Andy Nichols

Laurie Fuhr, managing editor of local literary magazine filling station, is worried about federal funding chagnes and how they will affect her publication

Virtually all Canadian literary magazines are facing a death sentence if the proposed changes to the Government of Canada’s magazine funding guidelines are put into practise in April 2010, according to magazine editors from across the country.

The concern comes after a statement made by James Moore, minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, in a speech last month, when he said that funding from the Canadian Periodical Fund would exclude magazines with a yearly circulation of less than 5,000 annually.

“For almost every small literary magazine in Canada, it is not probable to achieve [circulation of 5,000 copies annually] in time. Everybody’s in a panic,” says Laurie Fuhr, managing editor of Calgary-based literary magazine filling Station.

Fuhr and over 3,000 others, including editors of The Malahat Review and Prairie Fire, have created the Facebook group Coalition to Keep Canadian Heritage Support for Literary and Arts Magazines, and are trying to encourage the government to revise these guidelines before they are finalized.

The federal government announced that the Canadian Magazine Fund and the Publications Assistance Program will be streamlined into the Canadian Periodical Fund, which, according to Moore’s press secretary, Stephanie Rea, will “reduce red tape and responsibly manage taxpayers’ dollars.” The government will maintain magazine funding levels at $75.5 million annually despite the fact that Canada Post has pulled its $15 million annual contribution.

In addition to allocating funding using a formula “reflecting the reading choices of Canadians,” funding will be set aside to assist online publications. Funding for a single publication will not exceed $1.5 million.

Fuhr says that for filling Station, which receives “a huge chunk” of its funding from the federal government, if the current guidelines are adopted, it would mean the end of the magazine in print, because its annual circulation is barely 1,500 nationally.

“In the case that we have to scale back the magazine’s production quality by a great deal, I’m afraid that our board of directors would decide to fold the magazine. We might try to go online... it still takes some funding though.”

Filling Station and other members of the coalition will be running advertisements in their respective publications, alerting their readers to the potential problem and asking them to write to the Heritage minister to make him aware that Canadian literary magazines are important to them.

Rea is hesitant to speak about what the changes will mean for Canadian magazines. In an e-mail she says, “Formula funding and the final guidelines of the Canada Periodical Fund are still being finalized. It is premature to talk about which titles will qualify for support or the specific amounts that they may receive.”

Fuhr says that because the guidelines have not been finalized the government can still revise them or exempt literary magazines from the circulation restrictions. In a press release, Canada Heritage said the Canadian Periodical Fund would “continue to recognize the special challenges of certain types of periodicals,” although literary magazines aren’t listed among the examples. “I am hopeful that the people in the government who are looking after the interests of Canadians in terms of culture will see the value of literary magazines, and make sure they don’t all go under at once,” says Fuhr.

Representatives of Magazines Canada met with the Heritage minister to voice the concerns of their members on this matter, but the outcome of the meetings won’t be made public until the end of the month, according to Laurie Alpern, communications director of Magazines Canada.

“We’ve put some recommendations forward, whether (the government) will listen to them is another thing altogether,” she says.

These proposed funding restrictions will be detrimental, not only to printed magazines but, according to Fuhr, to events aimed at enriching and expanding the literary community, such as filling Station’s annual Blow-Out Festival, magazine launch parties and regular reading series.

“Our funding allows us to both publish magazines and run these important community outreach activities. If literary magazines lose their funding, a lot of these activities will stop or be scaled back, meaning that it will be harder to let the community know that writing is happening in our city and that they can be a part of it,” says Fuhr. “I hate to think that those opportunities for discovery could be cut along with the funding.”