer provided: "Not in the eyes of the Gordon Campbell government." Well, as any award-winner will tell you, journalism awards do not a journalist or newspaper make and it would be irresponsible for any government to make legal judgments about a publication based on what awards it's won. Case in point, the Straight has won many magazine awards and, in its masthead, it bills itself as "Vancouver's news & entertainment magazine."

What type of publication is it then? It doesn't even seem to know.

Another argument that the Straight's writers bring up is that the publication will not consider reducing the size of its Time Out listings. Why not? Answer: "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of the press." What does this have to do with anything? Does the Charter guarantee that Time Out listings will be considered editorial content? Is the Straight's freedom to write pages and pages of editorial criticizing the government being curtailed? Ironically, if they wrote more such articles, they would qualify as a newspaper under the legislation.

But the ultimate low in this Q & A is the many aspersions cast at the Asper family's CanWest Global papers for seemingly no other purpose than to imply that the Aspers' papers don't have to pay the sales tax because the family's company contributes to the B.C. Liberal party. The article points to other connections between CanWest and the premier, but states "This doesn't prove any conspiracy, of course." This is simple childishness and does not serve to garner support for the Straight's arguments but to undermine it.

Oh, and just for the edification of the Straight's editor and publisher, the Georgia Straight is not the "only independent newspaper in Vancouver" nor is it the "only independent media outlet in this city," as he claims in his cover story. While we may only aspire to publish a 100-plus page paper every week, the Bulletin is an independent paper as, no doubt, are several other community papers – including the Aspers' – in that they are privately owned and operated and are not obliged to represent exclusively the views of any specific organization or government: Their editorial decisions come from (sometimes heated) debate between their owners, publishers, editors, staff and readership.

In the future, Mr. McLeod, when pleading your case and asking for public and professional support, please don't insult your allies.

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